among the better summer reading list books i've read. visual and deep-hitting. the characters and events of this book have stuck with me in the year-pamong the better summer reading list books i've read. visual and deep-hitting. the characters and events of this book have stuck with me in the year-plus since i read it....more
If I cannot be a teenage set designer with exactly one best friend living in LA, with parents who order I would like to live inside this book, please.
If I cannot be a teenage set designer with exactly one best friend living in LA, with parents who order garlic-based takeout every night and have cool jobs, who is usually on a quest of some kind and ultimately falls in love...
Well, I'd at least like to be inside that story forever, if I cannot be the story itself.
Bottom line: So cute so sweet so nice!
--------------- pre-review
i liked this...way more than the first time?
that has never happened before.
review to come / 4 stars
--------------- currently-reading updates
this was my first ever nina lacour. now i'm rereading it after having read EVERY nina lacour. life is filled with nonstop excitement....more
here is the review, in its entirety, that i wrote about this book when i read it back in 2015:
this book was kinda cute, especially windy. there wasn'there is the review, in its entirety, that i wrote about this book when i read it back in 2015:
this book was kinda cute, especially windy. there wasn't much of a story to it though.
also i'm very biased against this book bc my local library does a battle of the books and this one beat we were liars for the YEAR'S PRIZE and that's just unbelievable to me.
for context, i only three starred we were liars then. so i guess i thought this was really bad.
part of a series i'm doing where i "review" "books" "i" "read" "a" "long" "time" "ago"...more
there is no better time than soon after the release of the To All the Boys I've Loved Before movie to remember that movies can be be better than the bthere is no better time than soon after the release of the To All the Boys I've Loved Before movie to remember that movies can be be better than the books they adapt. my review of this whole series is now up at https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...!!!
plz don't revoke my bookworm card. --------------------------------
Guys, it turns out I have more than one form of righteous anger.
I thought I only got instantaneously filled with rage when books are offensive or bigoted or what have you, but it turns out that’s incorrect!
I also get really f*cking mad when my ship doesn’t sail.
[image]
Okay, no, that’s not true. I’m a little more mature than that. (I’m no Lara Jean! Buh dum ch. Get it? Because the main character of this book is in a state of arrested development that rivals all four seasons plus the one currently being filmed of the show Arrested Development?) (It’s three a.m. and if I am forming coherent English sentences somehow, I’m entirely unaware of it.)
A n y w a y.
Let’s talk synopsis before we talk about my various stages of emotional paralysis, shall we?
This is the sequel to runaway YA hit To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, a book I also reread and ranted about. Spoilers for the last book: Lil Lara Jean, our insanely-named protagonist, got herself into a little kerfuffle involving a series of letters addressed-n-stamped to old crushes, a fake relationship plot, a love triangle with her sister, and a certain lacrosse-playing douchenozzle the likes of which haunts public high school halls from here to Timbuktu.
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So here we are. Book two. How could we possibly make that nonstop thrill ride even more exciting??? The answer may surprise you!!!!
The answer is: Make it so much worse.
Peter was boring in the last book. He was unremarkable. He was immature. But he had swishy hair and good eyebrows and a loud personality we can mistake for charm if we close one eye and try hard so can’t we all just look past it omg??? He’s just misunderstood?? I heard that he’s actually going through a lot. This one time he asked to borrow my pen because we had a French quiz and he didn’t have one and I swear, like...oh my god I know it sounds stupid but when he looked at me he really SAW me, you know?
He is the floppy-haired popular boy we all tried to forcibly make deep in high school.
That is probably the fundamental difference between 2015-first-time-reading-this-me and 2018-bitter-tired-reading-again me. I am not in high school anymore. SO PROJECTING MYSELF ONTO THE FEMALE CHARACTER GETTING YOU’RE NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS’D BY A COOL JOCK ISN’T ENOUGH TO MAKE A BOOK GOOD.
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All of that screaming was just about how bad it was last time. It’s even worse in this one, remember? Because Peter (that’s Jock with Nice Hair #1, in case I didn’t mention that) is actually a TOTAL D*CK on top of it!
He throws tantrums when Lara Jean can’t come to one of his dumb jockfests (I believe you may call it a “sporting event”) or doesn’t bake him cookies (this is a CHILD) or isn’t into PDA. He doesn’t care about things she cares about (her penpal, her job at the retirement community - he doesn’t even REMEMBER her cool elderly bestie!! And the woman’s name is Stormy!!! Pretty memorable if you ask me!).
He also spends most of this book gallivanting about with his ex-girlfriend. The same ex-girlfriend who posted a video of Lara Jean and Peter getting hot and heavy on the Internet, which became a meme that almost ruined Lara Jean’s life. Cool!
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That’s also a plotline I hate generally, the dangers-of-the-Internet type deal. So I was almost happy when this one faded into oblivion without any real conclusion. Even though that’s just BAD WRITING.
Let’s talk about the good things so then we can talk about more bad things.
There are two characters in this book who I actually, full-on love. The first one’s name is Kitty, and she is the ruler of my entire existence. Kitty is Lara Jean’s ten-year-old sister, who had more spunk and charm and humor (read: personality) in her little finger than every single other character in this rollercoaster through hell put together.
Excluding one. And that one’s name is John Ambrose McClaren.
He is a side of a love triangle. And Jenny Han, if you wanted to grant me the hellishness of actually rooting for a side in a love triangle, rather than just grinning and bearing my way through it, on top of the other emotional turmoil you caused me through this book:
[image]
John Ambrose McClaren is no Kitty. He’s not a great character on his own. In fact, he has about as much flavor and excitement as what is known as a “saltine cracker.” But I like saltine crackers. (I do not like this simile.)
What John Ambrose McClaren is: not Peter. He is nice. He is kind to Lara Jean. He cares about what she cares about!!! What a shock!!!! Who can even believe it!!!! They even share having really annoyingly long cutesy unrealistic names in common so I can hate talking about them both equally just due to how long they take to type!!! I type weirdly!!! It hurts my wrists!!!!
But he doesn’t end up with Lara Jean because nothing matters and everything is bad and even when I think I see a glimmer of light in the reread from Satan himself that glimmer is instantly put out with the darkness of a thousand desert nights (are desert nights especially dark?).
So Lara Jean just ends up with the fan fave from the last book after 20 pages of pretending there’s another option. You know. Breakin’ hearts for ~narrative spice~.
NOT FOR ME.
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Bullet points of other good stuff:
- i’m still partial to the Song sisters at large - Lara Jean bakes a lot and I like baking and also food descriptions - there were moments when I almost got into this...and then was immediately brought back out - diversity!!!
Bullet points of the neverending amounts of bad stuff: - Lara Jean calls her parents “Mommy” and “Daddy” (call me picky and weird, but...bleh) - insta-friendships!!! I hate it!! - this book is so sweet you might as well just pour powdered sugar on your teeth. Then you can have a physical cavity to match the mental one you’re about to get - should be a quick read but is actually grating and therefore not - Peter and Lara Jean are both so emotionally stunted it’s insane - I would honestly much rather read about Margot, the eldest Song sister, romping about in Scotland if not for the fact that Kitty wouldn’t be there - I could’ve lived without the whole retirement community plotline - and the online-almost-sex-video cyberbullying plotline - and the Peter versus John plotline - ...I guess I could’ve lived without this book altogether
In conclusion:
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And yes I will be forcing myself through the next one of course.
Bottom line: Hopefully this book is so clearly annoying that even my incoherent 3 a.m. (now 4 a.m.) ramblings can convince you of that fact.
------------ PRE-REVIEW
when you realize the only good parts of a book you loved 2 years ago are the ten year old little sister and the side of the love triangle that doesn't sail >>>>>
READ MY ORIGINAL FIVE STAR REVIEW BELOW BECAUSE NOTHING MATTERS AND LIFE IS AN ENDLESS CYCLE OF CONSTANT SUFFERING
------------ ORIGINAL REVIEW
ONCE AGAIN, AS I DID WITH TO ALL THE BOYS IVE LOVED BEFORE, I READ THIS IN A FEW HOURS INTO THE EARLY MORNING.
even if i went to bed right now i'd get less than 6 hours of sleep.
BUT I REGRET NOTHING!
this book was so good, and even though i kind of ended up liking john ambrose mcclaren more than peter. peter wasn't nice in this book! john was so, so nice and peter was manipulative and just a crappy boyfriend. i didn't feel like he deserved lara jean, WHO (whom?) I ADORE.
I LOVE THE SONG SISTERS. i wish me and my two sisters were like them. maybe we will be when i go off to college.
my heart is aching for the end of these characters! i'll miss them so! JENNY HAN, you love contemporary trilogies—please make this one!...more
The point of contention in a lot of reviews of this book is: Is it too much like Harry Potter?
But I don’t really like Harry Potter, so I don’t care abThe point of contention in a lot of reviews of this book is: Is it too much like Harry Potter?
But I don’t really like Harry Potter, so I don’t care about that. What I care about is: IS THIS THE ADORABLE GAY ROMANCE I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR? IS THE PLOT EXCITING? IS THERE ENOUGH MAGIC? IS IT FUN TO READ? DO I FEEL EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE PAGES PASS BY IN A NOT-TOO-DIFFICULT BUT STILL NOT EFFORTLESS READING EXPERIENCE?
The answer to those questions, in order: yes, no, no, no, yes.
I think if you like Harry Potter, and you’ve always wanted Harry and Draco to date but in a world in which Draco isn’t a total sh*tbag and doesn’t require so much overexplanation and crazy analysis of kids’ books in order to seem baseline tolerable, then you will love this book.
I don’t really like this book, but I do love Fangirl. This book is a spinoff of my least favorite part of Fangirl, the fanfiction sections I always skip.
Considering this is a whole book of something I couldn’t even tolerate reading for a handful of chapters, the amount I liked it is pretty impressive. But really, there wasn’t enough magic or plot. Rainbow Rowell was always a strictly-romance writer before this, no fantasy involved, and it shows.
So I’m not even embarrassed to say: I would have liked this more if it was just a straight-up romance, little to no plot/magic/worldbuilding/school for wizards with a mean wizard magic guy making things fall apart/Britishness on the side.
Okay, I’m kind of embarrassed to say it.
Bottom line: This book could not have been less for me, and it went...surprisingly fine.
--------- pre-review Make Emma Able to Read Again
(i finally finished a book!!!!!) (and it was...fine.)
review to come / 2.5 stars
--------- currently-reading updates
definitely rereading this book because i liked it, or because the sequel is coming out this year, and not because i'm 100% sure that every book i used to enjoy is actually terrible and it's my life's work to continually update my ratings until eventually i am nothing but cynicism and one-star reviews...more
it was amazing. the best book i've read in a long time, and definitely the best dystopian/fantasy/etc. i've rOH MY GOODNESS HOW DO I REVIEW THIS BOOK.
it was amazing. the best book i've read in a long time, and definitely the best dystopian/fantasy/etc. i've read so far this year. OHMYGOD.
okay, the world-building was fantastic. in the accidental highwayman (which i just read yesterday) the world-building was more like world-dumping. none of the terms stuck in my head bc they were just tossed in. in this book, the world was entwined with the plot, so i could keep up. for me, world-building skill is make-it-or-break-it in fantasy. AND THIS DEFINITELY MADE IT.
also, characters! i loved the good ones and hated the bad ones, but all of them were believable as people. i'd like to see more of a backstory for the commandant, but other than that i understood them so well. i adored laia and elias and hated helene (i wasn't sure if i was supposed to think she was good by the end? bc i still didn't. maybe in another book i would have liked her out of desperation but this book has high standards for characters bc IT'S FREAKING AMAZING). i actually loved izzi and keenan too, and i hope they end up together or something in the next book bc maybe my only complaint was that keenan was too good. it wasn't easy to make a decision in laia's love triangle like it was in elias' bc i didn't see a problem with keenan. MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THAT THE CHARACTERS ARE TOO GOOD.
and the love triangles! they normally bug me bc honestly how often do love triangles happen in real life? versus in every YA book ever? it's like 1,000,000:1. but in this book they actually seemed real and they didn't overpower the FANTASTIC storyline. also, no instalove! which is a bonus bc i see that more and more.
in conclusion, fantastically wonderful amazingness. go read it now....more
i regret not recognizing problematic aspects of this book while reading it, and am grateful that this community allows for me to read the thoughts of others who know more and in turn educate myself.
also, the romance in this book isn't even good....more
I have loved reading since I learned how to do it (except for when I was like 14 and took a sabbatical to experiment with being insufferable full timeI have loved reading since I learned how to do it (except for when I was like 14 and took a sabbatical to experiment with being insufferable full time), but my tastes have changed.
For example: Now I read anything that anyone has ever liked, anything with a cover I have ever liked, and anything anyone has ever described as a must read.
When I was a teenager (excluding the aforementioned time off), I read anything with a fluffy title that was categorized as "YA contemporary" but would have been more accurate if called "teen romance."
But from the ages of 9 to 12, my tastes went no further than "sneak into the young adult section without the children's librarian seeing you and grab anything with pink on the spine, because usually those books are age-inappropriate and therefore juicy and worth the read."
Escapades like these are what led to the infamous asking-my-mom-what-a-bl*wj*b-was-when-I-was-in-5th-grade story, but they also led to me reading this book.
Which somehow was good to 9 year old me, 15 year old me, AND 23 year old me. Three people with very little in common.
This is simply a nice book about finding yourself and being good at things and eating food that sounds good. And that's all I need from anything.
Bottom line: What a win for the idea of time being a powerless construct!
---------------- pre-review
since when does 10 year old me have good taste???
review to come / 4 stars
---------------- currently-reading updates
don't mind me, just randomly reading this for no reason other than i vaguely remember liking it in childhood...more
the thing that's amazing about this book is that it proves that even if a straight white boy embodies a new person every day, across genders and sexuathe thing that's amazing about this book is that it proves that even if a straight white boy embodies a new person every day, across genders and sexualities and races, cultures and classes and locations, he STILL manages to be boring.
the other thing that's amazing about this book is nothing else.
part of my review-books-i-read-a-long-time-ago-as-if-no-one-is-watching series...more
Something interesting is that this book is a sci-fi dystopian fairytale retelling imagining what the story of Cinderella would look like in a version Something interesting is that this book is a sci-fi dystopian fairytale retelling imagining what the story of Cinderella would look like in a version of China hundreds of years in the future, with robots and cyborgs and moon people and hot princes and a sprinkle of magic, and yet it manages to be pretty boring.
So one of the only interesting things about this book is how boring it manages to be, in spite of the odds.
I want to shout out 2015 me for taking one for the team and reading this book, because in 2015 I read books as if I were a goat. Like, a goat eating. You know how a goat eats anything, including trash, with no real preference, or at least there is a children’s book that gives that indication and allows for me to believe in it as if it is science even today, as an adult person? That’s how I read books in 2015. I would just force myself through whatever, caring not if it was boring or terrible, only if it was nearby and had pages and I could toss it on the ol’ reading challenge.
Even in 2015, when I had no discernible taste of any kind, I knew this book was no higher than 3.5 stars. Because it is uninteresting. Because there are only two things about this book that are, in fact, interesting:
1) space hijinks (this book is pre-space hijinks) 2) certain characters (these characters are not present enough, or on some occasions present at all, in this book)
The reason this is a 3.5 star read, and not, say, a 2 star one for the crimes against entertainment it has committed, is the Sheer Potential my dear boy.
This is a reallyreallyreally interesting idea. I love fairytales. I love retellings. I don’t really love space and I definitely don’t love sci-fi and I surely am not interested in cyborgs of any kind, but even I can admit the interest level of this concept is High AF.
Also, it gets so good later on. When all the fairytales get all tangled up and all the fairytale people are friends and some of them are hot space pirates and some of them are hacker nerds with creepy-long hair.
This book is not exciting, but if you allow yourself to get distracted and also you are rereading the series and you know what is coming, you can get excited using your own energy about what is to come.
I don’t know what 2015 me’s reasoning was in giving this 3.5 stars. Maybe I thought it sounded good?
Bottom line: WHO CARES??!! Also, I care.
--------- pre-review list of things 2015 me and current me agree on: - One Direction Take Me Home Yearbook Edition is a musical masterwork - the idea that you can get salmonella from eating cookie dough is a myth perpetuated by the government to prevent people from having a good time - Cinder is a 3.5 star read.
review to come!!
--------- currently-reading update
i've always said that the best time to begin a reread of a very long and addicting series is right as the busiest part of the semester begins :)...more
I’LL GIVE THIS BOOK THE SUN. FIVE SUNS. More than that, if Goodreads had ever answered my impassioned plea to add a sixth star (which I sent by pony eI’LL GIVE THIS BOOK THE SUN. FIVE SUNS. More than that, if Goodreads had ever answered my impassioned plea to add a sixth star (which I sent by pony express after one too many perfect books). (Pony express means mail, right? I’m a fan of that.)
How do I love thee, book? Let me count the ways. (That’s both a reference to this book and an illustration of how difficult it will be to put my intense adoration of it into, like, a semi-coherent review.) (Sidenote: I’ve never strived for anything higher than semi-coherent.)
Let’s start with the characters. God, do I love the people in this book. They are so, so, so imperfect - imperfect doesn’t even begin to cover it. They should suck, honestly. I should hate them. In fact, I should hate this whole shindig for the things that happen in it. In any other context, they’d give me second-hand embarrassment cringes so hard it’d shoot this book down to two stars. But NOT HERE. This sh*t is different.
These characters are so human. They’re so lovable and deeply good that you’d forgive them for anything. Seriously. All of them do at least one thing (and mostly more than one) that should be, like, narrative-shatteringly awful, and instead manages to make them even better. I can’t explain it. YOU JUST HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK.
This book has alternating perspectives between 2 twins: Noah when he was 13, and Jude when she’s 16 (which is the present). Noah is so creative and talented and amazing, and Jude is such a badass and so interesting and equally amazing. Their mom’s a whirlwind, which has its ups and downs, and their dad starts off not great but becomes the best. There’s Brian, who loves space, and Guillermo, one of the greatest sculptors ever, and Oscar, who I’m not going to try to put into words. (Hands down the most inherently confusing character.) They’re all so wonderful and I wish I knew them in real life and could join their lil ragtag group of pals.
The character development is just unreal.
Also, the depiction of family is pretty amazing. (I’m going to use the words “great” and “amazing” a bajillion times in this review, AND I’M NOT GOING TO APOLOGIZE.) They can mistreat each other and fight and generally seem toxic, but they all love each other and they’re all good people. SCRATCH THAT - MAGNIFICENT people. (You thought I was done talking about how much I love these characters? Ya burnt. I’m going to spend the rest of my life talking about them. Every review from now on? Name-dropping Noah and Jude. Get used to it.)
What else, what else...the writing was just really beautiful. I’m always really happy to see that in YA. It’s pretty rare for a young adult contemporary to just be genuinely, no-holds-barred gorgeous.
And y’all know I love when my books are filled with fun facts. I wish every book had some character just inserting cool information in every once in awhile. This book? EVERY CHARACTER IS DOING THAT. There’s so much fun sh*t about superstition and art and sculpting and space in this book. Ugh. God, it’s perfect. It’s like Jandy Nelson read my mind and made this book to check all my boxes. WHAT A DREAM.
I thought there’d be one major downside. That’s the discussion of fate and ~true love~ in this book, neither of which I believe in and both of which I pretty consistently find dumb in like, every YA contemporary ever. But this book, no surprise at this point, IS DIFFERENT. It’s so well done and just makes you feel all warm inside and root for the characters. Hurray, hurray. I miss this book already.
The cherry on top, you ask? The best fictional encapsulation of and response to slut-shaming I’ve ever seen is contained within THESE VERY PAGES. When thirteen/fourteen-year-old Jude and her mom are fighting about everything, including Jude’s clothing and makeup choices, mommy dearest always asks if she reallyyyyyy wants to be “that girl.” Pretty yuck, right? The only blemish on the perfect record of this masterpiece.
But then. But then! Blemish surgically removed, or whatever. (That was really gross. I’m so sorry.) Jude has a realization. A great, perfect, better-than-cherry-on-top epiphany. I like cherries, but this is more like the lottery ticket on top, or the Zac Efron in Baywatch (a bad movie) on top. Jude realizes: “Maybe Mom was wrong about that girl after all. Because that girl spits on guys who treat her badly. Maybe it’s that girl who’s been missing. [...] I didn’t bring the bad luck to us, no matter how much it felt that way. It brought itself. It brings itself. And maybe it’s that girl who’s now brave enough to admit [it].”
A little bit of editing to remove minor spoilers, but how amazing is that?
Your clothing or your makeup don’t change who you are. They don’t prevent you from being a badass, or a good person, or brave.
God, I love this book. Read it in a couple days, and miss it already.
Can you believe how genuine this review was? That’s a testament to my loveeee for this book.
Bottom line: This is going on the all-time favorites list. EVERYONE: READ THIS PLEASE. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Even better the second time around.
* because if i don't enjoy it i might finally lose my marbles once and for all
(those invested in my mental health will be delighted to know that this is still 5 stars. less delighted to know that it made me tear up and threatened to send me spiraling anyway, but you can't win them all.)...more
Please read the following sentence as if I am singing it, joyfully:
IT’S THE BEST BOOK IN THE WORLDDDDDD.
Also, I hope you mentally gave me a beautiful Please read the following sentence as if I am singing it, joyfully:
IT’S THE BEST BOOK IN THE WORLDDDDDD.
Also, I hope you mentally gave me a beautiful singing voice. I’m not saying I have one but I am saying that’s the polite thing to do.
Anyway: THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. I love it so much oh my god. Unless you are new here (in which case, welcome and you have made a grave mistake), you know how I feel about middle grade. How I feel about middle grade is this: I LOVE IT.
Middle grade is like young adult if young adult wasn’t so dramatic, and didn’t have a million boring/dramatic/unnecessary subplots, and wasn’t legally required under the jurisdiction of the United Nations to contain a romance.
In other words, if everything that sucked so hard about YA didn’t exist.
A utopia!
Middle grade adventure is especially good, and this book is the most especially good example of the most especially good of the most especially good.
Even just writing about it makes me so happy I can barely type out rational thoughts!!! (Don’t say what else is new. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean it’s nice. See: the beginning of this review.)
The Mysterious Benedict Society is action-packed. It is also riddles-packed, and mystery-packed, and excitement-packed, and friendship-packed, and character development-packed, and knowledge-packed, and everything that is wonderful in this world-packed.
I loved it when I was ten. I loved it when I reread it in early high school. And I love it now, when my opinions are actually trustworthy. (Ten year old me liked every book she read and early high school me wore like 18 layers of mascara every day so don’t go around listening to either of them.)
Rereading this was a pleasure even while I was in the midst of a reading slump for the ages, which is proof that it’s good all the time no matter who you are!!
It’s also pretty shockingly diverse, for 2007. Like, could give most YA fantasy published in 2018 a run for its money.
The friendships and family in this are so wonderful, and the characters themselves are lil sweethearts you just want to hug, and the whole thing is such a tension-filled action-packed mind-blowing event that you’ll never want it to end.
Now I want to reread the sequels.
Bottom line: THIS BOOK IS THE BEST BOOK AND I RECOMMEND IT UNIVERSALLY. Also, by “recommend,” I mean “will foist it upon you by force if necessary.”
-------------------- currently-reading updates
IS THERE A BOOK IN THE WORLD I LOVE MORE THAN THIS BOOK?
more specifically, it was for summer reading. now you may be tempted to say "well, of course. any book si had to read this for school, and i hated it.
more specifically, it was for summer reading. now you may be tempted to say "well, of course. any book starts out on the wrong foot when you have to read it not just because it was assigned, but because it was assigned for DURING VACATION."
but you would be wrong.
i have been a nerd, a dweeb, a dork, even, for my entire life. there was nothing i loved more than having a book that an authority figure declared to be good for my brain to read at the pool (in a lounge chair while my friends swam) or at the beach (in a beach chair while my siblings swam) or outside (in a chair, when my mom made me go out there).
if you've ever wondered who read the optional books on the summer reading list - you're looking at her.
and i still hated this, so.
part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago...more
if you were a mentally ill middle schooler, you were either a perks of being a wallflower girlie or an it's kind of a funny story stan.
two guesses basif you were a mentally ill middle schooler, you were either a perks of being a wallflower girlie or an it's kind of a funny story stan.
two guesses based on ratings which i am.
where most Teens With Mental Disorders contemporaries veer in the direction of quirky we're-not-like-everybody-else friendships in a romanticized way that leads people to either prefer friendlessness in general or choose loneliness while they wait for their perfect logan lerman / emma watson / that person who plays the intern amy schumer hooks up with in trainwreck friend group to appear, this book is Different.
it's a way quirkier friend group for starters. befriending an adult man while in a psych ward who would later be played by zach galifianakis? john green could never.
but also, there is humor and hope to this, even as it is so devastating and overwhelming. which is kind of how those feelings feel, a lot of the time. any time i've had a deeply bad mental health spell, i haven't felt glamorous. my feelings haven't been glossy. i've never been capable of romanticizing them.
this book isn't romanticized. it's just life.
RIP ned vizzini.
part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago and always either get nostalgic or get angry. sometimes both...more
my two enemies came together and wrote this book just to take me down.
GUESS WHAT, DAVID AND JOHN. i'm still here.
but if anything could take me out (anmy two enemies came together and wrote this book just to take me down.
GUESS WHAT, DAVID AND JOHN. i'm still here.
but if anything could take me out (and be clear nothing can - my cynicism and hatefulness have jaded me to such an extent that i am now immortal), it would have been this.
gives me the heebie-jeebies to even recall it.
part of a project i'm doing where i try to drive you all to unfollow me through half-assed reviews of books i read ages ago....more
Like...it didn’t take a long time to read. It was fun sometimes. Significantly less fun at others. Good characters, bad characters, couldn’t-care-less-will-forget-their-names-ASAP-could-you-BE-any-flatter characters. It was just a very eh read this time around.
[image]
Well, I can say a lot. This is me we’re talking about, guys. You could hand me a sewing machine instruction manual and I’d end up writing a thousand-word review on the “not like other girls” trope.
Which, speaking of...That beast rears its ugly f*cking head in this book. Good lord. Most books go for the subtle infusion of girl-hating, like...lowkey slut-shaming, or something. No, this book drops it right in there. Shamelessly, in the middle of some dialogue. Direct and straight to the veins: “You’re not like other girls.”
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And it doesn’t end there.
Okay, wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. For the six Goodreads users who haven’t read this book, we follow Lara Jean, a very cutesy lil thing who wears ribbons in her hair and calls her father and dead mother “Daddy” and “Mommy.” She has two sisters, Margot, the replacement mother who leaves for college at the beginning of the book, and Kitty, who is nine and my absolute life force. When Lara Jean wants to get over a crush, she writes a letter, puts it in an envelope, adds the address and return address for some reason, and then puts it into a box, never to be seen again.
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God, I love Michael Scott. Anyway, all of Lara Jean’s letters get sent - gasp! Including the one to her family friend and sister’s newly-ex-boyfriend, Josh. In order to avoid any awkwardness, Lara Jean immediately launches into a Fake Relationship™ with popular boy extraordinaire and letter recipient Peter Kavinsky. It makes very little sense. But then again, fake relationship storylines rarely do.
So, Josh is the skeezeball who brought you that delightful incorporation of the not-like-other-girls trope, and he has more hits coming! Notably, when rubbing his dumb little nose in Lara Jean and Peter’s relationship: “You don’t act like you. You act like...like how all girls act around him. That’s not you, Lara Jean.”
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Also, there are like, no healthy girl friendships in this book. Lara Jean has one female friend, Chris, who has no characteristics except being rebellious/slutty and rarely communicates with Lara Jean, except to make fun of her. (Oh, my God. I am barely into this review and I am already so tired of typing out “Lara Jean.” GET A ONE-WORD NAME.) Lara Jean makes a handful of friends in this, kind of, but they’re all male and Peter’s. And a girl is also the total villain here. So that sucks. Not a female-friendly or feminist book.
Except...the sisters. Yay, the Song sisters. I love them so much. (Mostly Kitty.) Their relationship is a tad idyllic, except when it suddenly veers into Drama, but it’s so cute and fun to read about them.
Especially Kitty. Ah, Kitty. She’s not realistic, but she’s a teeny, manipulative nine-year-old badass who says stuff like “I want to watch my shows.” Ugh. Please give me a book that’s just Kitty. A TRILOGY that’s just Kitty. I'm tempted to put this book on my i-love-these-characters shelf on her merits alone. (But there's an S on the end of characters, y'all, so I can't, and I shan't.)
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Let’s talk more about the characters. Lara Jean, as I mentioned, is a baby. So that’s pretty exhausting. She’s just, like, very immature and everything freaks her out and she cries a lot. She’s also a bad sister a lot of the time. Like, Margot will be in flippin’ SCOTLAND and she’ll email her like “School is fine for me. Boring, boring. No further questions.” Plus she makes fun of Kitty for having a crush in front of her crush. HOW COULD YOU.
In terms of the male characters...Josh is the worst. I never saw his appeal, let alone why all three Song sisters would have a crush on him at the same time. Let alone why Lara Jean would threaten her relationship with her best friend/sister over him. He’s a total snoozefest and a dweeb and he says stuff like what I’ve quoted above and he’s the worst.
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Peter is also just so eh. I probably liked this book more when I first read it because I probably had a crush on a him-type at the time. Like, some sporty popular guy who was funny but also kind of a d*ck and I wanted to ignore all red flags and pretend he was into me.
No shame if that describes you. We all go through it, man. That’s what high school is, in a nutshell.
Anyway. I’m not very into that type anymore, so ol’ Pete just didn’t do it for me. He just seemed kind of skeevy, even manipulative - a couple times Lara Jean says things like, “Peter always has a way of getting me to do things I don’t want to do.” Give me the nerdy type any day, man.
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More good stuff: This book is real descriptive and I loved it. There’s always an in-depth look at Lara Jean’s outfits, and the mentions of food made me get up and cook something twice. TWICE. A grilled cheese and some snickerdoodles. (Well, in reality there wasn’t enough sugar to make snickerdoodles, but I’ll get there.)
When I first started reading this - like, first fifty pages or so - I thought this was going to be one star. So many dumped-in descriptions and the writing was really choppy and it was just...ugh. I knew that past-me was a far kinder reviewer, but I didn’t think it was a four-star difference.
And then, it got better!
And then, it got bad again.
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The ending of this book was so awful! I can’t believe it was supposed to be a standalone originally. It was just so rushed. The sister relationship was suddenly healed, the relationship drama was suddenly over, Josh suddenly didn’t suck with no explanation. Bleh. And then it just...ended. Literally on a fragment of a sentence. Guh.
Bottom line: This wasn’t awful. It was exactly eh....more
i was assigned this for summer reading before my junior year of high school, a terrible turn of events that culminated in me bawling my eyes out at thi was assigned this for summer reading before my junior year of high school, a terrible turn of events that culminated in me bawling my eyes out at the community pool in front of a bunch of six year olds and their moms.
this book is so f*cking sad it's unbelievable. at the time i equated "this book makes me concerned i will drown in a pool of my own tears, which is especially pertinent considering i am currently at a non-tear-based pool and am also crying" with "this book is good."
i do not do that now, and in fact have gone so far in the other direction that when a book is overly sad in a deliberate, try-hard way, i think it's cheap pandering and i'm inclined to hate it.
but at the time, i loved this, or thought i did, so lowering the rating is probably unfair.
but if i reread it, i'd probably two star it out of spite.
i won't reread it though. hate feeling emotions.
this is part of a project i'm doing where on top of all my other daily updates - short story a day, review a day, new current read a day, book finished every day - i make you deal with a review of a book i read a long time ago. if you've been needing my permission to divest me from your online life, go ahead....more
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