i'm sorry but if you turn my teenage favorite books into graphic novels i am going to read themi'm sorry but if you turn my teenage favorite books into graphic novels i am going to read them...more
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their rellike a reverse irish exit?
anyway.
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their relationships: inexplicable. the plot: filled with years-long gaps to the point of being incomprehensible.
but the writing itself? the dialogue? the little jokes? excellent.
the other thing to know is that it is very weird. it's a white woman who was once a backup singer in a Black group and can't get over it. that's not much to carry us through 250 pages and it never feels any more normal.
maybe it was a different time.
bottom line: sometimes books are forgotten for a reason.
this book is A LOT. these poor teens are going through it all: coming out, mourning, coming of age, rumoreturning to my first love (ya contemporaries)
this book is A LOT. these poor teens are going through it all: coming out, mourning, coming of age, rumors about hired hitmen, racism, homophobia, so much death.
they are also putting themselves and each other and their parents through even more. the fringe characters here are a little over the top, and so are a lot of the actions themselves, but i'm also adjusting this for the being-a-grownup-reading-about-teenagers tax. when you're 17, leaving your dying grandmother alone at home until the wee hours maybe is nbd.
even if right now it's like...oh my god. can you guys please be nice to each other and maybe send your mom a text?!
bottom line: reading YA as an adult is equal parts fun, nostalgic, and nightmarishly frightening.
the worst part of this romance book is the romance.
the best part of this book is: it's genre-bending. it's bantery. it's filled with unforgettable chathe worst part of this romance book is the romance.
the best part of this book is: it's genre-bending. it's bantery. it's filled with unforgettable characters and a cool flower shop and a lovely setting in harlem. it is unrealistic in literally every way but most of the time that is fine too.
but i didn't like the love story, which is insta, and which is the story. no matter what the surroundings i can never seem to get past that one trope. it is my kryptonite.
i had so much fun with the rest of this! but not with the biggest part.
this is just a look at two sisters' single summer, and i wish it told me more or had more of an ending or wasn't omniscienti love books about sisters.
this is just a look at two sisters' single summer, and i wish it told me more or had more of an ending or wasn't omniscient in perspective which i hate, but i love sisters and i love summer and i love new england and this scratched all of those itches.
sorry, that was gross.
bottom line: i love to have the fun kind of unpopular opinion.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the arc)...more
this book is like a smile prescription. one that like...anyone can take. almost no side effects. simple language. lots of repetitithis is always true.
this book is like a smile prescription. one that like...anyone can take. almost no side effects. simple language. lots of repetition. makes you feel like any problem can be solved by a strange librarian unendingly described by her weight and 1-2 books.
anyway. in spite of that, it's pretty charming.
i find that a lot of book club fiction is actually just a book that starts off sad and ends with hope: a new job, a new potential date, whatever.
this is like 5 of those in one, with 5 different characters entering the library and coming out with books that inspire them. it's very simplistic, sometimes overly so, but is just so cheerful. i enjoyed it.
it's no shock that i did like the bookshop part. and it's probably not that much of a shock thahad me at days in a bookshop.
lost me at the other days.
it's no shock that i did like the bookshop part. and it's probably not that much of a shock that it was the entire second half of the book, which occurred after our protagonist was no longer an employee of or even a real visitor to the bookshop, focusing on the reasons why her aunt had left her father many years before, that i didn't care for as much.
and to be fair, how could i have seen that one coming? i would have seemed diagnosable if i predicted that from this title / cover combo.
it's not just that it existed at all, although anything that pulls me away from a bookshop whether literally or fictionally is my enemy. it's more that the whole plotline felt shallow and unwieldy, given too much page time and still somehow not enough exploration.
i never have that problem when i'm reading about reading.
bottom line: books about books - yes. books about inaccurate and weird emotional subplots - maybe not.
this just felt too unrealistic. every book ni'm not saying i condone art theft.
but i AM saying...it's pretty cool.
and i wish this book had more of it.
this just felt too unrealistic. every book needs something to ground it, and this was so absurd: indescribable mansions, teenage art thievery prodigies, john green-esque dialogue, friends at school who act more like obsessive fans, rare disorders diagnosed by nearby ballerinas, insta- and life-defining love.
it was too much, and all of it felt dramatic and heavy, and because there was nothing to make any of it feel lifelike it just felt annoying.
i don't even know what this book is about.
but it wasn't art theft.
bottom line: i think many, many people will like this book. i am sad to learn i am not among them.
modern life is ridiculous. that's why we have satire.
this is a book about how if you give into every delusion you have and live your life according tomodern life is ridiculous. that's why we have satire.
this is a book about how if you give into every delusion you have and live your life according to the instagram ads you are served, you will effortlessly merge into the perfect upstate bisexual polycule commune of your dreams.
more accurately, this is about how if every cringey thing possible happened to the most annoying people you can imagine. which is my definition of satire. and it rocks!
our main character rosie sucks, and her husband jordan sucks, and all the people they encounter are fairly pretentious woodsy stereotypes who don't feel real, but all of that is fine. that's satire, baby! it was fun to cringe at them while also wanting to go to the kind of general store where you can buy $40 honey.
generally it's an over the top look about being satisfied by nothing because you can see everything from your phone. it was an unbelievably stressful read that i also wanted to pick up, although a lot of the time that was because i wanted to be finished with it. do with that what you will!
bottom line: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. -me describing this whole genre
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
halle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every seconhalle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every second it makes you want to go back and lower the rating of everything you've read of late.
it is so funny and so precise and so clever, and a page will have a random unshakable description that is so goddamn weird and right. i fell completely in love with these characters and with this book, and as the end of it approached i read slower and slower in the hopes i'd discover 100 or so pages had been stuck together and hiding.
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