All I have to say about this, really, is that sh*t like this is why people hate New Yorkers.
It is hard to move to a new place and adjust to it, but yoAll I have to say about this, really, is that sh*t like this is why people hate New Yorkers.
It is hard to move to a new place and adjust to it, but you are not SUFFERING. Switching from the world’s most expensive city, where your children attend private schools and your husband is a high-powered lawyer, to a different kind of privilege in the Midwest is not all that sympathy-inducing.
I wish this author would move back to New York and just...stop complaining about it.
None of us forced you to move away. PLEASE STOP PUNISHING US FOR IT.
Bottom line: The first 15 pages of this were okay, and then nothing else was.
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treating myself to a good old-fashioned DNF.
there is just no way i can finish this book.
review to come / 2 stars
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probably not a good sign that i forgot i was reading this book
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mostly reading this right now because the title is funny, considering none of us can currently leave our houses...more
(but not a DNF like you think - no rating because i didn't finish it)
reading this book made me miss carrie fisher so much. it reads like you DNF @ 48%
(but not a DNF like you think - no rating because i didn't finish it)
reading this book made me miss carrie fisher so much. it reads like you asked her to talk about her affair with harrison ford and she obliged, unfiltered, for hours. which is both wonderful and not exactly conducive to a book. but i miss her, so it works out.
i DNFed this when 2016-carrie fisher stopped and 1976-carrie fisher began. i'd read adult carrie fisher write about anything, but reading the diaries of a 19-year-old infatuated with a significantly older married man who didn't care for her - who was probably taking advantage of her - well, that i didn't want.
this is a hard read, because it adds a bitter edge to the luke-leia-han trio, even as carrie fisher doesn't intend to do so here. it makes harrison ford seem like a bit of an ass, and it's impossible not to wonder what his real reaction to this publishing was.
it's not all sunshine and laser guns. boo.
bottom line: i love star wars. i love carrie fisher. i'm glad i experienced this book in the way that i did.
miss you, carrie.
--------------- PRE-REVIEW
I think this puts Fisher's wonderful legacy best:
honor carrie fisher:
- normalize mental illness and its treatment - take life a little less seriously - destroy a fascist regime
1.35/5 (The .35 is out of pity for how I didn’t finish this.)
A day and a half ago, I was telling you all I didn’t want to DNF it. Now, I’m DNFing it.
I1.35/5 (The .35 is out of pity for how I didn’t finish this.)
A day and a half ago, I was telling you all I didn’t want to DNF it. Now, I’m DNFing it.
If you’re familiar with my (work in progress) 2016 favorites shelf, you’re aware that a lovely little number called Wolf by Wolf is featured in it. That book is so great. (If you’re not familiar: 1. It’s YA and a hypothetical historical fiction, exploring a different scenario in which the Axis powers won World War II and also centering on a badass global motorcycle race; and 2. Pick. It. Up.) If you are familiar, you may know that the sequel came out earlier this week. It is one of my most anticipated reads of the year. I am unbearably excited and continually checking my Amazon shipping status.
If you’re wondering why I’m yammering on about this duology, it’s because they’re by the same author. I’ve been anticipating reading this book for a long time but I’ve saved it for the final pre-sequel stretch, both to stave off my crippling enthusiasm and to remind me why I loved the book.
Here’s the thing, though. I hated this book.
The characters were flat, the writing was mediocre to rough, and--worst flaw of all when compared to Wolf by Wolf--this shindig was goddamn boring.
Also, what the hell genre is this? Unless an entire history from today until when this book takes place was revealed in the last stretch, I see no reason to believe this is a dystopia. If it’s fantasy, it’s the lamest fantasy ever. Things like Styrofoam and Gucci exist?! So uncreative. Bleh.
I had to stop reading because this was killing my excitement, and I refuse to allow for that to happen. This was making me question just how creative Graudin’s concept of hypothetical history was. She wrote it, of course, half a century after The Man in the High Castle was published, and likely in the wake of a renewal of that story’s readership when the Amazon series was announced. (God, what a great series.)
Anyway. So goes a DNF. I hate doing this, guys, mainly because it makes me feel unqualified to complain. But…
Bottom line: I found this book silly, confusing, flat, uncreative and boring, as well as an excitement-killing monster. Nope, nope, nope-ity nope....more
Did someone carefully look at all my reviews/read my mind, discover my worst nightmare, and write that book? Because if so, it's called When We CollidDid someone carefully look at all my reviews/read my mind, discover my worst nightmare, and write that book? Because if so, it's called When We Collided, and it's available wherever books are sold!
The gal's a manic pixie dream girl, the guy's an extremely bland doormat. Reading this book was so unpleasant. They started quasi-dating (i.e., she force-kisses him at random times - "of all the quirks about life with Vivi, her ready-or-not approach to kissing me is the most disorienting") pretty much immediately after she forces him to make dinner. Vivi is an absolute burden on Jonah's already supremely difficult life. She flirts with other guys and gets mad when he talks to other girls. She's possessive, she's crazy - but it's alllll okay because she's just so quirky. Sans the quirkiness, she's what I expect from my least favorite male archetype, and I had enough.
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At the halfway point, I already had a deep hatred for Vivi that I had never experienced before. The plot was redundant (she'd gotten mad at him for talking to the same childhood friend twice; they do the same thing every day). Swaths of time were skipped. He treated her childish requests (for restaurant birthday parties, for meals made for her, for Slip n Slide playdates) like commands. They were just such a bad fit for each other, and I was actively rooting against them. (Very different from the "summer that would rewrite their futures"/"new love"/"colli[sion] with the right person at just the right time" written about in the synopsis.)
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In short, reading this was almost as much of an entirely-negative burden as Jonah's relationship with Vivi. There are times, in the middle of books, that you realize reading is supposed to be fun. So eff this. I hated reading this and I'm not going to force myself to continue. And you know what, Vivi? I'm counting your dumbass antics toward my reading challenge anyway. So.
[image]
Bottom line: if you like YA love stories about totally unrealistic teens suffering from mental illness (cough cough, if you're a John Green fan, cough) then check this book out. Otherwise - and this is a serious warning - STAY AWAY.
P.S.: On a petty note, I hate the cover of this book. So...bad first impression....more
it's that time of the day - when, i presume, each of you simultaneously whisper "emma is an idiot," sending a tremor throughout the earth.
here's a revit's that time of the day - when, i presume, each of you simultaneously whisper "emma is an idiot," sending a tremor throughout the earth.
here's a review of a book i read 6 months ago. please read it. i like it! it gets the me endorsement! https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co... ------------------------------ okay. i can't. i have to be honest with myself and stop reading this and shout from the rooftops that i got halfway into it and i can't believe that so few events filled that many pages.
review coming soon to emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.com...more
this book is basically if you took that silly bit that you do as a joke in like, group projects in high school english classes, where you act like hamthis book is basically if you took that silly bit that you do as a joke in like, group projects in high school english classes, where you act like hamlet is talking to ophelia in modern slang or whatever, but you were so convinced of your own genius that you thought it had to be published.
in other words: i have made half-hearted attempts at making strangers laugh at 7:38 a.m. that are roughly as worthy of literary recognition as this is.
maybe more.
part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago...more
This feels like a particularly apt moment to say that I abandoned this book as part of my no-books-featuring-romantic-relationships-with-oppressive-seThis feels like a particularly apt moment to say that I abandoned this book as part of my no-books-featuring-romantic-relationships-with-oppressive-sexist-gross-first-half-of-20th-century-German-enemy-soldiers-in-general policy.
Can you believe that it's 2017 and this is the third time I've had to disavow that trope this goddamn week?
Anyway. This isn't a review of twenty-first century America, so I'll move on. (But don't you kinda wish it was? Not even a little? Got it.)
After I really loved Me Before You, I a) immediately fell into a slump and b) attempted to remedy said slump by acquiring as many Jojo Moyes books as possible. And I've learned that liking that book, which I am terrified I'll reread and hate and hence will forever avoid, may have been my sole positive Moyes experience.
No, that's not true. I met her at a library event in the city once, and she had a perfect accent and was very nice and noticed that I had brought my own copies of her books, which was very endearing, and then charmingly and British-ly said, "A bookworm, isn't she? Lovely." Or something to that effect.
And One Plus One wasn't bad. But this book is.
It felt alternately boring and overwrought, and I initially picked this up pretty soon after reading All the Light We Cannot See, and it's really just unfair to authors everywhere to pick up chick-lit historical fiction after picking up Pulitzer Prize-winning historical fiction.
So I put this down for a while, and then I picked it back up, and then I determined picking it up again was the wrong choice and promptly put it back on my shelf to take up space and go unread.
Probably I'll sell it.
But in all seriousness, I'll likely have an eternal soft spot for Jojo Moyes, will probably pick up her next book if it comes out within the next year (I don't know if she has one lined up but whatever) - AND IF IT DOESN'T FOCUS ON LOUISA AGAIN, BECAUSE GOD F*CKING DAMN IT AFTER YOU RUINED MY LIFE.
AND NOT IN THE GOOD WAY.
(the other thing I was trying to say before distracting myself was that this book is not for me, but it could be, quite possibly, for you.)
(this is part of a project I'm doing in which I write mini-reviews of books I read a while back. the unintentional joke is that they become less and less "mini" with each passing day.)...more
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