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jennareadsbooks 's review for:
The Falconer
by Dana Czapnik
2.5 stars. Thanks to @atriabooks for sharing The Falconer by Dana Czapnik with me! It follows Lucy Adler, a seventeen-year-old tomboy “pizza bagel” which apparently means a mix of Jewish and Italian heritage, who is a star basketball player at her school, has an unrequited crush on her best friend/rich-boy Percy, as she goes through her senior year of high school in NYC.
This book didn’t really have a plot? It just kind of follows Lucy around the streets of NYC as she goes about her life. I’m okay with this in books sometimes, but this book kind of dragged at times because of it, and I found myself losing interest.
Lucy has moments where she has all these opinions about life that came off as judgmental. There were tropes like “that’s why I have so few female friends, all they want to do is talk about their diets” and other moments where she judges girls for caring about their appearance... it felt tired. Here’s another quote: ‘“Do you ever think makeup is a signifier of our inferiority?” I ask her. “Like, we have to put all this shit on our faces to get noticed and guys don’t. Maybe this whole process devalues us as human beings.”’ ....this is coming from a 17-year-old? Maybe I was just super immature at that age but this is not what I was thinking about. Also it felt very much like if you don’t care about looks, you’re superior to those who do.
Basically, it felt like the author was trying to say too much and make this teen have so many grand epiphanies that her character felt muddled. She also has a moment where she laments big box grocery stores, she thinks that you shouldn’t eat meat unless you can kill it yourself... and so on. It was exhausting.
I felt let down by this book. It wasn’t all bad, it just felt tired and a little boring and like it was trying too hard to be alternative and feminist or something, but also was judgmental of women who weren’t as smart as Lucy. There were definitely some moments that held my interest, but overall the mixed messages and meandering plotlessness just didn’t work well for me. However, this book has received lots of praise from others, so I’d still say give it a try if it sounds like the type of book you may like!
This book didn’t really have a plot? It just kind of follows Lucy around the streets of NYC as she goes about her life. I’m okay with this in books sometimes, but this book kind of dragged at times because of it, and I found myself losing interest.
Lucy has moments where she has all these opinions about life that came off as judgmental. There were tropes like “that’s why I have so few female friends, all they want to do is talk about their diets” and other moments where she judges girls for caring about their appearance... it felt tired. Here’s another quote: ‘“Do you ever think makeup is a signifier of our inferiority?” I ask her. “Like, we have to put all this shit on our faces to get noticed and guys don’t. Maybe this whole process devalues us as human beings.”’ ....this is coming from a 17-year-old? Maybe I was just super immature at that age but this is not what I was thinking about. Also it felt very much like if you don’t care about looks, you’re superior to those who do.
Basically, it felt like the author was trying to say too much and make this teen have so many grand epiphanies that her character felt muddled. She also has a moment where she laments big box grocery stores, she thinks that you shouldn’t eat meat unless you can kill it yourself... and so on. It was exhausting.
I felt let down by this book. It wasn’t all bad, it just felt tired and a little boring and like it was trying too hard to be alternative and feminist or something, but also was judgmental of women who weren’t as smart as Lucy. There were definitely some moments that held my interest, but overall the mixed messages and meandering plotlessness just didn’t work well for me. However, this book has received lots of praise from others, so I’d still say give it a try if it sounds like the type of book you may like!