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aliciaclarereads's Reviews (1.25k)
read for NEWTs 2019 readathon: Care of Magical Creatures, A - Follow the spiders! Book title that starts with A for Aragog!
read for NEWTs 2019 readathon: Potions, A - polyjuice potion: read your friend's favorite book
Amber suggested I fulfill this prompt by reading her favorite book from 7th grade, so here I am!! I somehow escaped adolescence without reading this, and reading it for the first time at 25 is....... an experience. I did appreciate reading the 10th anniversary with the updated cultural references because lmao. The only thing they didn't update was Eckerd to Rite Aid, but man that name drop took me STRAIGHT to middle school.
Anyway I can't rate this book, because WOOF it's not great, but I appreciate how big a cultural moment this book was.
Amber suggested I fulfill this prompt by reading her favorite book from 7th grade, so here I am!! I somehow escaped adolescence without reading this, and reading it for the first time at 25 is....... an experience. I did appreciate reading the 10th anniversary with the updated cultural references because lmao. The only thing they didn't update was Eckerd to Rite Aid, but man that name drop took me STRAIGHT to middle school.
Anyway I can't rate this book, because WOOF it's not great, but I appreciate how big a cultural moment this book was.
read for NEWTs 2019 readathon: Defence Against the Dark Arts, A - a book that is black under the dust jacket
Here's the thing: I thought [b:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|386162|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)|Douglas Adams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1559986152l/386162._SX50_.jpg|3078186] was just alright and not my cup of tea. I also don't care about Eurovision. So no matter how much I adore Cat Valente's writing, this book was just out of my wheel house.
People who love this book - I get it! Valente is an incredible writer and she really gets to flex her satire and humor in this book. I laughed out loud at a lot of the various observations and mocking of humanity! The book is kind of goofy but sincere and it has so much heart.
The problem is the book is like... 80% gobbledy-gook. The writing structure of this book was just long paragraphs of run-on sentences describing events that happened in space in the past to inform the reader the background of what to know while also making fun of our world with jokes and humor but the sentence just kept going on with all these alien names and planets being dropped like it's no big deal up it's hard to keep track of and then your eyes glaze over and you're wondering did I even really read this paragraph because oh my word there is so much going on in this and how is this sentence still possibly happening?
And then, one quick sentence with a pithy thought.
And repeat. Over and over.
This book exhausted me. I missed out on the fun whimsy I experienced in with the Fairyland series which is still one of my favorites. I think this is just a miss for me, and I will still love Cat Valente and read more of her works.
Just not books that take so blatantly after Douglas Adams.
Here's the thing: I thought [b:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|386162|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)|Douglas Adams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1559986152l/386162._SX50_.jpg|3078186] was just alright and not my cup of tea. I also don't care about Eurovision. So no matter how much I adore Cat Valente's writing, this book was just out of my wheel house.
People who love this book - I get it! Valente is an incredible writer and she really gets to flex her satire and humor in this book. I laughed out loud at a lot of the various observations and mocking of humanity! The book is kind of goofy but sincere and it has so much heart.
The problem is the book is like... 80% gobbledy-gook. The writing structure of this book was just long paragraphs of run-on sentences describing events that happened in space in the past to inform the reader the background of what to know while also making fun of our world with jokes and humor but the sentence just kept going on with all these alien names and planets being dropped like it's no big deal up it's hard to keep track of and then your eyes glaze over and you're wondering did I even really read this paragraph because oh my word there is so much going on in this and how is this sentence still possibly happening?
And then, one quick sentence with a pithy thought.
And repeat. Over and over.
This book exhausted me. I missed out on the fun whimsy I experienced in with the Fairyland series which is still one of my favorites. I think this is just a miss for me, and I will still love Cat Valente and read more of her works.
Just not books that take so blatantly after Douglas Adams.
read for NEWTs 2019 readathon: Defence Against the Dark Arts, E - Gilderoy's memory charm! The first book you remember from your TBR
"Because I am selfish. I wanted just one person in this world to know me for everything I am. And because sometimes I find it difficult to believe that you could love me if you knew the whole of it. So I give you bit and pieces of myself, a mosaic of the man I am, and I lie awake at night and wonder which of them will cause you to leave me."
FUCK ME UP NICHOLAS BRISBANE.
FUCK ME UP NICHOLAS BRISBANE.
read for PopSugar 2019 Reading Challenge: a book becoming a movie in 2019
DNF @ 39%
This book did absolutely nothing for me. I was so bored, and I finally gave up and just looked up what happens. I don't think this book is bad necessarily but I could not connect with it. Donna Tartt just doesn't seem to be my cup of tea.
I probably shouldn't count a book I dnf'd towards this challenge but I read 300+ pages, so damn it I'm counting it.
DNF @ 39%
This book did absolutely nothing for me. I was so bored, and I finally gave up and just looked up what happens. I don't think this book is bad necessarily but I could not connect with it. Donna Tartt just doesn't seem to be my cup of tea.
I probably shouldn't count a book I dnf'd towards this challenge but I read 300+ pages, so damn it I'm counting it.