aliciaclarereads's Reviews (1.25k)

It wasn't quite the sequel I was expecting. I just think the author herself prefers Conrad to Jeremiah, and it seemed so obvious within every word of the novel. Which I mean is okay. Except that Conrad was just an asshole most of the book.

I was debating between two and three stars for this one. It was a fun little book, but different than i expected. It's not a fairytale retelling despite what the blurb seemed to imply. In fact they don't mirror fairytales at all with the exception of the evil stepmothers. So I was really only disappointed because I'd been expecting something completely different. Oh well.

Honestly this was just painful to get through. The characters were horribly crafted, the plot wandered everywhere, and I just felt confused for the majority of the time. The author missed so many opportunities, the biggest I remember is a scene where Luisa finds out her mother actually is saving for college funds instead of her just mentioning "oh yeah my mom and I talked about it." The characters were so one dimensional and the worst part was for a girl who was supposedly average and never had a boyfriend... she surely had a lot in this book.

The big 'twist' was actually incredibly predictable (but that happens in a lot of YA) and the happy ending exploding with cheese. Why must YA plot summaries look so intriguing and drag me in? They don't always seem to work out.

I think I would've liked this a lot less if it hadn't been written in poetry. But it was absolutely beautiful, and the ending and cycle that Psyche transforms through was wonderful.

I always knew how this would end. I knew it from the first sentence of the first book. But I'm still really disappointed. The author had always made her intentions clear about which boy she preferred. And this specific novel, it's whole premise really, is the same as plenty of other romantic films and books. Which isn't bad. I mean, Sweet Home Alabama is one of my favorite romantic comedies. It's predictable and cheesy (although much less melodramatic than this novel was) but it's fun. Despite a very unoriginal but 'classic' plot, Jenny Han really failed on this last Summer book. I felt like the characters had dramatically changed and I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't think Belly was the kind of girl who would get engaged at nineteen, and I didn't think Jeremiah was as big of a child and somewhat asshole the author wrote him as. And Conrad certainly wasn't this mature, grown up person.

I don't believe Conrad always loved Belly. Conrad is just an asshole. He consistently ruined Belly's love life and his own brother's love life for that matter.

I just couldn't get into this story the same way. But then again, I think I always knew how it would end, so I just sort of resigned myself to the book.

Meh. I just prefer Percy Jackson. I like those characters. And quite frankly I could not remember what happened in Red Pyramid. Or the names of any of the Egyptian gods. I only know Ra because of this old cartoon movie I used to watch. Yeah. My favorite part was when Carter briefly mentions Manhattan and how it has its own problems. And how he thought he saw a flying horse. I laughed. That was pretty much the only time. Also I dislike Sadie. She was really starting to bug me.

Zebra = Zia and Weasel = Walt? What the... How are they remotely similar despite starting with the same letters? I do not understand at all. I guess I'll just have to read the next one.

Really fascinating. I don't believe everything Bettelheim says, he's much too Freudian, but I do like a lot of his analyses. Although I don't think his ideas apply well to females; they are almost exclusively meant for males.