aliciaclarereads's Reviews (1.25k)

There's no doubt that I would have loved this book regardless of when I read (or listened) to it. I probably would have given it four stars, because certain chapters could have used better organization, especially on the audiobook. HOWEVER, sometimes a book comes into your life at the exact time you need it. That's what Furiously Happy did for me the past week. Thanks Jenny for writing this book.

This book is a wonderful portrait of an incredible, hard working, brilliant woman. RBG is a great, empowering role model, and I loved learning about her life. Now excuse me, but I have to go aid in the dismantling of the patriarchy.

I rewatched the Vampire Academy movie recently, which inspired me to pick up its spin off series. I think this book was a really great introduction into a new series. There was enough balance of the old and the new to invoke both a nostalgia and a renewed interest.

Sydney is very different from Rose, but I think that's important. If we wanted a heroine like Rose, than Richelle Mead would have written more books from Rose's perspective. I found Sydney's moral dilemma throughout the book really intriguing, but she did suffer from being a little too perfect. I understand that she is incredibly smart given her education and it made sense for her to excel at academics. But you're telling me she was perfect at minigolf on her first time playing? Sure, you can understand angles and geometry, but she knows how to apply the exact force needed without having EVER played before? Yeah, that's some bullshit.

Truly the worst part of the book, and frankly it was pretty hard for me to overcome this, was

the age difference between Jill and Lee, especially when it was revealed how old he actually was. Like he was solidly in his thirties. Even when he was assumed to be 19, it was still creepy but then when you realize he was basically double her age? YUCK. Lee is just as bad as Keith, worse in some ways, and yet it didn't come across that way in the narration. Like there needed to be a serious discussion about the manipulation of Jill and how terrible that was. At least Keith was portrayed as directly villianous pretty much the whole narration.

Actually the more I type this, the more I realize this book is two stars instead of three solely due to the complete mishandling of this issue.

This book was incredibly superficial. It takes place over seven years and yet there's no character development, except that a few characters became worse, for really no explanation. I was especially disappointed in Lacey, and how the authors paid so little attention to her motivations (one of the downfalls of first person narrative, I guess).

My biggest issue was how nearly every problem in the book could have been solved by everyone just talking to one another. The last part of the book was so superfluous, had Bex just been honest, which, frankly, is something you should do with the person you're about to marry.

I mean this is a published fanfiction about Kate Middleton if she were an American, so I was expecting to come into this book and absolutely love it and not take it too seriously. And yet I'm still pretty disappointed.