angel_ontheother's Reviews (393)

This hooked me in easily! I was really into the first quarter or so. As a fan of Heartstopper (the books and the show), I was excited to read another book that takes place in the same universe, especially when I realized it centers on Tori and Michael, two characters from Heartstopper who I have been curious to know more about. Tori is a character I can identify with, as a former-angsty-teen, and as an adult who still struggles with mental health. As for Michael, I can relate to being seen as socially obtuse 🤷🏻 

At first, I was a bit annoyed by the pop culture references, I'd rather read something that feels timeless; but it sort of started to make sense as I read on. In addition to contemporary pop culture, Solitaire also references classic literature a lot, both in text and subtext. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it heavily references The Catcher in the Rye – it's like a modern retelling of it. Tori seems like your typical melodramatic teen on the outside, but once you start to peel back the layers, you find that there's more to her than meets the eye. She's a caring and sensitive person who deeply struggles to express herself and connect with others, as does Holden in TCitR. Also, Micheal's last name is literally Holden! Pride and Prejudice is referenced a lot too, but I'm less familiar with P&P as I've only seen the movie.

Around the halfway point, I began to lose interest a bit. The writing started to get redundant. I felt like it hit on the same few beats multiple times, messing with the pacing and plot structure. The tone had a bit of a strange shift as well. Things kind of fell apart in the last act. I'm still not a fan of the ending, but what I didn't know until afterwards, is that Oseman wrote this as a teenager! I didn't know going into this that it was her first publication. It's understandable that her first book isn't her best. I'm glad it exists, because without Solitaire, there would be no Heartstopper. I didn't realize that either, that Heartstopper is technically a spin-off of Solitaire, which is very interesting! And explains the timeline. I assumed Solitaire was a prequel but it actually starts not far from where Heartstopper does, so you're seeing some of the same events but from Tori's perspective.

So, while this has notable flaws, I still think this is worthwhile and would recommend it to Heartstopper/Oseman fans.

The writing style + narration was very cozy and fun, but I didn't like the plot as much as I hoped I would. I think prefer the movie to be honest.

I finally got around to finishing this! I read the first ~30 pages, probably two years ago. I didn't finish it then because it was a bit too dark for me at the time.

I loved the writing style. It was easy for me to get pulled into the story and I was able to read the first ~70 pages in one session. The plot is dark enough on its own, the immersive writing style makes it that much more disturbing because I could picture every detail.

Unfortunately for me, I found the subtextual meanings to be difficult to piece together. Morality tends to be one of my least favorite themes to read about, I tended not to think very deeply about things so that's one reason why I struggled to make sense of everything by the end. I could of course tell that other themes were weaved through as well, but morality kind of overshadowed everything, from my perspective. Louis is kind of insufferable 🫥

While I wasn't in the mood to be particularly analytical, I didn't want to DNF this again either, so I decided to just read it mostly through the entertainment lens. Noticing how it differs from the movie was something that did interest me. I definitely wasn't bored, until I neared the last act which was a bit anticlimactic. I think I'll rewatch the movie at some point because it will be interesting to watch, now that I'm more familiar with the source material!

Had a shaky start but got better and better as I read on. I didn't want this to end!!

This was great – interesting plot, beautiful art style, likeable characters, and good pacing. I'm already looking forward to the sequel that's coming out next year

Love the art style, and this low-key has studio Ghibli vibes which is cool. 

Great art style, the characters are cool too.