bella613's Reviews (551)

My sister in law read this in her book club and suggested it to me. 
It's a hard book to read during some parts but it's worth it. Feels extremely real, with very well developed characters. Life is ugly sometimes but somehow to capture that is beautiful. 

The writing style and perspective changes are perfect for what the author intends to accomplish. A well done book. 

I loved this book!
Patric tells us stories of her own life, and brings up a very important conversation on being diagnosed and sharing your diagnosis. The world is extremely hypocritical when it comes to mental and emotional health. People have double standards, ableist expectations, and preconceived notions, and this book gives plenty of examples of how that hurts the ones who are different. But it also gives plenty of examples of taking positive steps toward helping yourself if you are different. 

I see a lot of reviews complaining that Patric's socioeconomic background made her sociopathic personality, basically, a non-problem for her and that is why she lives a relatively "normal" life as opposed to the stereotypical expectation for a sociopath. I think these people forgot the fact that it's a memoir, and that she has no obligation to have had the worst life in order for her story to be worth being told. She's trying to help other sociopaths by changing the narrative on what being a sociopath means, not trying to be the one speaking for all sociopaths. I really liked that she talked about it being on a spectrum, like autism and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Having an "emotional learning disability" is simple, easy to understand and relate to. 

Another major criticism I've seen in multiple places is her credibility. To be honest, I don't really care if she has a PhD or not. She has well developed thoughts and theories, and I didnt read this book as a textbook, so it doesn't matter to me if she has a degree. 

I'd recommend this book to anyone who has been judged, misunderstood, or underestimated because their mind works differently than most people's. And I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to understand what it feels like to have a mind that works differently. This book isn't only about being a sociopath. There is so much to relate to. I love that she embraces herself as she is and underlines the difference between the neurology and behavior. Everyone has different ways of understanding and relating to the world around them, and everyone's mind is beautiful. There's always more than one way to look at everything and Patric beautifully flips the narrative on sociopaths. 

I liked this prequel more than both the first and second books of the series! 
I loved hearing from Coriane and while Farley isn't my favorite, Shade is probably the most interesting character to me in the series, so both sections of the book were great. I felt like the writing was a little more concise in this than the first two books as well. 
I read this after Red Queen and Glass Sword but it probably could go before Glass Sword too if you wanted to read them that way. 

I liked this one less than the first one. It felt like not much happened and it dragged. l liked that it focused on plot points other than just the romance, as a lot of these types of books do in the second of a series. But it seems like the whole war is being fought on emotion, and seems silly that a couple of teenagers are making the decisions. 
It also got annoying how much Mare thinks she's better than everyone else. She is a teenager, of course, so that's kind of to be expected. But it's not only implied-- she quite literally says, multiple times, that her life is the most important. Which doesn't really make any sense now that there are so many "new bloods". She also clearly thinks that being a new blood is better than both silver or red. I find it annoying how the blood classes are so clearly fighting against each other being in charge but not fighting toward any real equality or shared prosperity. The silvers think they're better, the reds hate all silvers. New bloods should be somewhere in between, or both, but she's trying to teach them that they're inherently better than either because they're a new mutation.

A friend suggested this series and I'm going to finish it for that if not just because it's fairly entertaining while working night shift for a few weeks. It's a YA series and I think I have just forgotten a lot of the unfortunate side effects of the tropes involved.

Took me a few chapters to get into it, and the story was very predictable, but it was entertaining. The beginning of the book kind of dragged, and the premise has definitely been done, and in better ways. It was like every ~girl finds out she has superpowers and learns to control them~ story mixed with every ~dystopian country in an oppresive civil war needs teenage girl to be the face of a rebellion against cruel leadership~ story. But there's nothing wrong with that, and YA readers eat that stuff up. I wish I could have read this in middle school. It still would have been predictable, but my complaints for this book are also true of the hunger games and divergent, and I loved those back then. I did enjoy listening and I think I would have loved it if I were the age it's meant for (like 10 years ago). 
I will definitely be checking out the rest of the series. I hope that we will get to know Mare's brothers better, that Cal will become a round character, and that we'll get more unique plot points.

One of the best webcomic series I have ever read.
Incredible storytelling and character depth, amazing art. 
I sobbed. I laughed. I felt kinship and rage. This is one I'll remember for a long time. Highly recommend, tread carefully because it's not suitable for all readers. Please check trigger warnings before reading. 

This is a really important topic. I think because it's so important, I expected there to be a lot to learn from the book. But it was really just a lot of ranting and opinion-based stream of consciousness type philosophy. 
I didn't like the first few chapters but it did get better as the book went on. It kind of annoyed me that everything was so overwhelmingly negative. I suppose I'd rather have looked at the art of both "good" and "bad" individuals and noted differences in how we can appreciate (or not) their contributions to the world. I also expected there to be something on keeping artists accountable because we love them. And maybe some words on what being a fan, whether stan-level or just supporter, means-- it would have been cool to delve into the world of fandoms and crowd mentality and pressure put on artists. Instead, the author assumes a very individualistic artist mentality and only briefly goes into positives of being in a fan community (specifically, Harry Potter fans), and pretty much concludes that everyone is a monster, and we all love monsters anyway. She didn't give any examples of geniuses, musicians, and artists who don't have horrible crime allegations against them, and honestly I think that's because she wanted to claim that art must be made by a monster. She also made several comments that felt like she was comparing poor mental health to being a bad person. 
I don't feel like I got much out of this book. I came for a conversation about being a fan, and when being a fan is problematic. I got a look at a few historically bad artists who make good art, and very strong opinions on whole bunch of political topics.  

Didnt realize this is book three of a series when I checked it out lol. I'll have to go back and read the first one