dnf @ 16%

ficção científica brasileira da década de 40. tão truncada quanto eu esperava. menos pelo brasileira e mais pela década de 40.

dnf @ 30%

gosto da dupla de velhos, mas esse tipo de premissa absurda só funciona comigo em livro de fantasia, não ficção científica. basicamente o mesmo problema de This Is How You Lose the Time War: fosse mágica, eu levaria mais a sério.

im bored. and when it comes to ya fiction, that's quite the problem, because what else can it offer besides entertainment? here, very little. everything about this book is clickbait, from the cover to the synopsis and marketing selling it as a feminist slash sapphic body horror version of Lord of the Flies. while 99% of the cast are indeed women, mostly teenagers, i would argue this fact by itself doesn't make a book feminist; and there's no similarity between this and William Golding's debut besides both taking place on an island. also, despite not having finished the book, i dare say Rory Power's girls are too civilized, given the title, the premise and the fact they've been starving, sick and deformed for two winters (this book doesn't start at the beginning of the isolation as that classic does). they respect the rules in most circumstances, even though there are only two adults left; that's insane.

as for the w/w relationship, it comes out of nowhere: there's no build-up, no tension, no yearning, no nothing. the mc quickly comes to conclusions that are never shown on page. their feelings and personalities are so underdeveloped i was led to believe that the protagonist's love interest actually liked the other girl in their trio who goes missing and that her spiteful behavior towards the mc was out of  jealousy, not due to repressed feelings LoL i guess that would be too much real drama for such a boring book. regardless, instead of the it's-always-been-you trope, the romance would make much more sense if it were a love triangle or an enemies-to-lovers with a slow burn to justify it.

although i tried very hard to give a shit about the characters, i failed. or this book failed me, its "wilder" girls making me yawn, its body horror aesthetic less effective than it could've been on screen. the author forgot at some point that the reader needs to know these girls and see their supposed strong bond in order to care about what happens to them. the story could end with all of them dead, for all i care. i kept reading up until now for the mystery surrounding the whole situation, and i guess i could finish just to hate on it as i've done in the past, but so many reviews warn about an open ending —which, in a book this superficial, screams lazy writing— and i don't want to start 2024 with a one-star read that could've been at least two. perhaps i'll be missing out on an interesting discussion on girlhood, but i doubt it.

dnf for now

the trailer of the show hadn't amazed me one bit, so i picked up the book thinking the original material with the brunette version of Percy could change that or be more exciting on its own. i stopped reading when his mom died and i didn't feel a thing. that convinced me im not the target audience for it. im too dead inside for a book that'll probably have more jokes than grief after such a big trauma in the protagonist's life. i also realized greek mythology isn't really my thing, at least not in a fantasy book. maybe im wrong and i could actually take it seriously, but it's 2023, and i don't want to finish this and still prefer Harry Potter (the series, not the character). that would be sad. and kind of immoral. 

the author tried very hard with the vampires-that-dont-sparkle thing, but her writing and worldbuilding are still boring and unconvincing /sigh

I've been looking for a good book with this kind of premise —romance between celebrities or set in the entertainment/book world— for a while now. in the right hands, I think it can offer really exciting takes on the fake dating and rivals-to-lovers tropes. unfortunately, I'll have to keep searching*. Stars in Your Eyes reads like ya, but there are ya books less contrived than this, and the first-person narration with its confessional tone doesn't help. the author gives a trigger warning for pretty heavy topics, but the story presents no nuance that lets you hope they won't be dealt with by the usual artificial and didactic prose of contemporary books ("this is problematic and here's why"). the bad boy doesn't have a real personality to deserve the epithet and I don't see myself becoming particularly fond of the good one. also, both protagonists are black men, but neither the cover nor the synopsis hints at that, even though it's a focus point from the beginning. regardless of my opinion on the book, I think the publisher lost the chance of attracting new readers for this author by not being more clear in its marketing.

* I've already tried some titles by Emily Henry and Christina Lauren btw, so I'm accepting recs.

after so many quick dnf's I didn't bother to shelf, I'm begging for a romance to grab my sick with anxiety attention. it doesn't even have to be an enemies-to-lovers, just something that feels real for a change.

dnf @ 41%

the "sex work saved me" part was a bit too much. also, there's something off about the whole premise of working as a teacher on modern intimacy for a synagogue. and although i find rabbi Ethan endearing, im not feeling their insta obsession with each other. besides, his behavior just started entering unrealistic territory, so im putting this at least on pause, but i probably won't come back to it.