bumblemee's Reviews (258)

I loved it!! This book did such a good job at establishing everything important early enough to get properly invested, knew which moments to include, was very entertaining and had a lot of important and well written conversations in my opinion. 
My personal comparison for this is: It has a similar vibe to Boyfriend Material, but doesn't have the problems I had with that book. For example, secondary characters can't seem flat, because this only has like 88 pages, so there isn't much room for anyone but Kieran and Seth anyway. There are other people in this, yeah, but they are not focused on at all and that is fine, because you can't expect that from this book. There isn't that much time to go into a loooot of detail with our main couple either since everything moves very fast, but in my opinion they were both still layered characters with a lot of chemistry. I loved them so much! (Especially Seth, because he just seems so sweet through Kierans's eyes. But Kieran himself is great as well.) 

If you tend to have a hard time with stories this short, this might not be for you - but if you don't mind a fast pace and can accept that there are a few things that probably would've been included if this had been a 300 page book and are not "missing", read it. It has so much going for it!

I guess the most telling thing is that I paused this book for like a year, because I couldn't handle the thought of these two guys getting in even more emotional drama instead of just being happy together. I was too emotionally invested to suffer through that. This book is very .. exaggerated in a lot of ways, and I guess that either annoys you or sucks you in and makes everything feel way more intense than you anticipated. For me it was the latter. Luc and Oliver got me frustrated in the best way possible by being fucked up in ways that made everything so unnecessarily hard for them. 
I think the author did a good job at writing these stubborn messes and their relationship and handled emotional situations with a lot of care. Oh, and all that while being very funny.

On the other hand, I think the amount of humor was a little much at times, especially with basically every character that wasn't Luc or Oliver. Yes, the side characters were loveable, but at the same time, they weren't given the depth they would've deserved. They each got their quirk and even when in serious situations, they had to be funny. Not that they didn't say important things and got good points across, but I don't know, I just feel like it wouldn't have been too much to ask to have them be totally serious for once, just to underline that they are in fact human beings. For some characters all I can say is that they were a little absurd. And I get that that was the point and you just had to go with it (which I did for the most part), but it was just a little much.

I would definitely recommend this book if you want a fast read (given you don't have to pause bc you got ridiculously emotional) with a lot of heartfelt and sweet moments. Would also recommend for hurt/comfort enthusiasts. 

As someone who once fell into the rabbit hole of a certain boy band ship (maybe not as hard as others, but the rabbit hole was definitely real), I think I was kind of destined to like this book - and to no one's surprise, I do. 
I have so much history with this kind of setting that it catched me immediately - I can imagine that this book is a little harder to get into if you can't latch onto the "magic" of boy bands. Though this book is less about this "magic" than it is about the repressive side of the entertainment industry. Reading this made me feel so much for these boys trapped in what others decide for them to be (not sure if this is a correct English sentence rn, sorry), because it felt so realistic. Of course I can't tell how realistic it actually is, but to me it seemed like the management/artist dynamic could look a lot like this. Especially for people who start out into this industry at a very young age and don't know who they are yet or how to look out for themselves. (It reminded me of a podcast by two German ex "boy band" guys who told the story of their band, how awfully they were treated and what that did to them.)
I liked the four main guys a lot, their friendship is very heartwarming. All of them grow a lot as people over the course of this book, which was great to witness. Zach was the one I loved the most, his problems to seperate his wish for everyone to be happy from what he actually wants and his love for pop punk were very relatable to me. (I wish we saw a little bit more of his pop punk side.) 

The only thing that bothered me a little was that because of the amount of things that need to be told for this story to be complete, some situations are resolved very fast. Other thand that, I was very happy with this book. Nothing lifechangingly amazing, but I think it healed something in me a little.
I can't tell how it feels to read this book when you are someone who hasn't been fan of a boy band before or was never a little too obsessed with this "management vs. what's best for their artists" debate that arises from the boy band side of things, but also in relation to other celebrities. If you were though, this book is the right pick for you. 

I got so much respect for Mark Watney, oh my god. This is the story of someone who really isn't ready to give up, ever. As someone who is quite good at not believing in their own abilities, this book has given me something. It's full of constant problem solving, nothing ever just goes as planned and still, Mark Watney endures and drops funny comments on the way. If there is a resilient person, it is him. I also liked how we got to see a little of the world's reaction to what is happening. The press and politicians getting involved for example, and how there might be solutions that would require cooperating with people you normally don't coperate with. As said: Constant problem solving, on every end.
That being said, I listened to the audio book in german and I thought the narrator was okay, but could've been better. The tension got through to me, but I wonder if I this book would've hooked me more when physically reading it. But maybe it wouldn't have, because while I thought it was cool to read a sci-fi novel that actually put A LOT of work into the sci-aspect, I didn't understand what exactly was happening a lot of the time. I got the jist, but since I am bad at physics and chemistry, some parts just went over my head. So reading these parts might be a little annoying to me. I don't really know how to explain why this book didn't have me in a choke hold, especially because I love the movie a lot and after reading the book I feel like the adaptation is very well made. Somehow I just didn't click with it fully, but I'd still say it's a very cool book and know some people who would love it way more than I did.

This has been a blast! I desperately wanted to read a story where the characters play D&D together for the past three years now, and now I finally got one :)
I love stories that are centered around a friendship and this one in particular made me wish I started playing TTRPGs earlier in my life. It is such a fun way to connect with others and tell a story together and it's so clear to see in this graphic novel how much this game can mean to the players. 

I read this because I loved the show and I do not regret it one bit. I have to say that I do not understand chess at all, so all the time taken to explain game strategy is completly wasted on me because I can't even remember how each piece is allowed to move. Which was a little sad because it must be fascinating and thrilling to read if you DO know what's going on. I just got that there was something going on and the tension came through a little bit, but I think my rating would probably be higher if my understanding of the game was better. Nonetheless I am a sucker for competeteive aspects in books so I still enjoyed it. There's also a lot more in this book than pure chess. Beth is a fascinating character and while I can't say that I liked her, I still felt for her. Seeing her struggle and not really understanding herself a lot of the time made me feel a lot.
I also think that this matter of factly, analytical writing style was perfect for Beth. As well as the details she picks up on and what she chooses to focus on in general. It was really well done. That being said, I sometimes have a hard time with this type of writing because it distances me from what's going on.
Still, a certain scene that was also in the show made me tear up a bit, because in the important moments, the book did get to me emotionally.

This book was adapted perfectly by the way, at least in my opinion. I watched the show first and I expected exactly this type of writing from watching it. I don't think that happened to me before, at least not to this extend. They did an amazing job of telling the story as well, I didn't feel like the show missed anything important. So if you think the book might not be for you - for example bc you don't know anything about chess - but still want to consume the story, watch the show. It might be the better choice for you since it's less hard to get through parts you don't understand.

I really enjoyed this book. There were a lot of things in there that I already knew about and/or had conversations about, but it was nice to have them explained in this book, including research findings. There were also things that I never thought about before, like being bisexual as a parent or the difficulty of "proving" your sexuality when fleeing your home country because of queerphobic politics. This book touches on a lot of topics and I think it's definitely worth a read, even if your knowledge on queer stuff is quite good, but especially if it isn't. Since it specifically centers bisexality, there is a lot of detail on the specific experiences of bi people, which is interesting since it can be hard to find information on specific parts of the queer community instead of LGBTQ+ as a whole.

This is off to a good start!! Really liked reading it, a group of besties adventuring :) It's really sweet and fun and I like how they use the names of influential women when "swearing". I expected it to be structured in a different way and a lot of problems were just solved very fast (which I guess is due to it being differently structured than I expected), which I did not like that much. But still, there seemsto be a bigger story set-up in there and I'm excited to read it.