coolfoolmoon's Reviews (357)

Not only could it have been gayer... it SHOULD HAVE been gayer.

It really does feel like it was written by a teenager in the best way. If you're not a teenager you know what I mean. It also makes me understand the whole "He was written by a woman" trend that was happening a few months back. Men don't give this level of attention to detail to other men, unless they are fruity.

Ponyboy is fruity. It's literally canon, I don't care what the author says. He says himself "I don't care too much for girls yet." Uh yeah, and you never fuckin will! He had to walk a mile away from Johnnycake to stop blushing when he called him pretty. And, lastly, his name is Ponyboy. I rest my case!

I sympathize less with them because they're white. If they weren't white? 5 stars. If they weren't white and were gay? This would be the greatest book to ever hit the shelves. However, despite them being not gay and not people of color... the book is still iconic.

I'm itching to look at the fics for this on AO3.

Almost read this 6 hours. Smooth writing. Pretty predictable story. Some unexpected stuff, but nothing really unique. Then again, what story is? The elements of this story that aren't unique are combined and written in a way that's still very fun and pretty fresh honestly. The ending was very abrupt. Not unsatisfying, just too quick! Good book!

I don't know if this is supposed to be an allegory for something, but I love the poetry and I love the art. It leaves you with an empty feeling. The best way i can describe it is like looking at the night's sky from the beach on a city where there's a lot of light pollution. The night's sky is almost completely black, barely a star, the moon is out of view, maybe a plane flashing a white or red light every now and then, but the darkness of the night sky is just so consuming. And then you look out into the ocean and there's no boats and also no lights, and you try to look for where the ocean stops and the sky begins but you can find it, so you feel a little disoriented. But it's a lovely feeling. Because for how vast the universe is and how small you are compared to it, it's nice to be able to experience seeing it.

This book made me cry the first time I read it when I was 14. Now, the second time I've read it, at 22 years old, all I can think is "Teens don't talk like this!"

Still iconic.

Because of how repetitive people's stories are, it really made me notice how they all basically had the same voice. Different names, sometimes different attitudes, but usually the same words even for characters from different places.

Yawn. Boring story with nonsensical characters and ridiculous plot. If you can even call it a plot. I've read enough philosophy to know I don't like this brand of uppity white people, so call me biased, but there's nothing there. There's no there there. It's empty and hollow and- Honestly makes sense why this would be considered classic literature. There's just no flavor. A pinchings of elements in the story were almost kinda cool, but overall it was a tough read even without the time period-language barrier. (I don't know what else to call it.)

And this book is not queer at all! Whoever tagged it as such lied!

Well, that was weird and disturbing. And disgusting!

Aside from the early 1900s slang, I would consider this a contemporary autobiography. Everything said in this book 57 years ago could have been said by someone yesterday. You don't have to look real hard to see things really have not changed.

I adore this book. Not so much for the story, but for the writing! What beautiful writing! In all my years never have my eyes flown across the page so fast. I even stopped to go back and read the descriptions. I hate descriptions. I usually just skip them. Don't get me wrong, the plot itself is good too, but I wasn't expecting the writing alone to appeal to me so much. I was so gripped! This story left my body feeling empty and hollow but also my heart is warm with love?

I didn't like that for so long it all felt confusing. It felt like something was missing, like something was supposed to be between the lines, but not in the metaphorical sense of a book; like there was literally supposed something in between the spacing of the sentences that was missing. I figure, it's a horror/thriller type book, so maybe other horror/thrillers are like that, and even though I knew answers would come at the end it wasn't so frustrating that I wanted to stop. But I did want to add that note in my review.

I also personally don't like when people don't answer questions, and that happens throughout the book. It works as a plot device when you wanna do the misunderstanding / miscommunication type trope, and again I knew all the lore questions would be answered when the pages were getting really thin, but many if not all the characters except Arthur are aloof to their core. Stubbornly aloof. Like it made me dislike the characters a bit more.

Even still I breezed through 200 pages before I realized the sun was coming up again.

Of the handful of things I disliked, that all is made up for in how much I loved the writing. The writing really did something for me. I would love to read another story in this world, even if it's not including any of these same characters. I'm gonna read Szabo's next book. They've got a real craft for words.

I love that everyone's either fruity or implied to be fruity. 5 stars for the fruity family.

In my journal notes i simply wrote "VORE?!?!!" idk leave it to a fellow nonbinary to write vore as a character detail!

I removed .25 because of Arthur. We could've had a happy polyamorous couple living it up in the 1910s with no family curse but no! How can you be so miserable you think "Damn, I gotta strangle that baby." And not even because he thought Rhys was dangerous, just because he was... sad. :/

The fact that Grandmere was centuries old and a supernatural creature and somehow still homophobic?! Girl. She got what was coming to her. Her other major sin was, of course, being French.

I wanna buy this book.

It's been 3 years now since I've been a teen so I don't know what teens like anymore but this story came off really kiddish; except for when they talked about more adult things, then it felt weird and out of place. I remember talking about sex and kink and stuff before I was even in high school, but the rest of the tone of the book made me feel this story was written for kids around ages 9 to 13. It was in the teen section of my library, so that makes sense, but this book feels very pre-teen and not young adult.

Too many pop culture references. I had to google when Agents of Shield went off the air, which was surprisingly in 2020?! So that was interesting. Also referenced Glee twice. I should remove a star for that... I won't! But I should!!! Now, Riverdale on the other hand...