coralinejones's Reviews (556)

Such a frustrating read. I wanted to like this way more than I did, but Lola's constant struggle was just not enjoyable to read, even if it may be realistic. It's not that a book has to be comfortable to be good, but Lola's repetitive stupid decisions and poor character development made this read ultimately unenjoyable. I'm not a huge fan of Adjapon's writing style, but it worked in the first half of this novel. Once our main character made it to America it was, what I can only explain as, "A Little Life" for black people. So exhausting.

He said. She said. They said. Said she. Said they. Said he. He said. She said. They said. She said. He said. Said she. Said said said said said said.

Literally useless nonsense. Literal definition of "man who thinks he can write, but can't, writes an entire novel." WHAT WAS THIS.

I can try and piece together what I think I just read but there's not a coherent sentence floating in my brain right now. I don't even remember half of it. 

I fear I heavily enjoyed this little tale... So bittersweet. Despite the content of this book, especially the end, I feel a little sadder than I expected to. I'd say this is "A Little Life" for people who value their emotional state. (I've never read "A Little Life", nor will I ever hence the minor quip, but this feels fitting).

I think the splitting timelines and the medium-size cast can make this book a little confusing for those not paying full attention, but every page at me GRIPPED and wondering what was going to happen next. Some of the characters will grow on you, and I think Connor is so well written that you'll just want to wrap him in blankets and bubble wrap. There's also a slight mystery element to this novel that I enjoyed, and while I did not figured out the big twist I did put the puzzle pieces together for one of the smaller ones.

I gave this 5 stars but there are two things I didn't necessarily like: The story isn't just about Connor. I liked him the most and felt that if we just got his point of view this book would be just as excellent. Once you get over that though and you see how the whole story stirs together, I think this initially isn't too bad.

Secondly, I felt as though certain timelines were just too short. In the grand scheme of things I suppose this was a good choice but I had wished we had more time with Connor during certain points in his life. We meet him as an adolescent and a few chapters later he's in his 40s, like whoa!

Still great though. Something about this book reminded me of Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney, which I also enjoyed this year!

I'M FREEEE. WORST FUCKING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE!

But, no, seriously, what a waste of my time. I'm sorry to those of you who really enjoy this novel; I can see that Sally Rooney is a thoughtful writer. While I understand why someone may enjoy this book I found that the constant back and forth between two boring, insufferable white people going through an annoying "situationship" does not and did not interest me in the slightest. I did not care about any of the times they had sex. I didn't care about their relationships outside of each other. I didn't care about Connell's depression, sorry, none of this resonated with me. 

This was fun. Nostalgic. Now I need a part two that talks about the mental toll it took to be a mega child star for Disney, especially in the 2010s. A full on deep-dive that discusses what it does to a child's psyche.

Took me so long to read such a short book, with a story I'm very familiar with, because Dickens is just so wordy lol

I hate being in the minority here but I thought I would love this book more than I actually did. I like, and understand, the concept; I believe it's as personal as our current situation than most dystopian books, but I'm also not a fan of how this is written. Maybe if I read this in school like everyone else I would have a better relationship with the text. I mean, so many paragraphs just felt like nonsensical, repetitive blabber.

Does it really count as read if I skipped all of Arthur's chapters just to read about the lesbians? And, TBH, you can tell the author spent an ungodly amount of time on Tumblr. I mean this negatively. It's cute enough, but also extremely annoying and a little boring. Not much happens and everyone's personalities are too bland to fully enjoy this.

Not enjoying this at all. I'm bored. Eve is pissing me off. I tried looking up spoilers and found out this is one of those books with an ending so open nobody knows wtf is going on. I'm not interested even in the slightest. Don't know why I'd slog through something for an ending that'll just piss me off