Reached 50% and really didn’t want to read further. I didn’t care much about anything 

 I gave up on this graphic novel pretty quickly after I started. I’d say about 10 pages if not less? I don’t have a clear answer as to why I chose to not finish the graphic novel because to me, everything about it just didn’t work out for me. 

I didn’t like the art. I don’t know if one would call it quirky or anything but I didn’t care for it. I felt the writing was juvenile and the dialogue to be subpar. I disliked both main characters – in fact Kim was a big reason for my dnf. 

I have The Tempest (the original play). I didn’t know anything about the play before I picked up this book – or at least I tried to pick this up. It was just absolutely terrible, all the way through. I’ve read Samantha Cohoe’s other book, A Golden Fury and that was mostly good.

It’s said to be set on an island in the 1920s – I took that to be a big, big lie because nothing in the book read that way. I would believe it more if you told me it was set in the late 2020s and the main character just lived on the island, away from social media and wifi. It honestly would’ve been more maybe more interesting if it was a modern retelling.

I could not tell you a SINGLE thing about the main character- in fact, I had to literally scroll to find her name in the arc because it’s a first person POV. Sometimes that POV works. Most times it’s difficult to write it in a way where it sounds good. This was most certainly not the case here. And me not remembering her name should definitely tell you something. 

All the characters felt very one-dimensional and very forgetful. I could not tell you a single fact about them – barely even their names. And I read 45% of this – I should remember something without looking at my notes or rereading some pages.

There was sort of a love triangle going on. Mae, Miles, and this 25 year old guy (who are both part of the family) whose name I don’t remember. Mae is like super in love with Miles, even though she only sees him like once or something a year. And he’s rude to everyone Mae included – which is a trope I really dislike. And the other love interest is 25… while she’s 18 at the start of the book. No thank you to either of them. Send them both to the no-no zone on the island, faraway from this EIGHTEEN year old girl who barely knows anyone other than this super rich family. 

I knew this had mixed reviews going in so I wasn’t really surprised when I found that I was on the “not liking it side”. What I didn’t know was how much on that side I was. I only read until about 30% when I finally couldn’t take it anymore and called it quits. I also ranted to a friend about it – which is always fun to do. I understood absolutely nothing of this book. There was no character motivation for anyone, no one had any personality. I couldn’t see anyone improving at all which is also why I chose not to carry on. I can’t stand reading a book if there’s no character development of any type.

There’s also nothing in this book that made sense. Eleanor hasn’t seen or heard from/spoken to her family in eight years but she’s just gonna magically go back home because she had an incident at the school. Then she complains about how her family’s treating her – like yeah that’ll happen when you never see each other but also then she keeps trying to play by their rules, tries to placate them. Why do all of that when they make it perfectly clear that they don’t like you?

Absolutely NO ONE in the book is interesting or redeemable and I would rather jump off a cliff than be in the same room as ANY of them. Eleanor’s mom was the only remotely interesting character and all we know is that she’s in a bathtub. I don’t think we’re even told what type of supernatural creature she is – which is a shame because then I would be a bit more interested.

I found it very funny (in a bad way that made me not like her – Eleanor – even further) is that Eleanor’s grandmother dies, right? And in a really terrible written way too. And she tells her not to invite anyone who isn’t family to the house. So, of course… what Eleanor does next is that she invites basically the entire town to the funeral. At the house that the grandmother doesn’t want any non-family members to be there. Admittedly, I didn’t read far enough to get to the actual funeral, but I knew it from others’ reviews. 

I found it hilarious that Luma, her older sister (about 20 or so reviews have said), was her older sister because I first thought she was about 12/13 – because she acted like that age. I have no idea if she ever went to school with other kids and thus got that type of interaction. I’m not so bothered by characters acting younger or older than they really are but there’s a difference between that and me thinking that a 20 year old was 13.

I think the absolute WORST character is Arthur. He’s said to be middle-aged, bald, and I don’t even know if he’s actually conventionally attractive (not that that’s all important) but literally EVERYONE in the family – from the grandparents to the TEENAGERS – Eleanor whom is said to be 16?? – is utterly infatuated with him. There’s a huge spoiler about him that I won’t say here but uhh he is not what he appears – either at face value or chronologically and that’s all I’ll say. Every time I had to see him on the page I wanted to physically recoil because he was the absolute worst.

I mentioned Luma not acting like her age and Rhys also never acted like his age? He’s in college so I’m guessing about 20. I could not for the life of me imagine he’s that age. Everyone acted like he was this amazing person and super super cool guy and you have me in the corner there’s me in the corner side-eyeing this entire family because why on earth would you want to give a lot of responsibilities to THIS guy – it made entirely no sense whatsoever. 

The bit of the plot I experienced was… well, quite an experience! I don’t think even if I liked the characters I could stomach the plot, or vice versa. Honestly I’m amazed that I managed to get to 30% and kept wanting to read other books in January. And that, my friends, is why it’s totally okay to marks books you aren’t enjoying as “will/did not finish”.

I don’t know how long fathers are allowed to stay in the hospital after the babies are born. But they LITERALLY JUST HAD twins, let him stay in the room overnight? But if I think for too long about the little I read of Patrick, the more I got really angry at him. He uploads a picture to Facebook without checking WITH HER. And this is like just after she gave birth – you could’ve waited a few hours to post it? I think I must’ve only read about three scenes with him in it and I didn’t want to know anymore. 

This is another one where the writing tried to be flowery and more than what it turned out to be. So another bit of disappointment. I think that’s my issue with a lot of adult thriller novels – there’s something about the writing that just doesn’t do it for me. 

I managed to get to 18% before deciding to dnf and I was so bored throughout it all. From the apparent perfection of Cherry/Cerise and although her hometown views her as a bad girl for various reasons – she ran off with a man, left him, had a baby with another man, made sure her kids were fed and dressed (but that was with a job that left them clutching their pearls) but she’s still seen as the ‘darling’ of the town. Two men want to be with her, or maybe only one really did, but I saw absolutely no chemistry with Cerise (in fact it felt like she had no chemistry with anyone, including her kids) with either of them. The whole spiel of all the townspeople disliking her because of her choices but then also constantly showing up to help her annoyed me so much. Either have them dislike her outright or have them help her out.

The language trying to be flowery but it just fell flat for me and somehow added to trying to make Cerise out to be an amazing mom because she’s great with the kids even when they’re ‘difficult’. It’s just all of that just tried to make Cerise a strong character and I didn’t feel it at all.

So the older kid, Jonah, is disabled. It’s said he has a genetic disorder and although it’s not mentioned anywhere, he’s autistic and largely non-verbal too. The author said in the acknowledgements that she wrote Jonah based on/for her disabled kid – and then she names his diagnoses – so we basically know what Jonah’s diagnoses are. I don’t know when the book is set because the year is never mentioned. Phones, their cords and cradles are mentioned but seeing as the book is set in a small town it makes sense for them to still have corded phones – let’s say still into the 2000’s. Jonah wears headphones, but they’re actually not a new thing (dating back somewhere to the 1800s, surprisingly). All of that is to say – the r-slur is used a few times in the book – when is this book set? Their usage of it felt so casual). Either way, I don’t like the slur – whenever the book is set. 

I didn’t like how Cerise spoke about Jonah. Specifically there was this line where he wakes up and his eyes are like dulled by the reality of life. And then it says he’s ‘only fully himself when asleep’ which annoyed me a lot because he stims a lot. So what? He’s not himself when he stims? Stimming even helps the person feel more like themself. I stim (ADHD, not autistic) and stimming is something I like to do – it calms me down, it shows when I’m happy etc. Stimming isn’t only for happy or angry. sometimes we just like to make noise for fun! Also it felt like he was only there to prop Cerise up, to show how good of a mom she was because she’s taking care of him. 

 

I was excited to read this because it sounded so good and it’s set at a boarding school and I love boarding school settings but unfortunately that’s just how it goes! I don’t have any concrete reasons for not liking this, except I just… didn’t like it at all. I was bored through most of it – I told myself “okay let’s listen to 30 mins real time and then make a decision (to push through or just dnf). I think I didn’t even make it 10 minutes and I was zoning out and didn’t even want to make myself listen to the book. 

We were promised a lot in the book and I don’t think I saw any of that. I found everything so boring and I try to immediately stop reading when I find the book boring. Yes, I saw the book was dark and while I do like I couldn’t bring myself to actually care about it. Apparently there’s humour in the book – I did not crack a single smile through the bit that I read. I didn’t like the narrators so I think that added to my dislike of the book. 

 Apparently this is meant to be a fast-paced book – I definitely did not get that vibe. As with Goth Girl, I really tried to push myself to read and like this book, and I eventually decided this was not worth it. I really liked that it was diverse and I enjoyed seeing the Bronx rather than New York or another standard American setting – especially when they added a bit of history – that I did enjoy. That was sort of all that I enjoyed about the book. 

The book didn’t scare me – I love horror movies so when I read a horror book I want that same feeling. I unfortunately didn’t feel the same way, which might’ve been another reason for my dnf – that I couldn’t get into the book because the horror wasn’t enough for me. 

Even though I got to nearly 60% I still felt like I didn’t know anything about the characters, and yet I had been given a lot of information about them. I think the writing was fine enough, I just couldn’t find anything about… anything to really dig into the story and enjoy. Much like Goth Girl, this will find their audience and others will enjoy it. 

I really wanted to like this one. I pushed nearly to 50 percent – which is quite far as usually I know by 10 or 20% if it’s a book for me – but I kept trying to make it work for me. It had a cute cover, it looked like it was about something important and apparently it did find its audience – which is great! I’m glad that it was able to mean something for someone – just not for me. 

It read like a book I could easily find in back in 2010s. We’re nearing the end of 2022 (still cant believe that) and reading this really felt like I was a teen again reading cringey reads. By cringey I mean unnecessary stereotyping of various characters just because they’re a cheerleader? A pretty girl must be one that has no ‘real’ thoughts and so on – I was very unimpressed and that was a big reason for me not wanting to read anymore. 

I also didn’t like the style of writing – it contributed to my dislike of the book and also made it feel like a book stuck in the 2010s. It’s not that I didn’t like Jess, I I just didn’t think much of her because of how she saw everyone else. And okay, sure, I understand how that’s not her fault, her circumstances are much different and all that – but even that didn’t help my feelings towards her/the book. 

The writing feels very juvenile – not like it’s meant to be an adult book. I don’t like the main character and how she views and talks about everyone. And I think there was a fatphobic comment? Who knows what else there might be?

By the writing was juvenile, I meant there were lines like: So much cursing! So much yelling! And in shouty all-caps.