dbguide2's Reviews (863)

Ooh my gosh. This book!! So I have Rheumatoid Arthritis (diagnosed in June 2018). Pretty early in it so I’m still figuring out when I should give my body a break and all (absolutely not good at this) but I’m pretty sure that this is my first time reading a book with a character who has RA? And I read what she was thinking about her body and joints and everything and it’s exactly what I feel?

Like when it said: “They think it’s completely ridiculous that a person can just…have a sick life and be fine with it. So they have to build this story around you kicking the illness’s ass. You can’t coexist with it. You can’t incorporate it into yourself. Because they don’t. So you can’t.” – LIKE I FELT THAT DOWN IN MY SOUL. And I know I’m early in my diagnosis, but I feel it and I know exactly what they’re talking about. Like why can’t we just live with the diagnosis? Why do we have to wish it away? Why should we want to be ‘perfectly’ healthy and ‘normal’ – Newsflash! Why is being healthy considered to be the normal?

Their relationship with each other was SO CUTE even before they got together! I loved how real they were with each other and they understood each other. And they were great as individual characters – I liked how they were written and how they came across on the page. AND WHEN they STARTED to give each other PET NAMES I’M SOFT.

And like also there’s this part where Isabel talks about her uncle sending her an article about how carbs are linked to arthritis – which is EXACTLY how my uncle is and like yes I am on keto – my aunt won’t cook for different people, so I’ve just adapted. But the pain isn’t any less because I’ve dropped the carbs. There’s so many articles cross-sectioning or whatever the word actually is. And why do people think they know more about something else than you? Even if you don’t know a lot about your illness, it doesn’t mean other people should come along and wave articles at you and yell: “Hear ye, hear ye, eating 2 of this per week will KILL you within a year!”

Also, NO ONE talks about how it makes you tired and I am here to say… that it does. Some days – especially on the bad days I just have enough energy to go down for a coffee and that’s it. And I was so happy to see Isabel say it. And I want more of this!! in books! More characters with illnesses who talk about it.

I really liked Sasha’s sister – she was fun reading about whenever she showed up in the plot. I liked their friends for the most part. They did say things and do things I side-eyed for a while but in a way I understood it because I know how they think. And what they think. And it is like that – not everyone totally understands when they know about your illness.

Content Warnings: Violence, racial discrimination, murder.

I keep mistaking this title with its sequel – Eclipse the Skies – so I often refer to this book as Ignite the Skies and the sequel as Eclipse the Stars. I don’t remember whose blog post I read who spoke about this series and made me decide to pick it up – I really should’ve.

I really enjoyed this book (and its sequel). I was also moving between if I wanted this series to be like 9 books long and just revolve around the characters just like chilling in space, watching movies. Or if these two books were excellent just as two books. I’ll probably keep that argument in my head for a long time.

REASON NUMBER ONE:

Ia Cōcha was just a fun character to read and I loved her so much. Like yes!! Stare down a general and tell him how to pronounce your name, girl!!! Be badass and excellent!! I just loved everything she did and rooted for her alllll the way, no matter what she was planning to do because she is excellent and if you say anything else, well, then, you’re wrong, sorry.

Ia is the best and I’d gladly let me kill her (if she wanted to, of course). Like I wanted to punch those who wanted to punch her. And give her all the awards?? Like sure, she’s a criminal. But she’s a cool criminal (get that reference?).

REASON NUMBER TWO

KNIVES KNIVES KNIVES. I just loved him so much? Can we just??? appreciate him, please? Yes, he’s a little soft and he just likes to fly and people want him to be more than what he wants and I just wanted to cry?? because just like let him fly?? and watch his movies!! Sorry, if you can’t tell I really loved Knives.

He was just such a interesting character – definitely one of my favourites and will go in my favourite box and also into the ‘will adopt this character’ section. Which by now is turning into such a large project I think I’ll need to rent a town to hold all the characters.

REASON NUMBER THREE

BRINN TARVER YOU BEAUTY. She’s just so strong???? And I clapped when she started to be proud of herself and started a friendship with Ia. She’s such a strong character and I lived for all her moments because she’s been through a lot and will still go through a lot. She continues to be strong and realise her confidence in herself and her race.

REASON NUMBER FOUR

The Academy that they’re all in – was really interesting to read about. I’m always up for reading school set books (even though I’m not the biggest fan of school? Maybe I like reading about characters who are smarter than me?) I liked all the classes and just being in the whole Academy environment was exciting to read. Definitely a favourite book of mine – where books are set in a school environment!

REASON NUMBER FIVE

There’s politics involved in the book, ranging from immigration, to slavery, to if the government is a good government (which is just an all-around theme, I guess). I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not the biggest politics person, but I did really like what was said in the novel and how it was portrayed. It’s also interesting how the novel focused on people and how some of them are seen as lesser than others because of their race – which is still a problem today, unfortunately.

OTHER (SUB) REASONS I LIKED THE BOOK

I liked the slang they used in the book. I know some people didn’t like it but I’ve always enjoyed slang in sci-fi books.

I UHHH also REALLY LOVED how the Monitor (classic character) played heavy metal because that’s seen as classical music in the universe and I thought that was hilarious. Heavy Metal and Rock were two of the first genres i listened to (thanks, big sis).

The first 50% of the book had me thinking it was very close to A Cinderella Story – probably because I was watching it before reading this book. But while it reminded me of A Cinderella Story at the beginning – their texting to each other, how close Jack and Pepper were to each in other in correlation withe their online anonymous texts; the similarity ends at the texts. Because this is way different than A Cinderella Story. It’s being compared to You’ve Got Mail, which is a movie I still haven’t watched.

I thought that Pepper was very me – when she has this sarcastic view on things, and then I thought I was Jack when he admits that he sometimes he doesn’t think before he says things. So basically I realised I was all the characters, which sounds like a very YA thing to say

I remember going to the library (to take out a whole stack of books I’d return in a few days to get more stacks – listen, I was a very busy child. But like only with reading. Definitely not Maths. I liked stopping at the magazine shelves and quickly read the Nat Geo Kids – I liked all the short and sweet articles and bright pictures.

Which I think is great because kids are definitely entranced by bright pictures and most kids, if they’re not used to reading a lot, they like short articles. And animals – fun facts about them and even funnier stories. It also gives out information in an easy way that any kids could understand.

Of course I chose this because of my kitty cat (he’s just too fantastic and I love him even if he uses me for food) but I’d definitely be interested in other National Geographics about other animals – dogs or whales (just not spiders. Please no).

I’ve seen a bunch of Debbie Tung’s comics before – her other work is hilarious and usually, if you’re a bookworm and you’re on Facebook, you’ll be tagged on a whole bunch of book-related posts – so I definitely have seen some of Book Love before out in the wild (the wild meaning Facebook, of course).

So I was very happy to receive the arc through Netgalley! And sometimes, yes, it does have its reservations – a lot of these comics about funny bookworm problems do use book reader stereotypes. Even though those stereotypes are fun to read about – for the first few times, because I’ve had so many older people assume that because I like to read, I prefer physical books. But I don’t. I like e-books so I can enlarge the font, or audiobooks so I can clean my room and listen to a book. Or a lot of people assume that because I read a lot, I love the classics. Which, yeah, I actually don’t. And people do ask for book recommendations but they’re not interested in YA or diverse books

If you’ve spent some time around the humour side of the Internet (which I recommend you do sparingly as Internet users have weird ideas of the word and meaning of ‘funny’) – you’ve most likely seen some of Sarah’s Scribbles. They’re short. They’re funny. They’re so darn relatable.

This was no different from her other work I have seen. She blends humour with everything that I’m feeling – yes, coffee might make me more anxious, but it might also make me productive. Yes, I am known for calling my cat everything under the sun (he’s my sunshine, my lamb, my chicken, etc etc), but does he know what his actual name is and can he tell other cats what his name is?

But at the same time it speaks about humour and cats and life – it also speaks a little about how we treat ourselves – burnout, seeing our accomplishments as failure and all. And that it’s okay to take a break once in a while or to be happy and proud of ourselves even when we create something that’s not a total 100% from the start.

Let’s focus on the narrators first. This book is narrated by two people – cousins. One’s Mark, and the other Talia (whose name I forgot for a few seconds. I only remembered Mark’s because his is on a Note on my Kindle as my Notes are currently pulled up). And I felt both narrators were pretty boring. I liked Talia a tiny bit more, but that was it.

I mean, Mark, to me, felt so self-centered and boring and privileged and just, sorry, but boring again. Like instead of helping around the house he decides to have fun. He should’ve paid more attention to Paige, seriously. He tries to act funny but it just fails. Talia, while the (slight) better of the two narrator, tries to act like she’s awkward and cool at the same time and it only makes her look more awkward and not in that cool type of way. While she is very proud of her identity, and she can most certainly be, it just felt like she was pushing all her ideas and opinions onto other people and trying to make them think like her. And people don’t feel the same way and that’s okay!

I love this cover so much. The font’s super cool, the rainbow road and the car, all so great. But… that’s about it. The third star is solely for the cover. Paige is mostly the reason why I didn’t star it lower – she was at least funny, adorable, and she reads Magnus Chase so ☝