So. Wow. This book has some serious hype behind it. I mean, it has a 4.24 rating with over 240K ratings. And really, the synopsis sounds like something I would really enjoy:

"When Magic has gone from the world, and a vicious king rules from his throne of glass, an assassin comes to the castle. She does not come to kill, but to win her freedom. If she can defeat twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition to find the greatest assassin in the land, she will become the King's Champion and be released from prison."

Sounds pretty intriguing, right? Unfortunately, I don't think this book lives up to the hype. Not at all. From inauthentic characters to sketchy world-building to a dull plot, this book wasted a lot of potential.

Characters:
Celaena is the aforementioned assassin. Now, in my mind, I was expecting a bad-ass female character with an edge and an air of danger around her. Someone who is stealthy, quick-thinking, and maybe a little emotionally shutdown. But that is not Celaena. Honestly, aside from being told over and over again that she was this infamous assassin, I didn't see any textual evidence SHOWING it. She is portrayed as this kind, compassionate, witty, flirty, fashionable girl. It was all very surface-level stuff. She didn't have any internal conflict or moral ambiguity that I would expect from someone who had experienced the horrors we are told she experienced. It doesn't feel authentic at all.

Chaol is the Captain of the Guard, assigned to be Celaena's bodyguard. He was fine, but I don't really feel like I got to know anything about him, aside from the fact that he is hung up on Celaena and he's been friends with Dorian since childhood.

Dorian is the Crown Prince. He doesn't like the tyrannical rule of his father, but doesn't actually do anything about it because...reasons? He is portrayed as a ladies man, but he falls for Celaena after a couple of flirty exchanges. Again, like Chaol, I didn't feel like I got to know anything about him, his motivations, or his inner struggles.


World-Building:
I didn't feel like I got to know the world at all. It was confusing. It's obviously a fantasy, complete with magical elements/creatures (although we're only TOLD about magical creatures) but then Celaena finds 'The Walking Dead' graphic novels in the library and I felt completely confused. I've heard that starting in the third book the world-building really gets much better...I don't know if I can wait that long.

Plot:
Sigh. So...the plot of this book was supposed to revolve around Celaena competing against other shady characters in order to win a job as the King's assassin. The only problem? The competition is not a focus of this book at all. There are 24 (I believe) competitors fighting for this job, and each week they have a different Test, with one person eliminated each week. Only two of these tests are actually depicted. Two. Others are mentioned, but just in passing. What ends up becoming the actual focus of the novel is the love triangle (because of course there is a love triangle).
The love triangle was actually not terrible. Her interactions with both of them were entertaining. You could see her with either of them, and the two men don't hold any animosity toward the other. Unfortunately, the love subplot end up becoming too big a part of the book, to the detriment of the story. It felt very 90s-romantic-comedy. I mean, people are being brutally murdered in the castle but all Dorian and Chaol can think about is Celaena.

One more thing. There are so many filler scenes in this book that do nothing to drive forward the plot or develop characters. The big one for me is an entire chapter devoted to Celaena having her period and vomiting in front of Chaol because it hurts so bad...ummm...what the hell? It was totally unnecessary. I guess it was supposed to show her vulnerability or something, but it didn't work for me at all.

All in all, this book just didn't feel authentic to me. The characters (especially Celaena) didn't act in a way that was authentic to what we're told about them and there was no depth to their personalities whatsoever. I'm sorry, but just because Celaena likes to read and is a musical genius doesn't mean she's a profound character.

As I'm looking through this review I'm kind of wondering if I shouldn't bump my review down, but at the same time, I didn't hate EVERYTHING about this book and I feel like it has just enough potential for me to consider checking out the sequel...

EDIT: I originally rated this story at 3 (2.75) stars. The longer I thought about it, however, the less I liked it and the more I found that I really disliked. I still feel like the idea behind this book had potential, but the execution was just abysmal. I will not be continuing with this series, nor do I have any inclination to pick up her ACOTAR series.

This book was difficult for me to rate. There were some things I really enjoyed quite a bit, and other times I struggled to push through.

Characters: The main characters in this book (Safiya, Iseult, Merik, and Aeduan) are all great characters. They are all complex and flawed and wonderful. I especially enjoy the friendship between Safiya and Iseult. Unfortunately, I felt like many of the smaller characters weren't given enough to do. There is a character who dies near the end and I felt no real emotion about it because I didn't really feel like I knew that character at all. The stakes were not as high as they should have been in that situation. I understand that there were a LOT of characters and story points to get through, but I wanted to see Kullen and Rybar actually interact.

World-building: sketchy. We are bombarded with a bunch of place names and haphazard explanations of the different types of witches with little expositional bits. It felt like this book was trying to be a sprawling Game of Thrones-esque epic political fantasy, but it just wasn't.

Tying into the world-building, I found the first part of this book incredibly boring. The first 100 pages in particular, I had a really hard time not putting this book down and going on to something else. There is just too much being laid out without any real explanation that it makes it very difficult to connect to the story. It's funny because the book is actually very fast-paced and very action oriented even from the very beginning, but I just had a really hard time getting into it because I didn't really understand what was going on. There are still some things that I really don't understand even at the end of this book. I feel like certain things were being kept from the readers just to create a twisty reveals later or being held out for the second book and I wish that I understood what was going on a little bit more. Maybe a re-read will be in order at some point.

Like I said before this book is very fast-paced. They are pretty much on the run from beginning to end. I like that kind of a story but I kind of wish that there had been more character moments where we could've seen some banter between characters or a little bit more character development.

I really like how Susan Dennard writes and I love that she made a female friendship the focus of this book. I feel like this book was a good start and that this series has a lot of potential so I will definitely be picking up the next book in the series.

I love Pride and Prejudice. It has been one of my all-time favorite books since high school. I had re-read it several times. I've seen and loved various film/tv adaptations that have come out, including and perhaps especially the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube. Seriously...if you haven't checked it out yet, what are you waiting for?

I am a sucker for a good P&P re-telling. To be honest, I'm a sucker for even a mediocre P&P re-telling. I find the story and the characters so compelling and timeless. Elizabeth Bennet is one of the best female characters I've ever read.

I say all of this because I feel like it is important to understand that when I gave this book 1 star out of 5, it's because I truly, truly hated it.

First of all, I didn't like the way this book was written. The chapters were very short. It seemed like the author was trying to infuse a quirky tone to the book by structuring it that way, but really all it did was create a choppy narrative and poor pacing.
It was also extremely info-dumpy, especially in the first 75 pages or so. Not much actually happens with the characters in those pages. We are given basically a complete history on the Bennets and especially Jane and Liz. There are complete chapters of totally unnecessary backstory and details that just don't affect the narrative or add anything to the development of the characters.
I also disliked that they aged the daughters so drastically. Jane is 40, Liz 38, Mary 30, Kitty 26(?), and Lydia 23. It just didn't work for me. The plot points and actions that would've made sense if the girls were much younger (like Jane not paying her own rent and all three of the younger girls still living at home while it's falling apart around them and not being willing to lift a finger to help) didn't make sense at all to me. They acted like teenagers and twenty-somethings, so why not KEEP them teenagers and twenty-somethings?


In the end, it all really comes down to the characters and their interactions with one another. P&P puts a great focus on character development. The result is a story with rich and interesting (not perfect. They definitely have flaws.) characters that are very relatable, even 200 years later. The only things that the characters in Eligible have in common with the characters in P&P are their names. I get that there are things that need to be modernized for a re-telling, but the essence of the characters should remain intact.

Jane is an almost 40 year old yoga instructor living on her own in New York City. Despite the fact that her parents pay her rent (which has to be astronomical, considering she is in NYC), she decides that she wants to have a baby. Because she is not in a relationship, she decides the best course of action is to get artificially inseminated. She has to pay for this herself (You know, like how most 40 year olds who live on their own have to pay for their own shit. ), and laments the fact that she has to give up going out to restaurants, getting her hair cut, and going to her favorite boutique 'with its elegantly tailored $400 pencil skirts and luxurious $300 sweaters'. So, she can't afford to pay her own rent, but she doesn't see any problem with shelling out hundreds of dollars on one item of clothing? Not to mention the fact that she can't pay her own rent but thinks bringing a kid into the world is a great plan...only 20 pages in, and I'm not a big fan of this version of Jane Bennet. She would never be so selfish and materialistic, in my opinion.

Chip Bingley (Yup. Chip.) is a part-time doctor, part-time reality star. He was in a show similar to the Bachelor called...wait for it...Eligible. There's not much I can say about his character, as we don't see a whole lot of him throughout the book and what we do see is pretty bland, to be honest. My biggest problem with his characterization is that I don't see Bingley as someone who would EVER, under any circumstances, be on a reality show. Bingley and Jane are both quiet, introverted people. They wouldn't want their business being displayed like that to everyone. The last hundred or so pages deal with Jane and Chip getting married on camera in this big production, and I just think that is ridiculous.

Liz Bennet. I don't even know where to begin. First of all, I hate that she goes by 'Liz'. I'm not even sure why. I don't have anything against the name, but I just don't like it. Anyway, here goes. I despise the characterization of Elizabeth Bennet in this book. She is by no means perfect in P&P. She is very quick to judge and very stubborn, especially where Mr. Darcy is concerned. But at the end of the day, Elizabeth Bennet as written by Jane Austen is a strong, smart, witty, and independent person. Liz Bennet, on the other hand, is just plain unlikable. She is also a pathetic doormat. One of the first things we learn about her is that she has been in an ongoing relationship with a married man; a married man who she has been pining after for over 15 years. (His name is Jasper Wick...yes, he's the updated version of Wickham.) She met him when he has a girlfriend and when they broke up he jumped into a new relationship with someone new. When she finally asked him, "What about us?" He said, "But we'd be the real thing, and I don't know if I'm ready for that. You're such an important friend and I don't want to lose you." So instead of being the strong, independent woman Elizabeth Bennet should be, she lets herself be strung along for another decade until he gets married...at which point she sobs, runs away, and stops speaking to him...
When they meet again five years later, he tells her that his relationship with his wife is all for show at this point because she has a rich grandmother who they're waiting on to die so she can collect her inheritance. And she's totally okay with this. Early in the book she actually thinks 'Depending on how long Susan's grandmother took to die, it could be several more years before Jasper and Susan officially divorced and, Liz imagined, she and Jasper moved in together. What kind of person thinks that way and doesn't see the wrongness of it? It's disgusting, and it's absolutely NOT Elizabeth Bennet.

Darcy wasn't really in the book much, and by the time he was I honestly was just trying to get through the book so I could move on with my life. Their interaction later in the book when she goes to San Francisco were okay, but I really didn't like their 'hate sex' stuff earlier in the book. But I absolutely hated that he told the Mrs. Bennet that being transgender was a 'birth defect'. I get that he doesn't actually feel that was and was just trying to get Mrs. Bennet to get over her bigotry toward Ham, but I hated it.

And now we come to the worst of the worst. Mrs. Bennet. Now, the Mrs. Bennet in the original P&P was a lot of things. She was annoying, overbearing, and single-minded to the point of improper when it came to her quest to marry off her daughters. She was concerned with money because she knew that five ladies living in that time had absolutely no prospect of providing for themselves and would need good marriages to ensure their well-being, especially considering the fact that they would not be able to keep their house if/when her husband passed. At the end of the day, she loved her children and wanted what was best for them.

Mrs. Bennet in Eligible is a racist, bigoted, gold-digging, status-obssessed piece of garbage. Here are a few examples:

"While not an overt anti-Semite, Mrs. Bennet was prone to making declarations about almost all religious and ethnic minorities that were often uncomfortable to their listeners."

(While talking about Lydia's boyfriend) "Oh, dear. Does ROTC mean his family couldn't afford tuition?"

(when looking for a realtor) "Liz wasn't sure she should contact him. The reason she wasn't certain was that Shane was black and her mother was racist."

"As with her anti-Semitism, Mr.s Bennet's racism was of the conversational, innuendo-laden variety. She would never be so ignorant as to announce that black people were less intelligent or moral than their white counterparts, but without compunction she'd tell Liz not to shop at the Kroger in Walnut Hills because it was 'dirty,' and once at Christmas when Liz had suggested giving Mervetta a cashmere sweater, Mrs. Bennet had said, "For heaven's sake, Lizzy, Mervetta wouldn't appreciate cashmere.""

(Regarding a female couple who Jane is friends with) "I did always think she had very manly posture."

(on Kitty's relationship with a black man) "Liz, I don't know if Kitty and Shane are serious, but life can be very hard for mulatto children."

And then there is the whole section on how she deals with finding out that Lydia is dating a transgender man. I would be quoting entire chapters if I started getting into that. Now, I understand that there are ignorant racists everywhere. I get it. In theory, writing a racist character isn't a problem, because they actually do exist in this world, and in the book it's not like it's looked at as an okay thing. But I have two problems with it in this book. The first is that while the other characters know that it is an awful way to think and behave, none of them call out Mrs. Bennet on the things she says. The closest that anyone ever comes to standing up to her is after she talks about Kitty and Shane having 'mulatto' children, Liz says, "I wouldn't say that to either of them." And that's it. Not to mention the fact that there are other times in the book where Mr. Bennet and even Liz herself spew out preconceived stereotypes that are absolutely ridiculous. Liz says that Mary can't be gay because she's 'not interesting enough'. My second issue with this characterization is that it just doesn't fit in with the essence of who that character is. She should be exasperating, but good-hearted underneath all her convoluted schemes to marry off her daughters. I hated this iteration of Mrs. Bennet.

Also, the way everyone freaks out when Ham and Lydia run off is ridiculous. They race after her trying to get her back and even think about calling the police. Ummm...she's 23! A grown-ass woman. What the heck? Yet another reason I don't understand why they aged the characters if they were just going to act like they are teenagers...

At the end of the day, if you are a fan of P&P and want to experience a great modern take on it, I highly recommend the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube. Pass on this one and call it good.

Who might like this: Someone who hasn't read the source material...even then, just go read the original book instead.

I feel like this book was well done. I liked that this is an 'own voices' book, and I feel like I learned about a culture that I didn't know much about before.

All that said, I can't say that I necessarily 'enjoyed' this book. The story itself is very heavy. Nazia is hard to root for at times. She continually makes excuses for the awful things the people around her do, especially her father. I know that this can be directly attributed to the way she was raised and her cultural surroundings, but it's hard to read. As someone who has never experienced that kind of cultural oppression, I had a hard time relating to her.

All in all, this was an eye-opening story for me and I'm glad that I read it, but it was a hard book for me to say I love.

2.75 stars. The story had potential, but not much actually happened in the course of the story and the character of Andrew was not very well fleshed out. The ending also felt very rushed. It was all just a little bland for me.

Observable fact: I really wish Goodreads allowed half-star ratings. This book is a solid 3.25 to 3.5 stars for me, but I just couldn't give it a four.

Maybe my lower-than-average rating is due to the fact that my expectations were so high. Normally I would say that is my own problem, but the reason my expectations were so incredibly high was the crazy hype this book was getting here and on YouTube. From the overwhelmingly glowing reviews, one would expect this to be a groundbreaking piece of literary fiction. I did not find that to be my experience.

Now, that is not to say that I didn't enjoy several sections of this book. I did. I found myself smiling at many scenes because there was a cute and whimsical factor that cannot be denied, both in the story and also Nicola Yoon's writing. Unfortunately, there were a few things I just couldn't get past that brought my rating down.

Things I liked:
-The cover. SO AMAZING.
-The diversity. This book is an 'own voices' book about a Jamaican girl and a Korean boy. The narrative explored several cultural and racial themes and was actually quite informative, culturally speaking.
-The external plot was interesting and unique for me. I haven't read many books that focus on undocumented immigrants. If the book had focused more on Natasha and her fight to stay in the United States, I think I would've enjoyed this book more.
-Similarly, if the story had focused on Daniel and his family's dynamic and his struggle to be his own person in the face of his parents believing they know what's best for him, that could've been compelling, if not exactly unique.
-I loved that we got little snippets of background story on different characters and the way they all made a difference in the story in some way, whether it seemed important or not at the time.
-I loved -- LOVED -- Nicola Yoon's writing. I haven't read Everything, Everything yet, so this was my first exposure to her. I thought she had such a quirky and fun structure in the story. I didn't mind the short chapters for the most part, and even the fact that she jumps from first person to third person makes sense in the structure of the story. I like that there is more to this book that just the story of Natasha and Daniel. We learn about science, culture, and history in a way that doesn't feel like it takes you out of the story. It actually felt very cinematic to me. I could picture everything in my head as it was happening.
-I liked the banter between Daniel and Natasha. They were both very interesting characters and I liked that they were so different, yet so respectful of the other's beliefs. If this had just remained a friendship instead of going the romance route, this probably would've been a four-star book for me.

Things I didn't like:
-Can you say 'insta-love'? Because seriously, the 'romance' in this book had me cringing. Parts of it were cute, but they went way over the top and I found myself rolling my eyes a lot. This book takes place over the course of one day. They literally met at like 10 o'clock that morning and by 2:00 PM he's telling her he loves her. And by that evening she is telling him she loves him, when all through the book she's repeatedly said that she doesn't believe in love. And I get it. The book is supposed to be about fate and destiny and whatnot. But I just really didn't feel the romantic connection between them at all. Like I stated earlier, if they'd just been friends I would've preferred that I think. Or if they'd known each other before that day, maybe I could believe that a romance would spark up between them that quickly.
-The epilogue. I would've actually preferred if the book had ended before the prologue. The last couple of chapters before the prologue were bittersweet, hopeful, and real. I understand that it doesn't follow the whole theme of destiny and true love, but I thought it would've been more impactful if they hadn't met up again.
-Charlie. This was one area where I really didn't like Nicola Yoon's writing. Most of his dialogue was Written. Like. This. With. Each. Word. Followed. By. A. Period. It got really annoying really quickly. It felt like she was trying to force the reader to hear him in a certain way but couldn't think of a good way to communicate it. If she's simply said something like, 'He spoke with a staccato edge to his voice, with each word equally emphasized.' I think I would've gotten the idea. I don't need to be hit over the head.
-Insta-love. I know I already mentioned this...but it bears repeating. It's the most intense case of Insta-love that I've ever read. It just isn't authentic at all. And it's kind of sad because I feel like this book could've been really special if it's focused more on the characters discovering themselves rather than falling in love in the course of a couple hours.

I feel like if I'd read this ten or fifteen years ago I would've loved it. Unfortunately, I found myself slightly disappointed when I got to the end of this book. I will still check out her other book (and future books) because I think her writing is very good.

4.5 stars. This book. Wow. First of all, I feel like it's necessary to issue a trigger warning for this book. Anyone who is sensitive to stories containing emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse may want to tread carefully with this book.

I found this book to be an incredibly realistic portrayal of an abusive relationship and how the cycle of abuse can be damaging for more than just the two people directly involved. I don't want to say too much regarding particulars in this story, because of spoilers, but I really appreciated this book. I've never read something that deals with abusive relationships in this way before.

I feel like this is Colleen Hoover's best book to date. The writing is top-notch and the fact that it was born from her own personal experiences makes it even more powerful, in my opinion.