I had no idea what to expect when I picked up this book. I had never read anything by this author before. It was a thrift store find and I bought it purely for the title and beautiful cover. Luckily, this was one of those occasions where the inside matched the outside. I really enjoyed this book.

I loved the quirky town and characters, and the little magical elements of this story. I liked the characters, and felt like the side characters were as interesting as the mains.

Much of the time I felt as though I was reading a book of tall tales...it almost gave me the same feeling as Big Fish (the movie; I haven't read the book.)


If I had to point out one negative it would be that I wanted more! I want to know more about this town and the characters and I wanted more of the two main plots. The book was only 265 pages and I would've been happy to read at least 100 more in this story.

I really enjoyed this book. Stayed up too late reading this...so here's a quick rundown on my thoughts:

Things I liked:
1. The characters. They were well-written and interesting. I liked the side characters as well as the mains.
2. Family dynamics. I liked the interactions between Andie and her father.
3. Friendships. I enjoyed all the friendships in this book. They felt pretty authentic to me, especially Tom and Clark.
I also felt the status of Bri and Toby's friendship felt very real.
4. The emphasis on books and writing. I really liked this, and I kind of want to read C.B. McCallister's books...
5. LOVED the little cameos of Frank, Collins, Dawn, and Emily from Since You've Been Gone. Nice to see how the Dawn/Emily friendship was resolved. Also the little mentions of different plot points from that book.


Things I didn't like:
1.In the beginning of the book, Andie has to go to great lengths to avoid paparazzi. It's mentioned a few times how this is not a new thing. But after that first day, it's never brought up again and she just carries on with her life as normal. Not that I wanted to to be the whole book, but a couple of other scenes sprinkled later in the book at least mentioning the logistics of avoiding paparazzi would've been appreciated by me, since such a big deal was made of it and security at the very beginning.
2. I never got used to Toby being a female character. I kept confusing her with Tom when the big group was all together.

misc:
1. This book was REALLY LONG for a YA contemporary. Over 500 pages. I'm not saying that was necessarily a bad thing. I read the book almost entirely in one day. But some people may feel overwhelmed by that.

Like I said before, I really enjoyed this book. There is something about Morgan Matson's writing that I really appreciate. Her romances feel realistic and organic. That is refreshing when you see so many other YA books where the romance is no deeper than: "He's so HOT!"
I also really like the way she writes friendships and family interactions. Was it relatively predictable? Yes. But honestly, sometimes that's okay.

I didn't like this book at all. I gave it two stars only because I didn't dislike it so much that it turned into 'hate-reading'. To be honest, this book was just too blah for that.

Things I liked:
I honestly can't think of an aspect of this story I thought was well-executed. I guess some of the banter between Oliver and Hadley was kind of cute, but honestly it felt a little forced to me.

Things I didn't like:
1. Hadley - she was an insipid, insufferable little brat. She was also incredibly impulsive, but not in a fun, quirky way. She was impulsive in a way which resulted into her being incredibly disrespectful to her father and his wife...just to go chasing a guy she met on an airplane the night before. Also, she's dumb. She has a cell phone but instead of using the GPS to find her way around (which existed in 2012...just saying) she flails around London like an idiot.
2. The POV/tense - this story is told in third-person, which I don't understand at all. I actually don't mind third-person, but literally the only POV we experienced was Hadley's, including inner thoughts and dialogue. So why was this not written in first-person? It kept throwing me as I was reading the book.
3. Insta-love - I'm sorry, but no. This is one of the insta-est cases of insta-love I've read. And really, I'm not sure what else I expected. The title of the book pretty much guarantees insta-love. And boy does it deliver. The two main characters meet on a six hour plane ride, during which time one or the other of them is sleeping for a good chunk of time, and at the end of it she is so besotted with him that she waits for him in the terminal, to the point that she is late for her father's wedding. This ties back into point number one about how immature a character Hadley is.
4. Character depth -The characters are so surface. I don't feel like I know much about Hadley aside from the fact that she is a cute, privileged teenager who is holding a petty grudge against her dad because her parents split up and that she likes classic lit. I know even less about Oliver. And their 'romance'? I didn't buy it.
5. Tropes - so many tropes. Insta-love, misunderstandings that could be cleared up if characters would just talk to each other instead of assuming shit...among others.
6. The ending - I have noticed this in each Jennifer E. Smith book I've read...she doesn't seem to know how to end her books. They are so awkward and abrupt. Plot points are dropped and the things that are actually interesting are never fully developed. This is the third (fourth?) book of hers that I've read and I've thought the same about each of them. When I got to the last page I wasn't prepared for that to be the end. I read this on my e-reader and so I didn't know I was that close to the end. That made it seem even more abrupt.
7. Cheesy - This book was definitely cheesy. Like...Full House, no-problem-is-so-big-that-it-takes-more-than-22-minutes-to-solve kind of cheesy. She spends the whole book sulking and pouting about her dad getting remarried and then it's pretty much solved and everyone is friends in the course of a few pages. And then the book ends.

I'm beginning to feel about Jennifer E. Smith the way I feel about Kasie West. I really enjoyed the first book I read by her. Since then, I've enjoyed the follow ups less and less. I have another one of her books on my shelf, and one on loan from the library. I really hope to find one I like, because I do think she has the ability to write good stories with compelling characters and relationships.

This book was very interesting. At first I didn't think I was going to like it at all. I have a difficult time connecting with books where almost all the characters are so unlikable. And really, this family was a mess. But there is something about this book that kept me invested through to the end.
I am late to the party where this book is concerned, so I'd heard vague things about it over the years, but nothing concrete. That being said, I found myself on the lookout for any twists or reveals that may occur, and I do think that may have affected my enjoyment of the book because I was trying to figure it out the whole time. Also, when the truth begin Cady's accident was finally revealed (not a spoiler, it's in the synopsis that she had some sort of accident) I felt a little underwhelmed by it because I was waiting for it.

Also, I just have to say that Cady's grandfather, mother, and aunts are about the most wretched people I've ever read about. The manipulations they force on their children in order to gain money and/or power is absolutely disgusting.

I really enjoyed the structure of this story. When I first began reading, I felt like the pacing was a little jerky and halting, but it makes sense when that it would be a little uneven because we are taking in this narrative from someone who is experiencing memory loss. I really liked the way the author was able to really put us in Cady's thoughts. I also loved the fact that Cady is a fleshed-or character. She is not perfect, by any stretch. She is, in fact, an admitted liar. It was nice to read about a character with real flaws that you still want to root for.

One of my absolute favorite things in this book was how the author used fairy tales to impart lessons and reveal character flaws of her side characters. I looked forward to each of those sections because it told us about the Grandfather and Aunties without being a boring expositional story about things that occurred in the past.

My one complaint is that sometimes the dialogue and word choice seemed in-authentic. I don't want to get too into specifics, because of possible spoilers, but there are several instances where the teenage characters will have a conversation and just say things that don't sound like something a teenager would say. I also had an irrationally annoyed reaction at all of the kids calling their mothers 'Mummy'. Now, maybe this is some East-Coast, rich-person thing I don't understand, but I've never heard an American teenager refer to his/her mother as 'Mummy'...at least, not in the recent past. And there were times that the dialogue seemed either too low-energy or too high-energy for the situation. Although, I suppose some of that can be explained away using Cady's memory issues as an excuse...

At the end of the day, I will definitely pick up more from this author. I feel like she has a lot of promise.

3.25 stars
I have a lot of thoughts about this book. On one hand, I was intrigued by the concept, and the overall action was compelling and kept me engaged. On the other, I wish I'd felt more connected to the characters and their struggles.


Concept: Set in the near future, there has been a class-based uprising. The poor masses have taken over control of the world through an underground movement. Where they previously felt oppressed, now they are the oppressors, essentially forcing people who were from upper-income lifestyles into slavery. I thought this was an interesting premise, although I don't know if the timeline really seems plausible. All of this happened within the course of just a few years. A complete world-wide dominant takeover. I'm also not totally happy that the 'villains' in this story are a bunch of poor people who felt like their lives were so bad that they had to lead a full-scale revolution and then become more monstrous than the people they originally fought against. I guess I just wish that the author had made a different choice regarding the backstory of the Wolfpack movement.

World-building: This is a mixed bag for me. While I thought the island was very compelling and the action was well-written, I didn't feel like I really understood enough about the society that the Wolves had created. Obviously we know they are 'bad' (although I wish they'd been a little more layered), butI wish we'd spent a little more time exploring the societal structure, so I could connect with it the characters a little more. I also felt like I didn't learn enough about the Deliverers as a group and how they came to be. That was really interesting to me, and I wanted more.


Characters: Again, I have mixed views on this aspect of the story. First of all, I felt like there were too many characters. Most of them serve little to no purpose except to move the plot forward in some way at some point...otherwise they may as well not even be there. I felt like I knew next to nothing about Phoenix, Finnley, Hope, Cass, and Alexa. We get a tiny bit of backstory about Cass and Alexa, but I wanted more. I was actually more interested in their dynamic and relationship than I ever was with Eden and Lonan. As far as they go, I liked Lonan as a character, but felt like the romance between he and Eden was rushed and a little forced. From the time they meet only a couple of days pass, and yet she's saying she's in love. Just didn't really buy it. As far as Eden goes, I liked that she is determined and pushes through her fears. She doesn't act rashly, for the most part. She weighs her options in the situations where she is able to, but can also make a decision and stand by it.
One last thing - I felt like the 'villains' in this story were very one-dimensional. We get introduced to a few of them by name, but they have no depth beyond that. We don't get any glimpse into why they have become these terrible people and I wish we did.

Plot: I think this is probably the best thing about the book, although it's not perfect. The story was relatively well-paced and full of action. The island reminded me of a cross between the Island from Lost and the island from Catching Fire...crazy things trying to kill you around every corner. I was able to follow the story pretty well, although there were a few parts that were confusing for me. One character who was portrayed as being on one side was all of the sudden inexplicably not on that side. And unless I missed something, it was never explained or even addressed. I actually went back into the book to try to find a line or scene I may have skimmed over to explain it, to no avail. Also, while the action in this book is its strongest aspect, I wouldn't have minded a slightly abridged version of events if it meant we got a little more of a character-driven narrative.

Reveals:

***mild spoilers may be ahead. Nothing specific in terms of characters or plot, just with regards to writing choices***


There were several twists and turns along the way in this book. For the most part, I had figured out what was going to happen way before it was actually revealed to our characters. Near the end of the book, it became more and more twisty, but I don't know that it actually helped the book. For me, I got to the point that I didn't believe anyone, so nothing that was being relayed to the characters had any weight because I wasn't sure who was being truthful.


Other thoughts:

1. I could definitely see this being a movie. I would definitely watch it, just to see the island and all its traps.

2. I think this is a standalone novel (it's not listed as #1 is a series, in any case.) and I wish there were more standalone sci-fi books. That being said, I do wonder if this would've perhaps benefitted from being a duology. It could've still ended at the same spot, but maybe we could've gotten more character depth and the relationship wouldn't have seemed so rushed.

3. I would read a whole book about Alexa and Cass. They were far more compelling to me, what with their backstory.


All in all, I thought this was an interesting book that had promise. I'm not sure that the execution was anything spectacular, but considering this is a debut novel, I'm very interested to see what this author writes next.

This book kept me interested, but I had a hard time shipping the romance. Ambrose never took anything seriously, so when he did it felt strange. I liked his personality and banter with Louna for the most part, but would've liked more development in their relationship and his character in particular.

Also, there is an insta-love element to this book that didn't need to be there. Why couldn't Ethan have been a boy she'd been with or at least known for awhile? Them declaring their love for each other after meeting 12 hours earlier is a little much.

I think the aspect of this book that appealed most to me was the wedding planning business. One of my favorite scenes was when Ambrose is trying to plan his friend's wedding and everything is going wrong. They way it's written, you can FEEL the craziness and his anxiety rising.

This isn't my favorite of Sarah Dessen's books, but I did enjoy my reading experience.

I absolutely adored this book. I don't know exactly what I expected when I picked up this book, but what I ended up getting was a fun and well-paced space adventure with wonderfully complex characters and many unique cultures. It reminded me a little of Firefly, with the old ship and cast of unique characters. It also reminded me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the quirkiness of the writings.

Things I liked:
1. The Characters: At its core, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is a character-driven story. We learn about all of the members of the Wayfarer, and their unique cultural differences. Despite these differences, they are able to work and live together as more than just crew mates. They really are a family. I appreciated the creativity of the author in constructing these cultures. We learn all about the social and political ins and outs of all these people, and it's just wonderful. The best thing is that it doesn't feel info-dumpy at all, which can be attributed to the fun and engaging writing.

2.The Diversity: It would probably not surprise anyone to know that a book featuring several alien species has a lot of diversity. But this book also deals with gender concepts and sexuality in a way that is very interesting.

3. Lovey: I like the question of what constitutes life. Lovey is an AI character and there are several discussions of what, if any, rights should be afforded to her and other AIs. Aside from that, she is just a very sweet character. Probably my second favorite AI after Iko from the Lunar Chronicles.

I could probably write all day about all of the wonderful aspects of this book.