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nerdinthelibrary's Reviews (926)
My feelings on this book are very mixed. I've heard nothing but incredible things about it and was looking forward to finding another contemporary to love and was really disappointed as I started reading it and just didn't feel the same way everyone else did.
The positives first:
- The relationships between the siblings, in particular Charlie and his sister, were some of the most authentic I've ever read
- The relationship between Charlie and Patrick was easily my favourite of all the friendships
- The book approached therapy and psychologists/psychiatrists in a very positive way which I really liked seeing
- As heartbreaking as it was, I thought that the was handled with a lot of care and was very well done
- In my opinion, the second half (in particular from part 4 onwards) was a massive improvement over the first half
Now the negatives:
- I really didn't like the writing. In particular the constant use of 'and' and Charlie putting quotation marks around things that didn't need them
- I was never invested in Charlie and Sam's relationship and never once thought they could work well together
- The characters all felt really bland, which was probably due to the writing because they are interesting characters but the way they were written made them seem like the fictional people they are and I never felt any emotional connection to them
- The way that different stories were told I oftentimes found boring as it was just Charlie telling you information
I really wish I love this book a lot more than I do but I just didn't see what everyone else saw in this
The positives first:
- The relationships between the siblings, in particular Charlie and his sister, were some of the most authentic I've ever read
- The relationship between Charlie and Patrick was easily my favourite of all the friendships
- The book approached therapy and psychologists/psychiatrists in a very positive way which I really liked seeing
- As heartbreaking as it was, I thought that the
Spoiler
sexual assault- In my opinion, the second half (in particular from part 4 onwards) was a massive improvement over the first half
Now the negatives:
- I really didn't like the writing. In particular the constant use of 'and' and Charlie putting quotation marks around things that didn't need them
- I was never invested in Charlie and Sam's relationship and never once thought they could work well together
- The characters all felt really bland, which was probably due to the writing because they are interesting characters but the way they were written made them seem like the fictional people they are and I never felt any emotional connection to them
- The way that different stories were told I oftentimes found boring as it was just Charlie telling you information
I really wish I love this book a lot more than I do but I just didn't see what everyone else saw in this
Leigh Bardugo was made to write fairy tales. Each story in this collection was so beautiful and dark, and there was obvious influences from works such as Grimm's fairy tales. My personal favourites were The Witch of Duva, The Soldier Prince and When Water Sang Fire but I would still give each of these stories five stars. I can guarantee that Sara Kipin isn't going to get enough credit for her incredible illustrations but she should because they're absolutely stunning. I'm not kidding when I say I want to put the final illustrations of each story on my wall.
My only criticism is that I would have liked one or two Suli tales because personally I've always been most interested in those people while reading the Grisha books, but that really is just personal preference and doesn't take away from the book at all. It was an amazing inclusion to the Grishaverse and I would recommend it to everyone, whether you've read any of Leigh's books or not.
My only criticism is that I would have liked one or two Suli tales because personally I've always been most interested in those people while reading the Grisha books, but that really is just personal preference and doesn't take away from the book at all. It was an amazing inclusion to the Grishaverse and I would recommend it to everyone, whether you've read any of Leigh's books or not.
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I'm kind of conflicted when it comes to this book. On the one hand, I read it in a few hours and genuinely enjoyed the experience of reading it, but on the other hand after I read it I've started to like it less and less.
I liked the format and found it quite easy to understand (which might just come from the fact that I constantly read social media au's), but both girls' voices were pretty similar and I can definitely understand the confusion over who was who, especially in the e-mails.
While the plot was slow I didn't really mind because I love character-driven books. I'll admit that I found the 'climax' (I guess) kind of confusing and had to re-read it a few times to fully understand what was going on, and I found the conflict kind of over-dramatic but I let it slide because their eighteen year old girls and, coming from a sixteen year old girl, being over-dramatic isn't that uncommon.
My main issue came from the two lead characters, which I feel really bad about saying because it's obvious that Allison and Gaby were putting a lot of themselves into these characters.
Gen was my favourite out of the two. I know she's somewhat stereotypical with the way she spends half the book drinking, doing drugs and having sex with anyone she finds, but I really liked the stuff about her journalism and I thought her exploration of her sexuality was interesting and authentic (I especially liked that she had to search for a label and then settled on a more uncommon one).
Ava is where my main problems lie and (to be honest) is the reason this is a two-star review and not a three-star review. At first I really liked and connected with Ava because I have anxiety and a lot of the things she experienced I really connected with. I didn't even mind her being somewhat ignorant on topics of gender and sexuality because, hey, she's only human. But then she continued to be ignorant even after Gen would explain things to her and tell her that it's not okay to say certain things. The worst part was that whenever Gen would call her out she would just blame her mental illness on her ignorance without ever addressing the issue!
Okay, rant over.
Overall I thought it was an enjoyable book with a format I understood and a character I enjoyed, but had a very unlikeable second protagonist and the 'climax' was quite poorly executed.
I liked the format and found it quite easy to understand (which might just come from the fact that I constantly read social media au's), but both girls' voices were pretty similar and I can definitely understand the confusion over who was who, especially in the e-mails.
While the plot was slow I didn't really mind because I love character-driven books. I'll admit that I found the 'climax' (I guess) kind of confusing and had to re-read it a few times to fully understand what was going on, and I found the conflict kind of over-dramatic but I let it slide because their eighteen year old girls and, coming from a sixteen year old girl, being over-dramatic isn't that uncommon.
My main issue came from the two lead characters, which I feel really bad about saying because it's obvious that Allison and Gaby were putting a lot of themselves into these characters.
Gen was my favourite out of the two. I know she's somewhat stereotypical with the way she spends half the book drinking, doing drugs and having sex with anyone she finds, but I really liked the stuff about her journalism and I thought her exploration of her sexuality was interesting and authentic (I especially liked that she had to search for a label and then settled on a more uncommon one).
Ava is where my main problems lie and (to be honest) is the reason this is a two-star review and not a three-star review. At first I really liked and connected with Ava because I have anxiety and a lot of the things she experienced I really connected with. I didn't even mind her being somewhat ignorant on topics of gender and sexuality because, hey, she's only human. But then she continued to be ignorant even after Gen would explain things to her and tell her that it's not okay to say certain things. The worst part was that whenever Gen would call her out she would just blame her mental illness on her ignorance without ever addressing the issue!
Spoiler
Also, and I know this is minor, I really hated the way she talked about her second therapist. It seemed to me that the therapist was doing everything she had wanted in the one she was initially given and yet she was still pissed off!!!Okay, rant over.
Overall I thought it was an enjoyable book with a format I understood and a character I enjoyed, but had a very unlikeable second protagonist and the 'climax' was quite poorly executed.
