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onceuponanisabel's Reviews (1.48k)
adding this to my extremely short "rereadable romances" list because dayum this was good
This book was flabbergastingly frustrating. The romance was unexpectedly lackluster (there isn't even a whiff of romance for about 50% of the book and then our pair are hit with Cupid's instalove arrow which sucks 100% of the fun out of it) and most of the book consisted of Fixie being walked over by every single person in her life. Even the end where she finally stands up for herself didn't make up for my irritation at this book.
I went into this expecting to have a mediocre experience. Instead, I had a deeply unpleasant experience.
I strongly dislike this book for the following reasons:
1. A stunningly unrealistic portrayal of teenagers, adults, and how they interact.
2. The most uncomfortable romance I've ever read
3. Grace as a character
I'm gonna have to break that last one down, so here we go. Firstly, Grace is accused early in the book of being a manic pixie dream girl, and while I agree that she isn't, what she is is a YA stereotype I like to call "romanticizing mental illness," in which Grace's personality is extremely up and down and she exhibits countless signs of mental illness, but instead our protagonist chooses to ignore it because he likes how ~spontaneous~ and ~mysterious~ she is. The plot is primarily composed of unraveling the "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" that is Grace Town (and yes, that is a direct quote),
Secondly, mental illness is not an excuse to treat people like crap, and Grace does absolutely nothing but treat Henry like crap. It infuriated me that he just took it when she was obviously using him and mistreating him because ~it's true love~ and she's just so ~damaged~. She berates him repeatedly for being in love with some version of her that he can fix and it really bothered me that this book acted like there was nothing to fix. If your mental health issues are causing you to treat people badly, that needs to change.
If you want to read this book, don't. Go read [b:All the Bright Places|18460392|All the Bright Places|Jennifer Niven|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1404331702l/18460392._SY75_.jpg|26113532] instead. It has almost the same rough plot and a good share of its own issues (but none that this one doesn't have already), but a more interesting story and more compelling characters.
I strongly dislike this book for the following reasons:
1. A stunningly unrealistic portrayal of teenagers, adults, and how they interact.
2. The most uncomfortable romance I've ever read
3. Grace as a character
I'm gonna have to break that last one down, so here we go. Firstly, Grace is accused early in the book of being a manic pixie dream girl, and while I agree that she isn't, what she is is a YA stereotype I like to call "romanticizing mental illness," in which Grace's personality is extremely up and down and she exhibits countless signs of mental illness, but instead our protagonist chooses to ignore it because he likes how ~spontaneous~ and ~mysterious~ she is. The plot is primarily composed of unraveling the "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" that is Grace Town (and yes, that is a direct quote),
Spoiler
by which, of course, I mean Sutherland slowly feeding to us just how traumatized and grief-stricken Grace is so that she can pull a surprise suicide scare at the end of the book so there can be an exciting climax to the book.Secondly, mental illness is not an excuse to treat people like crap, and Grace does absolutely nothing but treat Henry like crap. It infuriated me that he just took it when she was obviously using him and mistreating him because ~it's true love~ and she's just so ~damaged~. She berates him repeatedly for being in love with some version of her that he can fix and it really bothered me that this book acted like there was nothing to fix. If your mental health issues are causing you to treat people badly, that needs to change.
If you want to read this book, don't. Go read [b:All the Bright Places|18460392|All the Bright Places|Jennifer Niven|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1404331702l/18460392._SY75_.jpg|26113532] instead. It has almost the same rough plot and a good share of its own issues (but none that this one doesn't have already), but a more interesting story and more compelling characters.
