shane_the_reading_rat's Reviews (1.21k)

this was awesome, i loved it and probably would’ve loved it even more back when i was in middle school (Violet’s friend situation is extremely relatable)
my only complaint is that: i wanted to know more about Will!! he was so nice and such a good character but it felt like his only personality trait was ghosts

this book was interesting for sure, but i found the synopsis a bit misleading in the contents.
“As the last child in Ireland to receive a full Druidic education, Diana Beresford-Kroeger has brought an unusual and ancient holistic attitude to the science of trees, which has led her to many fresh insights into how closely we are tied to one another and to the natural world.”
i’d really expected more of this book to be about that Druidic education and her childhood (which is extremely unique and what i was really interested in) but sadly thats a very small portion of the book. along with this, i wouldn’t personally say that this book has many “fresh insights”. many of the essays in it are just explanations of the science of plants.
i think this could have been an incredible book, but unfortunately it’s a bit all-over-the-place with a misleading synopsis :/

i’m glad so many people love this book and found it impactful, but it’s just very much not for me. mystery is very much my least favorite genre, but i’d hoped from the synopsis that i’d like this one since it’s queer. but i’m having an extremely difficult time feeling that much sympathy for ike and buddy lee and their big revenge arc, and just looking at reviews i don’t think this will get to a point where i like it.

this was good!! the translation unfortunately read very stiffly though :/ 

this book is so many things at once and i never would have discovered it without one of the reading challenges im in on here. wowie
it’s a story about colonialism. and also many other things. but not at all in the way you think (seriously. everything changes in chapter ten and that was where i was like “oh my god. this is amazing.”)
SPOILERS BEYOND HERE

so yeah it’s aliens. but before chapter ten the reader is meant to think it’s a straightforward historical fiction about the colonialization of australia. but once you discover it’s actually set in the future and about aliens vs people, it’s just kinda heartbreaking cause yeah. the british basically were the aliens in this book, coming from a high tech planet to take a land that was never theirs to take.

i think this is a wildly powerful book, with a plot twist i never would have seen coming in a million years. amazing

this was great :)
the poetry didn’t work super great for me in audio form, but i think that was just how it was read

this was sweet, and i'm glad it's out there and exists, but just didn't have much of an impact on me. much of the writing felt like it was trying too hard to sound deep and meaningful. however, i really liked the translator's note and this imprint's mission to bring picture books to the ya and adult age ranges of publishing (i also rarely read books set in Africa, so this was also nice for that. i've had a hard time finding translated books from Africa). so if you're at all interested, this is a very quick book if you just wanna give it a try and see what you think of it

beginning of this book: fine
middle section: meh
ending: REALLY REALLY GOOD
i think overall this is one i would've quite liked back when i was in late elementary-early middle school (although Millie and Rose's accents, when written out, just don't quite work and end up reading as silly or exaggerated. but that could just be me)
favorite character was easily Ben,

im so glad he didn't die oh my god i was just about ready to dnf when he was "killed" off honestly

, and

Olly finding his dad was so sweet and made me so happy

all in all fun little dystopian book (that very accurately says "capitalism is the cause of the earth being awful now" which like yeah)

if i could give this six stars i would, it’ll probably end up being my favorite book of this year. absolutely incredible
this is really for the people who had unfettered internet access in their early teenage years (myself included. reading this got a little uncomfortable sometimes knowing that i was also a lonely young teen who posted incessantly on fandom instagram/tumblr and had no irl friends)
also gonna be honest, reading the last chunk of this at like 5-6am while there was a windstorm happening outside and a siren going off in the distance and rain/wind pounding on my window really was the perfect atmosphere

i wanted so badly to like this, but (at least to me) it was extremely uninteresting. + the language and honestly just everything felt very weird when the first section of the book is set in 1997. why is Grace wearing petticoats???