Andrea
This should have worked. It has ALL my favourite tropes! The fake dating, the “who hurt you”, forced proximity.... But Olive was insufferable. The amount of times she “must have imagined it” GIRL! Get an MRI then bc something isn't right. Not to mention she couldn't speak to save her life. The sheer amount of times she just “I....what—?” “No that's not—“ was astronomical. She went on and on about how “she wasn't like this” “this wasn't her” “she wasn't a crier” but was exactly that. The. Whole. Time.
Insufferable character! Ugh!
But there were moments that made me happy giggle, and laugh. So it's not a one star.
I can't pinpoint exactly what about the memoire seemed lacking but it just wasn't great. Don't get me wrong. Worth reading. But lacking. I think maybe she wrote this too early during her recovery process. I would have liked more insight. More introspection and understanding of just how her mother's abuse affected her. Without that, it seemed more like a diary than a memoire.
I found this book heavily triggering to me. As someone with an ED, mommy issues, and dealing with a loved one diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia who thinks they are a heavenly being... It was a lot and I found it difficult to go through the story. So learn from my mistake and please check trigger warnings.
I was hoping that this would be a book that could help non-ace people understand what it is like to be ace. And to some extent it can be used that way. But it doesn't really feel like it's for the uninitiated. You have to have some concept of the terms before going in as the author doesn't do a very good job of explaining what the terms mean. Even for someone like me who is Ace, and has explored more of the community than most non-ace people, it got very confusing. I was losing track of what terms meant and how they were used seemed to be fluid. The author does explain why defining terms is difficult and often unhelpful, but the frequency with which these undefined terms are used makes the text feel inaccessible at times.
Having said that, this was a fantastic look at the issues that Ace people face when considering gender fluidity, race, social status, the difficulty in finding a place/acceptance in the LGBT community.. etc. There were topics I hadn't even thought to consider about the struggles of an Ace individual and the different sub-labels.
Very thought provoking, and validating. Would absolutely recommend to someone who is Ace and trying to understand what that might mean for them.
Good fun. The writing is basic but unobtrusive which is really all I ask for. World building was simple but more in-depth than I expected. Things progressed pretty fast. I thought that a lot of the outlandish decision making was explained well enough to make me accept why they were done. One of my biggest complaints SPOILERS is that she gets pregnant pretty dmn fast! And it's one of my biggest dislikes in books is the unexpected pregnancy trope. And I wasn't a big fan of the symbiont plotline. I felt is was a deus ex machina type of situation. A quick way to make the world as easy for the humans as possible. The language machine too was way too convenient that it just made it cringy. But overall it was fun.
DNFed at 30%.
This was disappointing. I wanted to enjoy it but I couldn't get past certain things. The dialogue between the two main characters was really confusing. They would be having what I deemed a typical banter and then out of nowhere one of them is deeply offended but I had no idea why. The amount of times this happened was annoying. It feels a lot like the miscommunication trope which I don't enjoy and it feels like at a certain point you would just stop feeling comfortable interacting with someone who is getting offended by everything you say. So the fact that it was building into a relationship didn't feel earned. It was awkward. But the most awkward part of the book was how Hall treats many of the characters. Like how dumb Hall tried to make Alex. To the point that it was absurd. The part where I just had to give up on this book was when Alex is making comments about how his father viewed jury members but kept mixing it up with his feelings on badgers. He even says something like “and they make so many holes in the walls... no wait that's badgers”. It was deeply cringey and embarrassing. None of the intended jokes were funny.
Well.... that took a hard left. I'm gonna need physiotherapy after the whiplash I just got. Super disappointed with the finale.
***Spoilers: First of all, the complete character shift was super jarring. The author tried to build it up so that it felt plausible but in the end it was just too hard a shift to work, in my opinion. (Losing faith in cops etc) It doesn't matter that he was a serial killer, and it doesn't matter that she was struggling with PTSD, it was just too incongruous with everything she was shown to be previously. Plus, having PTSD and trauma does not suddenly make you more prone to violence. That was just a cop-out. I feel like there were better, more clever ways she could have dealt with getting back at Max and that would have fit the characters better. And Andie's dad was a serial killer? Really? Pip went through every inch of Andie's life to trying to find her killer and never once got a whiff of a legit serial killer in the house?
I wanted to love this so much. The first half of the book was SO good! I loved the eerie mystery of being stalked and the stick figures and the printer and music going off. Spooked me. But then it all just went downhill. The extremes that they went through to clear the DNA and create alibis felt ridiculous. And the amount of work that went into it, the planning, the alibis, the breaking into Max' house... they managed to figure it all out in one night? Getting her friends involved not to mention RAVI!? The Pippa I knew would NEVER.
Also, the amount of times people “sniffed” in this book was ASTRONOMICAL. Every single page, it felt like, had someone sniffing with emotion.
Not the books fault but the narrator turned on the emotional reading to 11 on this one and it just added to the cringe.
I felt like Jackson wanted to heighten the emotional impact and honestly it just didn't work. All the self sacrificing Pippa was trying to do just felt so forced and unnecessary. With her previous PTSD trauma and now with murder on her conscious there is no way she wouldn't have crumpled like a paper cup and confessed or spilled the beans to someone. She was an absolute mess. Talk about beating heart in the floorboards.
The fact that the chief was an absolute bumbling fool for two books and now suddenly is on to Pippa again felt like lazy writing. There was no foundation for that other than to create suspense.
And finally, her long, drawn-out break up with Ravi was created as this big eventful, emotional moment but shouldn't have been necessary in the first place. And was completely negated by the epilogue. This was another cringe moment for me.
Really disappointed. I'll pretend this book isn't part of the series because the first two are amazing.
3.75
Lots of politics but it was just the same politics being reiterated over and over. Very little complexity or nuance and since I'm not one for politics it was a bit of a slog in some places. But overall I enjoyed it and I know i'll be reading the next one which I rarely do. Did the audiobook and I absolutely love Lauren Fortgang. The male narrator was bad though. Really took me out of the story a few times especially when he did one character in particular. That one character was so bad I often considered stopping the book or skipping the chapter.
“Unfortunate”
Don't let my rating fool you. It's so bad it's good.
This is a hilarious balance between pastiche and parody. It pokes fun of every YA paranormal romance trope while still actually telling a story. Made me laugh out loud and also cringe. And sometimes...simultaneously. Well worth the time.
4.5
I couldn't give it higher because of the mild spoiler death of an animal which is a big trigger for me. (PSA Please don't forget to check trigger warnings ahead of time so you're not surprised like I was). However, it was handled the best it could have been handled in my opinion. I absolutely loved this book. The audiobook is the ONLY way to read this. It was FANTASTIC!
