Jane

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Technically good, and/or I enjoyed it a lot

4.5 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book but still with notes

5.0 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book, and notes are very positive

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The book basically has 3 POVs going on. The 1st is Libby in the current time. The 2nd is Lucy, also in the current time. Then last there’s Henry who is recounting what the heck happened in the past. Libby’s storyline is basically the catalyst for the “investigation”. Henry’s storyline gives us the backstory. Lucy’s storyline really didn’t add to the main plot. So much so that I initially couldn’t figure out if she was Henry’s sister, Clemency, or some other random person.

The three storylines go on and on until around 2/3s of the book. Then the last 1/3 kind of speeds through the juicy part of the past and the eventual convergence of the 3 storylines.

An ongoing theme in this story is choices. Bad choices. From everyone. Including the author.

All the choices of the adults in the house were bad

1. This is self explanatory.

The choices the kids took before, during, and immediately after the “big incident” were also bad

1. They didn’t carefully plan out their one chance of escape.

2. They didn’t stick together when they ran.

3. They didn’t try to find each other afterwards.

The other adults were also making bad choices

1. Dr. Broughton, who they ran to for help, didn’t contact the authorities or got them proper help.

2. The mom, Sally Thompsen, didn’t look for Phin.

3. The Lamb’s uncle didn’t try to look for Henry or Lucy.

As for the author, personally I am not a fan of the following choices she made plot wise:

1. Readers can pretty much guess how the adults in the past died.

2. Libby’s mother was sort of a surprise, sure. But given how it was revealed so late in the game, it didn’t have as much impact as it would have. Personally, I think that if it was revealed earlier, the 3 storylines would be more inter-related.

3. I think Lucy and Henry’s storylines should have been switched. Lucy’s POV in the past seemed more interesting given how it turned out that she’s Libby’s mother. As for Henry, what happened to Henry after the adults’ death seemed more interesting because, quite frankly, he seemed to have become quite nuts.

I was told that there’s a sequel to this. But I am unsure if I want to read it.

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Technically good, and/or I enjoyed it a lot

4.5 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book but still with notes

5.0 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book, and notes are very positive

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This book was doing too much. It’s a story within a story that also included an excerpt of another story.

The main reason I didn’t DNF this book was because I really wanted to finish my Book Club’s pick so that I can have a meaningful discussion when we do meet up. If I had picked this up on my own, I would have abandoned it within the first 100 pages.

Basically, there are 2 main stories.

1. A mystery novel that had the last few chapters missing.

2. The search for the missing chapters that bloomed into trying to figure out what really happened to its author.

This book started with the mystery novel. It progressed as stories usually do.

Frankly I could hardly get myself to be invested in solving who killed the so-called victims in the mystery novel. Both seemed like awful people. To me, they had it coming.

Then as things in that story finally got me invested, it abruptly halted because the succeeding chapters were missing. The story of this book suddenly shifted to the current day story about the missing chapters and the author of the mystery novel.

The current day story was even more boring than the story in the mystery novel. There were so many long-winded red herrings thrown in there that trying to scrutinize them for clues, as to who killed the author and why, was basically pointless. They all, in the end, didn’t matter other than to hammer home the point that the author was a <b>BIG HONKING DOUCHE</b>.

Were the missing chapters of the mystery novel found? Yes. Honestly, it was an interesting end to that story.

However, the rest of the book? Ugh. Self-indulgent. I should have just skipped all the chapters related to the current day plot about the author of the book. As for it’s ending, it was not really that interesting. It was similar to the movie Gattaca.

<b>Side Note: </b>

<spoiler>This is the 3rd book from my Book Club where a house/building burned down.</spoiler>

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Technically good, and/or I enjoyed it a lot

4.5 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book but still with notes

5.0 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book, and notes are very positive

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I was really stressed during the time I was reading this but couldn’t take my sweet time to read it because it was due to be returned to the library in just 2 weeks. I supplemented my reading with text – to – speech to finish it because I was too tired to “read” it. Given the circumstances, my rating of this book could go up or down later after I do a re-read.

This was the 2nd Emily Henry I’ve read and I can’t help but compare them. Overall, this was a better read than Book Lovers. Here, it’s more believable that they fell in love with each other.

1. The characters of Poppy and Alex were more fleshed out so we could see what about them made the other person fall in love with them.

2. Their affection for each other was cultivated through years. It wasn’t something that happened suddenly.

But despite the fact that this story avoided what I consider the major flaws in Book Lovers, I still felt like something was missing. That, while I could see them falling in love, I felt like it was wrong for them to get together that quickly after such a big conflict. The conflict being, Poppy basically asking Alex to perform boyfriend duties when he wasn’t her boyfriend, causing problems in Alex’s own relationship because he failed to set boundaries with Poppy.

There was so much time spent telling us about the different vacations they went to. Which was ok because it laid the groundwork for their bond. But I would have loved it if the story showed us how they repaired their relationship after Poppy made the grand gesture of coming back to her old high school and professing her love for Alex. I wanted to see what happened immediately after that. But what we got was them months later, happily living in New York. It seemed too convenient and I felt robbed of the angst I was looking for in this book.

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Technically good, and/or I enjoyed it a lot

4.5 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book but still with notes

5.0 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book, and notes are very positive

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As much as I don’t shy away from Celebrity Gossip, which should have made this right up my alley, I am not raving about this book. It’s a good book, don’t get me wrong. But it just wasn’t for me.

Why it wasn't for me?

For some reason, I felt no connection to the main characters. They were boring to me with the exception of their douche dad. We were given their sob story, which made me feel sorry for them, but I just could not get invested in them.

Maybe it’s because there was no clear goal in the story. To me, this was like having a friend who just wanted to rant but you thought they were asking for advice. So, for most of the time they’re talking, you’re wondering what exactly were they asking you to do. That’s basically how I felt when I was reading this.

Why did I give it this rating?

Well, as I said, this was still a good book.

1. The pacing was good.

2. The characters, though flawed, were not annoyingly contradictory which was something I’ve seen in the past books I’ve read (cough - Of Jade and Dragons - cough).

3. The party in the story really captured the 80’s vibe. The cocaine being offered around in serving trays was exactly what you’d picture you’d see in those kinds of shindigs.

Other notes

These aren’t bad for the story but if the story/characters were real, I’d be concerned.

1. As a person who struggled to buy their own place, reading the house burn down, messed me up. I know this is fiction and plot wise, the house burning down was very symbolic of leaving your past behind, but it was so upsetting to me.

2. There were so many beautiful women in Malibu but Hud could only fall in love with his brother’s ex? Really? Did he not have eyes? Was he just that lazy in finding a partner?

3. Jay was, in some ways, becoming like his dad. His interest in women were fleeting. He didn’t even like his ex, Ashley (the woman Hud fell in love with) that much. He was just hurt she broke up with him. Then he’s pursuing this woman, Lara, who he didn’t really think was that attractive. He seemed to be pursuing her because she wasn’t throwing herself at him and was, therefore, a challenge.

4. Their mom, June, was selfish and a hypocrite. She had too much pride to go after their dad for child support but named the diner after him to make money from his name. She should have swallowed her pride and went after Mick. The child support would have spared the children hardship and Nina wouldn’t have had to drop out of school.

Maybe an Unpopular Opinion

Casey was an unnecessary addition to the story. There was no real purpose to her that I could see. She wasn’t even needed to give Nina an incognito car to the airport. Nina could have just taken any of the other cars left parked at their house since so many party guests got arrested.

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Technically good, and/or I enjoyed it a lot

4.5 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book but still with notes

5.0 - Loved it, I wanted to highlight lines in the book, and notes are very positive

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I know that The Song of Achilles is a well rated book but never had the urge to read it immediately. However, I saw a 1-star review that basically said that Patroclus was a “Bella” to Achilles’ “Edward”.

As a person who has vowed to avoid anything resembling Twilight, I was disappointed because that meant the book was not something I’d like. But then I was intrigued. Can The Song of Achilles be that bad? How can it be rated that high but still have Twilight vibes?

I resolved to borrow it from my local library and find out for myself.

So, was it true that Patroclus was “such a Bella”? In a way, yes. But at the same time, no.

Patroclus was very much in love with Achilles. He followed Achilles even when it was more convenient, and safer, for him not to do so. But his devotion was more understandable compared to Bella’s. The relationship between Patroclus and Achilles developed through time. This was not a high school crush that speed up from interest to full on obsession in a matter of weeks. There was also a clear advantage to being with Achilles. Patroclus was an exile. He was sent to be soldier for a king when he has no aptitude for it. His life would have been worse if he wasn’t with Achilles whereas if Bella wasn’t with Edward, her status in life wouldn’t have been altered at all.

As much as my opinion of this book is the opposite of that person, who inspired me to read this, I totally appreciated that review. It got me to check out this book. It also gave me a good laugh.

Now that we are done with whether or not Patroclus is like Bella, let’s move on to the rest of my thoughts on this.

Based on my rating, yes, I LOVE this book. Below are my reasons.

1.

As a person who loved reading Greek mythology as a kid, I appreciated the prose. It was very much in line with how I remember those stories were written.

2.

The characterizations were also, in my opinion, on point. Yes, a lot of the characters here were awful, awful people. Including Achilles. But, again, it was in line with how those characters were portrayed in Greek mythology. They were kings, princes, and/or demigods of an ancient time. Of course, they were filled with hubris and ambition with little to no regard of others.

3

The romance here was top notch. The romantic build-up between Patroclus and Achilles was very much the type that I love.

I am a firm believer that love stories are better received when the readers feel that aspects of that romance are something that they can experience themselves. It’s a lot easier to picture someone falling for your smile than someone killing a horde of monsters for you. And as much as Greek mythology is very removed from a casual life of modern times, there were enough non-epic, simple, and normal scenes between Patroclus and Achilles that made their love very real and relatable.

One such scene was in Chapter 15 - Page 182, where Achilles was telling Patroclus how much he likes Patroclus’ hair, chest, etc. while touching said body parts. That was probably the one of the best foreplay scenes I’ve read. And I say this as a person who has read a good number historical romance books. It was so romantic and goddamn hot.

I loved the romance here so much that I wanted to highlight passages in the book. Unfortunately, the copy I had was from the library. As such, I cannot deface it. However, I will share a couple of them here.

Chapter 10 - Page 102: It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.

Chapter 15 - Page 183: I think: This is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: How long do we have?

I do recommend listening to the audiobook while reading the book just to know how the places and names are pronounced.