melissa
There are a few things working against the story, first it happens in 24h which makes a slow burn kind of love story development impossible. Second, it's in first person, with the author trying to imitate teen speech(“it was mad real yo”), not a fan, and this style of having the characters speak to us as if breaking the 4th wall continuously, also brings me out of the story. Finally, the message of the story was too on the nose and i don't even agree with the message. All in all it's a meh from me.
I liked the premiss. At some point it felt like two books in one. Following the writer's process, and the different styles and research writers do while writing is a pretty cool angle. i do think the book was too meta romance books wise for it to let itself fall in the emotions. Both the writer and the protagonist felt too conscious of the usual tropes basically, so even if the story's good it lacks the usual feels.
On a sidenote, the book cover really doesn't showcase the story and I don't know how a book that's about how much editorial houses demean romance novels and female stories would accept with such a flaky looking cover that seems like a copy paste of all other romance novels of the past 2 years.
I can imagine this book being helpful to many people. Reading about how different people interact with the world around them and how it inspires them and their art, how a certain thought or concept was translated to art, could only push the reader to figure out their own way to reflect upon the world.
I only downloaded this cause the cover suggested a Snape like character, and it was exactly that! Professor: Yes - Works in a Lab: Yes - Broody and angry: Yes - but actually söft: Yes - Only wears black: Yes - prefers his coffee black: for some reason that's a fandom favourite and also yes, if there were a genre for Snape-like characters I would exclusively read that, but there isn't so there's book like this one (and fanfiction) and that was really entertaining. Hazelwood knows her tropes and really had fun writing her book and I enjoyed every bit.
The premise is interesting but the writing fell flat. The narrator has no character, the protagonist has no personality, it just felt like it was a man writer behind the female protagonist, there was no depth, no neurosis. It stayed in the visual while name dropping philosophers and quotes as if that would make it smarter. Mental illness just felt like a tool to advance the plot and not something the character was living. It's not as if it's the most creative idea for it to support the whole book, the story went exactly the way i imagined it would go but with none of the emotions i would've expected. Personally i had to fight not to roll my eyes at the writer's attempts at witticisms, after reading “Tissues are like lives. There are always more” i knew it was not the book for me.
It is exactly what it says it is, a review of the Human Age or what makes it so and basically a review of humanity. There is the beautiful and there is the horrid but really we need to sit in awe at the evolutionary anomaly that came to give humans consciousness and its rarity in the vastness of the universe. We get to be witnesses to the world and for that i give this book 5 stars.
I like to pick up books my normal self would never read, and i only chose this one cause i follow the writer's dog on tiktok (and he's in the book so that was a pleasant surprise).
Main issue with the book is, the main 3 men in the book are US military and i would not like to read anything about the love life of the people bombing us. Other than that it was a fun read, it has all the good tropes, just the ex-marines could've had any other past really.
That was very different from what I expected from a John Green book (the cover doesn't help, it looks like a Twilight spinoff– there's a Spanish edition that got it right with an Alaska lost in a maze but i digress).
It starts like the usual teen possible romance book, but this was mature instead of quirky. A bit of Dead Poet Society vibe going to it, the boarding school and scholarship kids setting makes the John Green characters believable for once– instead of the usual feeling of John trying too hard to make teen characters interesting and it ending up feeling like an adult is speaking through them. A true coming of age story and the struggles of figuring out the meaning of life.
This went from “this is the worst John Green book”, to “actually this is the best” to “ffs John can u please write a complete ending for once not one that feels like someone ripped the last 10 pages of the book”
Anyway it was fun, 3.5/5
Took me a bit to remove Cara Delavigne's face from my mind when imagining Margo, then everything worked out.
I'm gonna put a five even though it felt rushed towards the end, but i haven't had fun reading a book in so long, and it was not a dumb book. It raises a lot of questions about our role in society, what we want in life and why the hell are we so intense about our taste in music, but really it was a really fun book to read for me.
I think i would've liked it more as a book than a graphic novel. Describing mental illness through speech bubbles makes it all superficial, can't say I felt any of the angst. Don't want to be too cynical on here, cause i know I'm not the target audience, but like we get it they love each other and all lgbt people are perfect and very wise.
i first thought it was a romcom fiction book (cause that's what the adaptation is) and i was 20% in before I realized i was mistaken. It was still a good read, having been stung and tortured by loving a cursed football team i could only empathize, even though I have never been interested in English football or know any of their players. There is a realization that watching football has nothing to do with entertainment and thus comes the book to wonder why so many people go through it. And even though I have decided to quit caring about football (the semi-final loss of Brazil against Germany 7-1 can do that) i still did name my cat after a Brazilian footballer cause really you can never stop caring.
First time i read a travel journal, and discovered I really like the genre. i do understand why this book is not a popular one though. If you're not from here I don't think you'd care about the shiny sides of Sannine or the way the roads sinew in between the Lebanese villages. And if you are from here, being called a barbaric savage thug isn't the best experience. it is still a really good document of life in Sham in the 19th century, and a good insight into the west's plans for this region, from Napoleon's siege, the Balfour accords and Sykes-Picot.
I will be reading the following volumes, but will be taking a break for a bit.