asa
3/5
At this point the series has gotten too wound up in itself for me; too many rules and oaths and names to remember, plus I'm tired of brownie holes and Jax walking directly into danger. I also can't fathom why the reader is expected to be on the side of continuing to stuff innocents into the Eighth Day. It would nix powers and the bad guys are in jail anyway...
Also, why is the font for the Emrys girls so bad? Maybe it's meant to be meta, but it just gave me a headache. Fortunately I got the second two books on Kindle.
2.5/5
A book with a lot of heart and mostly good friendship and familial relationships. Unfortunately I began to find the protagonist annoying about halfway through, largely because of what I felt was the bloated sense of importance she gave to herself meeting Blue 55 and the absolute need to play her song ASAP, to the point of running away from her family when they rightfully refused to send her to Alaska. It broke my immersion with the otherwise realistic story.
2/5
finished this series mostly for the sake of completion; the first book was fun and charming and the other two had their moments, but the fun there was probably spoiled for me by watching the movie first. the heart of lara jean's life continues to be her family and her sisters and i love that, as well as her friendship with chris and the other friends she has made, but overall i grew bored of lara jean's hobbies and concerns. (there's a 50% increase in stress baking. i ended up making brownies. chubby lara jean agenda 2k18.)
what brought this down to 2 stars is: overabundance of referential humor/gestures (hamilton and old romantic movies) + the wedding planning + the part where lara jean forgot her phone charger and neither she nor chris thought to purchase one at literally any gas station (no way their tank lasted for 6 hours on the road) or convenience store (in. a. college. town).
this took me forever to get (read: skim) through because i feel a bit like i???m beating myself on the head with a hammer shaped like a white 15yo prom-obsessed girl and i???m not about that. like, this is super accurate to the worst of teenagedom, i think, but isn't even the mia we met in book 1
read it for michael tho. always here for michael
3.5/5
full review maybe pending? overall a satisfying read - loved the characters and the concept, although it takes some wincing to get used to the sacred geometry/tools - but the prose, for which i am always thirsty, is average. not generic-YA-voice, but not anything spectacular, either. as a result i found myself bored of the prose, but not of what was actually going on, if that makes sense.
zan and ozo are good. as are all the kids, but aaminah especially is my girl.
i'm waaaaay too excited to leave a composed review right now, all it boils down to is 4212515/5 STARS BEST IMPULSE READ EVER? elizabeth wein's CODE NAME VERITY was recommended to me at a creative writing workshop at uni, and lacking that at the library i picked a title at random, decided to start reading today, and HERE I AM 8 HOURS LATER? i could go on for hours about all the artful things that she does and all the moments that weighed and lifted my heart and how so many themes seem to cater directly to my favorite literary tropes (and my mordred bias, which was a wonderful surprise because i literally didn't even know i'd picked up a book on arthurian legend) but UNFORTUNATELY the sequel is on my shelf and i have a life i must briefly attend to before i can crack it open
I read this book because a student lent it to me lauding it as an absolute favorite (should I label it ‘course books'?). Although I have Questions (12yo's ability to fool three different groups of adults?? “Spell Robbers”??) the protagonist's frustration was surprisingly refreshing. The note on which it ended for its sequel was awesome, too; I'm a big fan of that hero trope.
Also I'm really glad about the hot trickster dad that's the only reason I actually wrote out this review.
- surprisingly charming after magnus chase #1 !
+ apollo-bias
+ apollo's relationship with meg and his kiddies ;___;
+ percy's retirement and his CONFIRMED BABY SISTER and role reversal with apollo
+ hooooooooly hell the scenes where apollo is solo and desperate and lonely
+ robbie daymond was awesome to listen to and possibly the reason i was forgiving overall about the negatives that follow
+ no diversity bingo
- everyone other than apollo and will and meg are boring
- even meg is pretty boring
- even nico and percy are boring, especially if you treat this series as a new one, which by the way seems hard to do because it's not interested in explaining continuity
- hella repetitive (we get it, human brains are small, come up with a new way to complain about your predicament)
- the sense of urgency that came with the river styx has been destroyed, as with many pre-established things in the pjo universe... packing things on top of each other is getting too convoluted
- i hate riordan's fandom-based memes more often than not
- i also continue to hate many of riordan's choices from the previous series, including our travelling companions for the next book, although from a technical standpoint i understand WHY that hasty hook-up was thrown in at the end of BOO :
- no (tasteful) diversity at all, unless you count apollo's constant “Have I Mentioned I Am Bisexual Today?”
a good travel companion on a 10 hour road trip, though!
Maybe 2.75/5? Not that I disliked it entirely, rather there was a lot of fatigue between the scattered moments of second gen wisdom.
100% better than the show, given that it is authentic and I can no longer tolerate the sitcom.
