falon
I had really high hopes but nothing about this really worked for me. I didn't connect to either of the two main characters. So much of August's personality was told to us but then we were shown her acting very opposite (or honestly just being really bland) and I really didn't vibe with how manic pixie dream girl Jane was. Nothing about their romance felt unique to me besides their circumstances, obviously, but the whole subway thing wasn't that interesting to me to be honest. The missing uncle plot line didn't work for me. Like I said, nothing I really liked about this:(
Wow, I hated this book. I've really liked most, if not all, the Kasie West I've read in the past but this one absolutely tanked for me. The structure of the novel where the only times we see the characters are these catering events or whatever make it so hard to connect to the characters since we're only popping in on them once every couple of months. Also, obviously the characters are going to end up together, and there was nothing done to add any real tension or subversion of expectations. I feel like I've read ten other, better versions of this story. Also, the main characters central struggle with her design issues are resolved in one conversation. Quoi?? This book was so bland and boring and so difficult to drag myself through. I didn't like a single character and I had to fight not to DNF it every five minutes.
this touches on a lot of similar themes to frankenstein, though obviously in a less obvious and more realistic context. i just love mary shelley's rhythmic, lyrical writing. she builds such interesting characters and explored dark themes in such an interesting way, especially for her time. super underrated.
this book was relentlessly boring and unoriginal. obviously, everything has been done before, but this book did absolutely nothing new in any sense. all of these characters, their relationships, how everything played out, i've seen it a hundred times. the writing of this was so boring and unimpressive. there were a few things i liked, but nothing that i'll remember in a month
super super solid. jade is absolutely one of my new favorite characters. not sure why this isn't a five, just went with my gut.
I have really weird feelings about this book. My main problem was the writing; it was so hard to track and weird to follow along with. For some reason the writing made it so hard for the story to hold my attention. I also had a problem with the way this book was set up. The first half of this felt completely separate from the second half. I would've either liked the story to be just the first half and be a short novella or to have the two storylines tracking alongside each other in some way. Having them divided was just so weird. I don't know, this is such a weird book to explain my feelings on because I really did like the writing sometimes, it could so beautiful, but it would also do this Stephen King-esque thing of rambling about things that weren't pertinent to the story and being super overwritten. I also didn't connect to the characters and I felt like I was supposed to?
I'm so sad i didn't love this. I really thought this would be a new favorite, but this book did one of my least favorite things. This was a thriller with one of the best twists I think I've read, but it came so early! I'm not sure if I would have even liked it later, because I just hated Carly's chapters so much, I would've been mad about reading them and not knowing why I was reading them. But because the reveal came so early, it made the continuation of her chapters feel so pointless because I knew what the end result of that storyline was going to be. I'm upset.
I think this might be just because I don't like romance that I didn't love this. I couldn't help noticing the times when Pike was really possessive or controlling and it was never addressed. The time he picked her up and spanked her against her will? Nope. If scenes like that had been cut out, this could easily have been a 4 star book. All the scenes like that completely took away from the moments where Jordan (seemingly) put Pike in his place for being an asshole. They felt out of place and strange and made me not like Pike and Jordan together. They usually seemed to have a lot of chemistry and to be a good match, but then there would be these weird, jarring scenes where Pike blew up on her, and she often said “you're not my father” because he literally was treating her like a child. I don't know; the rest of it was fine but all the stuff I said really detracted from the story for me.
This was so so cute! The disability representation (while I cannot speak to it's accuracy) seemed genuine and real. The mental health rep was so well done. Taichi was a literal ray of sunshine; he was so sweet and silly and I loved him with my whole heart. I am not hearing impaired, but with how Kohei isolated himself because communicating was so hard and a burden, I could definitely relate. The only reason I took off a star was because the ending really confused me. I thought Kohei and Taichi were going to get together and then they...didn't? I really didn't know what was happening with them at the end. I know there's more volumes, but I felt like it should've either ended on a cliffhanger, like right after the kiss, or provided some resolution. But in all, I definitely want to read the rest of this series, it's so adorable.
Some of these absolutely took my breath away, but some were rambling and forgettable. The former is the majority of the book and I adored them.
I really loved Phil's simplistic and sometimes abstract writing style. Phil has such a unique perspective on things and wrote about subjects I'd never really heard discussed through poetry before. Beautiful, memorable, exactly the kind of quality I expected from Phil.
this is one of my favourite poetry collections i have ever read. i couldn't relate to most of it, which i actually loved. i loved reading about the things and emotions melissa has gone through. the fact that i didn't relate to the majority of the poems but still found myself totally enthralled and moved emotionally is a testament to how well written these are. in particular, the entirety of the wolf girl suite is an absolute masterpiece. so beautiful.
I had high expectations because of how acclaimed Sabrina Benhaim is, but the poems in this book that I'd heard her speak were only good because I had heard her speak them. They didn't work as paper poems, and the other poems in here just didn't blow me away. Meh.
i'm almost in shock over this collection. it's truly one of the most beautiful things i've ever read. from the very first poem, i was taken aback and absolutely breathless at how amazing it was. the rest of the collection followed suit. i would love to gush on and on, but we would be here all day. i know this is something i'll never forget and will always come back to with how deeply it touched and moved me.
i really enjoyed the concept of this, as survival horror and isolated settings are two of my favorite tropes. there wasn't much about this i didn't like, i just wish i'd been able to get to know melissa as a character more. everything just happened around her and i wish she had driven the narrative in a stronger way. that being said i think most of this was incredibly well done.
I think this is one of Ito's best attempts at long-form work. He continues to expand the story through each chapter/story, rather than staying stagnant as I've noticed often happens in his work. It was super enjoyable, pretty well-developed characters and, of course, disgustingly gorgeous art.
1.5
This book had a lot to say about trauma and violence that I thought was actually really interesting and semi-well done but the actual plot, characters, everything else that makes a story? Non-existent. It's like she scribbled down the plot points and what the characters were supposed to be like, her thoughts about trauma and sexual violence and how she wanted the character to think, mashed it together and published it. The story was so poorly written that I could barely tell what was happening because events would get one line to a couple of paragraphs maximum.
*This book is basically if Holden Caulfield and Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower had a baby who went to rehab. Now as promising as that may sound, it ended up somewhat flopping in the actual construction and consistency of the book. There was absolutely no plot whatsoever; I love character-driven novels, but this was pushing it, even for me. Our main character, Zach, repeated the same few phrases over and over again, to the point where at least one showed up on every page. Overall it felt like a very repetitive book, and the characters didn't feel very distinct. Every character seemed to speak the same way as Zach which is just unrealistic. The writing, pacing, and overall construction was very sloppy.
All that being said, this book was still very meaningful to me. It had a lot of important things to say that I really identified with. It just ended up dragging and being much too long and repetitive. I just wish the novel had been of actual higher quality so I could give it a higher rating.
When I first began this I thought it was going to be 5 stars, a new favorite. But as it progressed, I really didn't like the “poet” parts. They were quite basic modern poetry and didn't bring anything new or interesting that I hadn't seen before. But the Aphrodite sections were so off-the-wall phenomenal that it somewhat made up for it.
it was pretty okay. didn't care about anybody, didn't like how vague the apocalypse was, plot was very predictable and dull. but the writing was good and there was nothing bad, it was just fine.
i didn't really like anything about this. i think darcy coates books are just not for me. i read horror for an atmosphere and writing style she just doesn't have. i didn't like the sense of humor or any characters in this book, and this is now the second time i've read a memory loss plot line from her, neither of which i liked. not for me. i feel bad for the one star because i don't think it's necessarily objectively awful but i have nothing good to say about it, it all felt so recycled and cheesy.