Hailey
I gotta be honest, I expected the absolute worst of this book and was pleasantly surprised. I personally thought there were a lot of plot holes and some fairly unrealistic moments but overall it was entertaining and that was the goal.
Cannot express just how surprised I was that I liked it.
I really enjoyed this! It was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and I did cry a bit for our dear Matt.
My only complaint with this is the pacing. It was so slow for most of the book and picked up a ton in the final portion. I just wish it had been more fast-paced the entire time so I was more engaged with it.
I don't know, man, this was just... okay. It wasn't anything special. I can appreciate and acknowledge the themes that Wilde presented along with the fact that he presented them really well.
However I didn't really enjoy reading this book. I was bored the whole time and there were only about 20 pages total that I was actually invested in the story.
Also, there was a weird portion between pages 170-200 where gemstones were being discussed but I didn't care and it didn't have anything to do with the story? Maybe I'm just dumb but I didn't think it contributed at all and was pointless.
Overall, this is a decent classic. It conveys the themes of selfishness and vanity incredibly well and that, if nothing else, is a reason to read this.
I honestly don't have a single bad thing to say about this book.
It was amazing and checked off every box that I like to see when reading a book from this genre.
I highly recommend it to anyone who likes romance.
My hopes for this were very low for the first 350 pages, but I can forgive that (mostly) for the second half of this book.
I'm not even mad. Like, I wanted to rise above this book and not like it, but no, I am still the lowly woman I always was and I am addicted. Never mind that the plot made no sense. I have already started book 2.
Honestly, this was my least favorite one yet, which is a MASSIVE bummer. However, I still love this series and I can't want to continue reading the next story with the next volume.
This was a great read!
It was very interesting and easy to understand. I loved the way that the chapters were arranged by question. I thought it was really interesting and effective organization.
I'd recommend this to anyone interested in the subject, regardless of prior knowledge. The author is great at introducing this information in an easy-to-understand fashion.
I very much so wanted to like this because the plot was compelling and I did like the first one.
But I think Liv is up there in top-ten protagonists who make me want to rip my hair out.
She was genuinely an unlikable character and I really struggled to sympathize with her for a good chunk of the book. Granted, other characters also drove me crazy in this one, too. Honestly, if we swapped out almost every character aside from Rosie and Hop and kept the same plot, I probably would have been happier! Much happier!
I'm still reading the next one though, because I do really like the brief taste of the protagonists (at least Noah) that we got from this one.
I really enjoyed this book! I thought it was really insightful an well-written. Haig has a lovely way with words and I felt engaged throughout the entire book. I read this as a buddy read and sometimes it was hard to resist peeking ahead a few pages to see what would happen next!
The only thing keeping me from giving this five stars is the ending. It just felt so anticlimactic and flat at the end. And, maybe, the intention was for it to feel ordinary, but I wasn't satisfied after I had read such an extraordinary book prior to the ending.
Despite this being a school book, I really enjoyed it! The story was fun and exciting and kept me wanting to read more. Of course, it also helped having an English teacher who debriefed us on many of the confusing aspects of the story.
I see this book's low rating and all of the negative reviews and I think I was blissfully blessed to have read this over vacation because this was the exact flippant, romancey book I was looking for.
Is this profound? No. Is it objectively good? Probably not. But did I absolutely eat it up like I eat up the pumpkin roll during Thanksgiving dessert. You know I did.
I loved the countless references and name dropping that took place. Made me have numerous little chuckles. Lucie, and many of the other characters in this book, is not the best person and she's naive and rich. In other words, I absolutely loved her as a heroine in this book because it made me laugh.
And at the end of the day, laughing and light-heartedness is what I got out of this book so I'm content.
This was truly excellent– I ate this up and it has helped me even more out of my reading slump, so kudos to the author.
“‘I don't want to scare you,' he said,”
I'll say it right away- this is the kind of book you either love or hate. I, for one, really enjoyed this novel. As you all probably know by now, I absolutely adore non-traditional main characters. Yes, I love every deadly and dangerous female protagonist who comes my way, but the most memorable, my most favorite, characters are those that break the mold.
And Holden shatters it.
He's whiny. He's bratty. And his world is crumbling down. And it's oddly beautiful, the way he tries to deny what's happening to him. After all, how can one possibly be strong in the face of their own destruction? Holden destroyed himself. It honestly made me think of that song by Kelly Clarkson, “Beautiful Disaster”. (Look it up, it's quite good live)
I liked the plot, which really surprised me. I'm usually not much of a fan for contemporary (and by that I mean I rarely give 5 stars to contemporary novels, sorry lovers of contemporary novels), but I enjoyed this one. It only took place in the span of a weekend, but it felt like much longer.
I found the other characters pleasant as well. Granted, not pleasant in the sense of nice and friendly, but pleasant in the sense of unique and memorable. I especially liked Mr. Antolini, and the things he said were rather profound and true.
Some of my friends who also read this book for school are going to come on here in a bit and bash the book, but I, for one, really enjoyed it. And I hope you do too. So just ignore their reviews, especially Alex.
“‘but I can very clearly see you dying nobly, one way or another, for some highly unworthy cause.'”
This was probably my least favorite one yet, but that's just a character thing. I am so excited for #4.
This was a book club read and I enjoyed it! I've never really tried out this genre before, and I have to say, I liked it much more than I thought I would. I might have to try more books similar to this.
This was disappointing.
For a rom-com, it was really lacking in the rom department. There was somehow no chemistry between the main characters. I give points for the creative plot idea, but the whole book was really lackluster. There was no development for the characters and I think the blurb was a bit misleading. Half the book wasn't even about the zombie escape room or the competition, which was what I had been expecting.
This was really cute!
At times it was cheesy and unrealistic but that was what I was anticipating going into it, so I wasn't too, too upset by it.
This mainly gets 4 stars because of the chemistry between the two characters. I absolutely adored them and they went great together.
Would definitely recommend to fans of Hallmark movies and cheesy romance novels.
Ah, finally I see why everyone talks about Harry Potter so much. You know, I was growing a little worried there with the first and second books, but this one is much better.
Did I love it? Probably not. But it was very, very good. I was engaged the entire book (which is more I can say for the last two!) and was extremely immersed in the world. I felt connected to the characters and certain events really tugged at my heartstrings. I think I have also met some of my favorite characters so far, which is also exciting. After all, I honestly don't love the main three. Shoot me. I'm not sorry.
But you know who I did love? Lupin and Sirius.
I guess I'm looking forward to the next book now!
I'll keep this short and sweet.
This book is just really not for me. I did not vibe with it. I was confused for 90% of the book and that's that. The whole jumping back and forth in time was odd and wtf was going on with the aliens? I'm just. What. What did I just read. I have no idea. I really don't.
My dad adores this author. I recognize that there is probably some merit in both Vonnegut and this work but it just did not work for me.
And that's okay!
Onto the next book!
This book was perfectly fine.
I didn't find it particularly memorable, but I was still interested in the story. I think the toughest parts of this book for me were the endless name-dropping that ultimately took away from the story (I ultimately did not care about the famous people, I wanted to know more about our main characters) and the fact that we only had about 50-60 pages to get to know each character. It made it difficult to connect with the characters and I found myself only really invested in two of the storylines.
I really, really enjoyed this book and actually bought it as an annotated gift for someone else!