Kristie

I missed the Fear Street craze in my youth, and grew up on Christopher Pike instead. I grabbed a bunch of these to read to prepare for Halloween. This one concerns Felicia, a girl cursed with telekinesis and the worst friends ever. She's on the run from the lab that has been running tests on her and she lands in a pretty comfortable situation. For some ridiculous reason, she enrolls herself in school and gets a job. All of this with a false identity. I would have liked Felicia if she would have had something going on besides a huge crush on a guy. Things just sort of happen to her and we have some pretty cool emergence of her “powers” later on in the book. Overall, it is a light romance filled with violently insane girls who have jealousy issues. It is not awful, and the chapters leave off on little cliffhangers in order to keep the reader engaged.

This is a case of literati peer pressure. I read this book because every blog I read and every podcast I listen to mentioned it and I should have noticed that everyone was doing that thing they do when they really don't know what to say about a book....they are telling us what the book is NOT. Well, folks, it's not a space opera and it's not a light read. What I can say is this, I was originally put off by the covers which look like a Photoshop newbie's nightmare of a first attempt.

Here is what I will also say. Parts of this story charmed me. The writing was so good I could see the world in my mind clear as a bell. Sadly, this was not the majority of the parts. Most of this book was me suffering under what I felt was an inordinate amount of repetition. Lenu tells us something, she tells Lila the same thing, Lila tells Rino, etc and it's not important and .....who friggin cares......

Historically, this means nothing to me. At times, it reminded me of Circle of Friends by Binchy-only way meaner.
I think I didn't like Elena and that really dragged the story for me. Who is she even? We don't know! She is whoever Lila tells her she is. Frenemies to the nith degree, I guess.

I probably will not continue on with the series.

The Odd Women was my first (and hopefully not last!) Goodreads readalong. I had never heard of this book or George Gissing before this. It was enjoyable to read and the pages turned quickly. It started off with a bang, and then kind of dissolved into a mishmash of “who has the worst romantic relationship”. I have to admit that the book slowed down for me a couple of times, when ideas were being repeated and repeated. Still, I liked what the book had to say about women and making a life for themselves whether married or not. I highly suspect that what the reader takes from this novel will be highly dependent on the reader personally.
I felt myself cringing when the male characters had control of the narrative. Almost everything Widdowson and Barfoot had to say was about controlling or reigning in the women in their lives. There are no forward-thinking male characters in this story at all.
Few of the characters grow. Rhoda, to me, seemed to be the same as the Rhoda we meet at the beginning of the story. I'm not sure Monica grew much. She was stronger I guess. Poor Virgie.
In the end, it was a good read and has more interested to read works from this time period.