Nik

I didn't read the book's synopsis so it was a surprise to me that this time we get to hear from Charlotte. Auggie doesn't play much of a direct role in this one, but he's there. He connects everyone, and his story touches everyone else's story, too. Every story in this series is a worthwhile read. Recommended for absolutely everyone.

Loved seeing things from yet another perspective, but didn't love the altogether too frequent assertion that sometimes being friends with Auggie is just. So. Haaaaard. 🙄

I mean, it's at least twice as good as the first one.

In some ways, I enjoyed this more than [b:The Notebook 33648131 The Notebook Nicholas Sparks https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1483183484s/33648131.jpg 1498135]. I love stories of redemption. We've got someone who recognises that he's gone wrong and goes about trying to figure out where and exactly how, and then fix it. The ending was meant to be a surprise to the reader, I think, and wasn't, but despite that it was most satisfying.

I haven't even finished yet and already I want to reread the series.

So nice to see Bridget has matured a bit and is able to string together a sentence. I miss Shazzer.

It's over! 😭<= Tears of joy.

Oh, FFS.

Sometimes you appreciate a creative work so much that simply buying the book is not enough. You look for a Kickstarter or an IndieGogo or a Patreon or a Kofi, hoping for more ways to support the author. This is one such work, a great debut novel. I only have one criticism, and that's that the main cast was too perfect. I don't mean that they led charmed lives, because they didn't; what I mean is that in almost every situation, when facing almost every challenge, they acted how one might hope they would act. Like, you know how sometimes you say or do something, and two days later you're like awww, maaaan, I should've said/done this other thing, that would've been so much better. Most of these characters, most of the time, act and react in an almost ideal way; and, in so doing, their credibility is somewhat diminished. That niggle out of the way, there is so much here to love. The Carter parents interactions are wonderful, as is Starr's ability to appreciate them and see her parents as individuals separate from just “Mom” and “Dad”; this ability speaks to a maturity far beyond her 16 years. The whole family dynamic, in fact, is so great: there is so much love, compassion, and empathy. I look forward to reading whatever Angie Thomas has next in store for us. (I was on an airplane without in-flight Wi-Fi while I was writing this, so I wasn't able to look up that what she has in store for us is [b:On the Come Up 36578443 On the Come Up Angie Thomas https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1549338526s/36578443.jpg 56364068] and it just came out a little bit ago and I must buy it immediately.)

🙄

This series makes me wish I could stand to leave a series unfinished once begun.

It's all so ridiculous, but I can't help myself. Next, please.

I wish I had read this before watching the TV series.

I don't like when characters are made to think, say, or do something very much against their grain just because the author wants the story to progress in a certain way, or wants to pull the reader in a particular direction; that happens here and I find it exceedingly irksome. Neither the story nor the writing is extraordinary, but it did accomplish a rare feat: it surprised me; and, for that alone, I'm glad I read it.

I think this was my first fictional autobiography. It dragged a bit, in places, but overall it was an interesting and (mostly) entertaining read. But, y'know? The end really grated. The whole thing was full of soooo much angst, and in the end? All wrapped up so nicely and neatly and positively and innocently and legally. And annoyingly.

I really didn't expect to like this book so much, especially because it's another in a recent parade of books whose main characters I found unlikeable and irritating. 😂I often find stories like this predictable, but this one kept me guessing until the end. \o/

A quick, enjoyable read. I liked the writing and most of the humour, but I liked the supporting cast more than the main characters and I'm not sure how big a role they'll play in the rest of the series. Worth finding out, I reckon.

It took two chapters for me to decide I hated the format of this book. It took three more for me to change my mind and decide that the book's format is brilliant; I may have liked it more than I liked the story. If you don't like instalove stories, you won't like this. Your eyes will roll too much and you will give yourself a headache. I hail from Bollywood, the land of instalove, so I didn't mind it here. It's been a while since I first watched Before Sunrise (Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy), but it felt like that type of movie in book form: strangers meet, engage in altogether too meaningful dialogue entirely too quickly, fall in love.

I have a soft spot for stories set in NYC. A Queens boi myself, I could relate to Flushing boy taking the Garlic Express (7 train) into Manhattan.

My only real problem with this story is that Daniel and Natasha didn't feel like kids. It felt like kid things were thrown into the story to make me believe that they're kids and not young adults in their mid- to late twenties. Kid things like high school references, pre-college stressors, etc. But their feelings and their articulation of those feelings and their analysis of and conclusions about their lives and the world around them just felt way older. That's not to say that I wanted them to be less perceptive and their dialogue less mature; rather, I wanted them to just be the ages they sounded.

Nothing earth-shattering, here, but this is a sweet, quick, enjoyable read.

Cute series, but I'm too old for it. YA is my favourite, but this is super, super Y. Still, I'm glad I saw it through to the end; the last book was a pleasant surprise.

This was so close to being good. LJ realised something in the last few pages of the book that, had she realised it earlier, would've shifted the emphasis of the story and could've made it a lot better. Sigh.

Bits of this book made me sob because, very unfortunately, they struck a chord. Usually that's a good thing and books that make me feel the feels generally get high ratings. But when it comes to abuse (child, spousal), I think I'd rather the chord remain unstruck. But the “it was okay” rating isn't because it was too real, too intense, because those are good things even if they're difficult. It wasn't because I felt manipulated, as Chelsea pointed out, although maybe I should have. It was because all the stuff surrounding the abuse, leading up to it and peripheral to it, caused a lot of eye rolling. Kelly said it pretty perfectly, I think: first Atlas and then Ryle were “the most perfect perfection that ever perfected.” It's really hard to relate to these picture-perfect characters, even if they didn't have ridiculous names (although I did find the whole “Issa” thing adorable). Maybe The Message™ was too heavy-handed, I don't know, but something (or perhaps many somethings) fell flat.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

If you're wondering why a 1-star review is the top review, it's because it's pretty much spot-on. But—and I can't speak here for the other reviewers—the high rating is because I couldn't help myself: I really enjoyed the story despite its shortcomings.

Yes, the descriptive prose was often lazy. The same adjectives were sometimes used within sentences of each other when a synonym would've been better.

Yes, there are certain things that are repeated ad nauseam. He is massive in every way and has high Scandinavian cheekbones. She freckled is freckled petite freckled and freckled.

Yes, I was hoping for a lot more of the paranormal stuff and the mystery stuff and the focus was much more on the romance.

Buuuuuut. But.

I don't know a whole lot about romance novels, but I was expecting a lot of fluff. I got a lot more depth than I expected. There's social commentary here that bubbled to the surface of my consciousness whilst reading and that wasn't at all preachy. I think the historical realism and accuracy are a bit selective, and that's fine—I would have been happy to have the envelope pushed even further.

The main and supporting characters are mostly wonderful. The women are self-sufficient, strong, independent, resourceful, and commanding of respect. There's agency and there's sex positivity. There's honest introspection and self-awareness in characters, wherein they question their beliefs and biases; they listen, reflect, grow, and adapt.

I liked the pace at which Aida and Winter's relationship developed. I don't particularly have anything against instalove, but I get tired of it being used in romances. Here the relationship gets more intimate very naturally, and there's a lot of sweetness and hesitation and doubt. And dopey grins. I love the dopey grins.

MY EYES TRIP OVER A MAN AND GET STUCK.

This was the first sentence in my copy of the book. Just like that, in all caps. Never before have I wanted to DNF a book after the very first sentence. It turns out, it wasn't the first sentence; it and a few of the paragraphs that followed it were lifted from the chapter and used as a foreword of sorts. I thought it was a bit odd, but whatever. The point is, omg that sentence. I rolled my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache.

But it was a buddy read and a book club selection and I'd just joined the book club and I wanted to participate and Felicia Day and ... well, you know how it is. So I took some Excedrin and kept reading. I figured there'd be more eye rolling soon enough, and I may as well get it all out of the way before the meds kicked in.

There was a lot of eye rolling.

Eventually, as usually happens with a good story, I got interested enough to put aside the snark. Mostly. There was a lot of oooh, he touched me, so hot, I burn, scorching, etc. which was irritating. There was a lot of mild rape fantasy stuff, wherein woman—despite her strength and self-reliance—falls for big, bad, burly, manly man who, let's not forget, kidnaps her, and that was frankly hugely problematic for me.

But it is in fact a good story; or, at least, it is a story with many goodish and enjoyable elements. There's the fun take on Greek mythology and godsly shenanigans, there's all sorts of fun magic that I've not seen before, there's a fantastic chapter in which our protagonist is completely high and it's spectacularly hilarious, and there's a really stellar supporting cast. And a circus! I wish we'd gotten to see more of that.

A lot of the writing feels really young, and that's probably what irked me in the beginning, because I'm a grumpy old. But in time, I came around to thinking that it works here, for these characters and this story, and I guess maybe they don't have to get off my lawn. For now.

Really strong start, in the first third of the book, with some truly lovely prose and a very sweet story. The second third and most of the third third are a different story (snort):
- A character that started out melting my heart turned into someone whose motivations and logic I couldn't understand—at all—and for whom I very quickly lost sympathy.
- Waters does this thing where she enjoys using alternate definitions of words common in the queer lexicon. It's quite clever and amusing, but the words are overused and the ploy gets a bit tiresome. In the first part of the book, we see this happen with “queer”; later, we see it with “gay.”
- I really can't wrap my head around the choices Nan made and how she ended up being this selfish, manipulative, hateful, petty little twit. I'm still so flummoxed that I had to note it twice.

At the end, we are offered a bit of redemption, some tying up of loose ends, and a tentative assurance of happily ever after. Because I'm not actually very difficult to please, this is enough for the story to earn back a star. Other stars awarded for several brilliant turns of phrase, pleasantly surprising historical accuracy, and ultimately an admirable first novel.

I don't think epic/high fantasy is for me, I thought, shortly after starting Tigana. I was so confused. There were so many characters and multiple locations and timelines. I kept at it, though, and what I realised is that reading this book was like making a new friend. In the beginning, a lot of their life experiences make no sense because I have no context. Over time, I'm able to fit all the little bits ‘n' bobs into a whole that gives me a better understanding of and closer relationship to that person.

A lifetime of experience was squashed into this dense, emotional novel. It is beautifully written and most of the story is told very well. I couldn't get into the sections about Alberico; they were boring. The ending wasn't entirely satisfying. I like things wrapped up neatly at the end, and it bothered me greatly that Scelto defied Dianora and didn't tell the prince the truth about his father. It bothered me also that after half a lifetime of yearning, brother and sister were not only not united, but that Baerd missed Dianora by mere moments and never discovered the truth of the choices she made and all that she sacrificed.