falon
One of the best YA thrillers I've read! The characters were really well-written and interesting, as well as feeling like genuine teenagers. The podcast element was integrated well, and I think this was a very cleverly plotted book. There were so many threads to follow that it was able to throw me off but they never got tangled. The only reason it got a four star was because many of the chapters of Anna while she lived in Heron Mills dragged for me in a way that felt boring rather than suspenseful and it definitely could've been cut down in length.
I really wanted to love this book. A cult novel by one of my favorite authors? I was so stoked. However, I felt like this book fell flat, especially in the final act. The last third didn't have nearly enough development and it seemed like a series of summarized scenes rather than a fully fleshed-out ending. I did love the characters, the writing and a lot of the emotional exploration in this book but there was so much missing by the end.
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 book was so perfect up until the final 50-70 pages where it truly lost everything. The ending was such a copout, especially in comparison to the incredible ending of his incredible book The Troop. I still gave it a four because it truly traumatized me the rest of the book, but I wish the ending could have tied all of the elements together in a meaningful and equally horrifying way rather than petering out.
What was the point of this? Obviously, this book is very similar to Misery, but without any of the outright horror. It was distilled to watching a guy be laid up in bed, which is one of my least favorite things to read about anyway, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING happened in this book. None of the flashbacks were interesting, the antagonist was too illusive a figure to be menacing, and then it just ended. Probably didn't need to be a one star but I'm bitter.
I really love Miranda July's writing but many of these stories were so aimless and too often over before I could grasp what I was supposed to take away from them. There were definitely a few that I liked (i.e. the longer ones) and I would definitely be interested to pick up some of her long form work.
i love melissa but this lowkey didn't do it for me. it made me feel like the movie the lodge honestly. i like open endings but this ending was more vacant than italy in spring. i like to be able to at least make a guess at what happened and i feel like this didn't give me that option. idk maybe i would feel different if i could read it physically.
I'm definitely the unpopular opinion on this book. I didn't hate this story by any means, but so much of it just didn't work for me. Of course, the writing was stunning like everyone says, but my main issue was with the romance and the structure of the book. I really like both Addie and Henry as individual characters, but I felt they had no chemistry as a couple. I felt like they only had feelings for each other because Henry remembered Addie and they didn't have any real connection beyond that. At about the half point of the book, or maybe the last third, the structure of the book became alternating chapters of Addie and the entity who cursed her and scenes with Addie and Henry. The Henry and Addie chapter were only filler written in a beautiful way to try and convince me of this great love story they were having but it felt so contrived. The chapter between Addie and the entity were equally as tiring because I knew what they were building up to from the very beginning so there was no feeling of tension, only of dragging out an inevitable. I guess my main problem with loving this book is how much it was trying to convince me to root for these characters I felt had zero spark. I didn't hate this book by any means but I'm very sad to say it's my least favorite V.E. Schwab book to date.
