Hailey

To be brutally honest, I'm stunned... But not in a good way. I am unwilling to rate this book, because, well, I don't believe in giving books a rating less than 2 stars.

So, I started reading this because the kids in my class were reading Fahrenheit 451 for school. Since I read that over the summer, my teacher have me to choice to either 1)re-read Fahrenheit 451, or 2)read Uglies. I, being the reader that I am, thought to myself, “Well obviously I'll read a book that I've never read before!” Looking back, I see now that that wasn't the better decision. It, unfortunately, was probably my worst book decision. Ever. So now that you are aware of the circumstances that I was in when I read this book, I'll give you just a few reasons why I despised this book so much.

1)Tally. What can I say? I literally HATED Tally. Most people really liked Tally, BUT I COULDN'T UNDERSTAND WHY. Tally whined for- what, half the book?- about nothing. Nothing that actually mattered, at least. She was a terrible protagonist. And yes, you could argue that she did undergo some character development. But her character development transition? It reminded me of how you exit a state. One second you're in PA, and the next you're in OH. One second, Tally was all like, “BEING PRETTY IS THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING,” and the next she was all like, “Beauty is what is on the inside. Not the outside” There were times when I was reading this and literally cringed, because I couldn't stand whatever Tally was doing.

2)David. Man, everyone loved David. Personally, I would have been elated if David had somehow died. It probably would have added to the story, and given it an actual plot twist. Besides that, David was the perfect, life-changing guy. What flaws did he have? He didn't have a pretty face. Other than that, he was perfect. And, frankly, unrealistic.

3)The Romance. The romance was a joke. It was instant love, which is something that I find particularly bothersome. Not to mention, naturally Shay had a crush on David. Furthermore, David just isn't right for Tally. If he's going to be so perfect, he needs someone with more depth than Tally.

4) The Plot Twists. There are times when I guess the occasional plot twist, but in this book, I literally predicted every. Single. One. The author gave away too many hints about what was to happen, instead of keeping it a bit more vague, thus increasing the mystery and suspense.

Those were my top 4 reasons as to why I did not like this book, but there are more. Overall, I think that this book had a LOT of potential to be something incredible, but I felt that it just fell flat. The writing style was nice, and it flowed beautifully. But for this book, the negatives greatly outnumbered the positives. Don't let my review deter you from reading this book, because there are many GREAT reviews of it, and as always, this is simply a matter of opinion. With that said, I will not be continuing this series.

Edit: I'm done being kind, I really did hate this, it deserves a 1 star:

No one show my father this review for he will be wholly disappointed.This book just wasn't my style. The plot was very haphazardly put together and it felt like it was being planned as it was being written. I didn't care a ton for the characters, but perhaps that would have been a bit different if I had read [b:The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 24583 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1404811979s/24583.jpg 41326609] before this. Frankly, I was kind of bored with this and had to force myself to finish it. I think my displeasure was also heightened since this was the last required reading I had to do and it was also my least favorite of the three.Maybe I'll read another Mark Twain book at some point, just for my dad.

I really, really wanted to like this but it just didn't pan out for me.

I enjoyed the humor but I often felt that this story was disjointed. It felt like nothing would happen for several pages, then one page of action, and so on. I also felt that the story could have essentially taken place in half of these pages with all of the unnecessary lists of names... why were there so many of those?

Overall, this is a very ‘meh' book.

Actual rating: 4.5

This book was quite fantastic. I adored the writing style- it flowed so smoothly throughout the entire novel.

The flashbacks were great. They were interspersed with the present perfectly, and had some relevance to the events occurring in the present. Moreover, Oakes did not give away too much at one time, which built suspense for the whole novel.

Character wise, the novel really only have one main character. The other characters were rather minor, even if they did contribute to Minnow's growth significantly. In a way, it's a story about self discovery, and a very good one at that.

It's an interesting read with an interesting concept, and I certainly enjoyed it. It was the kind of book that was difficult to set down!

Surprisingly, this is actually one of the best books I've read recently! It absolutely astounds me that Hinton was LITERALLY 16 years old when she wrote this. God. How.

I found this story utterly captivating. It was harrowing and forced the reader to look at some ugly truths in life. The characters were each unique and remarkable in their own ways.

Personally, I wouldn't be shocked if I picked this up to reread this someday. And that's saying something because I never reread books.