nico

4.25 ★

honestly, i was really enjoying this but i found the last quarter of the book to be a bit disappointing. i still liked it a lot, i was just expecting something so very different.

spoilers i guess, but joar being alive felt more like an "unexpected twist" that no one would guess, rather than a good reveal. he is definitely one of my favorite characters and i love that he didn't die, but for the sake of the story it feels poor. (also when we find out joar and ali kissed i was thrown back, cause i genuinely thought joar and the artist were actually in love fr. joar and ali felt meh in comparison)

also i don't know if it was me who got it wrong, but i was almost certain ted had been stabbed once BEFORE the school incident. the way it was written, it felt like they were hinting at a first injury before his student stabbed him and i kept expecting it to be related to that supposed "dreadful ending of the summer".

i can understand that the whole point was for us to think both joar and ali had died, and joar would definitely die THAT summer and that's what changed for everyone; and then it's revealed that it wasn't quite like that. but we spent so much time being led towards that direction, that when you find out that's not what happened, it ruined the magic for me. i would rather have had a heartbreaking and tragic end for that summer, because then it would feel consistent with the rest of the book.

man... i don't know, i still loved this, but. i guess i was expecting something different

4.5 ★

holy shit. no words to describe this book. so much happened and yet there's still so much to come.

OIKAWA IWAIZUMI NISHINOYA

3.4 ★

loved the reveal and i really enjoyed the game as a whole, but seeing everyone's future was so underwhelming. i didn't think it was necessary for everyone to stay connected like that especially turtle and theo like ?

3.9 ★

i'm not really sure what to say about this book, it took me a really long time to find how and where to get it, but i was able to buy it eventually. the story is fine, but i feel like most of the development between the characters is lost in the moments we don't get to see. apollo is one of my favorite characters and i enjoyed his portrayal in this book, even though i'm not the biggest fan of his "fears" in the more modern times. the book had quite a lot of errors, including misspellings, switched names, and a couple of words that shouldn't've been there, and there were a few repetitions of phrases that could've been written differently.

all in all, this was fine, i enjoyed it and it was a nice read nonetheless!

4.5 ★

rip charlie, you would've loved gross by hitgs

ok, but fr though, i have been waiting for so long to read this book, i pre-ordered it months ago, and it finally arrived just 2 days ago, and i had to start reading it! honestly, it's everything i was hoping for. it's cute, it's fun, and it's great! for some reason, i actually thought this was in uni, and not high school, so it caught me off guard when suddenly they were only sixteen.

i do have a few other stuff i wish were different; like, i wish we could've gotten this written in a 3rd person's pov just because i NEED to know everything jasper was thinking as well, charlie is great as a main character (more on this later), i just think i would've gone insane (positively) if we had also gotten to know more from jasper. and of course, the fact that this was set in high school just felt a bit too lacking to me. yes, high schoolers ARE that dramatic, and honestly, annoying me with the amount of stuff they think is so important when it's not is very accurate, and the whole hating romance makes sense for charlie because of course a 16 y/o would think that after ONE failed experiment, but i think their romance could've been more impactful if they were older

now, charlie! he was dramatic and anxious and honestly just a complete enneagram 4; unfortunately, e4s are not my favourite people. as a trans guy who is older than charlie, but behind him in terms of transitioning, sometimes i felt some of his fears were a bit much (though i can excuse him since he's a teenager). like, there's NO WAY i would make myself suffer through 1 hour of pe every day ???? (also, whose high school only has 6 classes, and it's the same schedule every day? what?) besides all this though, after my therapy appointment today and the fact that she made me talk about my feelings, which i can't (i get you charlie) i realize that maybe everything charlie's feeling is still what i feel even if i try to push it down and pretend i don't. so haha you know, fantastic...

anyway, i really liked this! i think the first half was my favourite, and more towards the end it started feeling a bit too much. mostly with charlie's lack of confidence and low self-esteem and thinking no one likes him, because i've gone through that when i was his age, and technically i only really accepted i was trans when my depression wasn't so severe, so seeing him be so far ahead with his transition and still have these fears was a bit disquieting to me.

i don't know, i've said a lot and expressed too much of my feelings...... this was great btw! love it when characters only get together at the end, and the humor was also very nice, i just really really liked it