nico
Contains spoilers
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
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
Contains spoilers
3.25 ★
i read the whole book today, so my judgement may be a bit clouded with the amount of information i had to process, but this was... something. i actually wrote down a couple of things that were a bit annoying(?). did jessica have to almost spit her wine quite literally EVERY time? and what even are "masculine colors" ? the amount of expressions/phrases that kept being used over and over and over again when most of the time were unnecessary or didn't even fully fit in with the rest of the sentence.
the plot was ok, nothing too great. i actually hate when the culprit ends up being the last one to be suspected, because it's just going through each one of them and you KNOW whoever is last will be the killer.. i just think it's a little lazy, especially in books that love "showing off" with so many twists and turns. the characters were all detestable, and my god did jessica annoy me; none of them is a good person but i felt like the female characters were constantly being punched down for no reason other than them being girls. out of the 7 characters + eric and courtney, jack and frankie are easily the best ones. not just in personality, but the way they were written; even with their flaws you can see them beyond that. even eric felt like that. but none of the female characters have that, caro is infinitely better than most of them and yet we get nothing for her, i understand that was the point for her IN the narrative, but as a whole? really? you're not even trying to pretend you also care about her. and heather! the girl who DIED, the supposed character who is haunting the narrative barely has any information on her, we get this whole plot point in which you find out MAYBE she's more than she shows, studying hard, and right on her sophomore year thinking about how to get a recommendation for later, even if she ends up playing it as "i decided on a whim" and then there's nothing? no explanation? no depth into her.
and the whole crime just being the blueprint of physical misogynistic behaviour... qnd it's painted off as "but my daddy issues". girl, shut the fuck up.
i was gonna develop more on that + a few more things, but i'm too tired for that rn. the book was fine tho, as a mystery it keeps you hooked on finding out who did it, it's just not very well executed.
3.0 ★
joana and i have started a new fun game in which we choose a random 1€ book for each other, and we have to read it. she got me this one, and i was interested since it was basically the fake dating/fake marriage trope! it ended up not being quite that, but it was fine nonetheless. this was a very fast and light read, and the plot unravelled rather quickly in a short window of time. not a lot of development nor depth, you're just thrown into the middle of the plot, but it works ok!
3.8 ★
this is such a difficult book to rate, because .... man i don't even know. i am very excited for our discussion in class tomorrow, and i really wanna hear more about this. i found the second 'kidnapping' a bit meh, and i didn't really enjoy that part of the story as much; even if it's supposed to be a mirror of the protagonist, it fell short, to me. it is kinda crazy how much the writer (humbert, not nabokov) tries to manipulate the reader, and does his best at trying to gain sympathy, because if we weren't aware of the severity of his actions and be able to tell apart what he really did from how he tells us, someone could really be tricked into understanding and justifying his actions
3.9★
i really enjoyed this one! the world building was amazing, and i loved getting to know how time and the clocks worked. the romance was cute, and since the characters get together quite quickly i'm glad it wasn't the main focus of the rest of the book; instead we got to know more about everything else and what is happening both within the group of people in charge of the clocks, and the protestants
while i was reading i guessed most of the "twists", but in no way did that make the reading experience worse, and it really immersed me in the story and in its world (love love love the steampunk vibe btw)
Contains spoilers
3.9★
this was very entertaining, but it felt a bit underwhelming in the end. i was fully expecting it not to turn supernatural, and the deaths to be easily explained (which they were) and the youtuber to have been lying, but then it happened and it felt rushed. i guess the ending was the only thing that i didn't like as much, which is unfortunate since i really liked the rest of the book.
i couldn't put it down, i kept reading it any time i could, and i enjoyed having the chapters alternating between the flight passengers and cherry. although i would've liked to see some of the stories a bit more fleshed out towards the end (mostly allegra's)
4.5★
i'm debating whether to give this 4 or 5 stars, i just loved it so much. at the beginning, i wasn't feeling it; thinking it was just a bunch of spoiled rich kids throwing a party that would end up in disaster with deaths and everything. i am so glad it was nothing like that.
from the moment we start in the past with the story of how their parents met, i was enthralled! and it kept getting better and better. i didn't realize at first who the author of the book was, but i'm not surprised i ended up liking it so much
i also heard someone's adapting this for a show or movie and i am very excited to see that
3.2★
i only started reading this because it was the only queer book available to read on the new portuguese library app, and i can't say i'm opposed to reading adam silvera's books since i loved the only other book i read of him. unfortunately, i was a bit disappointed with this one.
i wasn't the biggest fan of these characters, and i know they're teenagers, but griffin was ... a difficult character for me to completely like. i did cry several times, and i found this a very emotional book that forced me to think about my own grief which is something i usually try to ignore or push away.
the problem for me was the way the story was written; it felt too 'teenage-y', which, again, i understand, but i couldn't help to roll my eyes at some of the characters' actions and thoughts. and while the "dealing with death" part was very good, i didn't really care for much of the plot besides that. and this is more of a personal taste, but i don't care about established relationships, so having the main characters already together at the beginning of the history was a turn-off.
i guess i only have myself to blame, because i completely misunderstood the summary of the book and i was expecting something entirely different to play out, and so when i read this and realized what the actual story was about it fell short
4.25★
anyone: the king-
hamlet: OH! you mean my UNCLE? the BROTHER of my FATHER? my FATHER, who DIED, because he KILLED him? and then took his place? and decided to MARRY my MOM? his BROTHER'S WIFE?
this was so good, hamlet as a character is so entertaining, so funny. i can't even write a real review about this, because how dare i write anything even remotely serious about this play? it was just great!
3.5★
hmm i have quite a lot of thoughts about this book, the first 15% was so hard to get through, it throws you completely onto this world and you don't understand most of what is happening. even though you get tiny bits of information, it's hard to keep going without feeling a bit frustrated over the lack of understanding of this world.
eventually though, it gets better and it becomes easier to read! it's also important to note that this is in a journal form, which means you're stuck with a very specific type of exposition and a very personal way of talking/writing
all that said, for a little over half of the book (from 25% to 85%) it's really good and enjoyable, but the ending leaves you a bit underwhelmed. i understand there's more plot to come on the next books, but the resolution seemed too quick and too easy. i'm not sure i liked how the ice king story was "finished"
3.6 ★
i think i was watching a random youtube video and the youtuber mentioned this book and so i decided to give it a try and it was pretty good! i'm not someone who enjoys reading more spicy books, and this one had quite a bit of that, which made me enjoy this a little less. regardless, i liked this book!
4.25 ★
this was just SO good, i really loved it! it's always a gamble when reading about queer stories in the past while being historically accurate because if it was simply another world it's fine, but setting these stories in real life and what actually happened back then it's so much harder and i'm glad this book does it so well
andy is everything to me, i loved most of the characters, but he really is my favourite out of all. the way he thinks and how he approaches everything is amazing and i'm glad to see someone like him in a story like this one
