i'm sorry but if you turn my teenage favorite books into graphic novels i am going to read themi'm sorry but if you turn my teenage favorite books into graphic novels i am going to read them...more
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their rellike a reverse irish exit?
anyway.
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their relationships: inexplicable. the plot: filled with years-long gaps to the point of being incomprehensible.
but the writing itself? the dialogue? the little jokes? excellent.
the other thing to know is that it is very weird. it's a white woman who was once a backup singer in a Black group and can't get over it. that's not much to carry us through 250 pages and it never feels any more normal.
maybe it was a different time.
bottom line: sometimes books are forgotten for a reason.
this book is A LOT. these poor teens are going through it all: coming out, mourning, coming of age, rumoreturning to my first love (ya contemporaries)
this book is A LOT. these poor teens are going through it all: coming out, mourning, coming of age, rumors about hired hitmen, racism, homophobia, so much death.
they are also putting themselves and each other and their parents through even more. the fringe characters here are a little over the top, and so are a lot of the actions themselves, but i'm also adjusting this for the being-a-grownup-reading-about-teenagers tax. when you're 17, leaving your dying grandmother alone at home until the wee hours maybe is nbd.
even if right now it's like...oh my god. can you guys please be nice to each other and maybe send your mom a text?!
bottom line: reading YA as an adult is equal parts fun, nostalgic, and nightmarishly frightening.
the worst part of this romance book is the romance.
the best part of this book is: it's genre-bending. it's bantery. it's filled with unforgettable chathe worst part of this romance book is the romance.
the best part of this book is: it's genre-bending. it's bantery. it's filled with unforgettable characters and a cool flower shop and a lovely setting in harlem. it is unrealistic in literally every way but most of the time that is fine too.
but i didn't like the love story, which is insta, and which is the story. no matter what the surroundings i can never seem to get past that one trope. it is my kryptonite.
i had so much fun with the rest of this! but not with the biggest part.
this book is like a smile prescription. one that like...anyone can take. almost no side effects. simple language. lots of repetitithis is always true.
this book is like a smile prescription. one that like...anyone can take. almost no side effects. simple language. lots of repetition. makes you feel like any problem can be solved by a strange librarian unendingly described by her weight and 1-2 books.
anyway. in spite of that, it's pretty charming.
i find that a lot of book club fiction is actually just a book that starts off sad and ends with hope: a new job, a new potential date, whatever.
this is like 5 of those in one, with 5 different characters entering the library and coming out with books that inspire them. it's very simplistic, sometimes overly so, but is just so cheerful. i enjoyed it.
it's no shock that i did like the bookshop part. and it's probably not that much of a shock thahad me at days in a bookshop.
lost me at the other days.
it's no shock that i did like the bookshop part. and it's probably not that much of a shock that it was the entire second half of the book, which occurred after our protagonist was no longer an employee of or even a real visitor to the bookshop, focusing on the reasons why her aunt had left her father many years before, that i didn't care for as much.
and to be fair, how could i have seen that one coming? i would have seemed diagnosable if i predicted that from this title / cover combo.
it's not just that it existed at all, although anything that pulls me away from a bookshop whether literally or fictionally is my enemy. it's more that the whole plotline felt shallow and unwieldy, given too much page time and still somehow not enough exploration.
i never have that problem when i'm reading about reading.
bottom line: books about books - yes. books about inaccurate and weird emotional subplots - maybe not.
this just felt too unrealistic. every book ni'm not saying i condone art theft.
but i AM saying...it's pretty cool.
and i wish this book had more of it.
this just felt too unrealistic. every book needs something to ground it, and this was so absurd: indescribable mansions, teenage art thievery prodigies, john green-esque dialogue, friends at school who act more like obsessive fans, rare disorders diagnosed by nearby ballerinas, insta- and life-defining love.
it was too much, and all of it felt dramatic and heavy, and because there was nothing to make any of it feel lifelike it just felt annoying.
i don't even know what this book is about.
but it wasn't art theft.
bottom line: i think many, many people will like this book. i am sad to learn i am not among them.
halle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every seconhalle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every second it makes you want to go back and lower the rating of everything you've read of late.
it is so funny and so precise and so clever, and a page will have a random unshakable description that is so goddamn weird and right. i fell completely in love with these characters and with this book, and as the end of it approached i read slower and slower in the hopes i'd discover 100 or so pages had been stuck together and hiding.
i was willing to lose a minor part of the body in exchange for this book. a pinkie toe, or an appendix. something like that.
i didn't have to do that, i was willing to lose a minor part of the body in exchange for this book. a pinkie toe, or an appendix. something like that.
i didn't have to do that, ultimately, but it would have been worth it.
i could read this author's books about crazy weird damaged people healing and being happy exclusively for the rest of my life and be content.
this was heady and intense and very truly bizarre, and at many points i felt anxious reading it, and it really reminded me why i hate true crime (which is honestly a pro), but all of those ended up being good things. i connected to this story and this protagonist, and this book is very strange and very real and very dark and very fun all at once. while being somewhat less so than the book by this author that i truly love.
christa comes out of her shell...because christa is shy and also studying snails...i see what you did there.
if only this had more snails.
unfortunatelychrista comes out of her shell...because christa is shy and also studying snails...i see what you did there.
if only this had more snails.
unfortunately this book was over the top ridiculous and utterly forced. it was filled with nonsense jokes, flat characters, an ill-advised romance, a made-up career, inconsistent characterization, villainous recurring extras, a child’s understanding of business, and a corny plot.
i didn’t have fun and in fact grew increasingly annoyed.
in spite of the title, christa is neither shy nor seemingly all that knowledgeable about snails. i would have appreciated either if it meant she either shut up for a minute or talked about shelled creatures instead of indulging in more of her infuriatingly quirky internal monologue.
but no luck.
bottom line: i don't know what just happened, but i didn't like it.
if i'm not supposed to judge books by their covers, why do they have such beautiful onesif i'm not supposed to judge books by their covers, why do they have such beautiful ones...more
picking up a new morgan matson book on a warm day will forever be the most exciting moment of my life.
even better, this had a lot of my favorite morgapicking up a new morgan matson book on a warm day will forever be the most exciting moment of my life.
even better, this had a lot of my favorite morgan matson tropes: road trips, chaotic families, puns, the same set of nice familiar fictional towns (plus some nevada appearances), rom-com-like deals and rules, Personal Growth alongside the love story, a really long book that is so fun and fluffy it melts away.
it's also a little more mature, which is fun!
it was a little more dramatic and a little less friendship-y than my very favorites, but this was such a fun time.
bottom line: i need morgan matson to write 4 books a year.
modern life is an unrelenting nightmare <3 and so is this book.
do you know how difficult it is to get me to think a MAN is a better person than a womamodern life is an unrelenting nightmare <3 and so is this book.
do you know how difficult it is to get me to think a MAN is a better person than a woman? a woman who is our protagonist? a man who is bad?
but our main character, a woman who is addicted to internet stalking, being nosy, justifying her own behavior, and chalking it all up to a vague feminism, is so much worse. she begins at rock bottom and manages to do a sum total of negative character development, spending her days jealous of a hot dead girl who dared to date her not even boyfriend 2 years ago.
i can excuse a lot of bad behaviors in the face of the unrelenting misery of daily life — this is coming from a person who usually replaces at least one meal with a small pile of sweets on any given day, like a child who magically gained the power of self-determination — but it turns out even i have a line.
bottom line: this is monotonous, unchanging, and hard to get through. much like la vie quotidienne itself.
this may seem like a beach read, but it's actually a fantasy novel about a millennial who is able to live in a major city, own a home in california, ethis may seem like a beach read, but it's actually a fantasy novel about a millennial who is able to live in a major city, own a home in california, eat takeout every night, and take luxury vacations on a copywriter's salary.
to which i say: lol.
by far the best part of this was the food descriptions.
everything else was mediocre to bad, ranging from silly characters to silly plots to silly writing (for example, trying to describe how time moves slower in this setting and saying "Everything was longer in Italy. Even time," when in fact time is the only thing being described).
on top of that, this is the perfect romance for all those readers out there who prefer their love interests to take advantage of drunk and/or weeping and/or mid-mental breakdown women.
dreamy!
bottom line: i want a cold glass of wine and a tomato-based appetizer in a seafront restaurant now, the lack of possibility of which will be the second way this book disappoints me.
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