My limited and rarely tested abilities to write a five star review, ever decaying and decreasing from laWell, well, well.
Look what the cat dragged in.
My limited and rarely tested abilities to write a five star review, ever decaying and decreasing from lack of use. We meet again.
I will continue to make my own lack of skill the audience for this review, just for a moment, because this is a special occasion. This isn't just any five star book, although that would be a fairly once in a blue moon event as well.
You and I - you, of course, being my minimal talents - need to get it together.
This is a SALLY ROONEY book. And not just any Sally Rooney book, but possibly my FAVORITE Sally Rooney book. Could very well be my favorite book by who is likely my favorite author, in other words. Rooney has published one excerpt, one essay, three novels, and four short stories, and I have read her work 22 times, in total.
Also notably, there is a book I have called the following: - my Bible - the book of my heart - my literal and figurative self, distilled into pages - my most recommended book - my favorite book of the last 150 years - nearly my favorite book of all time, second only to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - my comfort book - the closest thing I have to a religion
It's a book called Conversations with Friends, it's also written by Sally Rooney, and it seems to have been dethroned by this one.
There's a reason I've put off writing this review for two and a half months. The stakes are f*cking high.
So where do I go from here?
I can tell you that, so long as I live, I expect never to encounter writing like this again. Writing so clear and lovely, writing that summons new images and thoughts and emotions you've never considered and acts as a kind acknowledgment of the scariest and deepest and truest ones you quietly have.
I can say that this book begins with a launch, a tossing into the pool, an unceremonious jumping in that's more like a continuation, an assumption you've been there all along. That though it begins suddenly it feels like coming home.
I can note that these are some of Rooney's best and worst love stories, the ones you root for the most with the most complicated and "bad" and problematic people populating them, and that it's so beautiful to have those two things coexist.
I can attempt to work out my feelings about these characters, that while I feel for them and am fascinated by them and may adore them, it's almost beside the point of everything else. That for me, a person who reads for characters, the characters are wonderfully done and the realest yet, and the least important part, for me.
I can add that this is also an incredible act of bravery by Rooney, that it serves a huge leap in scope and in style and in intention from her previous books, that she has been criticized for much of her still-nascent career in a way that feels mean-spirited by the aging totems of Literature, and that instead of ducking her head and conceding to the characterization of her work as vapid and millennial, she filled her third book with so much heart it's hard to fathom.
I can try to describe what this book means to me, what it's like to spend most of your life trying on cynicism like a Halloween costume, scratchy and seamy and not quite right, to indulge in pithy "I hate everyone" negativity when people seem to be the only real reason life is worth living, and then have your very favorite author - who, it may have been mentioned, holds a fairly outsize role in your heart and mind - tell you she thinks so, too.
I want you to know, and I can try to convey, that love and friendship are all that matters, and that this book is the loveliest way of giving yourself the gift of letting yourself believe that.
I will try to tell you so many things if they get you to read this book.
Bottom line: This is a once in a lifetime one, for me.
----------------- note
as if i needed more reasons to find this book completely perfect: free palestine
----------------- reread pre-review
the first time i read this, i finished it in a sitting.
the second time, i savored every word.
review to come / 5 stars / more if i could
----------------- reread updates
i don't know how long i can go without rereading a sally rooney book. but i'm not willing to find out
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i wish i could say this was as good the third time...but i can't.
like, it’s probably gotten to the point that people who don’t know anything about me or read my reviews know that. everybody knows i love emily henry.
like, it’s probably gotten to the point that people who don’t know anything about me or read my reviews know that. probably the people who do all they can to avoid my crossing their digital path (and i imagine these people must exist judging by the number of john green fans i’ve angered alone) know it too.
it’s just that true. it's at the core of my identity.
i love her and i shout it from the rooftops on the reg.
i was very, very, veryveryvery excited to hear she was doing a rom-com, way outside her then-usual genre of Young Adult Magical Realism About Funny Brave Prickly Young Women Who Have Magic Or Are Magic Or Are Uniquely Capable Of Seeing Magic, And Their Funny Fun Unique Bands Of Friends.
(my favorite genre.) (may i pray every day that it will come back someday.)
in fact i think i commented a concerning all-caps something or other on her instagram announcement to convey the sheer breadth of my excitement, an event which i’m sure was mildly to severely frightening and yet she handled with grace and poise.
with each passing day i grow more convinced i am a concerning presence on the outskirts of emily henry’s online life.
but i digress.
as i wrote this, my goodreads review of this book contained five updates. yes. i am currently updating my original review, and yet i have already written five small reviews. in addition to the big one. again. excitement.
this book was NICE. it is not my favorite emily henry book (a very tall order), but it does act as the first step in the execution of one of my most hoped-for dreams: an emily henry book in every genre. which in turn is a step toward the pinnacle of my wishes: that all books be written by emily henry.
a step in the right direction.
this is a very cute and fun romance that spends way too much time on an almost inexplicable cult subplot. i diagnose this as "emily henry's weirdo brain having to come out somehow," and because it isn't coming up with whimsical magic systems for YA this is an alternative.
still, i enjoyed this so much. even if i mourn that era. which is why i started this reread – i have finally admitted to myself emily henry is a romance writer and i can't auto-4 star to kill time.
it is also often more Rom than Com. there’s a lot of Character Development and Relationship Arcs and Changing Life Paths here. it is overall a more serious book than that crazy-cute cover would imply.
which is the perfect real-life execution of one of the themes of this book: literature is no less literature-y for being written by women, or for being written for women, or for ending happily.
books are books and books are good.
especially if they’re written by emily henry.
bottom line: <3
4.5
------------------- reread update
deciding to reread all emily henry books as a cry for help...more
Okay so I'm four starring this right now but honestly it might be higher. I DON'T KNOW. I FORGET HOW TO LIKE BOOKS.
I have a 2.97 average rating, you gOkay so I'm four starring this right now but honestly it might be higher. I DON'T KNOW. I FORGET HOW TO LIKE BOOKS.
I have a 2.97 average rating, you guys. This isn't something I'm "good at."
Anyway here is what I know: - I love Neil Gaiman - like seriously he is consistently just cranking out sh*t I like - okay I mean sure I didn't love American Gods and I didn't love Fortunately the Milk and I didn't love The Sleeper and the Spindle but do any of them even count?? - sure American Gods probably definitely counts, seeing as it's his most popular book and all - but whatever because I didn't even hate any of them! - and considering the fact that I loved Coraline and The Graveyard Book and ESPECIALLY The Ocean at the End of the Lane, it balances out regardless! - anyway. about this actual, you know, book that I'm allegedly reviewing: - it's very fairytale-y, which I love - very British, which I'm always meh on, but this time in a fairytale way so it's fine - the characters aren't anything to write home about BUT the world is so - also it's just fun! - I don't know what else to tell you. The cover says it's a "fairytale for adults" and a) that's rad as hell and b) that's exactly what it is so. I'm more than contented.
Bottom line: I'm going to keep reading Neil Gaiman books and hoping for the best!! That process has worked out for me pretty well thus far....more
we are BACK (and a week late) for Project Long Classics, in which elle and i tackle a long intimidating classic in small chunks for an entire month.
however, this book is not long, and it's not intimidating, and personally i will be reading this AND the sequel at a chapter-ish a day.
join our book club to join the project!! follow on instagram here or join the discussion here.
DAY 1: DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE as we start things off, i'll include the cheesy declaration of love i wrote when announcing this pick in our book club discord:
this is my favorite book of all time. this teeny tiny children's classic is so dear to me - whether you want a light fairytaley read or a thematically rich toughie you can analyze all day long, you can find either experience in this.
filled with whimsy, imagination, and the bittersweet nostalgia of dreams and childhood, i never tire of this - and i get something new from it with every read. at one chapter a day, this and its sequel (THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE), which i see as a continuation of the first more than a separate book, can be read in 24 days!
bleh. gross. look how sweet and earnest.
DAY 2: THE POOL OF TEARS it's actually day 8. i'm terribly slumped - the kind where it literally never occurs to you to read and then when it does you're like...am i physically capable of doing this? how did i ever make these words enter my head?
if anything can heal me it's this.
update: not yet, but we did get our first curiouser and curiouser...slay...
DAY 3: A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE the titular mouse's tale / mouse tail pun here...one of the greatest of all time i dare say...
DAY 4: THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL i don't know how the little EAT ME cakes manage to sound so good with virtually no description, but they do. maybe because these look so goddamn delicious?
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or maybe just because i like cake.
DAY 5: ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR folks...it's day 12.
i've never been slumped like this and at this point i am Frightened. my goodreads challenge is beginning to appear to stare back at me, like the void or one of those scary crusty small white dogs.
but this book is simply...everything.
DAY 6: PIG AND PEPPER the baby-turning-into-a-pig thing is honestly objectively terrifying. especially when alice is like "this baby is like a star-fish" and looks down and boom.
but! cheshire cat appearance. and "we're all mad here." huge quote for people with watercolor tattoos and hot topic graphic tees.
DAY 7: A MAD TEA-PARTY ICONS ALERT!!! a real heavy hitter. maybe my favorite chapter.
what can i say? not all my opinions are unpopular.
DAY 8: THE QUEEN'S CROQUET-GROUND monarchs, am i right.
DAY 9: THE MOCK TURTLE'S STORY well, it's actually day 14, so i might as well mess around and finish this book already. i wanted to relish it but my dumb suddenly-illiterate brain refuses to allow me to!
also: "Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was very ugly." vibes.
DAY 10: THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE this one is a ton of fun but impossible to compete in a universe that contains the walrus and the carpenter.
DAY 11: WHO STOLE THE TARTS? let's go to court!!!!!
sooooo important to remember that even in a nonsense-world, nothing is more illogical and annoying than outdated monarchical structures and the incompetence of the judicial system.
DAY 12: ALICE'S EVIDENCE and it was all a dream!!!
or was it?
or does it even matter at all?
(no.)
perfect book.
OVERALL i have this wholeeeee five star review below, but i'll quickly say that nothing makes me happy and fulfilled and whimsical like this book does. and that's my ideal way to be.
my favorite forever! rating: 5
------------------------ original review
THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK.
No qualifier. No excuse. No “one of my favorites.” This one is it, y’all.
Well, also Through the Looking Glass. But THAT’S PRACTICALLY THE SECOND HALF OF THE SAME BOOK. (And other examples of my inability to make decisions or commit in any way to anything.)
I currently have 18 copies of this book. I’ve attempted to read it at least annually for the past three years. And by “annually,” I mean I last revisited this book about nine months ago.
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But hey, it was a different year then, technically speaking.
How do I even review this? I don’t know where to begin. (Just a heads up that my obsessive personality is going to become verrrrry clear as this review progresses. I’m not proud. This is who I am, you guys. I was a member of the fandoms of some teen pop sensation or other for nearly ten consecutive years. I’m no longer thirteen but I still need an outlet. Honestly I’m quite afraid that if I don’t have an obsession, I’ll become a drug addict. Lots of pent up energy.)
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Well, I’ll say that I always, always, always feel enveloped by this book. I have never picked this up without feeling instantly submersed in Wonderland. And it’s really my favorite place to be. It’s hard to feel unhappy when you’re in the greatest setting ever created.
And oh yeah, there’s that. I firmly believe this is the most amazing and beautiful and confusing and curious setting of all time. It’s immersive, and it’s strange, and it’s so unique and fantastic and creative and I love it so much. I can come up with even more loosely positive adjectives if that overwhelming number didn’t suffice.
Wonderland is my Hogwarts. While many readers pray their letters just got lost in the mail, I’m constantly hoping I’ll see a white rabbit in a waistcoat and fall down, down, down into what must be the center of the earth.
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I love Alice and her curiosity. She may also be my favorite character ever. She’s funny and sweet and childish and such a blast to read about. Her reactions to everything are so, so funny. Her curiosity always outweighs confusion and fear. I’d like to wake up one day and be Alice. I’ll likely become one of those creeps who pays millions for plastic surgery in order to “resemble” some celebrity or other.
On an unrelated note, anyone have millions of dollars they’re trying to get rid of?
I’m also fiercely protective of this book. I constantly pick up retellings only to be utterly disappointed. (Like Heartless. Get out of here with your shoddy Carroll-stealing.) DO NOT, DO NOT! GET ME STARTED ON THE TIM BURTON FILM ADAPTATION. Horrific. Alice, an adult? Alice, engaged? Alice FIGHTING THE GODDAMN JABBERWOCK?
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But I do love the original animated Disney adaptation. There’s a certain quality to the book that’s captured within that film, which I haven’t found recreated in any other retelling or use of the setting or adaptation.
Oh, and one more thing, while I’m here.
THIS BOOK ISN’T ABOUT DRUGS, YOU SURFACE-LEVEL INTERPRETERS OF SYMBOLISM. It’s not that easy, boo.
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In the words of BBC News, “[the drug] references may say more about the people making them than the author.”
Lewis Carroll isn’t thought to have been a user of drugs, the Caterpillar was smoking tobacco, and the mushroom is no more magic than the various cakes Alice eats.
Honestly, the drug reading is simple and boring. It’s such a stretch to attempt to read each character as a different substance. And scrolling through countless quasi-psychedelic GIFs to find the actual ones was irritating, too. Ah, yes, real art: taking images from a 1951 children’s film but messing with the colors and movement until it looks like nothing more than a trigger for epilepsy. Enough, Tumblr.
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Alice in Wonderland carries as much or as little significance as you want it to. It’s everything from a mindless romp in an imaginative land to a depiction of the effects of a ruthlessly authoritarian system of justice.
Just have fun with it.
And please, for the love of God, stop applying your weird psychedelic edits to a Disney movie.
Note on the audiobook: This time around, I listened to the audiobook, to switch things up. Scarlett Johansson read it. I loved her funny accents and hated her overly-acted narration. A mixed bag.
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Bottom line: This is my favoritest and I doubt it will be dethroned anytime soon. Come at me, every other book.
------------ reread updates
when I find myself in times of trouble Lewis Carroll comes to me speaking words of wisdom "just reread"...more
This book is quite a feat, either way. You can read essentially ANY THEME into this novel: good and evil, race, religion, gender, science, wealth, power, abstinence, war, colonization. More, probably, but it’s a Monday and I had four hours straight of math tonight and I’m sleeeeepy. Anyway, that all sounds peachy keen, right? Emma, I imagine you saying, what do you mean it could be shitty? Look at all those themes! It’s the great Irish novel, maybe! I know, imaginary reader. I hear ya. But there are things about this book that are even weirder than that quasi-sex scene. (The joke is that you can’t tell which one. There are a million symbolic moments of characters gettin’ it on. Truly wild.)
BUT OKAY. It’s not just that there are a bajillion themes. Because that would be cool. No, it’s that you can make an argument for either side of every theme. Sexist or feminist; condemning religion or supporting it; racist or accepting; et cetera et cetera. The book is also straight up teeming with stuff like repetition that can either be thematically significant or just a bad job. (Can you imagine being the editor of this book? “Uh, Bram?…Hey buddy. So, you use essentially the same passage describing Dracula’s powers three times in one chapter, so – I was, you know, wondering – are you a genius or a total dumbass?” If I achieve my dream of being an editor/publisher I’m only editing YA. Too scary.)
The upside of all this was that this book was such a blast to discuss in class. (A substantial f*cking improvement from slogging through boring old Huck Finn everyday for two weeks.) We would spend like an hour on a page, trying to discern sexism from feminism and desperately seeking homosexual overtones. (OH BOY DID WE FIND THEM, AND OH BOY DID WE LOVE DOING IT.) Anyway. In-depth textual analysis is like, my favorite thing.
This shindig was intermittently a blast (ohmygod! Vampires were fun even in 1897!) and soooo boring (ohmygod. What is up with plotlines from 1897). Still, I gotta give mad props to this book, because I read it EXCLUSIVELY by forcing myself through it in 110-page chunks in one work-study shift…and I still enjoyed it most of the time. That never happens! Sure as shit didn’t happen with Huck Finn.
The characters really sucked, but that happens a lot with classics. Weird that a handful of these endured, though. I won’t miss them even if I end up missing reading this. (It’s been a big part of my life for a while! Okay, like a couple weeks, but that’s a long time for me.)
But I do think this book is sexist, and I don’t think it’s close to perfect, and there are creepy issues with consent and metaphoric sexual assault and gender roles, and I wanted to write a paper on this book being an allegory of the battle between science and religion (religion won, guys!) but was FORCED to write on gender, the most clichéd topic of them all. Still, though, this book impressed me. (To clarify I wasn’t excited that religion won. I’m excited that said conclusion fit with my hypothetical essay.)
Bottom line: I think I liked this? I definitely recommend it. It’s cool to see what started (not actually but don’t @ me) all our cultural whatnot with vampires. (Still not that into them though. I say while technically currently reading some dumb book about them.)...more
Do you ever love a book so much that it doesn’t feel like a book? You’re so immersed and reading is so effortless that you don’t feel like you’re reading at all? The characters are real enough to be people, and their problems and happinesses feel like they’re happening to you?
That was me with this book.
Which is all well and good until it comes down to reviewing it.
Basically what I’m saying is I’m at a loss for words. I’m saying I have nothing TO say. This is just too damn good.
I didn’t read this as a kid, or for many years after. I didn’t think I’d be interested. I had a copy for years with no intention of picking it up, because I am shallow as hell and only bought a copy in the first place because it’s pretty. (In my defense: look HOW pretty.) Honestly, I can’t remember why I decided to read it in the first place.
But I am very, very, VERY glad I did.
I love Anne so much. I love Green Gables. I love Diana, I love Matthew and Marilla, later on I love Gilbert (although I don’t really understand how people love him from this book alone. Not much to see).
After reading this, I was obligated to chase the high of the reading experience by picking up the next two installments as quickly as possible, and they were just as good. Mostly. But still an unparalleled level of good.
I guess what I’m trying to carry across here is that somehow this hundred year old children’s classic about an orphan girl moving to a rural island in Canada was one of the most unputdownable books I’ve ever read.
And also the writing is as pretty as the cover.
Bottom line: I want to live in this book, please and thank you.
----------- pre-review
fun fact: joy exists as a concrete object, and it's called Anne of Green Gables.
I managed to write an almost-full review of this book. It is here!: https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co... --------------------------- I can't believeI managed to write an almost-full review of this book. It is here!: https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co... --------------------------- I can't believe I'm saying this, but...the movie really was a better story.
Maybe I'll go watch that for the millionth time.
This book pales in comparison to The Secret Garden, but it was still good. Hard to make an über-wealthy seven-year-old seem great, but this book does it. (Burnett KILLS it with the unlikable characters!) I liked the first half better than the second, probably because, again, the movie version of the story is just a lot more entertaining.
There are also a lot more villains in the book. It's more like Sara in a sea of people who are average-to-bad, which is kind of a weird message for a children's book.
Anyway. I'm glad I finally read this, though. It was good, and if I'd read the book first I wouldn't be judging it so harshly.
Bottom line: Yeah, give it a try. Look at that goddamn cover!...more
i'm sure this book was very good when it came out in 19whatever (i could check this but warning - i am going to spend this review being as annoying asi'm sure this book was very good when it came out in 19whatever (i could check this but warning - i am going to spend this review being as annoying as possible to a certain group), but it's way, way better now.
in whatever time of the 20th century this came out during, this was thought to be written in opposition to stalinist russia. that's fine. whatever. not exactly a hot take for a white guy from the western world to be anti-USSR.
but now...now it's abundantly clear.
if it weren't already obvious that this book is written about how bad totalitarianism is (as opposed to being specifically about communism), take a look at the world around us, then check it against orwell's political views, then come back to me.
a certain political faction (of evil morons) in my certain country i live in (take a wild guess) likes to call certain things (the ones that are against them) "orwellian."
nonwhite people entering your country? orwellian. having to be nice to others and not call them slurs? orwellian. the idea of people not appreciating your opinions and thereby being "anti-free speech" (even though that is not what free speech is)? orwellian.
ignoring the fact that the very idea of their using the word orwellian to serve their purposes is far more, well, orwellian, i'll just come out and say it: because people on the right don't know how to read, they haven't ever actually really thought about or analyzed either this or 1984. so they assume that george orwell is on their side - the pro-rich getting richer and anti-poor not being poor side.
but, my dear conservative friends, orwell was an outspoken democratic socialist from top to bottom.
so maybe pick one of the copious number of far-right classic authors to support your dumbass point.
oh? there aren't really any to be found?
bummer. maybe next millennium.
part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago and either make myself or others angry...more
I am physically unqualified, because I could write infinite words about how much I love this book, and I I am so unqualified to write about this book.
I am physically unqualified, because I could write infinite words about how much I love this book, and I type in a weird way that makes my wrists hurt so infinity is simply not going to happen.
I am emotionally unqualified, because I lack emotional intelligence when it comes to my own feelings and the idea of trying to explain how I feel about this book is overwhelming.
I am spiritually unqualified, because of the aforementioned overwhelmed-ness.
I am also unqualified generally, in the grand scheme of things, because so many people have written so intelligently about the wonderfulness of this book and I have nothing better to add.
Just more rambling like this.
I read a lot of romance, and if you want to venture a theory as to why, I’d love to hear it. I very seldom like it, so maybe it’s a masochist tendency. Maybe I’m a glutton for the attention that writing negative reviews of popular books gives me. (Definitely not that one, since the few mean comments always outweigh the far more numerous nice ones in my stupid brain.) Whatever.
I read a lot of romance, but I almost never feel anything about it.
I LOVE this book. It gives me...uh…(everyone stop reading this to save me the embarrassment and allow me to preserve my rough and tumble reputation)...butterflies.
I know. I’m cringing forever. But it’s true.
This is a lovely book. It’s beautifully written, it’s funny, it’s filled with characters who feel full and real and different from one another (even though half of them have the same name), and it truly is the best love story ever told.
What more could you ask for?! Spoiled rotten, the lot of you.
Bottom line: A dream.
----------- rereading updates
i am currently being paid to reread this book. highly recommend that everyone works in publishing
-------- pre-review
starting a fundraiser to raise money for a monument in honor of Jane Austen's brain
review to come / 5 stars obviously
----------- currently-reading updates
my heart has space for exactly 435 pages. the entirety of my heart is made up of Pride & Prejudice. nothing else....more
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
i fin“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
i find it almost impossible to write on this book at all, let alone extensively enough to constitute a review. it's just so lovely and wonderful, and it really seems like one of those books that reveals another facet with every reading.
(it was just as delightful the second and third read as the first, and nearly as great in english as in french.)
Exactly one star less worthy-of-fangirling than I remember it being. Still fun. Not life-changing. But we’ll get there. (I think that’s like, my new cExactly one star less worthy-of-fangirling than I remember it being. Still fun. Not life-changing. But we’ll get there. (I think that’s like, my new catchphrase. I’ve said that so many times in my recent reviews. I had always hoped when I got a catchphrase, it’d be something cooler. I don’t have an example of a cooler one - if I did, don’t you think I’d be using it?!)
Let’s talk about what’s changed since I first read this book. First off:
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Technically speaking. I’m still incredibly youthful. And have very few responsibilities. Or at least live my life as if I have none. But legally, tragically, I have reached adulthood.
When I first read this, even though it was only a few years ago, I had No Semblance of maturity. I was very far from my freshman year of college (which is the surrounding storyline of this book), I was either into Justin Bieber or One Direction, probably, and I think I was into fanfiction.
Now, I am very not all of those things. I just finished out my freshman year, it’s been a long time since my male-teen-pop-sensation-fandom days, and fanfiction really, really makes me cringe. Also, I didn’t hate books all the time then.
A very different mindset, see?
Shall we start with the good stuff, though? I’m giving this four stars, guys. There was a lot of good stuff.
First off, I’m obsessed with Reagan. OB. SESSED. For the approximately 3 people on Goodreads who haven’t read this book, we follow Cath, a dweeby anxious fanfiction sensation entering her freshman year of college with her twin, Wren, who we are constantly told is the cooler/hotter/more confident sister. Anyway. Reagan is Cath’s roommate, who is super pissed at this living situation and has exactly none of Cath’s nonsense. She is so mean and badass and clearly could not give a sh*t about anything. While Cath is holing up in her room, she’s going out and having fun CONSTANTLY. Also she’s smart. She’s a less-creepy April Ludgate and I love her. I want to be her.
My favorite Reagan moment is when Cath keeps talking about how she’s not the ~type of girl~ who steals someone’s boyfriend and how Levi (we’ll get to him) would never date a ~girl like her~, Reagan just keeps saying, “The girl kind?” Because, you know, GIRLS DON’T COME IN TYPES.
There’s more good stuff, too! I can hardly believe it. Okay, so yes, the good stuff is mainly Levi. But he’s really great.
Levi is the love interest of this book. He is very fantastic. Just a total sweetheart and a charmer. Why aren’t there more adorable twenty-one-year-olds with receding hairlines in this world??? Anyway. If you pick up this book for one reason, let that reason be Leviiiiii.
More good things, more good things...I’m kinda blanking. There are a lot of descriptions of delicious-sounding Mexican food in this, which made me hungry and now I really want a burrito thanks.
I also pretty much flew through this book. Two sittings-ish, which isn’t bad for 400+ pages. (We’ll get to the length.) And it was fun, for the most part! So that’s a big positive.
Aw. (You can’t see me, but I’m frowning.) I think it’s time to get to the bad stuff now. Which makes me sad. Because I didn’t think there would be any bad stuff. (Don’t @ me about my unrealistic expectations; I’m still giving this FOUR STARS.)
First, I have to say: I almost reread this in August, during my college orientation, and I’m SO GLAD I DIDN’T. Rowell does a brilliant job of capturing Cath’s anxiety (although it’s undiagnosed, which isn’t actually great mental illness rep). The downside is it made me, as a reader, also feel that anxiety, and if I had felt that way going into college you can BEST BELIEVE it would not have turned out well.
Also, there are just some things about this book that are mildly stupid. I unlocked this knowledge after actually, you know, attending a college. Like, for one, who lets a freshman into a junior-level English class just because she asked? A freshman who doesn’t even know the professors yet? Wild. I barely got bumped into a sophomore-level class even when I knew the instructor super well.
And now that I’m thinking of it, who offers intro to fiction writing at the junior level?! That SHOULD be a freshman class. There’s gotta be a better way to let the audience know that Cath is talented. Ugh, God, can you imagine being a junior who’s worked their ass off to get into that class and some nobody freshman shows up and submits fanfiction as an assignment? I’d DIE.
Which, like, speaking of...of freaking course you can’t submit fanfiction as an assignment. That is inSANE to me. Are there people who could think that is okay? The secondhand embarrassment I got when Cath submitted gay smut about two wizards in a book series for children to a respected novelist...my God.
And about those children’s-book-series-wizards. The fictional series within this book, Simon Snow, just IS Harry Potter. There’s a Harry equivalent, a Draco, a Hermione, a Dumbledore, a Cho, a Voldemort, even a flippin’ Viktor Krum, and it all happens in a knockoff Hogwarts. It didn’t bug me the first time I read this book, or when I read Carry On, but the fact that Harry Potter also exists in this universe doesn’t add up. Why wouldn’t it be mentioned more than once, anyway? At least with someone being like, hey, did anyone else notice that these books are the same? Bleh.
I got all that information from the fanfiction mentioned in the first quarter of this book. Because after that, I stopped reading it. I got bored. I don’t care about Simon Snow, or Cath’s fanfiction empire. (How did I make it through Carry On? That’s literally all that is.)
Other bad stuff...Oh, yeah. The first chunk of this book features a sh*t ton of rape jokes. Like, of the “Don’t get raped!” variety. Which is just in poor taste.
I also am suuuper not into either of the twins. Cath is a total wet blanket, and Wren is dumb. Cath never does anything, and when Wren gets alcohol poisoning, she’s all, “It’s fine!!!” They’re both way too extreme. Just let Wren party once in awhile, and let Cath make a friend or two. Jesus. Could be kind of exhausting. Some of this is solved through character development, and their exhaustinglyyyy extra relationship gets better, but it’s a bumpy ride.
I also didn’t really...feel the chemistry between Cath and Levi? At some points I felt the angst, but not the SPARK. Their relationship just seems really hard. Instead of the typical oh-my-god-did-you-cheat-on-me-do-you-like-someone-else-I-can’t-be-with-you will-they-won’t-they drama of most contemporaries, this book just spent a bunch of time on Cath and Levi slowlyyyy, painfullyyyyy settling into a relationship. Which, like, not interested. Boring at best and upsetting at worst. (Not often the latter; I didn’t care that much.)
The last thing: This book is very, very, VERY long. At its best, I wanted it to be 10,000 pages/live inside it/neverever finish, but when it was more boring and I reality checked myself before I wrecked myself, I was all, “This could be 200 pages shorter."
Anyway.
Bottom line: I just complained SO MUCH (is anyone surprised?) but this was actually...fun....more
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