As someone born and raised in Puerto Rico, I am more than used to seeing my island fetishized by outsiders. While this is my home, for innumerable peoAs someone born and raised in Puerto Rico, I am more than used to seeing my island fetishized by outsiders. While this is my home, for innumerable people this is their paradise away from home. And that's it. For so many, Puerto Rico is reduced to beaches, sunsets, dancing and beautiful women. Which is why it hurts doubly to see a YA book do the same, then claim it will do otherwise, and end up portraying Puerto Rico in an even worse manner. Because, yes, having my country reduced to party and fun and vacation is bad enough, but being portrayed as an ignorant, regressive little island stuck in time and full of superstitious, uneducated and rowdy people is even worse.
Coincidentally, I divide my time here in between the two settings that the author chose to carry out the story: San Juan, where I study, and Rincón, in my parents' home which is about 15 minutes away from there. I can tell you, right off the bat, that the only accuracy this book can claim when it comes to these two places is only geographical localization. That's about it. Oh, I don't doubt the author Wikipediaed the shit out of Old San Juan, as she name dropped location after location to the point where it lost all meaning. Maybe she even visited it, but that would be even worse because that would only sustain my conclusion that she did it as a tourist. The way she described my home goes in tune with the fetishistic way in which most people describe it, and not even the generous kind. This author would have you believe that we are stuck 30, 40 years in the past. That we are all languid days and nights of party and passion. That we, the women, are uneducated, naturally sensual beings that always wear sundresses and flowers in our long, wild hair to look for men to trap. There is not a single complex or flattering representation of Puerto Rican (or even Latina) women in the entire novel. According to this novel, we are all flirty, fickle, untrustworthy and spiteful beings, said so by her male characters and reinforced by the representation of the women in this novel. The male characters themselves are boring, unremarkable and predictable as hell, but at least their representation didn't paint their entire races and genders in such a generalizing and unflattering light. And in a story set in Puerto Rico with a wide array of opportunities for diverse characters that rarely pop up in YA, this author chose a boring and completely unremarkable freaking white boy as the narrator and hero of the story. Seriously, fuck that.
Like in this book, people see the way in which we protect the mixture of Taíno and African traditions and conserve the Spanish fortifications and architecture that identify Old San Juan, and immediately assume we are stuck in an idyllic time where it was all farming and fishing and languishing under the heat. The Puerto Rico that this author describes as modern is the Puerto Rico of decades ago, stretches of villages and cottages, superstitions and seemingly conflicting beliefs. Is the Puerto Rico that tourists prefer, the one they would have us be forever. One that affects all the cultural and social progress Puerto Rico has achieved for decades.
Not only is the general representation of my island and my people, both of which grated on me til the point that I got genuinely furious, inaccurate, but the use of cultural elements, traditions and history was also done in a very irresponsible way. First off, the bits of Spanish scattered over the book rarely matched the Spanish actually used in Puerto Rico. To assume that every Latin American group speaks the same Spanish is preposterous and, quite frankly, kind of offensive. Never, in my 20-something years of living on this island and traveling all around it, have I ever, ever encountered a native Puerto Rican using the word "pinche". We do not do that. That is a thoroughly Central and South American word. Not a Puerto Rican one. Moreover, some of the Spanish was grammatically, semantically and syntactically incorrect. If you insist on incorporating bits of a language you do not speak, the least you could do is find someone who does to make sure you are not writing a string of errors all throughout your novel.
This author borrowed haphazardly from Taíno culture and then decided to throw it unceremoniously 500 years later with ridiculous incongruity into unrealistic settings that fail to resemble in any remotely accurate manner Puerto Rico in any way or form. When I got to the part where she began to describe some random indigenous village in the southern coast of the island - in the second most cosmopolitan town in the entire island, I must add - living in a societal structure that mirrored the Taíno's, all this set only about 40 or 30 years in the past, I genuinely screeched and had to restrain myself from throwing the book out a window. Not only were the Taíno elements used however the author felt like with little respect to accuracy, they were presented in the most preposterous scenario within relatively recent Puerto Rican history.
I know the author has some Puerto Rican heritage to claim, but what she wrote into her novel represents a degree of ignorance and complete disregard that infuriated me to my very core. I can talk about the flatness and overall pointlessness of the very thin plot that can be found in this novel. I could write about the shallowness of every single character, the exasperating concentration of generic and boring that was the main character and the infuriating way he treated Puerto Rican girls like they were his harem to take and use, or I could even mention how the elements of magical realism in the novel failed to impress in any way. Even if I hadn't felt offended to my core because I am Puerto Rican, the book would've been supremely mediocre in every single way. But, in the face of what it did make me feel for having shamelessly abused my country and my culture, I seriously do not give a fuck. I hated this book, not for its shitty story and main character, but for the hurt it gave me as a Puerto Rican. Seriously, fuck this book....more
What once made MagonWhat was once charming, now was insufferable.
What was once compelling, now was boring.
What was once original, now was uninspired.
What once made Magonia so impossible to resist, failed to, at the very least, entertain this time around.
The characters were irritating instead of the quirky and adorkable I somehow liked in spite of myself the first time. Their romance went from having you root for them unexpectedly, to hoping they'd never met in the first place so you wouldn't had to suffer from the manufactured and overblown teenage angst and few shades of manipulative creepiness.
I didn't read this book. I slogged through it, finding absolutely no place in which to place some modicum of investment. Not. A. Single. Fuck.
An unnecessary sequel whose only success was in tarnishing the memory I had of the first one.
This novel topped so many feminist must-read lists for so long, it almost felt like I needed to own and read this novel or I would be forced1.5 stars
This novel topped so many feminist must-read lists for so long, it almost felt like I needed to own and read this novel or I would be forced to never call myself a feminist again.
Basically, this novel is what you'd get if you forced The Handmaid's Tale and The Stepford Wives (the original film, not the Nicole Kidman remake) to reproduce. And that's basically it. Seriously, there's nothing else to it. You take both of these ideas, tweak them for a YA audience, and you have Only Ever Yours. The book even borrowed scenes and lines straight from the two.
However, both original works made a point about feminism, had something strong to say about it, whereas Only Ever Yours, not only fails to bring anything into the dialogue, I'm afraid it doesn't even know how to define feminism by itself. In every sense, Only Ever Yours lacks the sophistication, nuance and understanding to spearhead YA feminist literature like it sees itself as capable of doing.
Yes, this is a novel that deals with how horrible it would be for women if our future depended entirely one what men of power want, desire and choose for us. Certainly, it is a novel that focuses on how terrible our lives would be if women were to be everything that the media and society told them to be, if our voices were stolen, if our autonomy was stripped away, if our lives centered solely around being used and abused to men's needs and delights. Those are certainly feminist concerns, but as far as feminist theory or literature goes, not only is all this wholly unoriginal, it also merely brushes the surface of why these are issues to us in the first place.
Of course we are concerned with the ingrained sexism in the media, in how we are represented in social contexts, and the very real expectations that are formed from them. But it goes deeper than that. It's not just that we are tired of being asked to just look pretty and be happy. It's not just about the banality and shallowness of social media, or the evils of slut-shaming. It's about the reality that, in many ways, women are still second to men, not only in social, economic, and intellectual levels, but that sometimes we are not even human in the way that men are. We are something other, something else, something less. Sure, the novel presents these girls as they are being trained as dolls for older, powerful men, but aside from the occasional shock of the whole setting, the book fails to make any sort of powerful statement about what the fight for women's rights is about.
This novel barely brushes over racial and sexuality issues, even though the main character is actually a POC (a fact that is actually barely stated in the novel, when it could've served to make a powerful point within the context of the story). It perpetuates notions of white feminism, where the main efforts of the movement are addressed at fighting for the rights and concerns of the white, powerful majority, a generically applied misfortune that doesn't even begin to encompass the struggles of the minorities within the movement. There's a marked lack of intersectionality in the version of feminism showcased in a novel that, shockingly, actually features a colored main character. Just some passing commentary of the feshitization of black and Asian women, some sub-plot that cursorily dealt with lesbianism. The novel was so concerned with amping up the elements of what was supposed to make this world horrifying, that it failed to have it all mean something beyond just "this would suck, so maybe women should get a choice, ya know?"
This novel was obsessed with the superficial aspects of being a woman. I'm not saying eating disorders are not an important issue, but being skinny or fat are not the only fights women have when it comes to their image, and it is not always just about wanting to be pretty. Essentially, and very ironically, this novel actually reduced the experience of womanhood (both, the good and the bad) in similar ways sexist oppression does. This book's feminism is of the same superficial brand of so many other YA novels where the core of the ideology is either "Guuuuuurl power!" or "sisters before misters!," and that leaves so much to be desired because it simplifies complex ideas and removes layers of significance that give life to the movement itself. This book was so concerned with reminding us that this is what could happen to women for being women, that it forgot that the point of this is that nobody deserves to be treated like this because we are all human.
Moreover, I find it very hard to think of as feminist a novel where every single female character is horrible to themselves and to each other. Notice that my problem is not that they are unlikable, even though they are. My issue is that they are so one-dimensional, there's no nuance to who they are, what they do, and more importantly, why they do what they do. Girl-on-girl hatred and internalized misogyny are huge issues for me that are, unfortunately, deeply embedded into the YA genre, so I would expect a so-called feminist novel to address it in some way. An argument could be made that the competition these girls were bred into gives way to that, and that that in itself is an argument against girl-on-girl hatred and internalized misogyny, but that's very difficult to discern as a deliberate, serious point when all the characters are so shallowly defined. What makes it even worse is that all the girls and women in this novel were consistently vicious, cruel and horrible to each other at every single turn, when the very idea of feminism is sisterhood as an unified front among women.
It's not that I expected - or wanted - this novel to take the Katniss or Tris turn and suddenly have this oppressed girl taking up arms and leading a revolution against the system, but a little bit of humanity in any of this characters, some spirit, just a more defined characterization or a more complex emotional and psychological drafting would've actually made all the more powerful the feminist message this novel pretended to convey. You cannot create a world where your point is that women should not be limited in such a way when your very own characterization, maybe inadvertently but still very clearly, reduces to women to the shallow, vapid and insipid creatures you are railing against. Maybe that was the whole point, but I find it difficult to, not only engage and root for characters like this, but see how this supposed oppressive government is destroying something that's really not there in the character.
In more technical aspects, the novel is simply not very fun to read. I did not enjoy the reading experience, and it actually felt a little bit like a chore getting through it at times. I can't remember if I felt anything beyond mild exasperation while reading this novel, and for an novel whose entire point is to make an impact, that is not good. There's a startling lack of convincing world-building, very one-dimensional characterization, and a feeling of disjointedness to the whole thing that made it a very difficult book to take as seriously as it wanted to be taken.
Ultimately, what really drove the nail into the coffin that was my overall experience with this book is that, by the end, the whole thing feels pointless. It rambles on and on for hundreds of pages about petty, shallow, insignificant things, making you think it's going somewhere, leading to some great turn, and it just... doesn't. Nothing gets done and nobody learns anything, and I suppose that could be seen as darkly subversive, but, combined with everything else, it didn't amount to anything from my perspective. ...more
This is my first review this year. So, let's make it an angry one, shall we?
The Dolls is, without a doubt, one of the biggest wastes (of time, paper, This is my first review this year. So, let's make it an angry one, shall we?
The Dolls is, without a doubt, one of the biggest wastes (of time, paper, money, etc.) I've read in my entire life. I'm trying to remember a more spectacularly insipid, preposterously vapid, profoundly shallow and endlessly frivolous novel and I simply can't. By the end of this self-imposed torture, I simply could not understand the why: why I have chosen to read this book or why had possessed me to pick it up and buy in the first place, and I, especially, could not understand why this book was even published in the first place.
Harsh, I know, but seriously, this is the type of idiotically pointless, flat and hollow and trivial crap that flooded shelves after Twilight. You know which type I'm talking about: super special, perfect, clueless girl is abruptly moved somewhere else where she meets a perfect stranger who seems to hate her for no reason, because it turns out she's strangely connected to some bizarre thing that only happens in this particular new, mysterious town, and there's some stuff going on in the background (usually an endless parade of murdered girls) and there's some paranormal crap that's supposed to be guiding the plot and some generic antagonist that threatens everyone's existence, but who cares because Makeover! Love triangle! Mean girls! Prom! Longing gazes! Stolen kisses! Taciturn, borderline bipolar love interest who is forbidden to love the main character for some half-assed reason that usually has to do with some selfish notion of honor or self-restraint!
The Dolls ticked every single item in that checklist. The paranormal aspect was nothing but a flimsy excuse to disguise, not even subtly, what is simply a "forbidden romance" cliche between one-dimensional perfect people who are remarkable in no way whatsoever and yet so, so special. Every single character in this novel was painfully forgettable, the plot dragged on and on, meandering with no clear direction in sight, the twist was entirely too predictable and, I kid you not, 75% of the entire novel was spent describing "fashionable" clothes. And it is so. freaking. boring. Repetitive to the point where I actually had to look at the page numbers several times because I actually thought I was going back and reading the same part over and over instead of moving forward.
Forgive me for thinking that YA had grown out of this stagnant, painful phase of vanity, shallowness and total meaninglessness. It's not that every book I've read since has been fantastic, but at least the criticism I leveled against them didn't go straight into the basics of simply being so utterly pointless and trivial and flimsy. This is outright generic, uninventive, and insufferably mediocre. The Gothic setting and atmosphere and theme are wasted, because nothing else matters in this story besides the contrived forbidden romance.
Another thing that bothered me immensely about this novel is the racial politics at play here. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this book is profound enough to deliberately present any sort of racial message, but, being the impressively dumb and senseless thing it is, this book actually does accidentally represent how racial politics still work in YA.
In this book, we have a New Orleans setting, a voodoo theme and a link to slavery, and not only is the main character extremely white, but she's also the leader "Queen" of a circle that deals in a branch of voodoo. And out of the three members of this circle of voodoo practicing "Queens," 2 of them are white, both described as having strictly white European characteristics. Only 1 (ONE!) of them is black. Think about that for a second and tell me it is not preposterous to even imagine a voodoo legacy story set in New Orleans where only 1 out of 3 characters is black, and where this single black character is not even the most powerful or central one. Look at this book and then dare to tell me this book doesn't perpetuate the terrible tradition of stealing culture from minorities and giving them to uninspiring white characters who are still better than every other colored character in the novel itself.
And there's the romance. It is particularly upsetting for me that interracial romances in YA are exceedingly rare, and it's even worse to think that most of them do not happen outside of "issue" novels where the races of those involved is crucial to the point of the novel itself. So, trust me when I say that interracial romances usually earn the novel I'm reading a lot of brownie points in my book. I know it was the intention of the author to showcase an interracial romance in this novel, but I personally didn't see it like that because of how whitewashed the love interest was. Do not give me a "black" guy with skin so light he passes as white with sky blue eyes, a guy people actually refer to in the novel as the "light-skinned black guy," and then pat yourself in the back for your progressiveness and openness. And this is not the first time I've encountered this type of love interest. Quite frankly, most of the times I've encountered a colored love interest, it was under the same description, because apparently, you cannot conceive the idea of your precious lily-white main character kicking it with anyone of color who is not an exception to the rule, who is special precisely because of how little he resembles his racial group and how much it resembles your own.
This book is so bad all by itself that its mediocrity almost overshadows the problematic elements it presents. Ultimately, there's little to no redeeming elements that make this novel worthwhile, much less that would make me even consider picking up whatever sequels this storyline can vomit into existence. It's one thing to offer a generic, mediocre story, but it's another entirely to present a product so unnecessary, so pointless and unremarkable, that is nothing short of a waste in basically every aspect possible. ...more
This book sets out to be a sort of homage to old-school horror films. As an ideal, it is certainly appealing, but I don't think the book succeeds. ThaThis book sets out to be a sort of homage to old-school horror films. As an ideal, it is certainly appealing, but I don't think the book succeeds. That is probably due to the fact that it is nowhere near as well written and clever as, let's say, the movie Cabin in the Woods, to be taken as a serious homage, nor is it campy and self-aware enough to be a more tongue-in-cheek kind of tribute.
I can appreciate the originality that went into the construction and development of this book. The authors' creativity really shone throughout the entire reading experience. But originality can only take you so far when, in all honestly, everything about the book is just plain bad.
Is it intentionally bad precisely because it is meant to imitate old-school horror films that are, by today's standards, kind of cheesy? Maybe. It's certainly a possibility. Still, even if they are cheesy today, what we like about watching all of those monster/slasher films is that they are fun. And guess what this book isn't?
Overall, this is is a difficult book to get through. The narration is insufferable. Winnie's voice is grating, whiny, immature, pretentious and hateful. And there's no purpose to her rampant, dismissive condescension and contempt. This is not some complex narrator we have here. She's just really that poorly drawn. And the narrative style itself is irritating and almost impossible to take seriously, never mind enjoy. At first, the use of visual aids through the novel was an interesting gimmick, but it got old really fast and it disrupted the story.
Moreover, the books spends sooooooo long setting everything, building up the anticipation for some big climax, for some spectacular reveal and then... nothing. Not only was it anti-climactic, by the time the end rolled around, I was as bored as I had been since the beginning. And it wasn't worth it. Not the overly dragged set up, not the eternal passages about nothing at all.
Plus, not a single one of the characters was even remotely interesting. Same with the ominous promise of a monster, the cliche horror, the contrived romance. The whole idea behind this novel was either to horrify or to entertain. In my particular case, it failed on both fronts. ...more
After a beautiful start, Donnelly and I have had a very rocky last two years. I fell in love with Revolution and A Northern Light, which always seemedAfter a beautiful start, Donnelly and I have had a very rocky last two years. I fell in love with Revolution and A Northern Light, which always seemed to me like gorgeously written and very sensitive books about realistically complex girls. I ached for those two main characters, different from each other but equally compelling and believable, and I believed their pain and their world and the things they had to do to overcome their circumstances. Donnelly conveyed their lives with a sensitivity that showcased amazingly human emotions and made it really easy for me to connect with them, to root for them and believe their every emotion. I think those two are extraordinary novels that speak to YA audiences like mature, intelligent persons capable of understanding the nuances of a life full of tragedy and difficulties, lives that shaped young women into heroines, not always understandable and certainly flawed, but strong and worth caring about.
And then Deep Blue happened, a huge disappointment that I let slide because the book was aimed towards the middling line between Middle Grade and YA. Still, my faith of Donnelly was shaken enough that I was wary of These Shallow Graves, but not enough to dissuade me from reading it. I already knew she could write beautifully, that historical fiction is certainly her forte, and that writing once more for a strictly YA audience, I could trust her to deliver another tough, strong and realistic heroine fighting her way through everything. As it turns out, Donnelly brought the general gist of story to YA standards again, she just forgot to bring the rest of her craft, including the main character.
First off, there is absolutely no reason for this book to be 500 pages long. Absolutely NONE. I understand that the purpose behind this was to deepen the mystery, which admittedly worked somewhat, and to show the way this situation affected all aspects of Jo's life, both her life as a NY socialite and her more private life, but what it lend itself to was for a very repetitive and often uneventful narrative. Something was consistently happening in the novel, which saved it from being dreadfully boring, but the same things would happen over and over with just the smallest of differences. We got Jo pondering the same things over and over, engaging in the exact same actions and interactions with other characters, and, in the end, it was all extremely unnecessary, for it didn't add anything to the actual core and quality of the story and only padded the book far beyond what was needed. Moreover, this also had the unfortunate effect of making the story predictable. I appreciated the effort into making the mystery a lot more complicated and complex, but it made the twists evident since the very start. This was all the more frustrating because of how unbearably naive the main character was.
Jo is an exasperating, willfully ignorant, reckless and irritating main character. She was a study in contradictions, and not the good kind. Jo is 17 years old, and yet she behaves, thinks and speaks like she's 12. Everybody around her treated her like she was such a smart woman, so mature and intelligent, but nowhere did she ever act like anything more than a child. She was outstandingly ignorant, jaw-droppingly naive and frustratingly slow to catch everything that went on around her. She constantly needed someone else to spell things out for her, and that would've worked with her characterization of a sheltered socialite groomed to be nothing but a proper wife and mother, but the story itself attempted to sell her as a sensitive, knowledgeable, intelligent, driven and conscious girl that wanted to break with social norm, find herself, pursue a career that most society would frown upon and fight social injustices. Needless to say, Jo failed to uphold any of that.
Jo was competent sometimes simply because the story forced to be. As a main character, she lacked complexity and profundity, and she wasn't even interesting. Unlike previous Donnelly heroines, Jo lacked the strength to carry the book by herself, whereas the first two books I read by Donnelly could well afford to take away from the strength of the plot because reading about the main character made it all worth it. This resulted in Jo becoming simply a placeholder, a figured needed to make things happens, but not someone anybody would glance twice at, nor someone anybody would care about, which, needless to say, makes for a very poor main character and heroine.
My three biggest complaints about YA are: the rampant girl on girl hate, the shallow standard for heroines, and insta-love. My problem with insta-love in YA is not so much that it may happen quickly - I can certainly understand two people feeling an immediate connection or the strong bonding of people after a particularly strong and emotionally taxing event. Heck, I experienced that myself, as my boyfriend and I pretty much fell in love in the course of one week when I was 17 and we've been together for 8 years now. Is not so much a matter of quantity as it is of quality. You want me to believe your two characters loved each other almost instantly? Okay, I can handle it, but you have to give it something that gives meaning to the connection, you have to make me believe that something happened so strongly between these two that time doesn't matter. That's exactly what didn't happen in this novel.
Jo and Eddie's connection came pretty much out of nowhere. There was not a single aspect of this novel that made their relationship believable. Realistically speaking, these two people would never fall in love. Maybe Jo could develop a crush on Eddie, but he would never return it, and so it never felt natural when these two started proclaiming their love for each other. First of all, like I mentioned before, Jo's naivety made her come across as a child, whereas Eddie always felt like very much an adult. That he, in his maturity, was able to be sexually and romantically attracted to Jo, who was essentially a 12 year old in all aspects but physical to the point that I often forgot that she was 17, was nothing short of creepy. Moreover, there was no spark, no sincere connection between them except for the fact that the author willed it so. From one moment to the other, poof!, love. And the worst part is that it took over the plot and made it so irritatingly melodramatic, which also led to the series of cliched and ridiculous scenes I've read in dozens of other YA novels.
In this novel you can find the classic "we accidentally got stuck together in a tight, confined space and we are forced to be extremely close together, close enough to kiss and feel each other's breaths on our faces, and just as we are about to kiss, somebody lets us out", also the tragic "I saw you with someone else that I immediately thought was a beautiful lover but was really family and so I'm going to make a horrible decision out of anger that will ruin our relationship because confronting you about it just won't do", and the much beloved "we are just too different, we come from different worlds, go with that other guy you don't love because this relationship needs some angst".
The romantic relationship in this novel isn't the only one that's not believable in the slightest. Jo developed friendships out of nowhere and for no other reason than because the plot required it. People just don't go around forming instant bonds with others, bonds strong enough you'd risk your life for, simply because you talked to each other once for a couple of minutes and you didn't kill or rob each other. Secondary characters would swoop in and out of the plot wherever it was required. Longtime friends would be mentioned once and then discarded, family members would disappear when convenient, and characters that were built up in the novel, would just never show up again for anything.
This novel tried to be so many things, to include so many different aspects of that society, that it failed to keep hold of any of them. I appreciate the message of female empowerment, of a girl fighting against the ridiculous constraints imposed on all women that would have them being nothing but gloried and submissive servants to the whims of men - hell, I love that, but it was so heavy-handed in this novel, that it was exasperating. Unsubtle and ham-handed, the sexism of the times was thrown at the reader's face at every opportunity, regardless of how appropriate it was at the moment, because the only thing that mattered is that the reader understood that Jo had to suffer through SEXISM, even though it was fairly obvious since the beginning and without the need of having it thrown at my face with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. The worst part is that the book would hammer that on the reader's face, along with some issues like poverty and crime, and then did absolutely nothing about it.
The mystery itself was interesting enough to keep me reading well past what my patience allowed, but it was predictable. Had it been a shorter novel, it would've probably gotten a better rating. The writing was okay, the mystery engaging enough, the epilogue surprisingly satisfying, the historical background perhaps the best thing in the entire novel. But this story was stretched far beyond what it could, and what would've been an unremarkable but decent reading experience got turned into a constant struggle with frustration and a fight to finish. I think this is where I part ways with Donnelly. Maybe in the future I can give some other book of hers a chance, but for the moment, I've gotten all the disappointment I can handle. ...more
Twisted Fate is, in all likelihood, one of the most poorly written novels I've ever read and definitely the most pathetic attempt at a YA psychologicaTwisted Fate is, in all likelihood, one of the most poorly written novels I've ever read and definitely the most pathetic attempt at a YA psychological thriller I've ever had the misfortune of reading. The writing was atrocious, there was no point to the 1 billion different POVs in the novel, there was really no story, certainly no mystery for it was predictable as hell, and to call this novel the We Were Liars of 2015 is an insult to We Were Liars and the entire genre.
It sounds harsh, I know, but I can't help it. This novel left me steaming with anger and frustration because it is the type of poorly written novel that hangs entirely on a "mind-bending plot-twist" that's supposed to make me forget how badly plotted, terribly written, horribly characterized and senseless the whole things was because, wow, plot twist! Basically, it was like one of those last M. Night Shyamalan movies that smacked you in the face with a big twist in the hopes that it could redeem how boring, tedious, and pointless everything before it was. Except that I can't even concede Twisted Fate the honor of calling that ending a "plot-twist". It was evident from the beginning and there's nowhere in the novel a decent attempt at hiding it.
Twisted Fate has some of the flattest, most mind-numbingly boring characters I've ever read about. They were all supposed to be so deep and twisted and disturbed, and yet they all sounded so lifeless and forced, like chalk outlines of what they were supposed to be. And they all sounded alike and as equally monotonous because every single character in this novel gets a freaking POV. There are about 10 different POVs in the novel, and only two actually contributed to the "story", and I think I'm being generous. The rest either praised Sydney's amazing superiority for no reason I can discern, or fulfilled the chorus role in old Greek plays where the chorus would come out of nowhere and foreshadow horrible, terrible things, lamenting that the characters didn't see it coming. They should've come in when the novel started so I wouldn't have had to face the horrible, terrible thing that was actually finishing this novel.
We have two main characters, a pair of sisters called Sydney and Allison, who are total opposites. Sydney is the trouble maker, the rebellious but brilliant girl that reads for pleasure and skateboards, and Allison is the cutesy, sweet, naive girl that sees the good in everyone, bakes blueberry muffins and sounds like a freaking 5 year old. The reason why everyone bows down to Sydney's intellectual superiority, even adults, is because she reads a couple of unspecified books and knows how to use the word "philistine". I shit you not. I read! I know tons of words! I must be a fucking genius by this book's standards!
Sydney was so unbelievably pretentious. She was so brilliant, she could skip school every day and go to detention every night and still be the class Valedictorian because she knew the word philistine, used it in a sentence once or twice and could play this stupid game in which they make anagrams while they get high. That's all the proof we get of her supposed superior intelligence. Her dialogues with this one other pretentious "genius" friend were so painfully awkward. He would string together preposterous sentences with big, pretentious words and let the world bask in his superior intellectual glow. Every time he talked, I remembered that scene from FRIENDS when Joey uses the thesaurus to write a letter because he wanted to sound smart.
Then again, on Sydney's defense, every single piece of dialogue in this novel was painful. You know how sometimes, when an adult learns some phrase or lingo the youngsters are using, they start saying it all the freaking time? Like that time my aunt got a Facebook, learned of "Lol" and "YOLO" and started to write those two words at the end of every status update? Well, in this novel, the choice phrase was "420 Blaze it". I don't partake on weed smoking, but like everyone in the world, I know people that do and never in my life have I ever heard them use that phrase in all seriousness, much less every time they make the tiniest reference to smoking weed. It was awkward and forced, exactly like an adult trying to act like a teenager.
Moreover, this novel refused to give details about anything. It mentioned skateboarding repeatedly, since it was the center of Sydney's "trouble making tendencies", and never actually went deeper than that. No tricks, techniques, only a passing reference to Tony Hawk, who's being out of the scene for, what?, ten years now? It mentioned hacking several times as well and the only related word mentioned is "coding". Again, no details. One of the most important aspects of the plot is that this guy edits films, and not once is there anything said about it. The novel just mentioned some broad, general activity and expected the reader to go along with it without any type of detail. That's lazy writing at its finest.
There is absolutely no depth to anything in this novel. It tries so, so hard to be profound and dark and twisted, and it honestly gave me secondhand embarrassment to see it flop repeatedly on the ground like a fish out of water. Simply put, this novel was just way out of its depth. It tried to be much more than it had the capacity to be. You can expect this novel to be as introspective, profound and cognizant as a Kim Kardashian diary entry.
The narration was flat and unexciting, delivered in such a monotonous way, I felt like I was taking a non-stop 3 day seminar on watching grass grow. The earth-shattering discoveries the characters made were told in the same way we heard about Allison picking blueberries for her muffins. Not even the abrupt climax carried any spark of excitement to it. The writing was so passive, so removed from the emotions of the characters or the intensity of the situation, that my reading experience was a flat-line from beginning to end.
I know some people will still be surprised by the ending, and I don't mean to disrespect them when I say the twist in the novel was evident from the very first page. That it was predictable is not even the real issue. I saw the plot twist in We Were Liars coming and I still enjoyed the novel, though that might have something to do with We Were Liars having actual substance to it, unlike this one, but that's not the point. It's not that it was predictable, or even that it was preposterous and badly constructed, it's just that the entire plot twist hinges entirely on misinformed psychology and on every single character deliberately ignoring all the radioactive red flags or indulging the main characters just cuz. Again, lazy writing.
Poorly written, barely and badly plotted, based on superficial research and general assumptions, not to mention the boring story and the uninteresting and flat characters, Twisted Fate is simply one of the most painful books I've read this year. It hurts to give such a brutal negative review, but the only positive thing I can give the book is the message about girls not having to stick to stereotypes, to be however and whoever they want to be and not live to fill specific expectations, which was awesome and was basically the only reason why I bothered to finish the novel, because that means the author's heart was in the right place and that she had some really good ideas, but, unfortunately, that was not enough to redeem the glaring flaws of every other single aspect of the novel. ...more
Winterkill is a very atmospheric and lovely-written story that, though it has plenty of tension and suspense, feels long-winded and loses its effect halfway through the book because of the slow progression of the few events that take place in the novel. Ultimately, although it does have a couple of interesting new aspects to it, Winterkill is basically just like every other standard YA dystopian novel out there.
All the technical aspects of Winterkill are impressively well-crafted. The author managed to infuse the novel with a very oppressive atmosphere,a sort of dreamy quality into the world and even a couple of well-written exhilarating scenes of suspense. The author did a wonderful job at setting the world, but there's very little in the way of explanations and backstory. The story of this world is made up of vague myths, which works in favor of the mysticism surrounding the village, but leaves a lot to be desired in terms of world-building. You don't know where this village is, you don't even know what period it is. You don't know anything about it, if it's an average Amish-like community in modern times, or if it's a post-apocalyptic refuge, or even if all this takes place in the past. It does lend a lot of mystery to the village, but I kept expecting a bit more, mostly because since the nature of this community is not the mystery, all of that gets pointedly ignored.
This novel is extremely slow story in general. I normally wouldn't mind so much, but most of the events in the novel go in a sort of repetitive loop and it isn't until the end that the chain breaks and something else, something interesting, finally happens. By then, at least to me, it was a bit too late. This is not a particularly long novel, but it feels far longer due to the slightly stagnant plot of the first two thirds of the novel. The general plot is also extremely familiar and follows the safe, pre-established path of almost every single generic dystopia out there.
I had a very hard time engaging with Emmeline, mostly due to the fact that she was familiar in every single aspect. She's the typical Mary Sue special snowflake YA heroine that allows people to push her and mistreat her - to which she does have a reason, but then she would selectively show a backbone only when she didn't need it or to people who didn't deserve it and that excuse would fall through -, a girl who goes thinking about a gorgeous guy she just met all the time and waits around for a guy to save her. The best Emmeline had going for her was her curiosity and her thoughtful nature, but her narrative style gets repetitive after a while and is wasted on the insta-love. She does grow in the novel, that much is true, and she learns to be brave, but with the slightly anti-climactic events at the end, all that's sort of moot point.
Moreover, Emmeline was unbelievably, outstandingly, appallingly selfish and did a lot of things out of absolute self-interest. Even towards the end, when she learns the truth behind her community, when she realizes what's at stake, it all comes down to her and what she wants and how, if she doesn't do this or someone doesn't help her, she won't get what she wants. She reminded me way too much of Mary from The Forest of Hands and Teeth, except that Mary had no problem admitting and embracing her selfishness, whereas Emmeline is constantly portrayed as a selfless martyr. Emmeline used the people around her, the people she claimed to love, and forced them to help her with her stupid plans or to keep dangerous secrets with very little explanation, but then pouted and whined when they, very reasonably, told her that it just couldn't be done. She wasn't irritating, but her voice and the way she did things so impulsively got tiring very soon.
Most of the characters in the book were there to be used as props by Emmeline and lacked characterization beyond what they could provide to Emmeline and her needs. The main love interest is included in his group. He's the generic, gorgeous, understanding but mysterious boy from every book ever who falls for the main character for no discernible reason. Lust, certainly that I could believe between those two, but the degree of love they claimed to feel for each other? Personally, I never saw it there because they were never shown to share any particularly deep connection over anything, not for lack of trying on the author's part. Another characterization that bothered me a bit was Emmeline's best friend who happened to be gay. I completely understand that in as isolated and pious a community as Emmeline's, she would try to understand her friend's situation in whatever way was easier for her, but I didn't feel particularly comfortable with her saying that he was gay because he had two souls and that it was his woman soul making him love men. The connotations behind that are slightly problematic.
Winterkill is undeniably well-written and atmospheric, but a slow moving plot and a main character I could not connect with made it really hard for me to engage with any aspect of the story. It's a lovely book, really, but if I cannot care for it in any way, then the best writing in the world cannot make up for that. ...more
We're not even halfway through 2014, and I'm almost certain this has been my biggest 1-star year to date. True, most of it is due to the facts that, aWe're not even halfway through 2014, and I'm almost certain this has been my biggest 1-star year to date. True, most of it is due to the facts that, a) the more I read YA, the more my standards go up and my tolerance threshold for BS and stupidity lowers, and b) the more time I spent in GR, the less afraid I am of giving out 1 stars. I don't think it's entirely up to me, though. This year has come packed with an avalanche of pretty bad YA books. This year alone, I've read offensive books like They All Fall Down, infuriating ones like Dear Killer, thoroughly disappointing ones like Suspicion, appallingly bad ones like Of Monsters and Madness and Amity, and insufferably generic ones like One Past Midnight. And then there's Conversion. Where does Conversion stand? Well, Conversion achieved the impressive feat of falling into every single one of the aforementioned categories.
This book is offensive, infuriating, thoroughly disappointing, appallingly bad and, yes, even insufferably generic because, instead of focusing on the, I don't know, maybe that super weird thing that's happening to the girls in the school that no one seems to be able to explain, we instead get to find out about the marvels of Colleen's eternal pursuit to intellectually demean everyone around her, especially her friends and love interest, as she goes about on her quest to take for herself what seems to be the only spot available at Harvard this year. And I understand where the author is coming from and that she tried to portray the stress of being a teenage girl in a highly competitive background, but it simply did not come through. Instead of driven and competitive, Colleen was insufferably immature, judgmental and petty, not competitive in an intellectual way but in the generic YA way of hating on other girls just cuz. I didn't think it was possible, but Colleen came out of nowhere and safely positioned herself in the group of the most unbelievably irritating, hateful, petty, hypocritical, judgmental, immature, childish, bratty, privileged, self-entitled and disgusting YA "heroines" I've ever had the displeasure of reading about. She almost took the crown right off of House of Night's Zoey for the worst YA "heroine" it has been my misfortune to become acquainted with.
The book is just pages and pages of Colleen describing things in the irritating and endless monotone of a 10 y/o, giving you the entire life story of every single person that crosses the door, and then criticizing and demeaning every single one of them in her head as she saw them as competition. I like a smart girl. I love reading about smart girls in YA and I wish every single author in YA portrayed each and every single one of the main characters as smart girls, not because a hot guy comes along and tells them, but because they know it, because they've worked for it and because they are proud of it. But there's a clear line between pride and entitlement, ego-centrism, selfishness, pettiness, obnoxiousness and pretentiousness, and Colleen crossed that line, set it on fire and the danced on top of it. And the worst thing is that she really isn't even smart at all. She reminds you time after time of how brilliant and clever she is, and yet the most painfully obvious things and details fly just right over her head. Moreover, she thought she was entitled to intellectual superiority rather than actually working for it, as perfectly exemplified by this scene in which the goes into a quiz without having studied, acknowledging she's going to flunk, and then ranting at the teacher when she gets a failing grade. That's not how you show someone under stress because she wants to be the best; that's how you show how much of a spoiled, entitled brat a character is.
If she hadn't already annoyed the hell out of me with her obnoxious, immature, childish and unsubtle way of telling the story, the way she saw the world from her privileged, pretentious and egocentrically superior standpoint would've done the trick because I honestly didn't care about anything in this book, never managed to put any effort into feeling anything for any other aspect because my hate was so fiercely concentrated in this awful main character.
And it's not so much that I wasn't able to like her. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't need to like a main character in order to be invested in her story, but what I do need from a main character is to be interesting and interesting Colleen was not - she wasn't even a decently written character with dimensions and personality. Even stuck in the middle of a strange series of events that no one can make head or tails about, Colleen is the most appallingly boring person in the entire planet. This girl could make the end of the world sound as mind-numbingly boring as staring at a piece of cheese until it rots. There is no suspense in this novel, no atmosphere, and it was definitely not a thrilling, deep and psychological study in the events that take place in the novel and those in the Salem Witch Trials. By far, the most interesting thing in this novel was the dual POV that takes place during the actual witch trials, but even that was overdone, dragged for far too long and tediously boring.
Each and every single character in this story is painfully generic, extremely shallow and awkwardly stereotyped. Worst of all, not a single one of them was interesting in the slightest. Everything in this novel was mind-numbingly boring, and it's not because of the slightly literary style of the novel, but because the narration focused on everything besides the truly interesting event, which was the mysterious condition of these girls, and when it did concentrate on it, it was boring, repetitive and rather pointless.
There wasn't a single aspect of this book that I enjoyed. Even if I had managed to look beyond the unbelievably boring pace and the bad writing, the sheer ridiculousness of the characters and the narration's unwillingness to focus on the truly important matters would've still made this reading experience a terrible one. It's almost like the whole thing was dumbed and watered down because it's supposed to be YA. Whatever shred of interest I may have had in the mystery of this book was brutally stripped away by the tediousness of the pace, the boring development of the story, the insufferable main character and the lack of dimension to the characters and the plot. ...more
To All the Boys I've Loved Before is the mind-numbingly boring and uninteresting story of a whiny, self-centered, over-dramatic, and unbelievably obliTo All the Boys I've Loved Before is the mind-numbingly boring and uninteresting story of a whiny, self-centered, over-dramatic, and unbelievably oblivious privileged girl who's supposed to be 16 but actually sounds like she's 12 and has the flattest, dullest, most insipid narrative voice I've ever read in Contemporary YA. Seriously, I'm still trying to work out how this girl's brain had the capacity to let her walk and breathe at the same time.
The entire plot of this novel is ridiculous. If you really are that close to your sister then there's no way you could ever, ever, ever, ever look at her boyfriend in a romantic way. And yes, I know, she liked him first, but I fail to see how she could've pined for him during and after the relationship he had with her sister, and even worse, I have no idea how anyone could not be immediately grossed out at the person after learning he has been intimate with her sister. I don't know about you, but dating one of my siblings has a tendency giving that person the sexual and romantic appeal of 2-week-old roadkill. Moreover, the guy was actually kind of creepy and controlling. And yes, she comes to the realization that maybe she never liked him at all, but that just opened another can of worms with this protagonist: this girl knows nothing about life, about love, about herself. She's so childish and immature, so dreamy and oblivious, so pampered, selfish and silly, it's hard not to be annoyed with her, especially because she never grows in the book, she never develops or learns anything, she just keeps finding excuses to justify everything all the way to the end.
This book chronicles the surprisingly uneventful life of this girl down to even that most insignificant of details. Quite frankly, the only interesting parts I found were when they were talking about food. This book either consistently annoyed me or made me really hungry. It took me such a long time to stop being bored with this book, and that moment came when Lara Jean and Peter's bond started to develop. And then it died again, fairly quickly, with all the jealousy, love triangle crap, mean girl drama, whining and that abrupt, non-conclusive ending to force a sequel. For about a 100 pages I finally managed to be entertained by this book, I finally found something to care about, and then it all came back to being unbelievably boring and uneventful with tons of whining about maybe liking this guy and this guy maybe not liking her even though the guy literally came up to her said "I like you", but knowing better than he does that he still likes his bitchy ex girlfriend and so on and so forth.
So, why that second star? Because there were part of the novels I connected with, things Lara Jean said that, surprisingly, were genuine, relevant and heart-felt. I loved that we have a POC as an MC, first of all. There was also the cultural shock of being biracial in a mainly white place, though it is not exactly a big point in the novel, there is some importance placed on accepting her Korean heritage; the strong bond between sisters; what it's like to be in a competitive household and live under somebody else's shadow; what it's like to feel unappreciated and ignored and the fear of tackling something different and scary but good for you. Those were the few things I managed to appreciate from this novel because they were sincere and realistic. Everything else was just typical teen BS about faking relationships to impress/enrage someone else and then falling for the person. After reading Burn for Burn, I kind of expected better from this author, but I see that this series is just not for me. ...more
The DUFF had some very important things to say, but it took such a long time to get there that I had lost all hope for it and had already cataloged itThe DUFF had some very important things to say, but it took such a long time to get there that I had lost all hope for it and had already cataloged it in my head as a waste of time by the time the great lessons Bianca learned rolled around. I loved that there was none of that purity/virginity crap in this book and that we had teenagers perfectly comfortable with exploring and talking about their sexuality, but it felt like the effort was wasted simply because of the amount of slut shaming in the book. And yes, I know, Bianca comes to the life-changing realization towards the end that "slut" and "whore" are sexist terms used to shame women and reduce their worth to just their sexuality, but it took her far too long to get there and she was far too hypocritical through the whole book. Furthermore, Bianca had the audacity to call herself a feminist in several occasions, and yet almost always immediately followed those statements with some pretty intense bouts of girl hating and slut shaming, which is pretty much the first big NO in the feminist rulebook, never mind the making fun of a guy for reading Wuthering Heights because that's "a girly book". Whoever thought this girl was a feminist needs a pretty intense crash course on feminism themselves. Moreover, even as she had her "saying whore is wrong" epiphany, she immediately judged the girl again, saying that she would probably just go out and sleep with another guy again.
Another thing I didn't appreciate from this book is the sort of wish fulfillment quality to the whole story, the cliched super hot guy falls for the slightly unattractive girl because he sees that she is beautiful on the inside and she understand his feelings. But even more than that, what truly bothered me is the glorification of the douchebag and the prolonging of the idea that if a guy is a total asshole to you, that means he likes you. I thought it was total bullshit that he said he had no idea that he was hurting her feelings when he gave her the pet name "Duffy". Really? You were calling her the designated ugly fat friend and you had no idea that that may have hurt her feelings? The guy was a total douchebag, and because he was "lonely" it's not an appropriate justification for how much of an asshole he always was to Bianca. Sure, he learns, whatever, but that has to be one of the most unrealistic examples of character development I've ever seen. Not only was it overnight, it was unjustified and unbelievable, just there to make it okay for Bianca to end up with him.
I didn't mind the sex at all in the story, if that's going to be used as an argument against my dislike for this book. My problem with this novel is how it managed the message it was trying to say, how it handled the issues that made up the emotional core of the novel and how we got to experience it through the eyes of wholly unsympathetic main character that whined and hypocritically judged and made mountains out of ant hills. The story was also supremely slow paced, not much of anything actually happens and takes forever to get to the points we all knew would happen, for this book is extremely predictable and cliched.
For a book with so many important things to say, it allowed its characters to underscore and demean every single one of the lessons in the book, and one could argue that that was because they needed to mature, and I would grant that point, if at any moment during my entire reading experience I could've felt the characters actually developing, growing and maturing and not changing from one moment to the next to simply fulfill the requirements of the plot.
It's not a terrible book, and I was definitely entertained as I read it, but I believe it could've been so much better than it was and it should've handled many of its themes in very different ways. The message in this book is supremely important and relevant, but the story warped it through its delivery and hurts its impact so much that, in the end, even if I agree with the overall idea behind it, I have to take my place in the negative camp with this book. ...more
My relationship with this book was a rocky one. I actually enjoyed the first half of the novel, but the second half of the book left me very 2.5 stars
My relationship with this book was a rocky one. I actually enjoyed the first half of the novel, but the second half of the book left me very disappointed, a disappointment that was made even greater by a misunderstanding caused by the incomplete description of this book that was provided by the publisher. I was not aware of the nature of this book and what inspired it - (Rebecca)- simply because, apparently, nobody else was, and that left quite a mark on my impression of the novel. Having acknowledged now that my strongest negative feelings for the novel were not the book’s fault, but rather the publisher’s incomplete description, I still have to award this book a considerably low rating, because, in the end, this book was still disappointing all on its own.
After an exciting and engaging first few chapters, the book tapered off into dull, over-dramatic, familiar and clichéd YA territory, followed shortly by a vastly disappointing and underwhelming ending made up of ludicrous plot twists that had no believable foundation to stand in the novel and were there for shock value alone. Admittedly, I still had some fun reading it and I still liked the idea behind the book, but it didn't take me long to realize that the apparent brilliance of an idea can only take a mediocre execution so far, and that a concept alone should not warrant a good rating when the novel itself failed to not only meet expectations, but even satisfy. The first third of Suspicion is very easy to get through. It kicks off with paranormal mystery, intrigue, family feuding and tragedy - and that's the first chapter alone. Similar, nicely-written and even somewhat spooky scenes did show up further in the novel, but they were sporadic and far in between, so it didn't take long for the entire tone of the novel to change and become very typical P/N YA, with a perfect girl with a secret who thinks she's not perfect, lusting after another perfect and mysterious guy that doesn't seem interested in her because of the perfect image of a dead girl, and all the angst such a situation ensues.
The main plot of this novel follows closely that of Rebecca from beginning to end with only minimal variations, all of which were there to transform the story into something more YA appropriate. As far as retelling goes, this is a supremely faithful one, but this novel lacked the atmosphere and profundity that made Rebecca a classic and made me love the original so much. This book took the bones of Rebecca and assembled them admirably into a YA form, but it robbed the original of its soul. This book made it all about the romance and teenage drama instead of taking from the original the genius of the development of a childish and naïve girl into a strong and frighteningly unbendable one, the discovery of the darkness in humanity, and the exploration of a dark, twisted character with a presence stronger after death than any of the other characters that are actually alive in the story.
Contrary to what I expected of a story about a girl that's always been in love with her childhood friend, this novel features some pretty heavy insta-love, particularly on the guy's side, since even considering that his love went as far back as Imogen's has some pretty uncomfortable and even illegal connotations. And even if he had loved her since she was 10 and he was 12, the fact still remains that he hadn't seen her in almost a decade and that he had been dating her cousin the entire time. So the time that elapsed between reuniting and confessing their eternal love for each other was far too short to be categorized as anything but insta-love, and besides, there was zero chemistry between them and the dynamics in their relationship become even creepier as certain plot twists were revealed.
Sebastian is the typically mysterious and tortured but perfect and gorgeous guy that we are used to seeing in YA – honestly, there’s really absolutely nothing special about him, in spite of how hardly the author worked to show him that way. The thing is, the more the author tries to present him as this unbelievably perfect guy, the less appealing he was to me. Moreover, as the plot unfolded and things were revealed about Sebastian, his image became creepier and wrong, no matter how much the author tried to clean up his image and still present him as perfect. He did unbelievably stupid things, ridiculously cowardly ones, and justified his terrible decisions and actions with the actions of others, going as far as to claim that he did it for the good of others, and still he was continually glorified and is never made accountable for the terrible and stupid decisions he made. We are supposed to see him as this self-sacrificed, tortured, perfect guy, but really, he's just a creepy idiot.
Imogen for her part was a pretty standard YA heroine, nothing special about her either, prone to making stupid choices for the sake of the plot and often unbelievably dense to what was going on around her. Her obsession with Sebastian made her somewhat irritating, but, all in all, she was a tolerable main character. I took issues with her powers. Severely underdeveloped, based on an almost nonexistent mythology and only used as a plot device, the paranormal aspect in this novel added almost nothing to the story and was used only when convenient. Sure, the idea of the power is important for the mystery, but the powers themselves are hardly relevant to anything that happens in the novel.
There are several mysteries in this novel, from Imogen’s powers to what really happened to her cousin Lucia. The first, as I explained, was relevant to the story only in theory, and its development relied on Imogen finding the most ridiculously written articles and books for dense, long-winded scenes of exposition. The second, what happened to Lucia, differs exclusively from what happened to Rebecca in the novel of the same name only in its resolution, and it’s one of the most ridiculous, ham-handed and shameless plot twists I’ve read about. With no believable foundation in the plot of the novel and, quite honestly, no logic behind them, these plot twists were just thrown out there and left to fly on their own for the sake of shock value. They depended entirely on unrealistic and incredibly stupid behavior from some characters, a complete disregard of physics and biology, and absolute suspension of disbelief. By the end of the book I felt betrayed and insulted. To top it all off, the book features one of the most anti-climactic and nonsensical climaxes I’ve ever read about in which nothing is at risk, a character behaves in an utterly erratic and illogical way and it is all simply solved with minimal damage to anyone.
When I first finished the novel, I was only focused on what could’ve been. This book had a lot of potential and I firmly believe it was within the author’s ability to fulfill that potential, but then the book lost its spark of originality and became a mess of instant love, ludicrous plot twists and ridiculous character behavior. It's not so much that things don't make sense or that they don't connect, because they do, it's that they relied on character inconsistencies, plot holes and conveniences, which is something that had quite an impact on my impression of the novel. The ending was left open enough to force a sequel, but it is highly improbable that I'll ever read it, if it does come out, which I doubt. I know a lot of people will enjoy this book, since, as I said before, the book is very readable and enjoyable enough, but it was simply not for me. Imitation might be the highest form of flattery, but this book proved that, as hard as it may try, the imitation will always dull in comparison to the original. ...more
I thought I had topped my levels of sheer absurdity with Dear Killer, but, as it turns out, They All Fall Down was more than willing to put up a really great fight, and thus, ended up taking the cake for the most preposterous, ridiculous, inane, insipid and laughably vacuous book I've read in quite some time.
The entire premise of this book is insanely misogynistic, and in spite of the author's best efforts to change that by adding a twist to the purpose of the list towards the end, the fact still remains that this book is outstandingly sexist without even trying to. We have this "tradition" called "The Hottie List" (I shit you not), in which 10 lucky girls are declared the best and hottest in the entire school as judged by every guy on campus (and they make each and every single one vote or they risk a beating) based only on their general hotness... and they all love it. Every single girl in that school worships that disgusting list, and the author used that opportunity to demean in the most despicable way one of the girls in the list by writing her as a thoroughly superficial, Paris Hilton-like grade A bitch who (supposedly) gave blow jobs to the entire football team (or whatever) for her spot on the list. Because, when you are already demeaning the integrity of all women in your book by making them accept wholeheartedly a disgusting list that rates them on their looks alone, why not also go the extra mile and add slut shaming to it?
Even the MC's best friend is obsessed with that list and spends the entire novel whining about "riding" the MC's "coattails" into popularity, because, oh yeah, being on that list made you instantly famous and made you part of a secret club/society of super hot girls that... I don't know, gets you into parties? Molly's entire characterization was this vapid, shallow and silly constant whining and moaning about using Kenzie as a ticket to popularity and then bitching when they did and Kenzie hung out with other, more popular people.
But, of course, Kenzie, our MC, was not like that. She's the super special snowflake that doesn't even care about the list, even though she spends the entire novel talking about it, telling everyone that she doesn't deserve to be in it and she can't possibly understand what got her into it, making everyone wax poetics about how worthy she is, how gorgeous and special and perfect and brilliant and glorious she is. And, since Kenzie's bound to remind you about 5 times per page if you decide to read this book, I am obligated to tell you about how brilliant she is. She is constantly talking about smart she is, all based on her capacity to translate a couple of phrases in Latin, and that's her biggest argument against her presence on the list, because we all know, beauty and brains are a dichotomy and there is no such thing as a smart, beautiful woman. Except Kenzie is both, of course, and the only one in the entire novel.
That stupid list ruled the entire school. We even have this nurse in her 40s bragging about having been #9 in her year, as if that had been the highlight of her entire life. And for all of these girls it really was. There's no depth to any character in this novel and all women are relegated to popularity-obsessed, shallow and superficial idiots. Only one person acknowledges that the list objectifies women and it is a character whose moral inclinations are questionable since the beginning and is thoroughly creepy in the process, so what does that tell you?
And the guys... We are supposed to sympathize with this guy who suddenly got interested in a girl simply because she showed up in the list and gives her the lovely endearment of "Fifth" in reference to her place on the list? Like that's not offensive, demeaning and disgusting in the slightest? I'm supposed to like a guy that completely objectified the MC, disregarded her wishes entirely and claimed her for himself like she was a pet or something? I'm supposed to feel attracted to this third wheel in the love triangle after all that?
Am I supposed to empathize with Kenzie, a girl who allows guys to call her "Fifth", is never concerned or offended by the very existence of the list, much less that she was in it, and based all of her decisions on how cute and popular a guy was? Am I suppose to like this self-absorbed girl who, once she was on the list, started to wonder how other girls were on it as well if they weren't even "that pretty"?
The only remotely nice thing I can say about this book is that the main love interest, Levi, was, in fact, genuinely nice and adorable. He came from the usual stereotype of the misunderstood bad boy with a bad rep and a heart of gold, but he was nice to read about. The romance, though, as expected, was of the instant variety and was kind of awkward in certain scenes.
The resolution of this mystery was so patently absurd, I reread the reveal scene a couple of times to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding the whole thing. I will give credit where credit is due and admit that I never saw it coming, - mainly because that would've been the most ludicrous and preposterous of possibilities -, but the author kept the secret close to her heart and handled the mystery in a way that kept you wondering to the end. That doesn't mean, however, that it was satisfactory in the slightest or that it wasn't outlandish and incongruous to the extreme. It made sense in the way it was written, to be honest, but the idea behind the entire concept is ridiculous. Moreover, this twist didn't make the insulting nature of the list any less offensive because, not only did it demeaned the worth of those in the list even further, it also confirmed that some of them weren't "worth" of being in it, as if an honor had been unfairly bestowed upon them simply because they needed to and, even when being in it had terrible consequences for the girls in it, they still were not deserving of it.
This novel also asks for a monumental suspension of disbelief. The things that happen in this book left me in a state of utter incredulity, especially after the big reveal. But still, I would've given it a chance if I had actually enjoyed any aspect of this story, which evidently I didn't. It was eyeroll after eyeroll for me, which quickly built up into complete exasperation and irritation, and then turned into indignation and anger. I don't believe for a second that the author tried to be offensive with this in any way, but, at least to me, it came across as profoundly offensive and insulting.
This was an idea that could've worked in the same trivial and frivolously entertaining way most generic movie thrillers work today, but I expect a bit more from a book. At the very least I expect some respect to be given to the mostly female audience this book is addressed to, and I didn't find it anywhere. I didn't see any of these girls striving to be anything more than a number in a list that ranked them in levels of hotness and granted them the great benefits of popularity and parties and the attention of cute jackasses that only want them because all the other guys in schools had given their hotness the nod of approval. The only girl that aspires for a bit more is Kenzie, and never once does she stands against this whole thing because that was only used as a device to isolate her as the truly special and wonderful being she is.
This is a very fast book, and fairly entertaining too, I must admit, but it was not enjoyable to me. Even if I had managed to put aside my distaste for the sexist premise this whole story is based on, the preposterous and improbable way in which the plot developed still would've bothered me immensely, far too much for me to enjoy this book in a way. Maybe I am taking it too seriously. This is certainly a quick, entertaining and silly book that would easily take away the boredom of any given day, but the impact it had on me was almost entirely negative, and I did take issues with the way things were portrayed in this novel, so it is more than same to say that this book was definitely not for me. ...more
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