sofia
Flopwood Mac!
no but seriously how is it possible to make a story focused on a 70s rock band this boring and stale?! the characters were so flat and uninteresting
i kept reading in hopes it was going to get better and more dramatic but it just turned out reeeaaally disappointing. call me messy but i wanted shit to hit the fan so the characters would grow from it but they were the same from start to finish
in my view, the choice of writing it as an interview transcript didn't work, as it made it everything “no show, all tell”. i can see how it would work better as a tv show, but honestly i don't have much interest in watching it
Let's start with the good things: the characters were pretty well developed and had believable goals and aspirations, PERSONALITIES! The main character Poppy was charming (although a bit annoying at times) and the love interest was endearing. They also had justified fears and anxieties, which helped with the fleshing out. The chemistry is there right from the start imo, i really liked how the author wrote their first scenes together upon meeting, and the dialogue was actually funny? The banter? Groundbreaking!
The writing is better than I anticipated! i feel bad for saying that because this was my first time reading Emily Henry and she deserved higher expectations. It all flowed really well and it was actually engaging and fun; easy to read and to follow.
I also liked that there was an underlying angst since the beginning, it added that sweet sweet tension that i usually like in romance stories, but it was a double-edged sword as i will explain next
it's a risk when you're building tension for hundreds of pages and you're suggesting there's gonna be a climax, because there's a need to have a great payoff. I won't say it was anti-climatic in this book, but i was expecting a little more. Besides that, i had to resist skim reading a few times because the pacing got a bit odd with all the back and forth in the story. This was my biggest gripe.
Other than that, i guess the usual stuff in romcom that i feel dismissive about: rushed 3rd act, one too many mentions of the size of the characters and whatnot, miscommunication that feels easy to avoid and... as much as i liked the characters.. they were still basic and I'm tired of the too popular dynamic of the lively and bubbly woman with the serious and grounded man
Overall i really enjoyed it and i will be reading more Emily Henry in the future
started this thinking it would be a fun romp that i would fly through quickly, only to be severely disappointed. the premise had potential and the looming three-way relationship was alluring, so i forgave the clunky worldbuilding and the supbar writing; but the dull action sequences, the flat unremarkable characters with no growth whatsoever and the uninteresting dynamics between them ran my patience dry by the time it was too late for me to not finish. i get the feeling the author had a bunch of good ideas and failed to incorporate them neatly and make them compelling. just a whole lot of telling and not nearly enough showing. also! eyeroll-worthy disney-caliber villains, how wonderful.
my will to believe and stubbornness had me painfully trudging in the last third of the book and i just wish i had given up because it was all so pointless! i'm being mean yet i don't care!! i'm upset that i wasted my time.
So necessary and so important. Couldn't go through this quickly because it was so hard and painful to read about these atrocities, and i'm just reading about them! Imagine the people who went through it. It's truly astounding how the Zionist narrative we see on most of the news has been carefully thought out and manipulated for decades and decades.
The amount of information gathered here sourced accordingly, the carefulness and thoughtfulness and courage of the author, the impartiality of the writing whilst at the same time having such a consideration and empathy for the Palestinian people, it all leads to me feeling in such limitless admiration.
The part about the olive trees still being able to grow even after destruction and splitting the planted pine trees' branches was so powerful, I keep thinking about that.
and thus my 4 star streak continues!
what can i saw that won't embarrass me and my writing in comparison to ocean vuong's beautiful lyrical prose. Absolutely (forever and not briefly) Gorgeous™️
i'm sure some things flew over my head, as my “blue-curtaining” capacities are not the best. But here's two of my favorite quotes from this book:
“l got what I wanted–a boy swimming toward me. Except I was no shore, Ma. I was driftwood trying to remember what l had broken from to get here.” - page 108
“A page, turning, is a wing lifted with no twin, and therefore no flight. And yet we are moved.” - page 190
Breathtaking. Even the acknowledgments were a joy to read!
I mean yeah maybe sometimes it was too abstract for my taste but that is ON ME and I really enjoyed my time nonetheless. Did not expect to learn so much about Tiger Woods.
i'm thinking 3.65-3.7 stars on this one
The vanishing half is a story about two twin sisters so light-skinned they could pass as white, as do most people in their small hometown, Mallard. They flee from town as teenagers and live in New Orleans for a while, where they ultimately make a splitting decision that will change their lives forever, as well as their respective daughters. We follow their stories from their childhood, in the 50s, until they're middle aged in the 90s.
the array of topics approached in this book is impressive, going from colorism to internalized racism to domestic violence to identity (be it about race or gender), to classism, depression, trauma, self-worth and more; I appreciated reading about all of these but it was so much, it felt like some of them only scratched the surface and left me wanting more. I'd rather have read half of these and have a more focused story where we delved into the twins lives and their own stories.
But i did love that the author showed the consequences of the twins' decisions, affecting their daughters even when they're grown adults.
i really disliked Stella, i believe it was done on purpose but jaysos. Her chapters though, i was really into them, and i loved to see the whole arc with Loretta. I, however, disliked her daughter, Kennedy, and i think her chapters were my least favorite, i would go as far as saying they were almost not needed, or at least her part should have been much shorter
I Loved Jude's parts though, especially the ones with Reese, a trans man who she befriends and later becomes romantically involved with. Gotta love how positively it was portrayed and if it's unrealistic i don't care I still loved it. I'm not completely sure about the parallels between his transition and Stella's “transition”, though.
The ending... I wasn't crazy about it. I cant explain why but when it was over I was like really? That's it? I loved certain parts of the book so much and others i was begging to get them over with but the ending was painfully unremarkable to me. I know in these generational stories the ending will always be open and have some issues to still be unresolved but idk, i wanted more.
This was the first time i consumed a book as an audio! I don't know if it affected my enjoyment in any way but i liked the reading! I will be on the lookout for more Brit Bennet in the future!
Pode parecer inapropriado avaliar este livro, mas só pela força e coragem da Chanel Miller, lá tem que ser. Para todos os efeitos, considero leitura essencial para toda a gente.
Embora se foque especificamente no sistema judicial estadunidense, diria que se pode facilmente aplicar e fazer paralelo a situações ao redor de todo o mundo.
Ler isto não foi fácil. É inspirador, mas desolador e tem tanto de esperança como tem de desalento. Embora as coisas têm vindo a mudar no sentido de ajudar a vítima nos últimos anos, os casos de violência sexual parecem não abrandar. Ainda assim, é preciso que se continue a lutar para proteger os sobreviventes.
Querendo acabar o meu comentário num tom mais positivo, conforme a autora vinca no final do livro, vale a pena continuar a viver quando há pessoas neste mundo que não desistem de ajudar-nos e apoiar-nos.
this 4 is kind of a soft 4. the premise and concept of this book was extremely fascinating from the start but i think it was stretched just a little too far. Nothing that made me get tired of reading it, no way! so many fire quotes in this one (read it in portuguese but oh still i know they were great in english).
i did feel like addie wasn't much human, and so i instantly connected more to henry because idk he felt more fleshed out and well he has lots of personal issues and that always attracts me
the ending felt a tiny rushed but i enjoyed it nonetheless
my first “pure” 5-stars in a while. What a great story. I mean yeah it's re-imagining Greek mythology but when you do it this movingly, deliciously and respectfully i don't even think about the original ones. Circe, as a book and also as the character, will stay with me. I was afraid it would not live up to The Song of Achilles (which i read like 8 years ago) but at this point in my life I believe Circe means more to me. So that's another home-run from Madeline Miller. The writing is as beautiful as i remember and for the first time in my life i wanted to tab a book! AND MAYBE I WILL!!! The power of Circe!
good to start the year with a 5 star!
n. k. jemisin is a genius, actually. the sheer amount of effort and craftsmanship is something to behold, but the emotionally gripping and meaningful story she was able to weave in this, oof.
even if it was challenging to understand everything in initially, sometimes all i wanted was to binge it but i'm kinda glad it took me some time to finish, as it allowed me to savour it more. and, well, i did plenty! i feel like i could go on about what happens in each chapter; there's no filler, no fluff, everything seems to have a purpose.
this book had my mind stirring and the brain juice flowing, i don't remember having so many theories on a single piece of media, i really really loved it.
one of the theories i had when i was about a third or a quarter of the way into the book was that they were the same person and i was right about that! i'm proud of myself for getting the hint from the author!! one of the things i also love about this is that the twist, whether is shocking or not to some readers, makes the journey and also jemisin's writing abilities so much more admirable. These “3” characters were so distinguishable from one another and they're not even different people! masterful
brutal, blunt, and so dark, and i will need a short break with lighter reads, but STILL (lmao) so amazing.
already ordered the rest of the trilogy, because i need more of this world
(more on goodreads)
i don't understand how this book is apparently almost unanimously loved, but then again maybe they didn't discover it was reylo fic halfway through the book
the smut was sooooo awkward! And the timing?? Really?! also don't get me started how she apparently wasn't affected at all by the sexual harassment? there was only mention of how she was hurt about what he said about her skills and work... idk i just feel like it was thrown in there for shock value and it wasn't even brought up at any point further in the book
3 stars
A tad underwhelming. I very much enjoyed the book, but with all the incredible acclamation, I expected a lot more from it. I like that it tackles a lot of important social issues (such as domestic violence, racism, fatphobia, homophobia, bullying, sexism, etc.), but the way some of them are brought up and handled doesn't quite sit well with me. I don't know if that was the author's goal. The narrative was a bit lazy, but I really liked that there were both Eleanor and Park's points of view, and I couldn't help but melt and blush whenever they mentioned each other lovingly. I liked the ending, but I feel it could be better. Felt a bit rushed. But the last part left me hopeful, so I can't really complain.