I Was Born for This

This was way better than I expected. I loved the characters, especially Jimmy, Lister, Bliss, Roan. The friendships were so nicely written and were the highlight of the book. The characters and the story were realistic and I enjoyed it a lot.

—spoilers—

List of things I liked:

* Oh look, so much diversity.
* Angel's real name, Farishtey ☺️ It was so nice to see someone with an Urdu name. Props to audiobook narrator for pronouncing it correctly.
* Jimmy's relationship with his grandad.
* Jimmy and Roan's friendship.
* Lister wearing a cape and singing Batman's opening theme

See original review here: www.weebitwordy.blog/i-was-born-for-this/

Well this was a whirlwind of a read if I do say so myself! When I first picked this book up, I had my doubts, having not read anything previously by Alice Oseman, I wasn't sure what I was diving into. Part of me was really expecting a default YA girl meets boy, they fall in love with each other after some struggles and they live happily ever after. That, my friends, was not the case at all. While there were some love triangles happening, this was not your cliche YA read–and I LOVED IT!

cough sorry about that little outburst there... now where was I...

If you're looking for something to appeal to your millennial heart, then you've come to the right place, because this little number just defied all odds and threw everything in there from the main character being a hijab wearing Muslim to having one of the band members trans and the other being gay. Never have I read a book with so many ‘outcasts' that have been thrown into one setting, and have it all seem like normal everyday life:

Like. It. Should. Be!

cough sorry again... I don't know what it is about this book...

What appealed to me the most about the book is that we didn't just get fan-girl Angel's POV of the whole events in this book, but we also saw things from band front man Jimmy's POV, and his struggles with mental health dealing with fame and his adoring fans. Throughout the book we see Jimmy's mental health slowly get worse, which leads to the incidents where Jimmy and Angel meet–in the most unorthodox ways. I will admit that I was expecting there to be a little love story between the two when they eventually meet, but in fact it's quite the opposite, as Angel ends up literally becoming Jimmy's guardian angel.

As well as all this we deal with a few other things in the book, the love triangle between the three band members, as well as a girlfriend who is kept a secret to avoid the lime light; internet friends meeting IRL for the very first time as well as all the social awkwardness and anxieties which go along with it; and lastly, my favourite, the tried and tested quote which really is the fruition of the whole book: Never meet your idols.

Overall, I think it's safe to say I thoroughly enjoyed this book, considering I devoured it in only two sittings, and got surprisingly passionate about the whole thing (really don't know where that came from). I Was Born for This is available from May 3rd, and I hope you get your hands on a copy and enjoy it just as much as I did.

Their music was good and fun, yes, but they looked kind. They were attractive, but not in a scary, very masculine way that many young girls find intimidating. They had floppy hair and skinny frames, you know, that sort of thing. Which is very fashionable now, but wasn't really back then. They gave these girls something very safe to love. Something that would never bite them back. In the sixties, everything would bite you back if you were a girl.

“I think the truth is that everyone in the entire world is confused and nobody understands much of anything at all.”

Alice Oseman... you will forever be one of my most favourite authors.

I have said this so many times in my reviews for Oseman's other works but I absolutely love the way realism is brought into these stories. The characters are always so raw and relatable that it's so hard not to find some type of attachment or connection with them.

Every single character brought something so special to the story. They each had their own struggles that they were dealing with. This wasn't about romance or fame, this was about real life.

This book showed the point of views of the fan girl and the boy from the band. I think it was so interesting to see how both sides experienced the same things. I don't think people realise that celebrities at the end of the day do not owe us anything, especially when it comes to their personal lives. This portrayed the positives and negatives of celebrities and their fandoms perfectly.

I'm not a religious person at all and I have a very negative relationship with it due to past experiences but I do have to say that I appreciated reading about Angel and Jimmy's relationship with it.

I love that Oseman always is so diverse with her works. The two main characters are hijabi Muslim and mixed race and trans and I really deeply appreciate how she writes stories that everybody can view themselves in.

I really loved this and I would love to revisit it again in the future.

i...........have no idea how to really rate this?

- i really liked jimmy's pov but it kind of fell apart for me in the last 50-100 pages
- i didn't like angel's pov at all which makes me sad, but a lot of it was pretty cringey
- this is more of a character driven book than a plot driven one and i didn't overly vibe with it
- the friendships in this book are probably the best part of it though

idk i was just expecting to love it after seeing how many other people have and i just feel let down

Eu ainda não tinha parado para pensar muito nesse livro até escutar a música “Pretend” da Orla Gartland e me deparar com a frase “oh, who are you so afraid to be?”

Angel Rahimi é a sua típica adolescente britânica prestes a entrar no mundo adulto. Sua vida gira em torno de apenas uma única coisa: a banda The Ark e, principalmente, o vocalista desta, Jimmy Kaga-Ricci.
O que poderia ser apenas mais uma das histórias de romance impossível entre uma fã e um cantor famoso se torna, na verdade, uma importante lição sobre valores, vida e, porque não, identidade.
Angel é uma menina alegre, divertida e animada, justamente por ter esse comportamento extrovertido e amigável, grande parte de seus problemas e suas inseguranças são jogadas no fundo de um baú esquecido em algum lugar de um sótão escuro e empoeirado.
Angel, em seu âmago, não tem a mínima ideia do que quer para essa vida e, ainda pior, no que ela poderia ser boa, tendo sua vida inteira sido mediana em tudo que envolvia a vida escolar.
Como não se sentir um pouquinho representado, não é mesmo?
Por não querer lidar com essas inseguranças relativas ao futuro, Angel se enfurna em sua vida de fã, tendo a certeza que cada lacuna de sua identidade seja preenchida com o The Ark.
O livro explora muito essa questão da insegurança e da dúvida, convidando Angel a sair de seu pequeno e desconfortável casulo e perceber que o mundo real não precisa ser assim tão assustador. Na verdade, mais do que isso, junto de Angel percebemos que muito daquele mundo real estava sendo perdido, justamente por sua própria fixação.

Muitas vezes o futuro parece um local distante e assustador, borrado pela incerteza e coberto pela complexidade. As vezes é difícil nos distanciarmos de nossos pensamentos e compreendermos, de verdade, quem somos e o que queremos. O grande medo de Angel, de se perceber um ninguém além do The Ark, acaba por cortar todas as possíveis relações e situações fora destes. Acaba por corta-la de ser quem ela realmente era.
Afinal, de quem Angel estava com tanto medo de ser?

Afinal, de quem nós temos tanto medo de ser?

It's obvious from reading any of Oseman's books that she really deeply understands both her characters and her readers. As well as being an entertaining examination of friendship and fame, this is a love letter to her fans.
I didn't empathise with anyone and had absolutely no “lived experience”. I'm really too old for these books and this world - I've never Tweeted or Tumblred and I followed my bands escapades in Smash Hits! Still it was enjoyable and everyone felt really real - insofar as they were insecure mishmashes of normal and weird - and, yeah, I can relate to that.

Merged review:

It's obvious from reading any of Oseman's books that she really deeply understands both her characters and her readers. As well as being an entertaining examination of friendship and fame, this is a love letter to her fans.
I didn't empathise with anyone and had absolutely no “lived experience”. I'm really too old for these books and this world - I've never Tweeted or Tumblred and I followed my bands escapades in Smash Hits! Still it was enjoyable and everyone felt really real - insofar as they were insecure mishmashes of normal and weird - and, yeah, I can relate to that.