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2.91 AVERAGE
2.91 AVERAGE
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If I could give this lower than one star, I would. Seriously this book was pretty terrible. I really try to be kind to authors bc writing a book can be hard. But this is too bad I have to be mean.
This book could have been good. The concept behind it was strong. A bunch of teenagers with choices to make, seeing how their choices affect each other, seeing how it plays out when they make either choice. But this author has never spoken to another person, especially not a high school kid. This dialog was agonizing. Everything was horribly unrealistic. Every character either talked like they were from the 1950s at the earliest, or like he'd googled "2017 teen slang" and tried to convince every single term he could into one sentence. It was just painful. Absolutely agonizing.
And the fact that no matter what choice they made, they ended up in the same place? Annoying. And unrealistic. Allegra turned down Stanford and then changed her mind both times. I'm preeeeettty sure a school like that, with a wait list, wouldn't be cool with that.
Also? The fact that people who were shitty or absent for the whole book were suddenly present and redeemed at the end felt extremely unnatural.
ALSO we just aren't going to talk about how Wiley is human scum? No apologies from him for how he treated Allegra? He just gets to treat people like complete shit and we're supposed to forgive him because his horrible decisions resulted in him a) being isolated and b) not graduating so he wants to commit suicide? Is that supposed to make me feel for him? He treated his best friend like shit. In the timeline where he asked her out, he called her a cunt for rejecting him. In the timeline where he didn't ask her out, he stopped talking to her and thought of her as a slut who betrayed him bc she dated someone else. And in one timeline she just starts dating him for a hot second? Despite being very obviously uninterested in him in both timelines????????? He's trash and so is the author for pulling this friendzoned bullshit and making her date her unattractive, rude, manipulative "best friend" anyway.
Also we need to address what the author did as far as representation. He tried to be inclusive. And missed the mark. By a whole lot. His characters were diverse, but pumped to the eyeballs in stereotypes to the point where any good he may have done by including diversity was undone by how stereotyped they were. I mean, Cole. Cole was so uncomfortable to read. He was every gay stereotype in one. Also, he was the only character who never got a love interest? Why's that? Bc the author didn't want to have to write another gay guy? Bc the author included his sexuality exclusively to make it seem diverse? Bc the author didn't know how to write a gay person as a person and not a stereotype, so he couldn't make another gay character without him just being Cole 2.0?
Between the dialog that shows this author has clearly never met another person (my mom asked if this was written by a young child when I read her examples of it) and the uncomfortable and problematic stereotyping and the bullshit concept of "your decisions are meaningless, your life is predetermined and will turn out the same no matter what you do" I hated this. Like, every second of it. Not going to lie, I only read the title and saw the cover and thought "a road trip book! Fun!" And was severely disappointed. And was even more disappointed by a solid concept being completely and utterly destroyed by terrible writing. Seriously, this sucked. A lot.
This book could have been good. The concept behind it was strong. A bunch of teenagers with choices to make, seeing how their choices affect each other, seeing how it plays out when they make either choice. But this author has never spoken to another person, especially not a high school kid. This dialog was agonizing. Everything was horribly unrealistic. Every character either talked like they were from the 1950s at the earliest, or like he'd googled "2017 teen slang" and tried to convince every single term he could into one sentence. It was just painful. Absolutely agonizing.
And the fact that no matter what choice they made, they ended up in the same place? Annoying. And unrealistic. Allegra turned down Stanford and then changed her mind both times. I'm preeeeettty sure a school like that, with a wait list, wouldn't be cool with that.
Also? The fact that people who were shitty or absent for the whole book were suddenly present and redeemed at the end felt extremely unnatural.
ALSO we just aren't going to talk about how Wiley is human scum? No apologies from him for how he treated Allegra? He just gets to treat people like complete shit and we're supposed to forgive him because his horrible decisions resulted in him a) being isolated and b) not graduating so he wants to commit suicide? Is that supposed to make me feel for him? He treated his best friend like shit. In the timeline where he asked her out, he called her a cunt for rejecting him. In the timeline where he didn't ask her out, he stopped talking to her and thought of her as a slut who betrayed him bc she dated someone else. And in one timeline she just starts dating him for a hot second? Despite being very obviously uninterested in him in both timelines????????? He's trash and so is the author for pulling this friendzoned bullshit and making her date her unattractive, rude, manipulative "best friend" anyway.
Also we need to address what the author did as far as representation. He tried to be inclusive. And missed the mark. By a whole lot. His characters were diverse, but pumped to the eyeballs in stereotypes to the point where any good he may have done by including diversity was undone by how stereotyped they were. I mean, Cole. Cole was so uncomfortable to read. He was every gay stereotype in one. Also, he was the only character who never got a love interest? Why's that? Bc the author didn't want to have to write another gay guy? Bc the author included his sexuality exclusively to make it seem diverse? Bc the author didn't know how to write a gay person as a person and not a stereotype, so he couldn't make another gay character without him just being Cole 2.0?
Between the dialog that shows this author has clearly never met another person (my mom asked if this was written by a young child when I read her examples of it) and the uncomfortable and problematic stereotyping and the bullshit concept of "your decisions are meaningless, your life is predetermined and will turn out the same no matter what you do" I hated this. Like, every second of it. Not going to lie, I only read the title and saw the cover and thought "a road trip book! Fun!" And was severely disappointed. And was even more disappointed by a solid concept being completely and utterly destroyed by terrible writing. Seriously, this sucked. A lot.
3.5 stars.
Hmm. Not sure what I think of this one.
Review to come (once I gather my thoughts!).
Hmm. Not sure what I think of this one.
Review to come (once I gather my thoughts!).