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annabelleo's review against another edition
1.0
I take notes on everything I read, as I read them. So, even if I don't put a rating in here right away, I know my thoughts on these books. I read this book about a year ago, and I GENUINELY forgot it existed. I had to read my notes, and the book cover to remember a single detail about it. For that, it loses a little bit in the points department, not that it was rated that highly to begin with
bookishmadness's review against another edition
3.0
What I Thought: Side Effects May Vary, for how you feel after reading this book. You may laugh. You may cry. You may scream and shout and pull out your hair. You may be satisfied, or you may not. Side Effects May Vary, in my opinion, is not a book about a girl with cancer. It is not a story about the things she does to get revenge on the enemies in her life. It's not even really about her dealing with the consequences once she finds out she's gone into remission. This is a love story, pure and simple. Yes, it has all of the above stated things, but they are minor parts of a major love story. Had I known that when I started, I may have loved it a lot more than I did. Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic story, but when I picked it up, expecting a cancer story or a revenge story and got a love story instead, I was kind of disappointed.
Alice is a normal teenage girl, with very normal dramatic teenage problems. Except one day she finds out she has leukaemia, and her life changes. She decides to write a list, a bucket list of sorts, and revenge is at the top of her list. However, she eventually finds out she is in remission, and life starts to go back to normal again - where she has to deal with the consequences of her actions.
Side Effects May Vary is a raw and powerful book, that shows us that every action has a consequence, and that love can be an extremely powerful and haunting force in life. This novel was definitely not what I expected, and not what I hoped for either, but I definitely still think it is one of those YA novels that needs to be read by everyone.
The Good: It has some hilarious moments.
The Bad: As explained in the first paragraph above, it was not what I expected.
Rating: 3 stars
Alice is a normal teenage girl, with very normal dramatic teenage problems. Except one day she finds out she has leukaemia, and her life changes. She decides to write a list, a bucket list of sorts, and revenge is at the top of her list. However, she eventually finds out she is in remission, and life starts to go back to normal again - where she has to deal with the consequences of her actions.
Side Effects May Vary is a raw and powerful book, that shows us that every action has a consequence, and that love can be an extremely powerful and haunting force in life. This novel was definitely not what I expected, and not what I hoped for either, but I definitely still think it is one of those YA novels that needs to be read by everyone.
The Good: It has some hilarious moments.
The Bad: As explained in the first paragraph above, it was not what I expected.
Rating: 3 stars
christiana's review against another edition
2.0
I was cautiously optimistic about this one, but was ultimately left wanting more. The story was well done, but I cared about Alice less and less as the book went on. Alice and the main character from The F-it list would have a lot to talk about. They both have chips on their shoulder.
janewhitehurst's review against another edition
3.0
A cute read. Alice is diagnosed with Leukemia and the prognosis is grim. She enlists the help of her best friend, Harvey, to help her get revenge on her enemies in her last days. Then, remarkably, she goes into remission and must face the consequences of her actions...and her budding feelings for Harvey. It wasn't the best, but I read it quickly.
lauraelizah's review against another edition
4.0
Apparently, I started this book in early December but other things got in the way and I didn't get into it properly until around Christmas. I can't register my feelings with this book. It started off pretty neutral and okay. By about 2/3 of the way through, I was depicting whether the storyline was going to really go anywhere. BUT, in the last 100 pages-ish, I could not put it down and my emotions were being tossed around in a whirlwind. I had no idea what was happening. One minute I was like YES, then ARGH, then AWW, then OMFG WHAT and now I'm just like wow. This is the best way for me to describe my feelings haha. I loved this book. I had a love-hate relationship with the main character, Alice. I felt sorry for a lot of characters only to get annoyed with them later on. I'm still trying to work out who I liked, and didn't like. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this. I suggest giving it a read!
rachcannoli's review
3.0
This book was so incredibly frustrating, particularly Alice. I get that the girl went through so much hardship at a young age and I truly cannot imagine being diagnosed with a terminal illness as a teen could do to your mental state. So I get that. But when she’s gifted a second chance and uses that to basically treat everyone who’s sacrificed and cared and loved her over that time like complete garbage is so awful. She’s so selfish and I feel like she doesn’t really learn anything because she still gets everything she wants by the end. I just found it so incredibly hard to root for her and honestly felt her relationship with Harvey was extremely unhealthy and toxic. The poor boy doesn’t deserve what she does to him in this book and I cannot justify any of her actions, not even with the cancer card. There were parts of this book that I enjoyed, mainly Harvey’s character despite his Alice obsession, but I just couldn’t get behind it as a whole. Not terrible, just not all that good.
squirrelsohno's review against another edition
3.0
Overall, a good story, and good first showing from Murphy, but there was one big glaring problem...
The characters were really, really, REALLY unlikable, which is not inherently a bad thing, but when you're SUPPOSED to like them (I assume), it makes the story suffer. Alice just was a total bitch to Harvey, who was HER bitch. Oh well.
Review to come.
The characters were really, really, REALLY unlikable, which is not inherently a bad thing, but when you're SUPPOSED to like them (I assume), it makes the story suffer. Alice just was a total bitch to Harvey, who was HER bitch. Oh well.
Review to come.
thebookhaze's review against another edition
2.0
I liked the idea of the book, but I didn't much like the actual story. It didn't make sense to me, the further I got into it. I know about cancer, and it doesn't work like that.
I read a lot of books, and there are a lot of things I can understand and suspend my belief for in fiction, but cancer stories are the hardest for me to relate to, because so many authors have used cancer for the sake of talking about living and dying, but they've twisted it into some kind of entity that does what they want it to instead of what it really is.
Even so, I can *try* to suspend my belief if I look at "cancer" as a vehicle for telling the story they want to tell, and I tried that with this book. So cancer aside, I still don't like the story. I don't get it. I don't get the pranks Alice played on her enemies. And I don't get the prank they played on her. I don't know what the big deal is. I don't get her attitude, and I don't get Harvey's attitude towards her. What is there to love about her? Just because they grew up together? I don't see any redeeming features about Alice and I don't get why Harvey would put up with so much from her.
There were some quotes I liked from the book, though:
"I knew how to die. It was the living that scared me."
"Money is the cure to cancer."
"...there was one privilege to dying: the right to live without consequence."
"Sometimes I wondered if the chemo was too much for one body to handle. And maybe it did more harm than good. Yeah, the chemo might kill the cancer, but it might kill Alice too."
The quotes about cancer pretty much sums up what I think about chemo and the idea of trying to cure cancer with chemo.
The quotes about living and dying, they are more profound, and one of the reasons why living like there's no tomorrow is a wonderful idea, but definitely not a good idea.
I read a lot of books, and there are a lot of things I can understand and suspend my belief for in fiction, but cancer stories are the hardest for me to relate to, because so many authors have used cancer for the sake of talking about living and dying, but they've twisted it into some kind of entity that does what they want it to instead of what it really is.
Even so, I can *try* to suspend my belief if I look at "cancer" as a vehicle for telling the story they want to tell, and I tried that with this book. So cancer aside, I still don't like the story. I don't get it. I don't get the pranks Alice played on her enemies. And I don't get the prank they played on her. I don't know what the big deal is. I don't get her attitude, and I don't get Harvey's attitude towards her. What is there to love about her? Just because they grew up together? I don't see any redeeming features about Alice and I don't get why Harvey would put up with so much from her.
There were some quotes I liked from the book, though:
"I knew how to die. It was the living that scared me."
"Money is the cure to cancer."
"...there was one privilege to dying: the right to live without consequence."
"Sometimes I wondered if the chemo was too much for one body to handle. And maybe it did more harm than good. Yeah, the chemo might kill the cancer, but it might kill Alice too."
The quotes about cancer pretty much sums up what I think about chemo and the idea of trying to cure cancer with chemo.
The quotes about living and dying, they are more profound, and one of the reasons why living like there's no tomorrow is a wonderful idea, but definitely not a good idea.
aevictor's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0