Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Solitaire

I honestly love this book. Tori and Michael feel so real, which can be difficult to find with YA books where many characters tend to feel very scripted and unrealistic. Overall, I think it represents high school without too many overused clichés.

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lybrarie's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

As with all of Alice Oseman's work, I really enjoyed this book. This author's writing style is really easy to read, even when covering difficult topics like this book does. I liked that it doesn't go into intense and graphic detail about some of those matters, but covered them in a way that still made them feel real - I would urge you to look up the content warnings if you think there is a potential for this book to contain triggering content for you.

I did find the revelation towards the end of the book somewhat predictable, but I still definitely enjoyed the process of getting there. I could guess what was going to happen, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure on how the leading events connected to it. So it was definitely fun to read and find out how everything came to be.

I didn't find any of the main characters (Tori, Michael, Becky, Lucas) to be particularly loveable, but I think, for this book, that is what made them good characters. They were all flawed and dealing with their own issues, which made them feel real. Tori in particular - as the book is told from her point of view - was definitely a characters I felt for despite not liking her all that much. I personally could relate to the way she was feeling, which I think is why I didn't really like her. I understood why she was thinking the way she was thinking and acting the way she was acting, which is why I think I found that some of her decisions were annoying me - because I knew what she needed to do to make things better for herself and she seemed to be doing the complete opposite.

Overall, I really liked this book and I am looking forward to reading more of Oseman's works and getting to spend more time with these characters.

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snowhitereads's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

As you all probably know by now, I absolutely love the Heartstopper series. I particularly love Tori, the sister of Heartstopper's main character, Charlie, so I knew I had to pick this one up

The book focuses on Tori Spring, who is an extremely pessimistic teenager and hates just about everything. Although I love Tori in Heartstopper, I did find her frustrating in this book.

Though Heartstopper features the same characters, this book felt so completely different in terms of tone and character personalities that it might as well have been an entirely different series.

Even though this book is very easy to read, unfortunately the plot and character development felt underdeveloped and confusing, very surface level.

The ending was abrupt and left me feeling confused at what I had just read. I don't know what to think about this book.

It’s important to note that there should be so many trigger warnings surrounding this book. There are a lot of dark things that are addressed, such as eating disorders, self-harm and depression.Besides that, there are constant HP references which drove me crazy.

Overall, it's not terrible, but you can definitely tell this is a debut by a 17 year old.

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