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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
خیلی حالخوبکن و زیبا بود. کتابهایی که سولی معرفی میکنه واقعا یهطور دیگه قشنگن. از وسطای کتاب دیگه نمیتونستم بذارمش زمین. *فریاد میزند "منم یه SN میخوام" و با قلبی مملو از غم پتو را روی خود میکشد*
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
fast-paced
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I bought this after seeing the pretty high rating on GR. A few people mentioned that they enjoyed this particular title from this author so I felt like I made the right choice to try this author. Unfortunately, I suppose I belong to the minority readers who did not enjoy the book much.
Let me just begin with what I did enjoy though, because it is a shorter list. It would be like taking a bite of a sweet dessert before drinking and spilling the bitter tea.
I liked how it began. The intrigue of who Somebody Nobody aka SN could be. I’ve always enjoyed stories with the pen pal trope because this actually is something that happened/ still happens to me. I have two pen pals with whom I have correspondence with for years. The intrigue in mine is more in how they share a similar name...
Anyway, I digressed. I also liked how easy it was to read. I found myself flipping to the next page even though I did not always enjoy what was happening. Another thing I liked was the friendship. How it could begin, how it could change shape and how to fix it when you had made a mistake. It was only marred by the fact that all the girls ever talked about was boys and sex.
Which brings us to what I did not enjoy about the book. Have a seat, sip your tea and be ready for the spillage.
The FMC is a male-centering pick-me girl in too many ways. Her favourite word to describe girls she didn’t like was “bitch”. Her POV showed how oh so different she was to all the other girls. Look, I get it, I was once an awkward teenager too, but Jessie kept reiterating how she was not like other girls. And yet she got the attention of some boys so we were supposed to think she had some value, maybe ranked higher than all those other girls, because of course a girl’s value is in who gets plucked by ‘em hot popular boys! She even narrowed down who SN could be to three hot dudes. She is the antithesis of a feminist. And she pretty much expected people around her to be her knights in shining armour whenever she got picked on.
Even though this book was published back in 2016, and I’m only reading it a decade later, I found it hard to just ignore the plugging of Zionist brands. My goodness, the book might as well be an advertisement for Starbucks. It’s like those annoying ads that keep popping up when you’re watching a youtube video every 2 minutes! And then there was this part that mentioned the ethnostate for no reason which made me think that this lawyer of an author knew exactly what she was doing, trying to make kids think that that “place” deserves some kind of respect. Even though all it does is eliminating kids who are not of a certain “pedigree”.
It is a no wonder that the grief about losing a parent here felt rather shallow. How would someone who support a regime that actively takes/does away with parents of little children (for 76 years and counting, might I add) understand what true grief about losing your own parents feel like? The author had a note talking about how Jessie shared similarities to herself including losing her mother, but I don’t know. All Jessie talked about in the book was about how SHE was suffering the loss. How SHE was different than other teenagers because of her loss (omg, pick her already!). I learned next to nothing about her mother. Who was she, what was she like as a person, not just as Jessie’s mother? But who cares, right, Jessie is the only one that matters.
And then there’s her being obtuse about the identity of SN. Everyone could tell from a mile away who it was but sure, let’s do the whole misunderstanding trope.
The book had a promise, but then plateaued before going completely downhill for me.
this was a reread for me and i loved it this time listening to the audiobook as much as i enjoyed my first read. it is cute and sweet and heartfelt.
A refreshing love story buried inside the folds of grief.. like a rainbow in a storm. The witty dialogue makes the story addicting, read the first few pages and you'll be hooked. "SN: Maybe home doesn't have to be a place. Me: maybe not."
I don’t know if this book is quite a 4 but it’s definitely more than a 3.
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated