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alailiander's review against another edition
4.0
Ugh. I hate a twist. I so hate a twist. Even a really good twist!
This was a great read; I didn't want to set it down, and barely did, from start to finish. The reveal is a long way in and I think perhaps some of it could have been trimmed (seriously, why did Jonathan even make the list?) but the curiosity was killing me, but it is a heck of a pay-off. In retrospect-of course-it makes perfect sense-how did I not see that-but I definitely didn't and it was worth the wait for the reveal! The twist is just big enough to feel authentic to the emotional build-up and guilt journey leading up to it, but not so big that it just seems ridiculous. Just excellent.
This one felt like high school to me, all that melodrama and heatbreak and that 111%ness of all feelings and experiences. It rang true, the locations, the rituals, the whole rest of your life as merely backdrop to the meaningful relationship, be it friendship or romance. That singular focus...
The only thing I wasn't sure of Ret - there's, just, this trope of the high school meangirl who has all the emotional manipulative powers of a first world national spy service and never misses the mark puppeteering her underlings... and while it is engaging to read, I don't think I buy it. These people only exist in fiction. Am I wrong? I mean, mean girls: yes, of course they exist - but nobody hits the cruelty target that effectively everytime. I mean, is anybody actually that effectively Machivellian? Wouldn't it be exhausting to be emotionally managing/abusing/manipulating all of the time?
I also appreciate that this one took its time with the ending. The ending goes on awhile after the reveal, there's only some closure and a bit of what is next. The epilogue contains barely a narrative bow to tie things up and I think the ending is the better for it.
This is just a really great YA read. My thanks to the publisher, author and netgalley for the eBook ARC for review.
This was a great read; I didn't want to set it down, and barely did, from start to finish. The reveal is a long way in and I think perhaps some of it could have been trimmed (seriously, why did Jonathan even make the list?) but the curiosity was killing me, but it is a heck of a pay-off. In retrospect-of course-it makes perfect sense-how did I not see that-but I definitely didn't and it was worth the wait for the reveal! The twist is just big enough to feel authentic to the emotional build-up and guilt journey leading up to it, but not so big that it just seems ridiculous. Just excellent.
This one felt like high school to me, all that melodrama and heatbreak and that 111%ness of all feelings and experiences. It rang true, the locations, the rituals, the whole rest of your life as merely backdrop to the meaningful relationship, be it friendship or romance. That singular focus...
The only thing I wasn't sure of Ret - there's, just, this trope of the high school meangirl who has all the emotional manipulative powers of a first world national spy service and never misses the mark puppeteering her underlings... and while it is engaging to read, I don't think I buy it. These people only exist in fiction. Am I wrong? I mean, mean girls: yes, of course they exist - but nobody hits the cruelty target that effectively everytime. I mean, is anybody actually that effectively Machivellian? Wouldn't it be exhausting to be emotionally managing/abusing/manipulating all of the time?
I also appreciate that this one took its time with the ending. The ending goes on awhile after the reveal, there's only some closure and a bit of what is next. The epilogue contains barely a narrative bow to tie things up and I think the ending is the better for it.
This is just a really great YA read. My thanks to the publisher, author and netgalley for the eBook ARC for review.
baileyraebooks's review against another edition
2.0
this book was not well written, i found myself confused more times than i can count on one hand, and the characters were as plain as cardboard cutouts. i kept reading because 1. i own the book and 2. i wanted to find out what the reveal was. i was disappointed by the ending, i didn’t find ellory relatable or sympathetic and i could not, in good conscience, recommend this to anyone.
deannawong's review against another edition
2.0
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -"
"I took the one back to you."
Things I liked:
- The use of 1st person referral for "THEN" and the use of 1st person present tense for "NOW".
- Comparing the friend group to the universe: it established the dynamics immediately.
- How at the end, friendship and romance proved to be toxic.
- The part where Ellory gains closure by crossing off the names on her list.
- Ellory lying to herself the whole time.
Things I didn't like:
- The pacing dragged soooo much.
- Too many filler scenes, especially in the "NOW" parts. Sometimes I just wanted to skip them.
- The ending was a bit predictable.
- Nothing really happened to cause Ellory to want to move on (except for the end of the year approaching).
"I took the one back to you."
Things I liked:
- The use of 1st person referral for "THEN" and the use of 1st person present tense for "NOW".
- Comparing the friend group to the universe: it established the dynamics immediately.
- How at the end, friendship and romance proved to be toxic.
- The part where Ellory gains closure by crossing off the names on her list.
- Ellory lying to herself the whole time.
Things I didn't like:
- The pacing dragged soooo much.
- Too many filler scenes, especially in the "NOW" parts. Sometimes I just wanted to skip them.
- The ending was a bit predictable.
- Nothing really happened to cause Ellory to want to move on (except for the end of the year approaching).
gwendolyn_kensinger's review against another edition
3.0
Objectively I think this was a decent story. However, I think I’ve read too many YA contemporaries that do similar things. This is an excellent book to read if you're stepping up to YA from middle grade or just looking for beginner contemporaries. This is Frick's first novel so I am giving the writing and story telling the benefit of the doubt, and will try other books by her.
The basic story is girl used to have friends and a boyfriend and now she doesn't. Why? Well reasons of course. Told in alternating timelines (now and then) we get clues as to what happened and why things changed so quickly.
Things I liked:
* the teenagers felt like teenagers
* the pop culture references were there, but not overdone
* parents were present or not, but an actual part of the story
* surprise ending!
Things I didn't enjoy or could have made the story better:
* I know a major part of the story is how these 4 girls are no longer friends, but they never seemed like good friends to begin with
* Matthias and his outbursts or the general way he treated Ellory at times
* I wish we were privy to at least one actual session with Dr. Marsha
* The catalyst for what happened was no mystery - I saw that coming a mile away
The basic story is girl used to have friends and a boyfriend and now she doesn't. Why? Well reasons of course. Told in alternating timelines (now and then) we get clues as to what happened and why things changed so quickly.
Things I liked:
* the teenagers felt like teenagers
* the pop culture references were there, but not overdone
* parents were present or not, but an actual part of the story
* surprise ending!
Things I didn't enjoy or could have made the story better:
* I know a major part of the story is how these 4 girls are no longer friends, but they never seemed like good friends to begin with
* Matthias and his outbursts or the general way he treated Ellory at times
* I wish we were privy to at least one actual session with Dr. Marsha
* The catalyst for what happened was no mystery - I saw that coming a mile away
kloco68's review against another edition
4.0
Engrossing Read
I may have had a idea where this book would end up, but wasn’t sure of the specifics. It was a fast read and I didn’t want to put it down—I pretty much read it in a few hours.
I may have had a idea where this book would end up, but wasn’t sure of the specifics. It was a fast read and I didn’t want to put it down—I pretty much read it in a few hours.
sometimesleelynnreads's review against another edition
4.0
Find this review and more on my blog Sometimes Leelynn Reads.
"I think you know what it's like to be the star of a story that you didn't write."
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is the first ARC that I ever received, and I was so excited to read it! Thank you so much Netgalley for this opportunity.
This book has been described as a mix between We Were Liars and 13 Reasons Why. Unfortunately, I haven't read either one of those books, so I can't really compare them, but I can say that I can see a Pretty Little Liars vibe in here. That comes from one of the main characters at play, a girl that goes by the name of "Ret". See, from the vibe that I've gotten from her, she is very manipulative with the group of girls that she hangs out with. She is the one that brings them all together, and she is the one that broke them all apart. Think of her as the Alison DiLaurentis of the group, exactly why I can see a PLL vibe. It gets to the point where the main protagonist, a girl named Ellory (I'm actually really digging her name, by the way) even feels like she "needs" to have Ret in her life at some point, and that she "belongs" to Ret. She even has some sort of jealousy custody battle thing with one of the other girls named Jenni, because according to Jenni, she's known Ret longer. It's like they are in competition for Ret's affection, and that's honestly no way to have a good "girl friend" kind of relationship. Not at all.
The more that the book progresses, the more you can see just how abusive Ret really is to her friends. You see it because Ellory is able to finally see it, even if she hasn't done anything to stand up for herself or the other girls yet. There will be moments where it seems like Ret is being genuinely nice, but we have Ellory telling us that it's an ulterior motive, and then we can see it. Everything that Ret says and does to her friends is to make them under the impression that without Ret, they have nothing. They almost are nothing, and Ret knows that. If they don't tell her something immediately, Ret punishes them by not telling them something. If Ret wants to find out information, she pulls the "don't you trust me?" trump card that makes the other girls feel guilty. It's a psychological battle that Ret knows she's doing, and it seems like maybe Ellory is noticing it too.
I also really liked the way that this book would switch between the past and the present. It reminded me of The Roanoke Girls, and for me, it seems like the story flows better that way. One on hand, you can see how Ellory's friendship with Ret, Jenni, and Bex was good, and then you can see just how alone she really is in the present. What happened that made this sudden change? The story doesn't really tell you exactly what happens until you get towards the end (as a good book usually does), but the suspense was killing me! I just wanted to know what the heck happened that was so bad! It had to have been bad if she was out of school on a suspension for two months. Should she have even gone back to that school? Was it worth it to be back in the same situation and these people that caused her so much pain?
Was she also to blame for her pain?
In the past, Ellory even had herself a boyfriend, the elusive and beautiful Matthias Cole. But in the present, she didn't even have him. Throughout the book, the more that Ellory shared her past, you could see that Matthias was drifting. Was he out of love with her, or was something else going on? He was keeping secrets, and Ellory didn't understand why he felt the need to keep secrets from her. She had never judged him before, was always supportive of his love for music, and yet something was changing between them. Could it have been blamed on the fleeting sensation of high school romance, or was it something else entirely?
This may not be my regular genre (the contemporary part, not the YA part), but I did enjoy this book. I thought it was well written, and the characters left me feeling something. I don't know if I'm completely happy with everyone, but I could tell that things were real for them, like I could have gone through something similar, even if not the same thing. I hurt for Ellory, I hurt for them all, and yet I didn't feel sorry for them. I just could understand them.
"I think you know what it's like to be the star of a story that you didn't write."
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is the first ARC that I ever received, and I was so excited to read it! Thank you so much Netgalley for this opportunity.
This book has been described as a mix between We Were Liars and 13 Reasons Why. Unfortunately, I haven't read either one of those books, so I can't really compare them, but I can say that I can see a Pretty Little Liars vibe in here. That comes from one of the main characters at play, a girl that goes by the name of "Ret". See, from the vibe that I've gotten from her, she is very manipulative with the group of girls that she hangs out with. She is the one that brings them all together, and she is the one that broke them all apart. Think of her as the Alison DiLaurentis of the group, exactly why I can see a PLL vibe. It gets to the point where the main protagonist, a girl named Ellory (I'm actually really digging her name, by the way) even feels like she "needs" to have Ret in her life at some point, and that she "belongs" to Ret. She even has some sort of jealousy custody battle thing with one of the other girls named Jenni, because according to Jenni, she's known Ret longer. It's like they are in competition for Ret's affection, and that's honestly no way to have a good "girl friend" kind of relationship. Not at all.
The more that the book progresses, the more you can see just how abusive Ret really is to her friends. You see it because Ellory is able to finally see it, even if she hasn't done anything to stand up for herself or the other girls yet. There will be moments where it seems like Ret is being genuinely nice, but we have Ellory telling us that it's an ulterior motive, and then we can see it. Everything that Ret says and does to her friends is to make them under the impression that without Ret, they have nothing. They almost are nothing, and Ret knows that. If they don't tell her something immediately, Ret punishes them by not telling them something. If Ret wants to find out information, she pulls the "don't you trust me?" trump card that makes the other girls feel guilty. It's a psychological battle that Ret knows she's doing, and it seems like maybe Ellory is noticing it too.
I also really liked the way that this book would switch between the past and the present. It reminded me of The Roanoke Girls, and for me, it seems like the story flows better that way. One on hand, you can see how Ellory's friendship with Ret, Jenni, and Bex was good, and then you can see just how alone she really is in the present. What happened that made this sudden change? The story doesn't really tell you exactly what happens until you get towards the end (as a good book usually does), but the suspense was killing me! I just wanted to know what the heck happened that was so bad! It had to have been bad if she was out of school on a suspension for two months. Should she have even gone back to that school? Was it worth it to be back in the same situation and these people that caused her so much pain?
Was she also to blame for her pain?
In the past, Ellory even had herself a boyfriend, the elusive and beautiful Matthias Cole. But in the present, she didn't even have him. Throughout the book, the more that Ellory shared her past, you could see that Matthias was drifting. Was he out of love with her, or was something else going on? He was keeping secrets, and Ellory didn't understand why he felt the need to keep secrets from her. She had never judged him before, was always supportive of his love for music, and yet something was changing between them. Could it have been blamed on the fleeting sensation of high school romance, or was it something else entirely?
This may not be my regular genre (the contemporary part, not the YA part), but I did enjoy this book. I thought it was well written, and the characters left me feeling something. I don't know if I'm completely happy with everyone, but I could tell that things were real for them, like I could have gone through something similar, even if not the same thing. I hurt for Ellory, I hurt for them all, and yet I didn't feel sorry for them. I just could understand them.
izzrose's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
stellaethoughts's review against another edition
4.0
i still don't know how to rate this book... i have to think about it. but it was a positive surprise unlike what i said for the first 100+ pages! i'll post the review on my blog probably monday. i'll rate it then, when i had time to think
full review: https://mshycorner.blogspot.com/2018/05/book-review-see-all-stars.html
full review: https://mshycorner.blogspot.com/2018/05/book-review-see-all-stars.html