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stuckinafictionaluniverse's review against another edition
4.0
Yet another winning book by [a:A.S. King|1651879|A.S. King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1323437957p2/1651879.jpg]. She is undeniably one of the best YA authors I've ever come across.
Not only does King write teenagers brilliantly, but the adults are also given plenty of background and personality. Lucky's parents were a larger part of the book than I'd expected, and such well-fleshed out characters.
His mother spends her days swimming tons of laps in the pool, and she was a decent and mostly present parent. However, she wasn't only portrayed as a parent, but also as a person. 'Lucky's mom' wasn't what I'd call her. She was Lori, and her own person. I really appreciated that.
Meanwhile the dad's only interest is food and he visits his restaurant more than home. Lucky's grandfather fought in the Vietnam war and went missing. He was never found and eventually declared dead. This affected Lucky and his father severely - neither of them got to know the man and maybe that's why Lucky's dad is so absent in his own child's life?
The subject of bullying is one of the main topics of the novel. King handled it beautifully as always, with a very convincing take on it. The struggle, the fear, and the terrifying realness of the subject was made clear and I empathized a lot with Lucky.
This book also features a beautiful ninja, a feminist theater project titled The vagina monologues, magical realism in the form of dreams set in the jungle where the protagonist tries to rescue his long-lost grandfather, and lastly, ants.
What's not to love?
Not only does King write teenagers brilliantly, but the adults are also given plenty of background and personality. Lucky's parents were a larger part of the book than I'd expected, and such well-fleshed out characters.
His mother spends her days swimming tons of laps in the pool, and she was a decent and mostly present parent. However, she wasn't only portrayed as a parent, but also as a person. 'Lucky's mom' wasn't what I'd call her. She was Lori, and her own person. I really appreciated that.
Meanwhile the dad's only interest is food and he visits his restaurant more than home. Lucky's grandfather fought in the Vietnam war and went missing. He was never found and eventually declared dead. This affected Lucky and his father severely - neither of them got to know the man and maybe that's why Lucky's dad is so absent in his own child's life?
The subject of bullying is one of the main topics of the novel. King handled it beautifully as always, with a very convincing take on it. The struggle, the fear, and the terrifying realness of the subject was made clear and I empathized a lot with Lucky.
This book also features a beautiful ninja, a feminist theater project titled The vagina monologues, magical realism in the form of dreams set in the jungle where the protagonist tries to rescue his long-lost grandfather, and lastly, ants.
What's not to love?
abaugher's review against another edition
5.0
amazing book about a kid that is bullied, and how he works through the situation, but also so much more than just a bullying story. The book covers his grandfather's POW/MIA status, his father's emotional unavailability, his mother's frustrations, his first kiss, and more. all packed in to one story beautifully!
marieintheraw's review against another edition
2.0
i will fight my way into liking magical realism dangit.
sarahch's review against another edition
3.0
I really liked it although it was a bit slow-paced. I think it was a very thought-provoking read and I loved its message. A.S. King definitely knows how to write ! :)
biblioberry's review against another edition
3.0
AHHHHH IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A FANTASY NOVEL, GOT IT - the "fantasy" aspect just didn't work for me, then. Too weird. But...this was definitely a very important book.
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06/04/2020, approximately 16 months since reading this
3 stars. Personally don't remember much about this at all, but I did love the more realistic parts of the novel. It handled a lot of serious, difficult, nitty-gritty topics - bullying, abuse, grief - wonderfully well without feeling preachy and made my heart ache for Lucky. HOWEVER...it was kind of boring, especially the second half. The whole section on the "Vagina Monologues" and the girl starring in it - Lucky's friend, I can't remember her name but you probably know who I'm talking about anyway - made me want to throw the book across the room in frustration. Yay for feminism and sex-positivity, though. This book discussed sex pretty honestly and openly, although there was nothing graphic and it restricted those discussions to a few scenes which were few and far between. ALTHOUGH. THIS WAS SO HONEST AND RAW AND REAL AND IT HANDLED ABUSE SO WELL AND AHHHHH. Yay for more rep like this.
But...the second half is nothing like the first. It just veers off course, taking the book somewhere you'd never anticipated it'd go...and not in a good way. This was really shaping up to be a five-star read...and then it lost all sense of it's identity and what it was in the first place. What got me, the reader, engaged. Just keeps blabbering on about a bunch of boring plays and new, vapid characters and...okay, that's enough for me. I physically can't.
The dreams in this book, although a nice touch, didn't totally work for me. They were compelling enough at first, I guess, but then they just got plain weird. Maybe I'm missing something? They just felt very off. For more context, people who haven't read this book, Lucky has recurring dreams about his grandfather who he's never met and who fought in the Vietnam War. Like, dreams of and during the war itself. Which was definitely initially very compelling, but...he could pull stuff out of his dreams, like souveniers? I'm approximately 98% sure that was supposed to symbolise something or had something to do with his mental illness, but I've always been terrible at decoding subtext and it just went way over my head. Maybe I'll Quora it. Or maybe read a more coherent, educated review.
Also...this book is incredibly short. If that's relevant to you in any way whatsoever. Although if it was...you probably got that from it's GR page. (Silly ol' me.) Which...WHY HASN'T IT CAPITALIZED EVERY WORD OF THE TITLE. GAH THIS BOTHERS ME.
And...that's all, I guess. For now. This IS supposed to be a mini-review, after all.
------
hello vaguest and most obscure corner of the internet aka probably nobody,
it's close to midnight, I don't want to sleep and really feel like I need to get some kind of writing in some shape or form done to stop myself from going crazy (as part of my goal to write a little every day, even if I'm kind of cheating because this obviously doesn't count). I'll be up writing these mini-reviews for a while. even if the concerned books have been reviewed a thousand times already and I'm probably writing his into the void, thus defeating the purpose of this site.
(okay, it's mostly because I started blogging recently and feel like I should be writing a post right now but don't feel like writing anything I'll need to edit later. hopefully if I ever need to recommend/rant about this to a friend or on my blog (optimistically assuming I continue with it), it'll come in use. and it'll make it easier to sort through crap if I'm looking back, I guess.
I'll be picking these out of my "read" shelf randomly so who knows what long-forgotten nuggets i'll be finding!
(also, yes, I'll be copy-pasting this onto every book that I'll be reviewing as part of this "project", even if it's longer than some of the reviews themselves. whopee.)
~me
------
My Blog: https://creativeclubworld.home.blog/
------
06/04/2020, approximately 16 months since reading this
3 stars. Personally don't remember much about this at all, but I did love the more realistic parts of the novel. It handled a lot of serious, difficult, nitty-gritty topics - bullying, abuse, grief - wonderfully well without feeling preachy and made my heart ache for Lucky. HOWEVER...it was kind of boring, especially the second half. The whole section on the "Vagina Monologues" and the girl starring in it - Lucky's friend, I can't remember her name but you probably know who I'm talking about anyway - made me want to throw the book across the room in frustration. Yay for feminism and sex-positivity, though. This book discussed sex pretty honestly and openly, although there was nothing graphic and it restricted those discussions to a few scenes which were few and far between. ALTHOUGH. THIS WAS SO HONEST AND RAW AND REAL AND IT HANDLED ABUSE SO WELL AND AHHHHH. Yay for more rep like this.
But...the second half is nothing like the first. It just veers off course, taking the book somewhere you'd never anticipated it'd go...and not in a good way. This was really shaping up to be a five-star read...and then it lost all sense of it's identity and what it was in the first place. What got me, the reader, engaged. Just keeps blabbering on about a bunch of boring plays and new, vapid characters and...okay, that's enough for me. I physically can't.
The dreams in this book, although a nice touch, didn't totally work for me. They were compelling enough at first, I guess, but then they just got plain weird. Maybe I'm missing something? They just felt very off. For more context, people who haven't read this book, Lucky has recurring dreams about his grandfather who he's never met and who fought in the Vietnam War. Like, dreams of and during the war itself. Which was definitely initially very compelling, but...he could pull stuff out of his dreams, like souveniers? I'm approximately 98% sure that was supposed to symbolise something or had something to do with his mental illness, but I've always been terrible at decoding subtext and it just went way over my head. Maybe I'll Quora it. Or maybe read a more coherent, educated review.
Also...this book is incredibly short. If that's relevant to you in any way whatsoever. Although if it was...you probably got that from it's GR page. (Silly ol' me.) Which...WHY HASN'T IT CAPITALIZED EVERY WORD OF THE TITLE. GAH THIS BOTHERS ME.
And...that's all, I guess. For now. This IS supposed to be a mini-review, after all.
------
hello vaguest and most obscure corner of the internet aka probably nobody,
it's close to midnight, I don't want to sleep and really feel like I need to get some kind of writing in some shape or form done to stop myself from going crazy (as part of my goal to write a little every day, even if I'm kind of cheating because this obviously doesn't count). I'll be up writing these mini-reviews for a while. even if the concerned books have been reviewed a thousand times already and I'm probably writing his into the void, thus defeating the purpose of this site.
(okay, it's mostly because I started blogging recently and feel like I should be writing a post right now but don't feel like writing anything I'll need to edit later. hopefully if I ever need to recommend/rant about this to a friend or on my blog (optimistically assuming I continue with it), it'll come in use. and it'll make it easier to sort through crap if I'm looking back, I guess.
I'll be picking these out of my "read" shelf randomly so who knows what long-forgotten nuggets i'll be finding!
(also, yes, I'll be copy-pasting this onto every book that I'll be reviewing as part of this "project", even if it's longer than some of the reviews themselves. whopee.)
~me
------
My Blog: https://creativeclubworld.home.blog/