Reviews

Winter Town by Stephen Emond

jess_mango's review against another edition

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3.0

Winter Town was an okay read. It didn't blow me away. It was a novel of teenage angst and romance with the added bonus of a comic strip drawn by the lead character at the end of each chapter.

olivia572's review

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is so good very easy to get sucked into and never stop, chapters were short and entertaining! Characters were wonderful and the plot was very good and kept me very very interested!!

yunabean's review against another edition

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4.0

I really liked this book, but hated the ending. I almost always hate the ending to books, though.

booklover1994's review

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3.0

3.5

christiana's review against another edition

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3.0

Do you like movies like "(500) Days of Summer" and "Garden State"? Do you fancy yourself a hipster? Then Winter Town is for you.

I actually do think this would be an ok read for teen boys even though it's heavier on romance. It's a good story for someone who is feeling ready to be different, ready to go to college and discover their future self while at the same time having no idea what they really want from their future.

The crazy troubled girl who ends up showing him things about himself he never knew just doesn't work for me the same way it works for other people, so I am willing to think this is just not the book for me, not necessarily not the book for someone else. Also, full disclosure, right before this book, I read another story of painful first love, and I was hoping to not read another one back to back. So this is a bit of wrong book/wrong time. Regardless, my first reaction is that it was a bit of a letdown.

minas_elessar's review against another edition

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2.0

Well... first of all, I just feel like I've seen Lucy's character so many times before. And, well, Evan's too for that matter. Both of them just felt a lot like replicas of John Green's characters, like in Looking for Alaska especially. I liked Lucy a lot more when I saw her side, but a lot of the time she was just having irrational mood swings and bitching at Evan for no reason.

I almost didn't read the second half, but once I got going it was easier to keep reading. Stephen Emond's writing is good, it was just kind of annoying because I felt like he was trying to reuse the same "badass girl, nerdy/artsy indie music listener guy" romance plot. But maybe that's just me.

missbookiverse's review

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4.0

Manche Menschen sind mit zu vielen Talenten gesegnet, so auch Stephen Emond, der seinen Roman gleichzeitig geschrieben und illustriert hat. Manchmal untermalen die Zeichnungen die Handlung, an anderen Stellen sind die kurzen Comicstrips Bestandteil eben dieser, denn Protagonist Evan ist selbst Künstler.

Die Story erfindet das Rad nicht neu, aber sie ist süß, lustig (Evans hochmoderne Großmutter haut einfach die besten Sprüche raus), unterhaltsam illustriert und nachdenklich. Ich mochte die angeschnittenen Themen. Bloß weil jemand kein Scheidungskind ist oder andere offensichtliche Problem hat, bedeutet das nicht, dass die Person keine schwierigen Konflikte auszutragen hat. In Evans Fall mit seinem leistungsorientierten Vater. Was hat mich dieser Mann zur Weißglut getrieben. Dass Evan da nicht regelmäßig ausgerastet ist, ist mir ein Rätsel.

Einzig vom Ende habe ich mir mehr gewünscht. Wieso bietet niemand Lucy Hilfe an? Weder ihr Vater (der wahrscheinlich einfach keine Peilung hat) noch Evan, dem sie ihre ganze Misere beichtet. Danach gibt es plötzlich einen Zeitsprung und ich wurde ganz fies mit einer großen Wissenslücke zurückgelassen.

Das steckt drin: süße Comicstrips, lustige Dialoge, ein hosenloser Weihnachtsmann, frustrierende Eltern, eine grandiose Großmutter und ganz viel Schnee.

amym84's review against another edition

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5.0

I was intrigued by this book because of the mix with the novel and graphic novel aspects. Plus, I thought that storyline sounded good. Two people who have been friends since young childhood find themselves growing up and questioning their feelings for one another, all while having to face the difficult decisions of what to do with their lives. I really always like a love story like this.

Evan and Lucy have been friends since childhood. They used to spend all their time together. Until about maybe six years ago when Lucy's parents divorced and she wen to live with her mother. Now she only comes home for two weeks at the Christmas holiday. Usually they just pick up where they left off, but this last year Lucy has changed, not only her hair cut / color, but Evan knows there's definitely something wrong. But how does he find out.

This story is told in both Evan and Lucy's point of view with each of them taking half of the book to tell their side of things. Where Evan's side ends Lucy's side picks up the story. I like when we get mulitple perspectives, but I'll admit sometimes it can get confusing. By having each character get 1/2 half of the book, I thought this writing device was successful.

Interspersed throughout the book are Stephen Emond's own comic drawings. I think they just enhanced the story that much more. There would be two pages setting up each chapter and then in the chapters themselves we would get drawings about the most important aspects happening. At the end of each chapter we were given a little comic taking place in teh fictitous world that Evan and Lucy created. The adventure in this comic does loosely mimic what is happening in the story proper. It really shows the way a graphic novel and describe in less pages, with drawings and some conversation bubbles, what a novels takes more time to describe with words. I like the two different medians as a form of storytelling.

I thought that book was a cute, quick read showing us a glimpse of the character's lives at a pivitol moment where they will make the decision of what path to take on their future. This is definitely something I could pick up again (maybe around Christmas) and enjoy reading about the characters and their journey. Until Then!

tiggerrd's review against another edition

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emotional sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

ennitsud's review

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4.0

the book was really sweet. the friendship between evan and lucy was bittersweet (in the way that they kept up with each other, yet it seemed like they still kept things from each other). the comics and illustrations were wonderful (making me wish, even more, that i bought more graphic novels and comics earlier) and the stories of alesthysia were adorable.