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3.38 AVERAGE
3.38 AVERAGE
I am between 3 and 4 stars on this one. YA books are just not my favorite. I want something with more detail and that smoothly tells a story instead of having the reader assume a lot. I also like characters with a lot more depth. However, for a YA book, this isn't too bad. You have the classic, stereotyped teenagers discovering themselves. I was amazed at how much the characters drank, smoked, did drugs, and had sex though....and the drama of the fight over Eliza which wasn't really that big of a deal in the end. The idea of the end of the world (or part of it, or none of it) was interesting though.
Actual rating: 2.5/5 stars
Disappointed. I'm just disappointed in this book. It was so far from what I thought it was going to be. It was so far from what I WANTED it to be.
With a premise like "asteroid is going to hit the Earth and kill everyone," I obviously had to expect some weird stuff. But there were definitely whole sections of this book that took WEIRD to a whole new level. Not in a "WOW, totally wasn't expecting that, gotta find out what happens next" way, but in a "definitely not where I thought that was going, and the flow is totally broken" sort of way. By the time I got to the end of the book, the sequence of events I'd been subjected to had made me totally lose interest in these characters' lives.
I should talk about the format. The book is broken into sections, with each section being further broken into four chapters, one from each of the four main characters' POV. So in order to tell the whole story and stay within this pattern, we're constantly going back and forth in time. For example, in one chapter, our POV character Andy sees another character Anita coming out of a counselor's office crying. We then continue on with Andy to later that day, maybe even later that week. But in the next Anita chapter, we go back to her leaving the counselor's office and find out why she was crying. This happened quite often, and it got a little confusing to keep track of everyone's chapters and the overall timeline.
Outside of our four main characters, no one was super well-developed. Then again, very few minor characters stuck around long enough to be developed further. And the parents...we talk a lot about YA parents and how they're often absent, either physically or mentally/emotionally. But the parents in this book were even worse than usual. For one character, we never see his parents. For another, we see his parents, but they do so little, they may as well be cardboard cutouts.
Overall, I was just so disappointed with this book because it could have been so interesting. A book with this premise could have made me fall in love with its characters and made me cry by the end of it. Or it could have been hilarious and made me laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. But that's where this book faltered; it did neither. It didn't try to make me laugh or cry. It didn't try to make me feel anything. And it suffered for it.
Disappointed. I'm just disappointed in this book. It was so far from what I thought it was going to be. It was so far from what I WANTED it to be.
With a premise like "asteroid is going to hit the Earth and kill everyone," I obviously had to expect some weird stuff. But there were definitely whole sections of this book that took WEIRD to a whole new level. Not in a "WOW, totally wasn't expecting that, gotta find out what happens next" way, but in a "definitely not where I thought that was going, and the flow is totally broken" sort of way. By the time I got to the end of the book, the sequence of events I'd been subjected to had made me totally lose interest in these characters' lives.
I should talk about the format. The book is broken into sections, with each section being further broken into four chapters, one from each of the four main characters' POV. So in order to tell the whole story and stay within this pattern, we're constantly going back and forth in time. For example, in one chapter, our POV character Andy sees another character Anita coming out of a counselor's office crying. We then continue on with Andy to later that day, maybe even later that week. But in the next Anita chapter, we go back to her leaving the counselor's office and find out why she was crying. This happened quite often, and it got a little confusing to keep track of everyone's chapters and the overall timeline.
Outside of our four main characters, no one was super well-developed. Then again, very few minor characters stuck around long enough to be developed further. And the parents...we talk a lot about YA parents and how they're often absent, either physically or mentally/emotionally. But the parents in this book were even worse than usual. For one character, we never see his parents. For another, we see his parents, but they do so little, they may as well be cardboard cutouts.
Overall, I was just so disappointed with this book because it could have been so interesting. A book with this premise could have made me fall in love with its characters and made me cry by the end of it. Or it could have been hilarious and made me laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. But that's where this book faltered; it did neither. It didn't try to make me laugh or cry. It didn't try to make me feel anything. And it suffered for it.
Yay! Can't wait to download the album that goes with this cool book!!!
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Wallach's writing style isn't my favorite but I did really enjoy it.
It’s just too full of boring cliches and it made me cringe
I loved this one. Wallach did a great job working with multiple POVs and maintaining their distinct voices. Each character was so interesting in their own way and left me wanting to know what their last 2 months of life would look like. I give major props to Wallach for his plot twists and surprises. However, I am heartbroken over how he ended the book. I would reccomend it, though, absolutely!
*SPOILER ALERT*
*SPOILER ALERT*
Despite the whole premise of the novel being "what will you do if you know an asteroid is coming to kill everyone?", Wallach ends the book with everyone watching the sky on the night before Ardor is possibly going to make impact. We never find out if it actually does. That killed me.
*SPOILER ALERT*
*SPOILER ALERT*
Despite the whole premise of the novel being "what will you do if you know an asteroid is coming to kill everyone?", Wallach ends the book with everyone watching the sky on the night before Ardor is possibly going to make impact. We never find out if it actually does. That killed me.
I enjoyed the overall story and idea the book had, but there are definitely controversial parts within the story that lets me see why so many people hate this book. I didn’t hate it. I was intrigued enough to continue reading and finish it, but there were times it was hard to pick up and get into. The pacing was incredibly weird, and I was fairly upset at the lack of detail we got about what was going on in the world outside of the teenagers minds we were following. I found a lot of it hard to believe and incredibly unrelatable, at the same time that it felt raw and well… relatable?
I didn’t love this book, I don’t think I would ever reread it, but it was a fun read and I’m glad I got through it.
I didn’t love this book, I don’t think I would ever reread it, but it was a fun read and I’m glad I got through it.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced