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cheybrary's review against another edition
Left unrated as I DNF. I was so intrigued by the striking cover and the rap verse blurb....
This book has some SERIOUS content warning not at all referenced in the blurb, including incest, sexual abuse by a family member, and rape. There are also some really weird racial characterizations that just didn't sit right with me, like one love interest being described as "three-quarter Hawaiian, one-eighth Filipino, one-sixteenth Spanish, and one-sixteenth Chinese with the lean, muscular body of a die-hard surfer" (24) and another as having a body "cut, like Tupac, only white" (11). The sheer amount of Gujarti/Hawaiian slang, 90's hip-hop references, and geographic references to Hawai'i will likely appeal to some readers, but unfortunately they left me feeling like an outsider unable to get immersed in Rani's world, and the inclusion of a glossary meant little when there were words I needed to look up that had no definition.
Take all of this and add uneven pacing, awkward writing, and a painfully Mary-Sue narrator and you have a recipe for a book that I won't be returning to.
This book has some SERIOUS content warning not at all referenced in the blurb, including incest, sexual abuse by a family member, and rape. There are also some really weird racial characterizations that just didn't sit right with me, like one love interest being described as "three-quarter Hawaiian, one-eighth Filipino, one-sixteenth Spanish, and one-sixteenth Chinese with the lean, muscular body of a die-hard surfer" (24) and another as having a body "cut, like Tupac, only white" (11). The sheer amount of Gujarti/Hawaiian slang, 90's hip-hop references, and geographic references to Hawai'i will likely appeal to some readers, but unfortunately they left me feeling like an outsider unable to get immersed in Rani's world, and the inclusion of a glossary meant little when there were words I needed to look up that had no definition.
Take all of this and add uneven pacing, awkward writing, and a painfully Mary-Sue narrator and you have a recipe for a book that I won't be returning to.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Rape
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