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3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
I just didn't like this one at all, which is a shame because I loved the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
I'm not going to finish reading this book at 40% for several reasons (reasons listed in order of importance):
1. Racism--from the very first chapter
2. Unnecessary development and consistent theme of girl-on-girl hatred
3. Boring story that isn't drawing me in
4. Flat characters that I don't care about
5. There are too many good books out there that don't contain any of the above.
I know Brashers wrote Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but this is a far cry from those books. I don't recommend this book. To anyone.
1. Racism--from the very first chapter
2. Unnecessary development and consistent theme of girl-on-girl hatred
3. Boring story that isn't drawing me in
4. Flat characters that I don't care about
5. There are too many good books out there that don't contain any of the above.
I know Brashers wrote Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but this is a far cry from those books. I don't recommend this book. To anyone.
Just fine. Nothing special. It really wasn't enough of a book for me; like it just felt like it was missing that something that takes it from good to great.
3.5 Stars. Can't quite bring myself to give this one a 4 star rating, but I liked it far more than I perhaps had any right to, being so far outside the target market in terms of age and gender for an audiobook like this it is as though I'm coming to it from a distant planet. Still and all, big meanie that I am I'm gonna round down.
Whatever. In a curious way what this reminded me of was the fat multi-generational family oriented novels my mother was a fan of in the 1970s, despite this being nowhere near as long as those behemoths. Numerous characters, family crisis after family crisis, kinda implausible plot twists that you shove aside in your thirst to find out what the heck is going on. Everybody has a story, everybody has some weird soap operaesque twist, and the ending matters nowhere near as much as the journey. I'm guessing this sort of book is completely unfamiliar to the authors of some of the more unfavorable reviews I'm seeing for this book, which in some ways is perhaps a pity.
Brittany Pressley's narration worked surprisingly well, if her take on male voices was at times a bit distracting; you needn't make every male sound like an extra from The Godfather.
Not that it matters, but the library/Overdrive ISBN for this work is 9781524709440. It does not appear attached to any versions of this book/audiobook.
Whatever. In a curious way what this reminded me of was the fat multi-generational family oriented novels my mother was a fan of in the 1970s, despite this being nowhere near as long as those behemoths. Numerous characters, family crisis after family crisis, kinda implausible plot twists that you shove aside in your thirst to find out what the heck is going on. Everybody has a story, everybody has some weird soap operaesque twist, and the ending matters nowhere near as much as the journey. I'm guessing this sort of book is completely unfamiliar to the authors of some of the more unfavorable reviews I'm seeing for this book, which in some ways is perhaps a pity.
Brittany Pressley's narration worked surprisingly well, if her take on male voices was at times a bit distracting; you needn't make every male sound like an extra from The Godfather.
Not that it matters, but the library/Overdrive ISBN for this work is 9781524709440. It does not appear attached to any versions of this book/audiobook.
I am thoroughly disappointed in so many aspects of this book. There are so many examples of clear racism, clear sexism and basically just grossness in the book. I don't know how this author could go from writing 3 willows to a book like this. It feels as though it is a completely different author. I hated the relationship between ray/sasha, I hated ray and how he was written. I hated how he looked and treated sasha and I hated how sasha was described through Ray's eyes. This book doesnt even deserve a one star, its like a half star. The author almost needs to put out an apology for how she wrote these characters
Far too many POVs - it was difficult to keep track of the different ways everyone was related (the chart at the beginning of the book is ESSENTIAL). On top of that, about 50 pages in there's a vague paranormal/magical realism bit thrown in? This book was so bizarre.
Things this book said it would be and isn't:
- A family centered novel. I literally couldn't remember who was related to who, or which relationships were good and which were bad. There's a lot of hard feelings and also a lot of love in this family, but the reader only ever gets a brief outsider look at these emotions. The relationships that this book supposedly focuses on were too vague and underdeveloped to matter at all.
- About Sasha and Ray. This book is oversaturated with the perspectives of their three half sisters that you can barely classify this as a book about Ray and Sasha.
- A book about summer and a beach house. If you're planning to read this and you're looking forward to a book about summer for these families, put that expectation away. Nothing in this book indicates that it is summer. At first I was expecting something that would be similar to We Were Liars because of having so many families at a beach house, but it wasn't anything like that.
- A book that feels nostalgic. It kind of is, but it's the kind where you can tell that it's trying to be nostalgic, and just ends up getting shoved down your throat.
- Love. The synopsis could mean love in a romantic or familial way, but personally, I didn't feel either. I didn't feel any connection to the characters. Literally somebody dies and I didn't care at all.
The Whole Thing Together is about these two families that are technically one family. There's a lot of messy divisions between them because of a divorce. On either side of the divorce is Sasha and Ray who have never met and are not related, but they have always known the same things, sharing everything in the family's beach house.
Everything about this book feels very surface level. There's too many characters and too many branches of the plot, if you can even call it a plot. This book spreads itself so thin, that it leaves the reader unable to really grasp anything about this book.
This is a very character driven story. And I couldn't tell you a single thing about any of the characters. And there's a lot of them. The book reads through 5 different perspectives: Sasha, Ray, and their three half sisters Emma, Quinn, and Mattie. I'm gonna go ahead and estimate that 90% of my problems with this book come down to this fact; none of the characters are developed in any capacity. I was constantly confused about who all the characters were. There were too many for there to be any development, and the relationships weren't well explored. There's a diagram at the beginning of this book explaining all the families, and I think the book relies too much on the chart, and just doesn't explain the relationships that exist. And then there are characters like Adam (who I think is Lila's second husband) and the book has no scenes with him. The book describes Sasha's mixed feelings towards her mother Evie, but you never get to see it. I'm pretty sure they only have one direct interaction throughout the whole book.
As already stated, I don't really think this book is about Sasha and Ray. I know nothing about them, and was given no reasons to want them to meet or be together. Then Ray and Sasha finally get the chance to properly meet, but they don't actually talk to each other. Not that they intentionally don't talk to each other, but there isn't much dialogue written into the book. The lack of focus on Ray and Sasha doesn't necessarily mean that the spotlight shines on the other siblings though. It just becomes so spread out, and loses its focus.
Speaking of no focus, where was the actual plot? All these things kept happening and I never knew why. The characters have no motivations and there is literally nothing driving the force of this book. At the beginning they were cleaning out the beach house and then it never tells you why. I thought they were going to sell the house and Boom! cause family drama. There's so many little things with each character, but it doesn't form a whole plot. Here is a list of some things that happen in this book that could be considered part of the plot: Sasha and Ray share a job at a grocery store, big sister Emma has a secret romance then gets engaged way too fast, Mattie and Quinn work at the same farm (I think) and maybe Mattie is in love with the boy she works with. Yeah that's it for non spoiler events. Not much to go off of.
There's also a subplot involving Mattie, where she uncovers a family secret, and it was at least a little bit interesting. Except there was almost no resolution. It also seems that the big split in the family is kind of a mystery, and again, no resolution. It's the kind of book where you read the synopsis after you finish, because you're still not sure what it's actually about.
I finished this book thinking that some pages were removed from my copy, but not because of the typical cliffhanger ending feelings, but because I couldn't believe that what I had just read was considered an ending. There was no resolution. And not because there were threads to wrap up, because let's not forget that the plot didn't exist in the first place.
While reading this book, I switched between thinking that there was no writing style whatsoever. Except for its underwhelming lack of detail. But it also had lots of pretty moments in the writing. It wasn't consistent through the book and just added to my mixed feelings about this book.
Also, the writing was hard to get into because there wasn't much dialogue. And the little amount of dialogue that did exist was poorly written.
I don't know if this is just an issue of weird ebook formatting on my phone, but there would be a lot of random jumps between scenes. It never indicated when the perspective changed. Like you would be reading normal prose, and then it would switch to an email from Ray, with no indication of a perspective change. This all contributed to the lack of flow in this book. Just as you were getting used to one of the characters, the perspective would change, but the book didn't indicate that the perspective changed, and all of this was really hard to keep up with. It was also just random and confusing.
And the emails between Sasha and Ray were... not really enjoyable. And I usually love reading emails or texts in books. Their emails were never properly addressed to their names. They have some kind of joke at work about a name switch, and so they use code, and then they just altogether stopped addressing the emails, and it all just left me very confused.
Yeah I wouldn't recommend this book. Not to mention i'm sure you can find evidence of blatant racism in several reviews on this website. Too bad that the cover was pretty and the synopsis sounded promising.
- A family centered novel. I literally couldn't remember who was related to who, or which relationships were good and which were bad. There's a lot of hard feelings and also a lot of love in this family, but the reader only ever gets a brief outsider look at these emotions. The relationships that this book supposedly focuses on were too vague and underdeveloped to matter at all.
- About Sasha and Ray. This book is oversaturated with the perspectives of their three half sisters that you can barely classify this as a book about Ray and Sasha.
- A book about summer and a beach house. If you're planning to read this and you're looking forward to a book about summer for these families, put that expectation away. Nothing in this book indicates that it is summer. At first I was expecting something that would be similar to We Were Liars because of having so many families at a beach house, but it wasn't anything like that.
- A book that feels nostalgic. It kind of is, but it's the kind where you can tell that it's trying to be nostalgic, and just ends up getting shoved down your throat.
- Love. The synopsis could mean love in a romantic or familial way, but personally, I didn't feel either. I didn't feel any connection to the characters. Literally somebody dies and I didn't care at all.
The Whole Thing Together is about these two families that are technically one family. There's a lot of messy divisions between them because of a divorce. On either side of the divorce is Sasha and Ray who have never met and are not related, but they have always known the same things, sharing everything in the family's beach house.
Everything about this book feels very surface level. There's too many characters and too many branches of the plot, if you can even call it a plot. This book spreads itself so thin, that it leaves the reader unable to really grasp anything about this book.
This is a very character driven story. And I couldn't tell you a single thing about any of the characters. And there's a lot of them. The book reads through 5 different perspectives: Sasha, Ray, and their three half sisters Emma, Quinn, and Mattie. I'm gonna go ahead and estimate that 90% of my problems with this book come down to this fact; none of the characters are developed in any capacity. I was constantly confused about who all the characters were. There were too many for there to be any development, and the relationships weren't well explored. There's a diagram at the beginning of this book explaining all the families, and I think the book relies too much on the chart, and just doesn't explain the relationships that exist. And then there are characters like Adam (who I think is Lila's second husband) and the book has no scenes with him. The book describes Sasha's mixed feelings towards her mother Evie, but you never get to see it. I'm pretty sure they only have one direct interaction throughout the whole book.
As already stated, I don't really think this book is about Sasha and Ray. I know nothing about them, and was given no reasons to want them to meet or be together. Then Ray and Sasha finally get the chance to properly meet, but they don't actually talk to each other. Not that they intentionally don't talk to each other, but there isn't much dialogue written into the book. The lack of focus on Ray and Sasha doesn't necessarily mean that the spotlight shines on the other siblings though. It just becomes so spread out, and loses its focus.
Speaking of no focus, where was the actual plot? All these things kept happening and I never knew why. The characters have no motivations and there is literally nothing driving the force of this book. At the beginning they were cleaning out the beach house and then it never tells you why. I thought they were going to sell the house and Boom! cause family drama. There's so many little things with each character, but it doesn't form a whole plot. Here is a list of some things that happen in this book that could be considered part of the plot: Sasha and Ray share a job at a grocery store, big sister Emma has a secret romance then gets engaged way too fast, Mattie and Quinn work at the same farm (I think) and maybe Mattie is in love with the boy she works with. Yeah that's it for non spoiler events. Not much to go off of.
There's also a subplot involving Mattie, where she uncovers a family secret, and it was at least a little bit interesting. Except there was almost no resolution. It also seems that the big split in the family is kind of a mystery, and again, no resolution. It's the kind of book where you read the synopsis after you finish, because you're still not sure what it's actually about.
I finished this book thinking that some pages were removed from my copy, but not because of the typical cliffhanger ending feelings, but because I couldn't believe that what I had just read was considered an ending. There was no resolution. And not because there were threads to wrap up, because let's not forget that the plot didn't exist in the first place.
While reading this book, I switched between thinking that there was no writing style whatsoever. Except for its underwhelming lack of detail. But it also had lots of pretty moments in the writing. It wasn't consistent through the book and just added to my mixed feelings about this book.
Also, the writing was hard to get into because there wasn't much dialogue. And the little amount of dialogue that did exist was poorly written.
I don't know if this is just an issue of weird ebook formatting on my phone, but there would be a lot of random jumps between scenes. It never indicated when the perspective changed. Like you would be reading normal prose, and then it would switch to an email from Ray, with no indication of a perspective change. This all contributed to the lack of flow in this book. Just as you were getting used to one of the characters, the perspective would change, but the book didn't indicate that the perspective changed, and all of this was really hard to keep up with. It was also just random and confusing.
And the emails between Sasha and Ray were... not really enjoyable. And I usually love reading emails or texts in books. Their emails were never properly addressed to their names. They have some kind of joke at work about a name switch, and so they use code, and then they just altogether stopped addressing the emails, and it all just left me very confused.
Yeah I wouldn't recommend this book. Not to mention i'm sure you can find evidence of blatant racism in several reviews on this website. Too bad that the cover was pretty and the synopsis sounded promising.
I felt very conflicted this whole time. I didn't know how to feel about sasha and ray, but it wasn't the main story.
I REALLY wanted to like this book. I very much enjoyed The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, as I'm sure most of you did as well, and I was really intrigued by the premise of this book. I think it's important to have various types of family structures depicted in literature, and I do think that is one thing this book does well. I am in no way saying that this is an example of a functional, healthy family unit. I'm just saying it's a representation of a type of family unit that isn't seen often in fiction.
There are a lot of POVs going on in this story, and it can be a bit hard to keep track of who is who and who is related to whom. There is, thankfully, a family tree to reference at the beginning of the book, but it can be a bit distracting when you're constantly having to refer back to it as your trying to get your bearings in the story.
It is evident that Brashares is trying to include some diverse representation in this book. I want to make it clear that I do not consider myself to be qualified to say what is good diversity representation in litearature and what is not. I was just a little surprised at the constant references to skin color. It seemed excessive and not in a way that really hammered home the idea that racism is bad so much as that it exists. If an author is going to include an important social issue in their book, then I do think it is vital for them to make their stance on that issue evident in the text, and I just didn't see that here.
While I do understand that Sasha and Ray are not blood relatives, their relationship still just made me a little bit uncomfortable, and because of that, I just could not get behind the romance.
I am a fan of Brashares's writing, particularly when she is writing books that center around female empowerment. This particular story was just not a good fit for me.
There are a lot of POVs going on in this story, and it can be a bit hard to keep track of who is who and who is related to whom. There is, thankfully, a family tree to reference at the beginning of the book, but it can be a bit distracting when you're constantly having to refer back to it as your trying to get your bearings in the story.
It is evident that Brashares is trying to include some diverse representation in this book. I want to make it clear that I do not consider myself to be qualified to say what is good diversity representation in litearature and what is not. I was just a little surprised at the constant references to skin color. It seemed excessive and not in a way that really hammered home the idea that racism is bad so much as that it exists. If an author is going to include an important social issue in their book, then I do think it is vital for them to make their stance on that issue evident in the text, and I just didn't see that here.
While I do understand that Sasha and Ray are not blood relatives, their relationship still just made me a little bit uncomfortable, and because of that, I just could not get behind the romance.
I am a fan of Brashares's writing, particularly when she is writing books that center around female empowerment. This particular story was just not a good fit for me.
There are overhyped books. There are disappointing books. There are books you dislike strongly. And books you hate. I've had my fair share of all the mentioned above. But I don't often HATE books. It must be really fucking crappy for me to do so. It didn't take much for me to hate The Whole Thing Together.
First, it's basically a mix of all the things that I dislike in a novel. The chapters are waaay too long. Nothing really happened until the last 30% of the novel. It was VERY character-driven, not that I mind, but it was so boring. It was told from 3rd person POV, which I don't like if it's not done well. The shift in different perspectives was HORRID and extremely confusing.
The whole time I felt like I was reading from the same character. They were all flat and bland and had no personality to them whatsoever. Quinn, who was probably the only character I liked, was killed off, like, WTF Ann?!? The romance was just, OFF. There was a really weird incestous situation going on and it was disgusting.
Also, the whole mystery of why the parents hated each other so much was never explained. I had so many questions when I finished reading.
Now onto the main reason of my hate. This book promotes racism, sexism, girl hate, slut & body shaming, bullying, and cheating. Basically, it's problematic af. Ann Brashares tried to induce diversity into her newest novel, but did it in the worst possible way.
Up next, some quotes that prove how horrible this book is:
"She was a dark, humble contrast to her towering, spike-heeled friend. He saw boys' heads swivel and gawk at the friend as the pair went by, but his shuffly girl was the actual beauty, her lovely body hidden under the modest clothes. She was the kind of pretty only someone as deep as him understood." - I'm sorry, fuck you. She's not yours, you idiot.
"The elevator doors opened, a cluster of people pushed in, and suddenly he was standing behind her, less than a foot away. He smelled her hair before he saw her. The smell made him dizzy. It took a shortcut to a part of his brain that didn't deal in words. He didn't mean to look down at her chest, but what could he do?" - Here's what you can do, respect that young lady you sexist piece of shit.
"Emma was an exotic head-turner with thick black hair down to her belly button; and Sasha, the most Indian in looks, was quietly the prettiest of all of them..." - Ummm, what? Explain. NOW.
"I kind of got all of it... She'd won the genetic jackpot. She'd inherited her dad's smarts and grit, his merit as an outsider, his righteousness as a self-maker, his check mark in the diversity box." - OMFG. I don't think I've ever read such an insensitive quote in a novel before.
This book has the potential to hurt so many marginalized readers, and those are not even all the offensive quotes. I'd 10x prefer to read a book with an all-white cast by a white author than read books with "diversity" that are are done WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. I can't believe trees were cut to publish this.
I'M OUT. DON'T READ THIS.
First, it's basically a mix of all the things that I dislike in a novel. The chapters are waaay too long. Nothing really happened until the last 30% of the novel. It was VERY character-driven, not that I mind, but it was so boring. It was told from 3rd person POV, which I don't like if it's not done well. The shift in different perspectives was HORRID and extremely confusing.
The whole time I felt like I was reading from the same character. They were all flat and bland and had no personality to them whatsoever. Quinn, who was probably the only character I liked, was killed off, like, WTF Ann?!? The romance was just, OFF. There was a really weird incestous situation going on and it was disgusting.
Also, the whole mystery of why the parents hated each other so much was never explained. I had so many questions when I finished reading.
Now onto the main reason of my hate. This book promotes racism, sexism, girl hate, slut & body shaming, bullying, and cheating. Basically, it's problematic af. Ann Brashares tried to induce diversity into her newest novel, but did it in the worst possible way.
Up next, some quotes that prove how horrible this book is:
"She was a dark, humble contrast to her towering, spike-heeled friend. He saw boys' heads swivel and gawk at the friend as the pair went by, but his shuffly girl was the actual beauty, her lovely body hidden under the modest clothes. She was the kind of pretty only someone as deep as him understood." - I'm sorry, fuck you. She's not yours, you idiot.
"The elevator doors opened, a cluster of people pushed in, and suddenly he was standing behind her, less than a foot away. He smelled her hair before he saw her. The smell made him dizzy. It took a shortcut to a part of his brain that didn't deal in words. He didn't mean to look down at her chest, but what could he do?" - Here's what you can do, respect that young lady you sexist piece of shit.
"Emma was an exotic head-turner with thick black hair down to her belly button; and Sasha, the most Indian in looks, was quietly the prettiest of all of them..." - Ummm, what? Explain. NOW.
"I kind of got all of it... She'd won the genetic jackpot. She'd inherited her dad's smarts and grit, his merit as an outsider, his righteousness as a self-maker, his check mark in the diversity box." - OMFG. I don't think I've ever read such an insensitive quote in a novel before.
This book has the potential to hurt so many marginalized readers, and those are not even all the offensive quotes. I'd 10x prefer to read a book with an all-white cast by a white author than read books with "diversity" that are are done WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. I can't believe trees were cut to publish this.
I'M OUT. DON'T READ THIS.