Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Supper Club by Jackie Morrow

1 review

emily_mh's review

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lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

The first thing I want to make super clear is that the cover art does not match the art style of the graphic novel itself, which was a major letdown. It’s not even that I didn’t like the interior art, just that it was not suited to depicting food as beautifully and appetisingly as the front cover did - plus, I felt a little catfished. 

The narrative was also a letdown. The titular Supper Club barely features, to the point where this book could have existed without it and not have been that different. I was expecting to see more cooking and eating, and bonding over food, to hear about the weekly themes and to basically have it tie the book together, but the story was almost entirely focussed on things happening outside of and unrelated to it. 

The narrative follows the three MCs, Nora, Lili, and Iris, and the challenges they are facing. Respectively, these are panic attacks, a new friend/LI, and a sick parent. All three of these plot lines are rushed through in a way that means none of them are covered meaningfully or properly. With Nora, we barely see her mental health journey and then suddenly it is resolved when
she is given a rock, which seems to give her the power to think her way out of panic attacks.
With Lili,
we see a fight with her friend/LI that never gets addressed; we are left hanging, and do not find out if he apologised for his behaviour, which leaves that subplot of expanding her horizons unfinished
. To be fair, Lili’s relationship with her mum was the best-handled subplot in the whole book. But then with Iris, we get no real insight into her situation as the narrative distances her by not giving her much room, verbally or visually. It felt like we saw more of other characters’ frustration towards her than her herself. Speaking of, I didn’t like the other characters being frustrated with her in the first place. Iris’ dad is literally in the hospital because of an aneurysm; like, no wonder she’s not on the ball socially! Also, so what if she was trying to prioritise study to get good grades? An hours-long event every Friday is a big social commitment, so why couldn’t Nora compromise and do something more manageable so they could still see each other? Thus in the end, all three major plot lines were half-baked and irritating. 

It just felt like I was forcing myself through this book because I didn’t want to DNF two books in one day. I was super excited to read this one, so it sucks for it to be a disappointment. 
Rep: one MC is of the global majority, but her ethnicity is not made clear other than that she is Asian. 
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