Reviews

L'Ami imaginaire by Stephen Chbosky

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feyley's review against another edition

2.0

this book was so frustrating from beginning to end.
at first i was willing to forgive the fact that it was all over the place because it was from the perspective of a child but after a while, it just wore me down.
the plot was literally all over the place and only so much of that can be explained by the...paranormal things going in the town. i loved the concept of something being in the woods that lures the children out there. but, in my opinion, the book just went too far. i think that the story was just reaching to stay interesting by adding so damn much going on the whole time.
i did thoroughly enjoy some of the twists and reveals in this. but the hissing lady...the whole ending with her just makes me so incredibly angry. i just felt that it was completely unnecessary. honestly, this would have been a four star read for me if the story had not gone down that particular path.
the book also dragged on for far too long. there were too many perspectives at the story started to pick up and it just wasn't needed. a couple of people would have been more than enough to make the point and put the pieces together. showing so many people just made it confusing and i honestly didn't care about most of them. a shorter book also would have improved the pacing. interesting things were dragged out for so long that they were no longer interesting.
i know the children are supposed to be getting help from whatever was in the woods but i think that was partially lazy writing. the children went from extremely simple thought processes to being more competent than the adults, it just made it difficult to see them as children. i often forgot they were only supposed to be eight because of the way that they spoke.
i wanted so badly to like this book and maybe i will when i re-read it but i'm just completely shocked at the choices that were made while writing this. i really hope that i re-read this in the future and have a completely different opinion but this book just makes me so irrationally angry. there was so much potential and such a unique plot but it was ruined, for me, by the way that it was executed.

crxwley10's review against another edition

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5.0

The book remained me a lot to Coraline and Stephen King's books (I love both of them). The whole plot will leave you thinking about redemption, forgiveness, and also with concern about Christopher's life in every chapter.

I loved it!!!

melissareads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

heather_boo's review against another edition

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2.0

A creepy and often confusing biblical retelling couched in modern day school age children and their families. It begins promising but as the complexities kept unfolding I myself could not recall if I was asleep in a imaginary world or in the real one. Scenes become choppy and discontinuous, like a trippy screen play. Exactly how many times did the Hissing Lady die? How did the nice man always happen to appear? How could the blind man Ambrose have been in a chase scene? Who exactly was God, was that power transferable? What happened? Was that real? And finally, just HUH?!

halthemonarch's review against another edition

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2.0

“The world can try to take anything from you, but you have to give it your pride.”

Part one, Chris and his mom move away from his mom’s abuser to a small town in Pennsylvania. Chris gets frenically lost in a forest clearing he can’t seem to escape from and he’s consumed by the mysterious clearing and a disembodied giggling voice for six days.
Part two, do you ever feel like a plastic bag? Blowing in the wind, what if you could start again?

mjturnsthepage's review against another edition

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1.0

I was 436 pages through the book when I decided to throw in the towel.

This is completely out of character for me. Usually, if I am over 100 pages in a book, I always finish it.

Again, I'm over 400...

Once I read Chapter 73 (or 74, or 75. I honestly don't remember and at this point don't care) I put down the book and thought, surely there aren't 300 more pages of this book.

THERE IS.

The book was so long-winded and at times utterly boring. I went to this platform to see if I was crazy and found that others felt the same.

Thank you fellow Goodreaders for the validation!

I found the synopsis online and wasn't surprised by a damn thing and was glad I decided to stop reading. I have other books in my collection I'm excited to read and glad I will no longer be subjecting myself to the torture of finishing this novel.