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3.01 AVERAGE
3.01 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Fast paced, excellent tension building, so descriptive, poorly executed ending
This book is a 3.5 ⭐️. This is my second book my Stephanie Perkins; I like her writing style but found this book was very difficult to get into. Once it picked up about 50% of the way through I couldn’t put it down.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
whole beginning was soooo pointless and boring and then the climax wasn’t nearly exciting enough to make up for it. also damn they really made josie go THROUGH it
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It’s not that the writing or the story was bad. It wasn’t. But it takes the first 60% of the book to set up the plot. Then, when the climax finally occurs, it’s not nearly as dramatic as you had hoped. While a quick, easy, fun read… I was hoping for more.
The giveaway is in the jacket summary: "Bears aren't the only predators in these woods." I love that from cover to cover, from friend-breakup to the wrath of Mother Nature, this is a very female horror story. Girls deserve to be listened to, not to be picked apart, discarded, condescended to or threatened. Yet the reality is that daily life is a struggle, the feeling that one always has to be defending herself. And you would think that with that shared trauma, girls would inherently buoy each other up, but more often than not they make the first cut against each other, following that devolution into Sith territory: Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Hate, Hate leads to Suffering.
The climax is telegraphed from the very first chapter, so I suppose it's not out of nowhere. I do appreciate that there was setup, who doesn't love a Chekov's gun. But it didn't feel personal enough, given what was built up about Josie and Neena. They both grow and change for the better: Josie taking initiative and Neena using her head. But there's something lackluster about them running away to safety instead of making a final stand, or being each other's foils. It's a little selfish and silly of me, though, to say, "Aww man, I wish this was a Supervillain origin story, instead of a message about true friendship." XD So, 5 stars from me, because the failing is in my depraved hopes and expectations, not with any fault in the writing itself.
The climax is telegraphed from the very first chapter, so I suppose it's not out of nowhere. I do appreciate that there was setup, who doesn't love a Chekov's gun. But it didn't feel personal enough, given what was built up about Josie and Neena. They both grow and change for the better: Josie taking initiative and Neena using her head. But there's something lackluster about them running away to safety instead of making a final stand, or being each other's foils. It's a little selfish and silly of me, though, to say, "Aww man, I wish this was a Supervillain origin story, instead of a message about true friendship." XD So, 5 stars from me, because the failing is in my depraved hopes and expectations, not with any fault in the writing itself.
It felt like it was dragging on forever and was somehow a guide to camping. Also both of the main characters felt one dimensional and bland.
This was... not good. I love all of her other books, but this was just awful. The one saving grace is that it's really short. I THINK she was trying to create tension with a weird short, choppy writing style, but it just ended up sounding like an fifth grader wrote it. And I kinda hated both main characters. I'm glad my bookstore didn't have it when I looked for it and I got it from the library instead.