Scan barcode
stephxsu's review against another edition
3.0
Beautiful prose, a mesmerizing setting, and a mysterious premise are, in the end, not quite enough to make up for the minimal character development and slow-moving plot in this ambitious and convoluted novel. IMAGINARY GIRLS is beautifully written, but the lack of attachment I felt for any of the characters meant that I actually had to struggle to finish this book.
The jacket copy for IMAGINARY GIRLS doesn’t tell you much, and it’s better if you go into the book knowing just the little you know. Nova Ren Suma writes in a languid style similar to Sarah Dessen when she is feeling particularly poignant, meaning that the small-town reservoir-side setting and the weirdness of the situation is well-evoked. IMAGINARY GIRLS is a very atmospheric novel—and even though it’s hard express the significance of the setting, it’s also probably impossible to imagine this story set elsewhere.
The fact that IMAGINARY GIRLS seems to focus more on beautiful prose than character development means that the characters—not the least of which is Chloe, the protagonist/narrator—come off as only vaguely intriguing, their interestingness born more out of the roles they are assigned in the story than they themselves. Chloe in particular is like a spluttering match next to Ruby’s Mag-lite glow—and yet Ruby’s magnetic persona, unfortunately, anchors its credibility in the telling of her magnetism rather than the showing of it. Chloe waxes eloquent for so long on Ruby this, Ruby that, that, “in the flesh,” Ruby is actually not as intriguing as Chloe makes her sound.
Chloe suffers from “everyone is more interesting than me”-itis. In short, Chloe has no personality. She has no defining characteristics besides being the narrator and Ruby’s younger sister, which I suppose is partially the point, but then she doesn’t grow a whit throughout the course of the novel. Why is it all too easy for protagonists in contemporarily set novels to be passive and bland? I really wish authors would catch themselves when they are writing bubbles as main characters: see-through substanceless creatures that threaten to disappear into nothing at the slightest touch.
IMAGINARY GIRLS didn’t work for me primarily because of these reasons, but I know that the majority of other readers have really loved this book, so don’t take my word for it. I wonder, though, if there are or will be other readers out there who had the same problems with this book as I did.
The jacket copy for IMAGINARY GIRLS doesn’t tell you much, and it’s better if you go into the book knowing just the little you know. Nova Ren Suma writes in a languid style similar to Sarah Dessen when she is feeling particularly poignant, meaning that the small-town reservoir-side setting and the weirdness of the situation is well-evoked. IMAGINARY GIRLS is a very atmospheric novel—and even though it’s hard express the significance of the setting, it’s also probably impossible to imagine this story set elsewhere.
The fact that IMAGINARY GIRLS seems to focus more on beautiful prose than character development means that the characters—not the least of which is Chloe, the protagonist/narrator—come off as only vaguely intriguing, their interestingness born more out of the roles they are assigned in the story than they themselves. Chloe in particular is like a spluttering match next to Ruby’s Mag-lite glow—and yet Ruby’s magnetic persona, unfortunately, anchors its credibility in the telling of her magnetism rather than the showing of it. Chloe waxes eloquent for so long on Ruby this, Ruby that, that, “in the flesh,” Ruby is actually not as intriguing as Chloe makes her sound.
Chloe suffers from “everyone is more interesting than me”-itis. In short, Chloe has no personality. She has no defining characteristics besides being the narrator and Ruby’s younger sister, which I suppose is partially the point, but then she doesn’t grow a whit throughout the course of the novel. Why is it all too easy for protagonists in contemporarily set novels to be passive and bland? I really wish authors would catch themselves when they are writing bubbles as main characters: see-through substanceless creatures that threaten to disappear into nothing at the slightest touch.
IMAGINARY GIRLS didn’t work for me primarily because of these reasons, but I know that the majority of other readers have really loved this book, so don’t take my word for it. I wonder, though, if there are or will be other readers out there who had the same problems with this book as I did.
4saradouglas's review against another edition
2.0
I really didn't like this book. The beginning was very slow and felt so incredibly long and boring. Once you get to the middle things pick up a little, but really the plot is just dull. I didn't like any of the characters and didn't care what happened to them, and the book certainly wasn't scary or dramatic or whatever it is they were going for.
sapphron's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Overall, an intriging, mysterious tale that has your mind toeing between the is-this-or-is-this-not-supernatural speculations.
The writing style is reminiscent of old style horror that leaves the reader unbalanced to create a surreal, hazy atmosphere. However, I felt it didn't nail it. This novel is certainly better written than the average YA, but lacks emotional depth from the protagionist's point of view. I found the plot quite compelling but the length unnecessary, as it could have been a short, or shorter, story and I don't think it would have lost much, if anything. That said, it is a quick, easy read that's perfect for a stormy night in. If asked for a recommendation for a contemporary intro to surreal horror, I'd give you this, but I wouldn't put this on a "must reads" list.
The writing style is reminiscent of old style horror that leaves the reader unbalanced to create a surreal, hazy atmosphere. However, I felt it didn't nail it. This novel is certainly better written than the average YA, but lacks emotional depth from the protagionist's point of view. I found the plot quite compelling but the length unnecessary, as it could have been a short, or shorter, story and I don't think it would have lost much, if anything. That said, it is a quick, easy read that's perfect for a stormy night in. If asked for a recommendation for a contemporary intro to surreal horror, I'd give you this, but I wouldn't put this on a "must reads" list.
missbookiverse's review against another edition
4.0
Liebes Imaginary Girls,
du stehst einer deiner Hauptfiguren Ruby in Nichts nach. Ihr seid beide faszinierend, egoistisch, mysteriös und unnahbar. Außerdem habt ihr Freude daran andere an der Nase herumzuführen und endlos zappeln zu lassen.
Warum das so ist, willst du wissen? Weil ihr nie sagt, was Sache ist. Ruby ist diese idealisierte große Schwester, die so fantastisch ist, dass jeder alles für sie tun würde. Mit ihren langen Beinen und den flatternden Sommerkleidern ist sie praktisch zu allem fähig, auch zu scheinbar übernatürlichen Dingen. Dabei lässt sie niemanden an sich heran. Schon gar nicht die vielen Kerle, die ihr nachhecheln. Die dürfen zwar ab und zu das Bett mit ihr teilen, aber dafür müssen sie auch vom Frühstück bis zum Hausbau alles andere leisten. Sogar ihre kleine Schwester Chloe scheint Ruby nie richtig nahe zu kommen.
Ruby ist so eine Figur, die ich nicht besonders sympathisch finde, über die ich aber trotzdem gern lese, weil es so faszinierend ist, ihre unglaubliche Wirkung auf andere Menschen zu beobachten. Deine eigentliche Protagonistin Chloe kommt im Vergleich viel langweiliger daher. Sie dient dir eigentlich nur als Fernrohr, um Ruby zu beobachten und diese hin und wieder auf den Boden der Tatsachen zurückzuholen.
Deine ruhige, volle Stimme hat mir sehr gefallen. Sie klingt nicht so durchschnittlich modern sondern als würde sie eine gewichtige, märchenhafte Geschichte erzählen. Das hat dich auf jeden Fall stimmiger gemacht und zu deiner versponnen Kompliziertheit beigetragen.
Damit hast du mir wiederum echt zu schaffen gemacht. Die ganze Zeit habe ich auf mehr Hinweise gewartet und versteckte Andeutungen gesucht, die deine Geschehnisse logisch erklären. Gegen Ende hatte ich mir schließlich meine eigene Theorie zusammengebastelt. Doch selbst danach habe ich immer darauf gewartet, dass du mir diese Idee bestätigen würdest – leider umsonst. Fand ich schon irgendwie enttäuschend. Ich mag es ja, dass deine Mama wollte, dass du deine Geschichte erzählst und jeder Zuhörer sich seinen eigenen Reim aus diesem Potpourri mitnehmen kann. Ich bin voll fürs Selbstdenken und Geschichtenspinnen, aber gerade bei deiner ganzen Verworrenheit hätte ich mir doch einen eindeutigen roten Faden gewünscht und nicht zig mögliche Wege, die alle ihre Stolpersteine zu bergen scheinen.
Wie gesagt, ich habe meine Theorie, nur eine Bestätigung deinerseits werde ich nie bekommen. Trotzdem war es interessant in deine Geschichte einzutauchen und diese beiden seltsamen Schwestern kennen zu lernen.
Alles Liebe,
Infinite Playlist
du stehst einer deiner Hauptfiguren Ruby in Nichts nach. Ihr seid beide faszinierend, egoistisch, mysteriös und unnahbar. Außerdem habt ihr Freude daran andere an der Nase herumzuführen und endlos zappeln zu lassen.
Warum das so ist, willst du wissen? Weil ihr nie sagt, was Sache ist. Ruby ist diese idealisierte große Schwester, die so fantastisch ist, dass jeder alles für sie tun würde. Mit ihren langen Beinen und den flatternden Sommerkleidern ist sie praktisch zu allem fähig, auch zu scheinbar übernatürlichen Dingen. Dabei lässt sie niemanden an sich heran. Schon gar nicht die vielen Kerle, die ihr nachhecheln. Die dürfen zwar ab und zu das Bett mit ihr teilen, aber dafür müssen sie auch vom Frühstück bis zum Hausbau alles andere leisten. Sogar ihre kleine Schwester Chloe scheint Ruby nie richtig nahe zu kommen.
Ruby ist so eine Figur, die ich nicht besonders sympathisch finde, über die ich aber trotzdem gern lese, weil es so faszinierend ist, ihre unglaubliche Wirkung auf andere Menschen zu beobachten. Deine eigentliche Protagonistin Chloe kommt im Vergleich viel langweiliger daher. Sie dient dir eigentlich nur als Fernrohr, um Ruby zu beobachten und diese hin und wieder auf den Boden der Tatsachen zurückzuholen.
Deine ruhige, volle Stimme hat mir sehr gefallen. Sie klingt nicht so durchschnittlich modern sondern als würde sie eine gewichtige, märchenhafte Geschichte erzählen. Das hat dich auf jeden Fall stimmiger gemacht und zu deiner versponnen Kompliziertheit beigetragen.
Damit hast du mir wiederum echt zu schaffen gemacht. Die ganze Zeit habe ich auf mehr Hinweise gewartet und versteckte Andeutungen gesucht, die deine Geschehnisse logisch erklären. Gegen Ende hatte ich mir schließlich meine eigene Theorie zusammengebastelt. Doch selbst danach habe ich immer darauf gewartet, dass du mir diese Idee bestätigen würdest – leider umsonst. Fand ich schon irgendwie enttäuschend. Ich mag es ja, dass deine Mama wollte, dass du deine Geschichte erzählst und jeder Zuhörer sich seinen eigenen Reim aus diesem Potpourri mitnehmen kann. Ich bin voll fürs Selbstdenken und Geschichtenspinnen, aber gerade bei deiner ganzen Verworrenheit hätte ich mir doch einen eindeutigen roten Faden gewünscht und nicht zig mögliche Wege, die alle ihre Stolpersteine zu bergen scheinen.
Wie gesagt, ich habe meine Theorie, nur eine Bestätigung deinerseits werde ich nie bekommen. Trotzdem war es interessant in deine Geschichte einzutauchen und diese beiden seltsamen Schwestern kennen zu lernen.
Alles Liebe,
Infinite Playlist
lindsaysc310's review against another edition
4.0
Very different from most YA novels these days. Supernatural with a poetic quality. Eerie and gorgeous all at the same time. Fantastic sense of place, I could fully imagine the town as if it were another fully fleshed-out character.
barbaraskalberg's review against another edition
1.0
bleh. Boring story I couldn't care less about and no characters to root for.
courtknee_bee's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars
This book wasn't really what I thought it was going to be, but I actually loved it. The dreamy tone worked really well, and I LOVED our narrator's voice, even in first person. Very Twilight Zone-esque in nature, a great read for anyone looking for a complex story about sisterly relationships and what can happen when you love someone too much.
This book wasn't really what I thought it was going to be, but I actually loved it. The dreamy tone worked really well, and I LOVED our narrator's voice, even in first person. Very Twilight Zone-esque in nature, a great read for anyone looking for a complex story about sisterly relationships and what can happen when you love someone too much.
jinny89's review against another edition
4.0
Imaginary Girls is a kind of story you don’t really encounter too often in YA books. Most people label it as a paranormal or supernatural book, but I think it’s closer to surrealism. Surrealism isn’t something YA authors write about very often so if you exclusively read YA, chances are you haven’t come across this type of story, but I really enjoy surreal stories so it was a pleasant surprise to run into it here. Be warned; surrealism isn’t for everyone. If you’ve never read surrealism, you’ll probably think such stories are just “weird” or “doesn’t make sense.” Some people seem to hate it, some seem to love it. Really depends on your cup of tea.
Imaginary Girls is mainly about two sisters named Ruby and Chloe. Chloe is the younger one, by five years, and the narrator of this story. These two sisters are incredibly close and will literally do anything for one another, though the relationship balance is not equal — Ruby thinks she knows what’s best for Chloe and dictates everything, whereas Chloe is in awe of her sister and will listen to everything Ruby says. The girls live in a small town by a reservoir that is out of bounds, but parties are frequently held there anyway by the teenagers of the town.
The story opens up with one such party, where Ruby brags that her little sister is such a great swimmer, she can swim across the reservoir. Chloe, being obedient, attempts the swim but runs into a floating rowboat with the dead body of a girl named London, a girl she knows from her class. Flash forward, Chloe is living with her dad (the girls have different fathers) away from town, but Ruby forces Chloe to come back and live with her, acting like London never died. When Chloe returns to the small town with Ruby, she finds everything very peculiar. London is, indeed, alive, and what’s more, Ruby has some strange way of making everyone in town do exactly as she says.
I quite enjoyed this book. The writing is really great and the dialogue felt real and not cheesy. As I said, I do like surrealism so I had no problem slipping into the story. Like Chloe, I was tossed into a dream-like world where I wasn’t sure if what was happening was REALLY happening or not. I felt a bit haunted while reading this book. You know something is not quite right, it’s almost like there’s an element of creepiness. I wasn’t sure if there really was some super powers happening here, or ghosts or what, but it was about halfway through the book that I decided that this was a surrealistic story. I guess you can say “magical realism” too, which would be another label if you like labels.
Then there’s Chloe and Ruby’s relationship, which is the big focus in this novel. Ruby is someone the entire town practically worships. She gets her way with everything and all the boys want to date her. Chloe, too, looks up to her sister, obsessed with her as much as Ruby is obsessed with herself, but with her return to town, she senses that it’s strange how everyone just does whatever Ruby says. Ruby’s not exactly a kind person. She’s self-centered to the extreme and acts like the entire world was created for her and her sister. Chloe is the only person Ruby cares about. It’s an interesting relationship where Chloe is the only person who has potential to “control” Ruby, but she doesn’t. Ruby has everyone under her spell. Ironically, because I’m a third party looking into the story from the outside, I didn’t really like Ruby. Brilliantly written characters with great dialogue, but if I met Ruby in real life, I wouldn’t like her one bit, haha. Chloe is a bit of a doormat and doesn’t seem to have much of a personality, which sounds like a bad thing, but works great in this book because she’s always in Ruby’s shadow so it makes perfect sense.
This is a character-driven book so there isn’t a whole lot of plot per se, so some readers may find the book slow moving. But the relationship of Chloe and Ruby, or even just Ruby, is so fascinating to read the pages do seem to fly by. Slowly, you realize Ruby is just a messed up person and super manipulative. Slowly, you realize your narrator isn’t really any better than Ruby, she’s just a less intense version of her. Sometimes I doubted whether Chloe was a reliable narrator or not and it made me question a lot of the events in the book. There are so many times where I thought, “Is this really happening? Or is someone going to wake up and say it was all a dream?”
This is without a doubt a brilliantly written book and if you enjoy surreal fiction, you definitely want to check out Imaginary Girls.
Imaginary Girls is mainly about two sisters named Ruby and Chloe. Chloe is the younger one, by five years, and the narrator of this story. These two sisters are incredibly close and will literally do anything for one another, though the relationship balance is not equal — Ruby thinks she knows what’s best for Chloe and dictates everything, whereas Chloe is in awe of her sister and will listen to everything Ruby says. The girls live in a small town by a reservoir that is out of bounds, but parties are frequently held there anyway by the teenagers of the town.
The story opens up with one such party, where Ruby brags that her little sister is such a great swimmer, she can swim across the reservoir. Chloe, being obedient, attempts the swim but runs into a floating rowboat with the dead body of a girl named London, a girl she knows from her class. Flash forward, Chloe is living with her dad (the girls have different fathers) away from town, but Ruby forces Chloe to come back and live with her, acting like London never died. When Chloe returns to the small town with Ruby, she finds everything very peculiar. London is, indeed, alive, and what’s more, Ruby has some strange way of making everyone in town do exactly as she says.
I quite enjoyed this book. The writing is really great and the dialogue felt real and not cheesy. As I said, I do like surrealism so I had no problem slipping into the story. Like Chloe, I was tossed into a dream-like world where I wasn’t sure if what was happening was REALLY happening or not. I felt a bit haunted while reading this book. You know something is not quite right, it’s almost like there’s an element of creepiness. I wasn’t sure if there really was some super powers happening here, or ghosts or what, but it was about halfway through the book that I decided that this was a surrealistic story. I guess you can say “magical realism” too, which would be another label if you like labels.
Then there’s Chloe and Ruby’s relationship, which is the big focus in this novel. Ruby is someone the entire town practically worships. She gets her way with everything and all the boys want to date her. Chloe, too, looks up to her sister, obsessed with her as much as Ruby is obsessed with herself, but with her return to town, she senses that it’s strange how everyone just does whatever Ruby says. Ruby’s not exactly a kind person. She’s self-centered to the extreme and acts like the entire world was created for her and her sister. Chloe is the only person Ruby cares about. It’s an interesting relationship where Chloe is the only person who has potential to “control” Ruby, but she doesn’t. Ruby has everyone under her spell. Ironically, because I’m a third party looking into the story from the outside, I didn’t really like Ruby. Brilliantly written characters with great dialogue, but if I met Ruby in real life, I wouldn’t like her one bit, haha. Chloe is a bit of a doormat and doesn’t seem to have much of a personality, which sounds like a bad thing, but works great in this book because she’s always in Ruby’s shadow so it makes perfect sense.
This is a character-driven book so there isn’t a whole lot of plot per se, so some readers may find the book slow moving. But the relationship of Chloe and Ruby, or even just Ruby, is so fascinating to read the pages do seem to fly by. Slowly, you realize Ruby is just a messed up person and super manipulative. Slowly, you realize your narrator isn’t really any better than Ruby, she’s just a less intense version of her. Sometimes I doubted whether Chloe was a reliable narrator or not and it made me question a lot of the events in the book. There are so many times where I thought, “Is this really happening? Or is someone going to wake up and say it was all a dream?”
This is without a doubt a brilliantly written book and if you enjoy surreal fiction, you definitely want to check out Imaginary Girls.
lizalovereads's review against another edition
3.0
Thought I’d love this but ended up being not for me! Full review here: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMR4MmSwg/
christajls's review against another edition
Made it just over halfway through this book and still feel absolutely no connection to what's happening or no pull to keep reading. The writing style is very slow and drawn out and my mind kept wandering while waiting for the narrator to get to the point. I get it - your sister is awesome and you worship her and everything she does/said. Can we get on with the story now?