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feistykrista's review
2.0
I felt many areas could have been more descriptive. It took me half way through the book to really get into it and start enjoying it at all. I hated the timeline jumping around at the start and it led to too much confusion. I found the storyline interesting enough to finish but don’t know that I would recommend the book.
makahakat's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
I just read this so I could say I did! Blech
raequigley's review against another edition
4.0
Actual Rating: 3.5 stars
Before we get into the nitty gritty of the review, we need to discuss something. I was walking through Target last week when I saw this book sitting by itself on a shelf. The cover is what drew me in. I thought it was gorgeous (I have a thing for this color blue and I was drawn in by the eye) and then I saw the “authors” were Kendall and Kylie Jenner. I texted my best friend a picture of the cover saying, “Look how pretty the Jenner girls’ book is!!” and she promptly said “Yeah but it probably sucks”. Everyone on Goodreads had the same thing to say. “Well clearly since it has two Kardashian kids names on it then it must be shit. And obviously they didn’t actually write it! They’re just trying to take credit!!”. I was so royally pissed off. I mean, sure. There was a good chance that this book wouldn’t be great. There was also a 99.9% chance that the book was written by a ghostwriter (which it was). But to judge the book so harshly without actually reading it is just so morally wrong in my opinion. Yes, it sucks that the Jenners are getting credit for an idea they may or may not have even come up with. But by rating it a 1 without reading it…. by shit talking it without giving it a chance…. you’re not doing anything negative to the Jenner girls, you’re doing it to the people that actually wrote the book. By putting the Jenners on the book, perhaps this was a way for a great author to make a living writing? It’s also very possible that the girls did have more to do with the book than just the idea. So in that moment, as I was walking through the Target aisles and reading “reviews” of the book on my Goodreads app, I decided I was going to buy the book. I was going to buy the book and I was going to read it and provide an honest and unbiased review because I have no time for bitches that are going to rate something poorly just because of a name on the cover, and no one else should tolerate that shit either.
Now, for that unbiased review….. I liked it. I genuinely liked the book, the characters, the setting. I didn’t love it, and it wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read. In fact, I would say it was just above mediocre. It was slow in the beginning, and I found myself being bored and slightly confused. This is dual perspective, which we all know I can’t stand, and it was jumping around a lot. I felt like the authors (the real author, Maya Sloan) were trying too hard to write well. It was like she knew/thought she needed to overcompensate for the fact that a celebrity was going to be publishing it. The first few chapters were a little hard to get through, but toward the middle of the book I realized I was hooked. I was invested in the characters and what would happen to them. There was a love triangle, and one line of that triangle was insta-love which was annoying. But I was pulling for the other side of the triangle, the one where the two characters basically grew up together. Then there were some predictable moments, but there were also several twists that I did not at all see coming.
Other than a few mishaps here and there, the book was really great. Yes, there were a lot of aspects of it that seemed “borrowed” from other popular young adult series, but I feel like they were utilized in a way that progressed the story. A few times along the way I thought of other series, but not enough that it was a bad thing. A lot of books remind me of other books. I really liked the message it was sending to girls. Here was this rich, beautiful young girl that could have any boy she wanted. All she had to do was smile pretty and dress well and speak when she was spoken too, but that wasn’t enough for Livia Cosmo. She wanted to ride her horse and think for herself. She liked to get her feet dirty and she knew how to kick ass with a sword. She was bored with being shallow and vapid. She wasn’t really like that, and she fought against it, and it made me love her. The other character, Lex, was an orphan. Deemed unworthy by society and told that she would fail. She fought, she fought against oppression and she fought to succeed. She did not let where she came from dictate where she was going.
I felt like the story was intriguing. I wanted to learn more about how the world had become like this, and I am looking forward to the sequel. Like I said, it was not the best book I’ve ever read, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I had no problems getting through it, and it does not deserve NEARLY the amount of shit it is receiving from people on the Internet.
UPDATE: ACCORDING TO CRUSHABLE/LA TIMES-
“Along with their creative director Elizabeth Killmond-Roman, the Jenners created a broad two-page outline describing the futuristic tale about two girls with superpowers who are secretly twins. Sloan was hired to execute that vision, using Kendall and Kylie as inspiration for the book’s protagonists. The sisters took her along with them to New York Fashion Week and let her hang in their hotel room while they texted their friends.”
I stand by what I say. And I stand by Maya’s take on it as well, “I’ve learned to check my ego. Ego will get you a teaching job in Iowa grading freshman comp papers, or a 9-to-5 editing promotional material where you want to slit your wrists. I’m writing for a living, and it’s a gift to be a working writer.”
For more reviews - http://www.drunkonpop.com
Before we get into the nitty gritty of the review, we need to discuss something. I was walking through Target last week when I saw this book sitting by itself on a shelf. The cover is what drew me in. I thought it was gorgeous (I have a thing for this color blue and I was drawn in by the eye) and then I saw the “authors” were Kendall and Kylie Jenner. I texted my best friend a picture of the cover saying, “Look how pretty the Jenner girls’ book is!!” and she promptly said “Yeah but it probably sucks”. Everyone on Goodreads had the same thing to say. “Well clearly since it has two Kardashian kids names on it then it must be shit. And obviously they didn’t actually write it! They’re just trying to take credit!!”. I was so royally pissed off. I mean, sure. There was a good chance that this book wouldn’t be great. There was also a 99.9% chance that the book was written by a ghostwriter (which it was). But to judge the book so harshly without actually reading it is just so morally wrong in my opinion. Yes, it sucks that the Jenners are getting credit for an idea they may or may not have even come up with. But by rating it a 1 without reading it…. by shit talking it without giving it a chance…. you’re not doing anything negative to the Jenner girls, you’re doing it to the people that actually wrote the book. By putting the Jenners on the book, perhaps this was a way for a great author to make a living writing? It’s also very possible that the girls did have more to do with the book than just the idea. So in that moment, as I was walking through the Target aisles and reading “reviews” of the book on my Goodreads app, I decided I was going to buy the book. I was going to buy the book and I was going to read it and provide an honest and unbiased review because I have no time for bitches that are going to rate something poorly just because of a name on the cover, and no one else should tolerate that shit either.
Now, for that unbiased review….. I liked it. I genuinely liked the book, the characters, the setting. I didn’t love it, and it wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read. In fact, I would say it was just above mediocre. It was slow in the beginning, and I found myself being bored and slightly confused. This is dual perspective, which we all know I can’t stand, and it was jumping around a lot. I felt like the authors (the real author, Maya Sloan) were trying too hard to write well. It was like she knew/thought she needed to overcompensate for the fact that a celebrity was going to be publishing it. The first few chapters were a little hard to get through, but toward the middle of the book I realized I was hooked. I was invested in the characters and what would happen to them. There was a love triangle, and one line of that triangle was insta-love which was annoying. But I was pulling for the other side of the triangle, the one where the two characters basically grew up together. Then there were some predictable moments, but there were also several twists that I did not at all see coming.
Other than a few mishaps here and there, the book was really great. Yes, there were a lot of aspects of it that seemed “borrowed” from other popular young adult series, but I feel like they were utilized in a way that progressed the story. A few times along the way I thought of other series, but not enough that it was a bad thing. A lot of books remind me of other books. I really liked the message it was sending to girls. Here was this rich, beautiful young girl that could have any boy she wanted. All she had to do was smile pretty and dress well and speak when she was spoken too, but that wasn’t enough for Livia Cosmo. She wanted to ride her horse and think for herself. She liked to get her feet dirty and she knew how to kick ass with a sword. She was bored with being shallow and vapid. She wasn’t really like that, and she fought against it, and it made me love her. The other character, Lex, was an orphan. Deemed unworthy by society and told that she would fail. She fought, she fought against oppression and she fought to succeed. She did not let where she came from dictate where she was going.
I felt like the story was intriguing. I wanted to learn more about how the world had become like this, and I am looking forward to the sequel. Like I said, it was not the best book I’ve ever read, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I had no problems getting through it, and it does not deserve NEARLY the amount of shit it is receiving from people on the Internet.
UPDATE: ACCORDING TO CRUSHABLE/LA TIMES-
“Along with their creative director Elizabeth Killmond-Roman, the Jenners created a broad two-page outline describing the futuristic tale about two girls with superpowers who are secretly twins. Sloan was hired to execute that vision, using Kendall and Kylie as inspiration for the book’s protagonists. The sisters took her along with them to New York Fashion Week and let her hang in their hotel room while they texted their friends.”
I stand by what I say. And I stand by Maya’s take on it as well, “I’ve learned to check my ego. Ego will get you a teaching job in Iowa grading freshman comp papers, or a 9-to-5 editing promotional material where you want to slit your wrists. I’m writing for a living, and it’s a gift to be a working writer.”
For more reviews - http://www.drunkonpop.com
nic66's review
1.0
i found this book for free but i still feel like i need some sort of compensation for the time i spent on this
it's like trying to be a millennial 1984 and like the "plot twist" ISNT EVEN A PLOT TWIST? it's like two twin sisters and one is richer and one is poor and it's like they're living such parallel lives it's like reading the same thing twice??
and it's "social commentary" IS SO SHIT? ITS LIKE "oh eveyone is beautiful omg" BUT ITS ALSO SO LIKE IGNORANT?? ITS TRYING TO TOUCH ON CLIMATE CHANGE, BODY IMAGE ISSUE, GOVERBMENT OVERPOWER, CLASS BUT THEN END UP FAILING TO ELABORATE ON ANY OF THESE ISSUES- ifs like all of it combined into this clusterfuck of a book-
like. THEY HAVE THIS HUGE LONG ANDVENTURE FOR WHAT? THERS NO END GOAL. AT LEAST 20 RANDOM CHAREXTORS DIE FOR NO REASON- THRRES RANDOM THINGS THAT HAPPRRN RVERY 2 PAGES THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT (as if there is one)
IVE NEVER READ A MORE SHIT BOOK- ITS LIKE. GO STARE AT THE SUN FOR 5 HOURS AND IT CAN BE TIME BETTER SPENT AND MORE REWARDING.
hormonal 11 year old whatpad writers have a better plot development. fight me.
it's like trying to be a millennial 1984 and like the "plot twist" ISNT EVEN A PLOT TWIST? it's like two twin sisters and one is richer and one is poor and it's like they're living such parallel lives it's like reading the same thing twice??
and it's "social commentary" IS SO SHIT? ITS LIKE "oh eveyone is beautiful omg" BUT ITS ALSO SO LIKE IGNORANT?? ITS TRYING TO TOUCH ON CLIMATE CHANGE, BODY IMAGE ISSUE, GOVERBMENT OVERPOWER, CLASS BUT THEN END UP FAILING TO ELABORATE ON ANY OF THESE ISSUES- ifs like all of it combined into this clusterfuck of a book-
like. THEY HAVE THIS HUGE LONG ANDVENTURE FOR WHAT? THERS NO END GOAL. AT LEAST 20 RANDOM CHAREXTORS DIE FOR NO REASON- THRRES RANDOM THINGS THAT HAPPRRN RVERY 2 PAGES THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT (as if there is one)
IVE NEVER READ A MORE SHIT BOOK- ITS LIKE. GO STARE AT THE SUN FOR 5 HOURS AND IT CAN BE TIME BETTER SPENT AND MORE REWARDING.
hormonal 11 year old whatpad writers have a better plot development. fight me.
haylstormsx's review
1.0
It is as awful as you'd expect it to be—the prose is stiff and dry. The characters aren't fleshed out and trying to get inside their minds is impossible.
imnobody's review against another edition
2.0
Although I have never watch an episode of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," I imagine that people keep watching it for the same reason I plodded through this book: it holds just enough to keep you interested, despite how dull it is.
Don't get me wrong, the idea that is presented in the book is good. But that's the problem; it's the *idea* that's good, not the writing.Throughout this book I kept feeling confused, because there was not enough information. The characters come off as two-dimensional; I couldn't connect with them. You would think a book that was created by four(!) people would be better written. The (possible) sequel might be better, if at least one of the "authors" takes a writing course.
Don't get me wrong, the idea that is presented in the book is good. But that's the problem; it's the *idea* that's good, not the writing.Throughout this book I kept feeling confused, because there was not enough information. The characters come off as two-dimensional; I couldn't connect with them. You would think a book that was created by four(!) people would be better written. The (possible) sequel might be better, if at least one of the "authors" takes a writing course.
mandaisreading's review
i was just casually scrolling goodreads and remember i read this ages (probably 10+ years???) ago
jordandotcom's review against another edition
1.0
It is deeply strange to read this & its heavy-handed critiques of beauty standards - complaining about facial procedures to eliminate aging and undergoing machines that are meant to make your waist as small as possible - and at the same time to know it’s “written” by two women who use their fame to hawk lip fillers and detox teas and plastic surgeries.
At a purely analytical level, the most grating thing about this is that while it amplifies social/cultural norms to the level of dystopian allegory to Make a Point, it doesn’t really seem to understand Why These Things Are Problems to begin with. There is nothing artful about the worldbuilding - it is done like blunt force trauma. Any meaningful critique is drowned out by utter rubbish - whatever it tries to say about the harms of beauty industry is washed away by the narrative’s love for those same things, such as its insistence that you know Livia’s assassin (Lex) canonically has big tits. The assassination attempt being the result of systemic exploitation and class stratification is irrelevant - no, instead you must know that at least this scum of a girl killing an elite is ~beautiful~. Also. Their dad created legal eugenics in this world???????
It tries to emphasize the Importance of Things simply by Capitalizing Them, such as a Proper Young Man, and Cohabitant. The world adopts the typical structures present in western society and thinks it is effectively critiquing them by merely upping each thing up a notch. No, one does not simply diet and detox and fast in this world - rather, there is a machine that cinches a girl’s waist for them - but only if they’re rich, of course. No, the nuclear family isn’t simply a social expectation but rather a law - unless you’re rich enough that it doesn’t matter. And of course, these elements are only seen as unfortunate because Livia, the girl entirely Unlike Any Other Girl Ever, does not fit neatly into these expectations - however this does not pose any meaningful resistance to the structures of marginalization. It sees real things in this world that harm people, and turns them into flimsy caricatures that are impossible to take seriously. It becomes an Honor for a “scholarship girl”, an orphan from the orphanage where children are regularly sacrificed to who-knows-what, to join the force that aims to violently police the Rock Bottom - a place where the only alleged crime is simply that one lacks privilege and is thus criminal. But is this arc truly a critique of the way policing functions in the US, the way that poverty alone seems to become a crime? No, rather it seems to embrace all of these horrible facets of society, and then believes that it makes a Poignant Point about them by Capitalizing Things. By trying to Say Everything, it says nothing at all.
So with all this said, it’s no wonder one of the Jenner sisters (I don’t care to remember which one) happily partook in a commercial where simply handing a police officer a pepsi resolved police brutality and every bit of violence that supports it. Based on this work of “theirs”, it’s clear that neither care to comprehend what a dystopia is meant to say or do, but rather use it to forcefully point at their understanding of a problem and say “wow, this is a problem that Originated From Somewhere For Sure”.
At a purely analytical level, the most grating thing about this is that while it amplifies social/cultural norms to the level of dystopian allegory to Make a Point, it doesn’t really seem to understand Why These Things Are Problems to begin with. There is nothing artful about the worldbuilding - it is done like blunt force trauma. Any meaningful critique is drowned out by utter rubbish - whatever it tries to say about the harms of beauty industry is washed away by the narrative’s love for those same things, such as its insistence that you know Livia’s assassin (Lex) canonically has big tits. The assassination attempt being the result of systemic exploitation and class stratification is irrelevant - no, instead you must know that at least this scum of a girl killing an elite is ~beautiful~. Also. Their dad created legal eugenics in this world???????
It tries to emphasize the Importance of Things simply by Capitalizing Them, such as a Proper Young Man, and Cohabitant. The world adopts the typical structures present in western society and thinks it is effectively critiquing them by merely upping each thing up a notch. No, one does not simply diet and detox and fast in this world - rather, there is a machine that cinches a girl’s waist for them - but only if they’re rich, of course. No, the nuclear family isn’t simply a social expectation but rather a law - unless you’re rich enough that it doesn’t matter. And of course, these elements are only seen as unfortunate because Livia, the girl entirely Unlike Any Other Girl Ever, does not fit neatly into these expectations - however this does not pose any meaningful resistance to the structures of marginalization. It sees real things in this world that harm people, and turns them into flimsy caricatures that are impossible to take seriously. It becomes an Honor for a “scholarship girl”, an orphan from the orphanage where children are regularly sacrificed to who-knows-what, to join the force that aims to violently police the Rock Bottom - a place where the only alleged crime is simply that one lacks privilege and is thus criminal. But is this arc truly a critique of the way policing functions in the US, the way that poverty alone seems to become a crime? No, rather it seems to embrace all of these horrible facets of society, and then believes that it makes a Poignant Point about them by Capitalizing Things. By trying to Say Everything, it says nothing at all.
So with all this said, it’s no wonder one of the Jenner sisters (I don’t care to remember which one) happily partook in a commercial where simply handing a police officer a pepsi resolved police brutality and every bit of violence that supports it. Based on this work of “theirs”, it’s clear that neither care to comprehend what a dystopia is meant to say or do, but rather use it to forcefully point at their understanding of a problem and say “wow, this is a problem that Originated From Somewhere For Sure”.
samiism's review
2.0
MTV has the first two chapters up, but I immediately got bored as soon as I hit the second chapter. That said, there is still NO WAY I'm going to believe Kendall (who "can't read") and Kyle (the sparrow face queen [whose makeup is always on point btw]) wrote this. For the sake of their ghost writer, I'll probably give this book another try later.