Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Out of the Blue by Jason June

4 reviews

writewithapendragon's review

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Loved the mermaid lore, characterization, and perfect level of romance for a YA title. Great body rep and queer rep. Highly recommend, can’t wait to read their other books!!!

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Grief, Car accident, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Toxic friendship, and Sexual content

refrejarator's review

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was so excited to see a book with a nonbinary main character, and was not disappointed! The gay mer romance of the summer, and all summers to come! 

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Car accident, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Blood, and Body horror

All warnings are super mild and dealt with in a really great way, and personally found it to be very safe.

emily_mh's review against another edition

lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.0

I feel cheated by this book. Everything about it was set up like a romcom: the cover, the tropes, the implied retelling of The Little Mermaid, the fact that Sean, one of the MCs, is obsessed with romcoms and points out all the romcom beats in the story… All this for it to end without the most important romcom beat, the Happily Ever After. The characters didn’t even get a Happy For Now. It was like a slap in the face, and aside from being a tonal shift the ending didn’t make sense for other reasons, too.

For example, the narrative is truly focussed on Crest and Sean’s relationship. Any character development is to the level you would expect in a romcom, NOT in a coming-of-age story where the relationship is there for formative purposes, which is what the ending turns the story into. So the ending feels jarring as it depends on having major character development in both MCs, which wasn’t the case. Ironically, the ending is the reason why Crest CAN’T have any major character development, because it depends on their views on humans and the Blue remaining the exact same. I was hoping at least for them to learn that there is a lot of nuance regarding humans and the environment given power systems like capitalism and white supremacy. I was also hoping they might seek to change the parameters of the Journey, because its conditions are unfair and don’t allow meaningful connections between human and mer to form. But Crest just returns to the sea, holding much the same beliefs, only thinking that they might try to spread love for humans among mer, which seems a bit of a weak resolution.

As you can tell it seems I didn’t like Crest in the end, but in fact I didn’t like them most of the book. They didn’t really try to give humans and life on land a chance because of their uninformed view of humanity. I also hated how hot and cold they were with Sean, getting so angry with him out of nowhere and not allowing Sean to explain. And then they really cheapened their connection with Sean when after one little misunderstanding (again, not allowing Sean to explain), they cheated on him.

The only reason this isn’t getting a one star is that there were some redeeming qualities. I was enjoying it in the beginning, I liked Sean as a character, and the worldbuilding surrounding the mer was interesting (despite the literal infodump in the middle).

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity

Moderate: Sexual content, Vomit, and Cursing

Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Gun violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Transphobia, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, War, Body shaming, Classism, Animal death, Ableism, Confinement, Fatphobia, Mental illness, and Physical abuse

Minor: earthquake, divorce

reallife_kazbrekker's review

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

I don't know how I feel about this book tbh... Like I genuinely don't know what to rate it.

It made me cry multiple times, which is great obviously, and I really liked the ending! But I also didn't like all of the miscommunication issues that were going on and the way some of the characters acted in certain situations... Like I get that they are pretty much all teenagers, so we should expect some drama but still.

Anyway like I said I don't know what exactly to rate this, but I think a solid 3.75 stars should be good. Really liked the representation and the way all the emotional stuff was handled! Can't wait to see what I think of the authors other book!

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the ARC of this book.
(Also this review is a bit of a mess because I'm in a lot of pain right now, so yeah sorry about that.) 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Body shaming