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alymei's review
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
0.75
No hate to anyone who likes the book and the author, just my opinion :)
1. Even though the book is mysterious I didn’t think that it was intriguing. It could have been because every one else knew about the cause of the injury except Cady that it took away that mystery feel
2. The characters are really childish (at least to me) so I kept picturing them as young children rather than kids in their late teens. Personally this changed the feeling of the novel
3. The characters didn’t have that much depth so I couldn’t like or love the characters. Though ironically I did hate Cady and Gat, and Johnny and Mirren were tolerable but annoying at times. Cady seemed selfish and dramatic most of the time, and Gat seemed like a know-it-all/arrogant person with a victim complex. He was also quite dramatic
4. The relationship between Gat and Cady also doesn’t have that much depth so their relationship didn’t really feel developed, and actually felt quite weird and ‘misplaced’. E.g. it was weird to see Cady say “my Gat” and say she is in love with him when it feels like they’re not even together in any way (and also feels like they don’t talk much)
5. A good thing that racism and patriarchy was discussed, though it was a poor execution and could have been explored in a far better way (and, again, in more depth)
6. the fire / swimming being the cause of her head injury, amnesia, etc, was anti-climatic (especially when it was just ‘The Liars’ being stupid)
Tbh it is an extremely overrated book, and nowhere near as emotional as social media made it out to be (for me personally). I did start to skim the pages a bit after I got half way through so I may have missed some things, but nonetheless I didn’t enjoy it and found it rather boring
1. Even though the book is mysterious I didn’t think that it was intriguing. It could have been because every one else knew about the cause of the injury except Cady that it took away that mystery feel
2. The characters are really childish (at least to me) so I kept picturing them as young children rather than kids in their late teens. Personally this changed the feeling of the novel
3. The characters didn’t have that much depth so I couldn’t like or love the characters. Though ironically I did hate Cady and Gat, and Johnny and Mirren were tolerable but annoying at times. Cady seemed selfish and dramatic most of the time, and Gat seemed like a know-it-all/arrogant person with a victim complex. He was also quite dramatic
4. The relationship between Gat and Cady also doesn’t have that much depth so their relationship didn’t really feel developed, and actually felt quite weird and ‘misplaced’. E.g. it was weird to see Cady say “my Gat” and say she is in love with him when it feels like they’re not even together in any way (and also feels like they don’t talk much)
5. A good thing that racism and patriarchy was discussed, though it was a poor execution and could have been explored in a far better way (and, again, in more depth)
6.
Tbh it is an extremely overrated book, and nowhere near as emotional as social media made it out to be (for me personally). I did start to skim the pages a bit after I got half way through so I may have missed some things, but nonetheless I didn’t enjoy it and found it rather boring
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Racism
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia
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