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kelefox's review
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I devoured Belladonna U in less time than it usually takes me to read a short novel – on my phone. Do yourself a favour: read the sample of Fake Geek Girl, and if it hooks you, just go and get the lot.
It’s so good. It’s peanut M&Ms. It’s double coat Tim Tams on a Friday night, and unfortunately, like a packet of Tim Tams, it runs out.
The story begins with Fake Geek Girl and the meeting of Hebe and Ferde, an unlikely pair of uni students in a world where magic is the norm and non-magical pursuits like literature are considered generally useless, like, well, you know, literature (I’ll get back to that point). I’m clueless, so it wasn’t immediately apparent to me thatHebe and Ferde might be romantically inclined, although a trip to the absurd land of Urban Dictionary has since enlightened me about the first chapter title. The books have quite a bit of that – terms and language that a digital native generation probably takes for granted, and someone who was caught in the awkward transition that is the Millennials might not get if they tend more toward the antisocial. But that is what I love about this story: it’s real, and it exposes all my flaws and weaknesses in the way that only real writing can. That’s what I want. I want to miss the cues (they are there) and think, yeah, I’d have missed that IRL too. I love that these books let me be that person and still feel a part of them, not like I’ve been left behind.
Back to the allegory for today’s classical studies … if you’re a student of literature or philosophy or pure maths or whatever else has been shoved aside for the more profitable courses and witnessed schools lose some of their best teachers in the process, you will feel validated. And smug. Because serves them right, for being so self-important and short-sighted as to value only the aesthetic of fine art and not its meaning. And you’ll also feel just a bit sad because for all that, in a world where MAGIC is real the arts are still stuck in the rundown wing with probably no funding and all the magic majors sneering down their obnoxious noses at a study as frivolous as expressing the human condition in poetic verse. (Wait. That leads into Halloween Is Not A Verb. Well, accept inevitability and read that too.)
Belladonna University connects on every level: the true nerd, the geeks, the ones who’ve learned to laugh at the right moment when a geek tosses out a quote like it’s a legitimate joke, the artist who isn’t a geek but also isn’t not a geek, and all those who fall somewhere in between. Witty and funny, with a splash of whimsy and just enough tongue-in-cheek for me to not get all Grinch-like about the pop-culture speak, I recommend Belladonna University to anyone looking for a quirky adventure into a more fun version of reality and some truly engaging relationships.
It’s so good. It’s peanut M&Ms. It’s double coat Tim Tams on a Friday night, and unfortunately, like a packet of Tim Tams, it runs out.
The story begins with Fake Geek Girl and the meeting of Hebe and Ferde, an unlikely pair of uni students in a world where magic is the norm and non-magical pursuits like literature are considered generally useless, like, well, you know, literature (I’ll get back to that point). I’m clueless, so it wasn’t immediately apparent to me that
Back to the allegory for today’s classical studies … if you’re a student of literature or philosophy or pure maths or whatever else has been shoved aside for the more profitable courses and witnessed schools lose some of their best teachers in the process, you will feel validated. And smug. Because serves them right, for being so self-important and short-sighted as to value only the aesthetic of fine art and not its meaning. And you’ll also feel just a bit sad because for all that, in a world where MAGIC is real the arts are still stuck in the rundown wing with probably no funding and all the magic majors sneering down their obnoxious noses at a study as frivolous as expressing the human condition in poetic verse. (Wait. That leads into Halloween Is Not A Verb. Well, accept inevitability and read that too.)
Belladonna University connects on every level: the true nerd, the geeks, the ones who’ve learned to laugh at the right moment when a geek tosses out a quote like it’s a legitimate joke, the artist who isn’t a geek but also isn’t not a geek, and all those who fall somewhere in between. Witty and funny, with a splash of whimsy and just enough tongue-in-cheek for me to not get all Grinch-like about the pop-culture speak, I recommend Belladonna University to anyone looking for a quirky adventure into a more fun version of reality and some truly engaging relationships.
thiefofcamorr's review
5.0
Marking this as read so it's easier to track where I'm up to, but I read this as it was serialised.
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