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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
Book Club Discussion Video
This is a wild ride. It's the most unique book I've read in 2018. Pick it up if you enjoy a very WEIRD adventure. Also a cat.
This is a wild ride. It's the most unique book I've read in 2018. Pick it up if you enjoy a very WEIRD adventure. Also a cat.
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I absolutely adore the concept of this book - it is very much targeted content for me. The prose is cheeky and fun to read, but it feels like it spends most of its time in the exposition phase. I honestly wish there was more of the main human characters interacting with each other but the threads came together in the end. Ultimately, I enjoyed it, but I tend to go for more character-driven stories.
Beautifully bizarre, heartbreakingly strange, and an absolute delight. “Life is beautiful and life is stupid.”
This book is wild and wacky and creative and sparkly and weird and wonderful and touching... but I also found it exhausting to read because the wackiness was so unrelenting. I got about halfway through and just couldn't take any more.
You know that mentally overwhelmed feeling you get when you're an introvert who has spent too much time around too many extroverts? That's what reading this book felt like to me.
Update:
Life is beautiful and life is stupid. I found that listening to the audiobook (nicely read by Heath Miller) was a better experience than reading.
Now when is the reunion tour for Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes?
You know that mentally overwhelmed feeling you get when you're an introvert who has spent too much time around too many extroverts? That's what reading this book felt like to me.
Update:
Life is beautiful and life is stupid. I found that listening to the audiobook (nicely read by Heath Miller) was a better experience than reading.
Now when is the reunion tour for Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes?
I didn't like the writing style 😭 and I didn't care about the story
Wanted to love. Should have just reread Hitchhiker's Guide and Agent to the Stars simultaneously.
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
I'm actually really torn about this book! It wasn't technically a long book, but it felt onerous to read anyway. The quotes of lyrics from Eurovision winners past (well, 2010's anyway) made me giggle, but I feel like Valente and I consume Eurovision differently. She seems to want to obsessively watch the build-up; she follows all of the characters and side-characters and expounds on their drama and thoughts and practice before even thinking about coming up for air, but the main stage in the Final seems to have little impact. Me? I treat Eurovision build-up like spoilers, carefully avoiding a lot of media and hints of what the songs are going to be until the Final, at which point I go ape drinking in every single flaming piano and humping sax.
Ultimately, I feel like my biggest issue with this book is precisely that difference. Valente spends 99% of the book on the build-up, when I was just here for the finale - which was only a scant few pages. It's a shame, but nothing a few repeats of "This Is Our Life" on YouTube won't iron out!
Ultimately, I feel like my biggest issue with this book is precisely that difference. Valente spends 99% of the book on the build-up, when I was just here for the finale - which was only a scant few pages. It's a shame, but nothing a few repeats of "This Is Our Life" on YouTube won't iron out!
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-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
its nonsensical, it's over-the-top, it's glam, and its sci-fi sensory overload. It's also got queer alienfucker mpreg so if that's your thing, you're probably gonna like how this ends. This was fun! Is it perfect? Nah, nothing is, but it scratched the queer rockstar sci-fi itch I didn't know I had.