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A review by darlala
Qualify by Vera Nazarian
1.0
DNF. I just can't with this book. I was SO excited to read it. It's such an intriguing idea!! An asteroid headed to Earth! Ancient Atlanteans living on their own planet come to rescue a selection of people from Earth that Qualify! It sounds amazing!
Stop getting excited. It's not.
First of all, it's terribly written. I get that the narrator is a teenager, and I appreciate keeping it real with the types of language and wording an author uses for teenagers, but honestly, this feels so slapdash and unpolished. It feels like a first draft. Phrasing like, "trying not to look over the edge down" kept making me stumble. She randomly starts calling the Earth students "Candidates" out of nowhere. Like, one second, there isn't an official name, and the next, Gwen refers to her classmates as "Candidates", and then it's used as a title like it was more naturally established, when it wasn't.
Secondly, the characters are a who's who of cliches. Gwen is supposed to be a totally brilliant brainiac, but she is flighty, flaky, and completely idiotic. She has zero common sense...to the extent, she would be too dumb to accomplish anything academically, because she's too dumb to figure it out. At one point, she says, "Holy moly, has it already come to this? The Atlantean Instructors already know me by name." She says it like, "Oh em gee, I am so smart, and such a stellar student, they know me!!! They know me!!" In reality, though, SHE JUST FREAKING TOLD THE TEACHER HER NAME.
Laronda, to me, was a really likable character. She's also black, in case the author doesn't make that clear enough with her repetitive mentions of her hair type. Don't worry, though, her incessant usage of "girlfriend" and stereotypical actions, such as doing "a side-to-side thing with her neck and wags her finger in the air" will incessantly remind you. And you can rest assured that ALL of the Earth People of Color in the book are treated in this manner.
Logan is Gwen's crush, and he's SO dreamy, and SO athletic, and SO perfect, and SO who effing cares?
The book is also incredibly boring. I read a quarter of the book - fully 25%. That's at least 150 pages. In that time, I only made it to Gwen's SECOND day of classes after qualifying. I can't drag myself through more of unlikable Gwen's bitching and moaning about how effing out of shape she is. She can't even run two freakin laps around the gym without practically collapsing. It's absurd.
I really wanted to finish this book and be absorbed enough to read the rest of the series. I wanted to learn more about Atlantis. But I can't stand the main character, all of the other characters are one dimensional cliches, and the story is so boring, I literally fall asleep reading it.
Stop getting excited. It's not.
First of all, it's terribly written. I get that the narrator is a teenager, and I appreciate keeping it real with the types of language and wording an author uses for teenagers, but honestly, this feels so slapdash and unpolished. It feels like a first draft. Phrasing like, "trying not to look over the edge down" kept making me stumble. She randomly starts calling the Earth students "Candidates" out of nowhere. Like, one second, there isn't an official name, and the next, Gwen refers to her classmates as "Candidates", and then it's used as a title like it was more naturally established, when it wasn't.
Secondly, the characters are a who's who of cliches. Gwen is supposed to be a totally brilliant brainiac, but she is flighty, flaky, and completely idiotic. She has zero common sense...to the extent, she would be too dumb to accomplish anything academically, because she's too dumb to figure it out. At one point, she says, "Holy moly, has it already come to this? The Atlantean Instructors already know me by name." She says it like, "Oh em gee, I am so smart, and such a stellar student, they know me!!! They know me!!" In reality, though, SHE JUST FREAKING TOLD THE TEACHER HER NAME.
Laronda, to me, was a really likable character. She's also black, in case the author doesn't make that clear enough with her repetitive mentions of her hair type. Don't worry, though, her incessant usage of "girlfriend" and stereotypical actions, such as doing "a side-to-side thing with her neck and wags her finger in the air" will incessantly remind you. And you can rest assured that ALL of the Earth People of Color in the book are treated in this manner.
Logan is Gwen's crush, and he's SO dreamy, and SO athletic, and SO perfect, and SO who effing cares?
The book is also incredibly boring. I read a quarter of the book - fully 25%. That's at least 150 pages. In that time, I only made it to Gwen's SECOND day of classes after qualifying. I can't drag myself through more of unlikable Gwen's bitching and moaning about how effing out of shape she is. She can't even run two freakin laps around the gym without practically collapsing. It's absurd.
I really wanted to finish this book and be absorbed enough to read the rest of the series. I wanted to learn more about Atlantis. But I can't stand the main character, all of the other characters are one dimensional cliches, and the story is so boring, I literally fall asleep reading it.