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adaminmelrose 's review for:
The Infinite Noise
by Lauren Shippen
(Rounded up from 3.5)
This one's a tough one to rate for me. I should caveat that I have not and don't intend to listen to the podcast on which it's partially based. And after finishing the book, I feel a bit as though I rather needed to have that extra context.
The world-building is pretty strong, even without the added information that the podcast might offer. I felt as though I understood the pertinent characters fairly well. The villains, on the other hand, fell into much the same trap as most of the queer YA stuff I've read in the recent past - they're one-dimensional at best. Classic bullies at the school for whom "just stand up to them" is a winning strategy. Parents who just don't "get it". And a nondescript big bad.
Where I docked a point and a half from my review was in its ending - it was rushed, undercooked, and completely unfulfilling. To all of the reviewers who insisted that you don't need to listen to the podcast for this book to "work": I'm afraid you're all wrong. The big bad of this shady evil organization is never properly introduced (let alone dispensed with), the parents' work is never actually explained, and the climax isn't actually a climax - it's a short shouting match.
That the book normalizes therapy for young men is a huge positive. But it's almost entirely wiped away for me by Adam refusing repeatedly to reveal his depression to Caleb (pardon any accidental misspellings - I read this book via audiobook, so I'm choosing common spellings). That even the "bad" characters of the book seldom veer into homophobia is a positive. That characters (Moses, Caitlin, Chloe) appear and come close to becoming meaningful to the story and then ebb away is a negative. That depression is described in terms that feel "accurate" without glorifying it is a positive. That it's never actually addressed in any meaningful way is a negative.
All in all, I still give it 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars because it did a good job of propelling me forward. That tends to be my biggest test - how enthused was I to pick it up and keep going. For this particular book, I was.
This one's a tough one to rate for me. I should caveat that I have not and don't intend to listen to the podcast on which it's partially based. And after finishing the book, I feel a bit as though I rather needed to have that extra context.
The world-building is pretty strong, even without the added information that the podcast might offer. I felt as though I understood the pertinent characters fairly well. The villains, on the other hand, fell into much the same trap as most of the queer YA stuff I've read in the recent past - they're one-dimensional at best. Classic bullies at the school for whom "just stand up to them" is a winning strategy. Parents who just don't "get it". And a nondescript big bad.
Where I docked a point and a half from my review was in its ending - it was rushed, undercooked, and completely unfulfilling. To all of the reviewers who insisted that you don't need to listen to the podcast for this book to "work": I'm afraid you're all wrong. The big bad of this shady evil organization is never properly introduced (let alone dispensed with), the parents' work is never actually explained, and the climax isn't actually a climax - it's a short shouting match.
That the book normalizes therapy for young men is a huge positive. But it's almost entirely wiped away for me by Adam refusing repeatedly to reveal his depression to Caleb (pardon any accidental misspellings - I read this book via audiobook, so I'm choosing common spellings). That even the "bad" characters of the book seldom veer into homophobia is a positive. That characters (Moses, Caitlin, Chloe) appear and come close to becoming meaningful to the story and then ebb away is a negative. That depression is described in terms that feel "accurate" without glorifying it is a positive. That it's never actually addressed in any meaningful way is a negative.
All in all, I still give it 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars because it did a good job of propelling me forward. That tends to be my biggest test - how enthused was I to pick it up and keep going. For this particular book, I was.