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A review by writervid
Love and Other Train Wrecks by Leah Konen
2.0
I was shocked to realize this was released in 2018. This feels more like something from 2012.
I picked this up because I wanted something cute and thoughtless and fluffy, and because the train premise reminded me of Jessica Brody's The Chaos of Standing Still (which I really enjoyed). While the thoughtlessness occasionally delivered, and I read it all in one sitting, I wasn't the biggest fan of the characters, the writing style, the convenient plot points, or the insta-love (which was disappointing, because the dialogue was strong beforehand, but what can you expect in a novel that really only spans a few hours).
I'll admit I was hoping for more travel and train stuff, but I can deal without. What was harder to choke down was the repetitive ways in which our characters switched from vehicle to vehicle. I've been lost, and I've watched the bus leave before, but watching it happen over and over again without much more variance than that was dull and felt so much like a set-up of convenient plot points that it got hard to ignore. Very little suspension of disbelief there.
Ammy was an extremely unlikeable protagonist, namely because of her own pretentiousness, her "not like other girls"-ness, and her distillation of traditionally feminist concepts in a way that...didn't feel at all feminist? Getting prickly because someone asked to carry your bag feels rude, especially when Noah is established as a character who would do that for anyone he travelled with. There were one or two lines that felt fatphobic within that dynamic. Similarly, the bashing on The Hunger Games and the discussion of classics over contemporary felt pretentious and uncalled for (this is closer to The Hunger Games in genre than Anna Karenina, my God).
That being said, I did enjoy Ammy's growth. Was she ever particularly likeable? No. But was the exploration of her own issues and family life done in a nuanced way that was pretty dynamic to read? Yes. Her growth was stronger than Noah's, who, although I enjoyed his character throughout, remained more stagnant (switching between girls to fall in love with isn't the most growth, although there was room for a really interesting discussion on accepting the love we think we deserve.) He was a bit of a pushover; Ammy constantly flipped between blowing up and being okay, and his emotional reactions were mostly related to romantic concepts towards her.
Despite Noah and Ammy operating as extremely different characters, they have the same voices on the page. Both utilized similar rhythms and patterns of fragments. And simple sentences. And they were so dramatic. While I appreciate the structure every now and then, its repetition was irritating; it felt too much like the same person writing either part. And on its own, the writing style felt like it was trying to force stakes and tension into the romance too much.
One thing I really enjoyed was the twist at the end. I was disappointed when there was only one page dedicated to dealing with its fallout on the person it impacted most. It was a much more interesting dynamic than what we had gotten for most of the book.
I don't regret reading this book. It was a fluffy late-night read, which is what I wanted. I'm definitely not planning on rereading it though. There are better fluffy late-night reads.
I picked this up because I wanted something cute and thoughtless and fluffy, and because the train premise reminded me of Jessica Brody's The Chaos of Standing Still (which I really enjoyed). While the thoughtlessness occasionally delivered, and I read it all in one sitting, I wasn't the biggest fan of the characters, the writing style, the convenient plot points, or the insta-love (which was disappointing, because the dialogue was strong beforehand, but what can you expect in a novel that really only spans a few hours).
I'll admit I was hoping for more travel and train stuff, but I can deal without. What was harder to choke down was the repetitive ways in which our characters switched from vehicle to vehicle. I've been lost, and I've watched the bus leave before, but watching it happen over and over again without much more variance than that was dull and felt so much like a set-up of convenient plot points that it got hard to ignore. Very little suspension of disbelief there.
Ammy was an extremely unlikeable protagonist, namely because of her own pretentiousness, her "not like other girls"-ness, and her distillation of traditionally feminist concepts in a way that...didn't feel at all feminist? Getting prickly because someone asked to carry your bag feels rude, especially when Noah is established as a character who would do that for anyone he travelled with. There were one or two lines that felt fatphobic within that dynamic. Similarly, the bashing on The Hunger Games and the discussion of classics over contemporary felt pretentious and uncalled for (this is closer to The Hunger Games in genre than Anna Karenina, my God).
That being said, I did enjoy Ammy's growth. Was she ever particularly likeable? No. But was the exploration of her own issues and family life done in a nuanced way that was pretty dynamic to read? Yes. Her growth was stronger than Noah's, who, although I enjoyed his character throughout, remained more stagnant (switching between girls to fall in love with isn't the most growth, although there was room for a really interesting discussion on accepting the love we think we deserve.) He was a bit of a pushover; Ammy constantly flipped between blowing up and being okay, and his emotional reactions were mostly related to romantic concepts towards her.
Despite Noah and Ammy operating as extremely different characters, they have the same voices on the page. Both utilized similar rhythms and patterns of fragments. And simple sentences. And they were so dramatic. While I appreciate the structure every now and then, its repetition was irritating; it felt too much like the same person writing either part. And on its own, the writing style felt like it was trying to force stakes and tension into the romance too much.
One thing I really enjoyed was the twist at the end. I was disappointed when there was only one page dedicated to dealing with its fallout on the person it impacted most. It was a much more interesting dynamic than what we had gotten for most of the book.
I don't regret reading this book. It was a fluffy late-night read, which is what I wanted. I'm definitely not planning on rereading it though. There are better fluffy late-night reads.