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A review by mejisilliterate
Others Were Emeralds by Lang Leav
Did not finish book. Stopped at 0%.
Disappointed because I was really expecting to like this book.
I was considering just pushing through to the end, but after reading some other reviews I just think the book isn’t for me.
The writing is, in my opinion, awful. So many trying-too-hard adjectives, uninteresting sentence structures, and the classic telling and not showing. Often I felt like I was being told what I should find moving instead of the writing just speaking for itself. Example: that story that Tin tells of his mother shooting a mango out of a tree, and everyone immediately reacts with tears in their eyes and saying “that was soooo beautiful!” — very on the nose. Literally none of the dialogue in this story is believable. They are meant to be 16/17 year olds yet they casually say things like “I can still taste the sweetness of the fruit now, how the juice running down my chin made me feel rich beyond my wildest dreams”. Yes it’s beautiful writing, but great writing would let the emotion of Tins story speak for itself without the flowery language that no high school boy would ever say in casual conversation with his friends.
The writing was also verryyyy YA, which I really do not like. It probably explains why the book generally got so many good reviews that I just completely don’t relate to. Like, the author does that thing where she makes Ai as the narrator say “but I’ll wait for later on to explain that part” which I find so insufferable. I really don’t see why that was necessary: she could have either just done that without clunkily pointing it own, or she could have made the narrative unfold in present-tense. As well, the plot and general actions of the characters from what I’ve read are incredibly juvenile, yet the way the characters speak to each other makes it seem like they’re 50 years old and/or are robots.
The last thing, and what really made me decide to stop reading, was the relationships with Sying. Just like Tins story where the author tells the reader how she wants them to feel through the characters’ reactions, everyone speaks to Sying’s character with the same admonishing tone. Everything she does is considered by the main friend group to be annoying, and then eventually just plain rude and manipulative. And they allll like to tell her so. Personally I found Sying to be a bit misguided, but overall really just mistreated by her “friends” (they literally talk behind her back all the time and even call her neurotic at one point). I kept reading because I was thinking that it was all being set up for the characters to grow up and realize their flaws and mistakes, as well as their mistreatment of Sying. However as I have read in reviews, it seems that Sying stays the “villain” throughout the entire book. So that makes me realize that the authors characterization is really lazy, especially since she uses the other characters dialogue and thoughts as tools to indicate that the reader should also hate Sying. The implications of making an autism-coded (she’s described as somewhat socially awkward/unfiltered/not understanding social context) and outspokenly political character regarded as one-dimensionally ‘bad’ is a bit …problematic, in my opinion. Side note: The problem with the other girls’ intrusion into the political movement Sying started is that they join the movement, only to change the m/o, and then have the gall to act morally superior to Sying’s original tactics. At least show me the ways that she’s supposedly inciting such egregious violence if you want me to agree with the other characters instead of just saying “oh she designed a really questionable poster”. So all this to say justice for Sying fr.
So yeah. Not totally sure why this book is marketed as adult fiction. I would rate what I read a 2/5.
Also, Jesus there were way too many grammatical errors left in for a published book. Did anyone proofread this?
I was considering just pushing through to the end, but after reading some other reviews I just think the book isn’t for me.
The writing is, in my opinion, awful. So many trying-too-hard adjectives, uninteresting sentence structures, and the classic telling and not showing. Often I felt like I was being told what I should find moving instead of the writing just speaking for itself. Example: that story that Tin tells of his mother shooting a mango out of a tree, and everyone immediately reacts with tears in their eyes and saying “that was soooo beautiful!” — very on the nose. Literally none of the dialogue in this story is believable. They are meant to be 16/17 year olds yet they casually say things like “I can still taste the sweetness of the fruit now, how the juice running down my chin made me feel rich beyond my wildest dreams”. Yes it’s beautiful writing, but great writing would let the emotion of Tins story speak for itself without the flowery language that no high school boy would ever say in casual conversation with his friends.
The writing was also verryyyy YA, which I really do not like. It probably explains why the book generally got so many good reviews that I just completely don’t relate to. Like, the author does that thing where she makes Ai as the narrator say “but I’ll wait for later on to explain that part” which I find so insufferable. I really don’t see why that was necessary: she could have either just done that without clunkily pointing it own, or she could have made the narrative unfold in present-tense. As well, the plot and general actions of the characters from what I’ve read are incredibly juvenile, yet the way the characters speak to each other makes it seem like they’re 50 years old and/or are robots.
The last thing, and what really made me decide to stop reading, was the relationships with Sying. Just like Tins story where the author tells the reader how she wants them to feel through the characters’ reactions, everyone speaks to Sying’s character with the same admonishing tone. Everything she does is considered by the main friend group to be annoying, and then eventually just plain rude and manipulative. And they allll like to tell her so. Personally I found Sying to be a bit misguided, but overall really just mistreated by her “friends” (they literally talk behind her back all the time and even call her neurotic at one point). I kept reading because I was thinking that it was all being set up for the characters to grow up and realize their flaws and mistakes, as well as their mistreatment of Sying. However as I have read in reviews, it seems that Sying stays the “villain” throughout the entire book. So that makes me realize that the authors characterization is really lazy, especially since she uses the other characters dialogue and thoughts as tools to indicate that the reader should also hate Sying. The implications of making an autism-coded (she’s described as somewhat socially awkward/unfiltered/not understanding social context) and outspokenly political character regarded as one-dimensionally ‘bad’ is a bit …problematic, in my opinion. Side note: The problem with the other girls’ intrusion into the political movement Sying started is that they join the movement, only to change the m/o, and then have the gall to act morally superior to Sying’s original tactics. At least show me the ways that she’s supposedly inciting such egregious violence if you want me to agree with the other characters instead of just saying “oh she designed a really questionable poster”. So all this to say justice for Sying fr.
So yeah. Not totally sure why this book is marketed as adult fiction. I would rate what I read a 2/5.
Also, Jesus there were way too many grammatical errors left in for a published book. Did anyone proofread this?