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endlessreader 's review for:
Tease
by Amanda Maciel
Tease is one of those books that has an extremely intriguing and provocative plot. Every time I hear about another incident in which bullying (cyber or otherwise) results in the victim committing suicide, I am plagued by both pity for the victim of the bullying and their families and by rage for those who committed the bullying. I always think "How can they possibly live with themselves? Do they even feel remorse?" Well, Tease explores that.
My guess is that once more and more people read Tease, the ratings are going to start being all over the place seeing as how you're dealing with an unsympathetic narrator. Unsympathetic narrators are usually a nail in the coffin for me, book-wise. I guess Tease was different for me because I went into it already knowing that I wasn't going to like Sara...and I didn't. I found her behavior deplorable. So, how do you rate a book that has a selfish, self-involved narrator?
While reading, I started thinking that maybe Tease deserved four stars. My personal feelings towards Sara aside, I thought that Tease was unique for showing the side of the bully as opposed to the bullied. I'm all for new ideas. I also felt a lot of emotions while reading Tease. Sure, most of those emotions were rage and disgust, but I prefer that to a book I feel sort of "meh" about. Plus, it made me cry a bit, so obviously the circumstances resonated with me. However, regardless of the good above, Sara's arc...or rather her lack thereof is what really knocked it down to three stars for me.
------------MINOR SPOILERS BELOW---------------
I know that Sara's supposed to be an unsympathetic character...I get that. But for 99 percent of the novel, Sara did not feel bad about the pain she inflicted on Emma. Well, that's not entirely true. She did feel bad...about how all this was going to affect her life and her future. She didn't give a crap about what Emma had gone through or what Emma's parents were going through. She pretty much spends the entire novel blaming Emma for killing herself and therefore ruining her (Sara's) life...Again, regardless of all this, Tease maybe would have still gotten four stars had it not been for that 1% where Sara then feels sorry for what she put Emma through. I'm sorry, but all of her previous actions contradict her statement as to how sorry she feels. And had she fully acknowledged that she was just BSing her feelings on the matter, I wouldn't have been as upset. But she spends that 1% of the novel mentally berating her equally shitty friends for not really being sorry, while saying that she's the only one who's truly sorry, yet none of her thoughts or actions show this beforehand. So, it basically came out of the blue...and was false.
----------------END OF MINOR SPOILERS----------------
In the end, I found Tease to be an okay novel. I like that its one of those books that just invites discussion and I liked that it was told from the perspective of the bully. I didn't like the bully, but it was refreshing to read a book that pretty much owns the fact that it has an unsympathetic narrator.
My guess is that once more and more people read Tease, the ratings are going to start being all over the place seeing as how you're dealing with an unsympathetic narrator. Unsympathetic narrators are usually a nail in the coffin for me, book-wise. I guess Tease was different for me because I went into it already knowing that I wasn't going to like Sara...and I didn't. I found her behavior deplorable. So, how do you rate a book that has a selfish, self-involved narrator?
While reading, I started thinking that maybe Tease deserved four stars. My personal feelings towards Sara aside, I thought that Tease was unique for showing the side of the bully as opposed to the bullied. I'm all for new ideas. I also felt a lot of emotions while reading Tease. Sure, most of those emotions were rage and disgust, but I prefer that to a book I feel sort of "meh" about. Plus, it made me cry a bit, so obviously the circumstances resonated with me. However, regardless of the good above, Sara's arc...or rather her lack thereof is what really knocked it down to three stars for me.
------------MINOR SPOILERS BELOW---------------
I know that Sara's supposed to be an unsympathetic character...I get that. But for 99 percent of the novel, Sara did not feel bad about the pain she inflicted on Emma. Well, that's not entirely true. She did feel bad...about how all this was going to affect her life and her future. She didn't give a crap about what Emma had gone through or what Emma's parents were going through. She pretty much spends the entire novel blaming Emma for killing herself and therefore ruining her (Sara's) life...Again, regardless of all this, Tease maybe would have still gotten four stars had it not been for that 1% where Sara then feels sorry for what she put Emma through. I'm sorry, but all of her previous actions contradict her statement as to how sorry she feels. And had she fully acknowledged that she was just BSing her feelings on the matter, I wouldn't have been as upset. But she spends that 1% of the novel mentally berating her equally shitty friends for not really being sorry, while saying that she's the only one who's truly sorry, yet none of her thoughts or actions show this beforehand. So, it basically came out of the blue...and was false.
----------------END OF MINOR SPOILERS----------------
In the end, I found Tease to be an okay novel. I like that its one of those books that just invites discussion and I liked that it was told from the perspective of the bully. I didn't like the bully, but it was refreshing to read a book that pretty much owns the fact that it has an unsympathetic narrator.