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jenniepat0604 's review for:
Before I Fall
by Lauren Oliver
2.5 stars
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy... I’m going to start off by saying I wanted to like this book. I really, really did. I was expecting to cry like a little baby and instead I found myself frustrated and kind of mad.
First of the completely vapid, self-centered main character really put me off. There was no way I could connect with her. I mean, I went to high school, we had popular girls, but this is so exaggerated from any kind of truth that this is even worse than Hollywood movies about high school girls. But, I was willing to put that aside as I read, expecting growth. What really sealed the negative deal with me was around page 80 (and the end of the first “chapter”/ day) it went into the “insightful voice” italics. It said “let me ask you: “is what I really did so bad? So bad that I deserved to die? … Is it really so much worse than what you do? Think about it.”
So at first I had no connection to this ridiculous character and then it compares me to her? Nuh huh. I am nothing like this superficial girl and felt nothing for her. Did she deserve to die? No. Did I actually care if she did? No. At this point, I had to really push myself to continue, and I, unfortunately, did.
It didn’t get better. The same day repeats seven times, each time the character tries something a little different. At one point, somewhere around day four, I had this brilliant connection that this story is like A Christmas Carol. Only whereas it took Scrooge one night to figure it out, it took this dumb girl seven days to figure it out. The spirits were probably smacking their foreheads at watching this girl waste her time (and ours) as she cut class, made out with a teacher, and acted like a skank just because she knew she could get away with it. It took all that before she figured out what she had to do to get out of this cycle. I know I was smacking my forehead. I thought it was pretty blatantly obvious after day three, but hey, I’m not her.
On top of that, I’ll tell you that repeating the same day seven, count it, *seven* times is extremely boring and tedious. Especially when an entire day goes by and you wonder, now did we actually learn something here or was she just playing around the whole day? I guess this should be chalked up to bad pacing. It took about 300 pages or so for any real interest to be created.
This story has the obvious, overall theme of “don’t bully others” or “don’t be a bitch”. But even as the story progressed, I expected some sort of growth on Sam’s part and I never really saw any. She kept going back to purely selfish motivations. Maybe up until the very last chapter, but by that time, I was so done with her it was a ‘too little, too late’ attitude. Still she kept wanting to save Juliet in order for her to get out of this hell. Shouldn’t a true little angel want to save the girl because she was mixed up and trying to wrongly kill herself? I thought that was the point of good deeds. Maybe I’m confused on that.
I know there is a TON of hype surrounding this book and I just do not understand it. What is this saying about teen girls reading and liking this book? That girls want to read about some uber popular girl being tortured after being mean to everyone around her? The beauty in some Mean Girls wannabe kinda seeing the errors in her ways? I don’t know.
In fairness, you could argue that this book was just read at the wrong time and I’m being too critical, but I did want to like it. It just rubbed me wrong the way at almost every point. I wouldn’t read it again and I am not keeping the copy I bought.
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy... I’m going to start off by saying I wanted to like this book. I really, really did. I was expecting to cry like a little baby and instead I found myself frustrated and kind of mad.
First of the completely vapid, self-centered main character really put me off. There was no way I could connect with her. I mean, I went to high school, we had popular girls, but this is so exaggerated from any kind of truth that this is even worse than Hollywood movies about high school girls. But, I was willing to put that aside as I read, expecting growth. What really sealed the negative deal with me was around page 80 (and the end of the first “chapter”/ day) it went into the “insightful voice” italics. It said “let me ask you: “is what I really did so bad? So bad that I deserved to die? … Is it really so much worse than what you do? Think about it.”
So at first I had no connection to this ridiculous character and then it compares me to her? Nuh huh. I am nothing like this superficial girl and felt nothing for her. Did she deserve to die? No. Did I actually care if she did? No. At this point, I had to really push myself to continue, and I, unfortunately, did.
It didn’t get better. The same day repeats seven times, each time the character tries something a little different. At one point, somewhere around day four, I had this brilliant connection that this story is like A Christmas Carol. Only whereas it took Scrooge one night to figure it out, it took this dumb girl seven days to figure it out. The spirits were probably smacking their foreheads at watching this girl waste her time (and ours) as she cut class, made out with a teacher, and acted like a skank just because she knew she could get away with it. It took all that before she figured out what she had to do to get out of this cycle. I know I was smacking my forehead. I thought it was pretty blatantly obvious after day three, but hey, I’m not her.
On top of that, I’ll tell you that repeating the same day seven, count it, *seven* times is extremely boring and tedious. Especially when an entire day goes by and you wonder, now did we actually learn something here or was she just playing around the whole day? I guess this should be chalked up to bad pacing. It took about 300 pages or so for any real interest to be created.
This story has the obvious, overall theme of “don’t bully others” or “don’t be a bitch”. But even as the story progressed, I expected some sort of growth on Sam’s part and I never really saw any. She kept going back to purely selfish motivations. Maybe up until the very last chapter, but by that time, I was so done with her it was a ‘too little, too late’ attitude. Still she kept wanting to save Juliet in order for her to get out of this hell. Shouldn’t a true little angel want to save the girl because she was mixed up and trying to wrongly kill herself? I thought that was the point of good deeds. Maybe I’m confused on that.
I know there is a TON of hype surrounding this book and I just do not understand it. What is this saying about teen girls reading and liking this book? That girls want to read about some uber popular girl being tortured after being mean to everyone around her? The beauty in some Mean Girls wannabe kinda seeing the errors in her ways? I don’t know.
In fairness, you could argue that this book was just read at the wrong time and I’m being too critical, but I did want to like it. It just rubbed me wrong the way at almost every point. I wouldn’t read it again and I am not keeping the copy I bought.