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carolinethereader 's review for:
See You in the Cosmos
by Jack Cheng
VIDEO REVIEW HERE FOR Y'ALL - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sKH9Vw6bnA
*SIGH* File this one under 'disappointing reads of 2017'. I first heard about this book at a Penguin Teen event I went to in January and thought it sounded super cute so when it came out I picked it up. The story follows our eleven year-old main character who is space obsessed and wants to launch a golden ipod into space (Carl Sagan and Nasa once sent a Golden record). He ends up going on this BIIIGG journey and meeting a bunch of people and 'discovering himself' and stuff but I just didn't particularly enjoy this.
So here's a rundown of things I didn't like:
- THE FORMATTING EUGH. Okay so the entire book is told in the 'voice recordings' on his ipod so that when he sends it into space the aliens can know about his life. It's a cute concept but reading it is really frustrating and by about the 50 page mark it was driving me crazy. It read like this "so I said let's go to the shops because then we can get ice cream and Joe said that's not a good idea because it's only an hour before dinner and I said that's no fun do you guys have ice cream on your planet if you don't it's this really cold stuff that comes in all different flavours and my favourite flavour is rainbow which Mikey from school says is for girls but I don't agree." It just keeps going like that!! There's no quotation marks to indicate speech and it's just this running commentary from a young character which got really annoying especially because he repeats himself so much. I'm sure a lot of people would find it charming but I did not!
- This book used a trope that I hate... the absent family trope! Normally this is only seen in YA books so teens can go out partying and their parents never protest. In this book and 11 year old kid goes on a road trip and his mum doesn't object and his brother (who lives interstate) doesn't call to check how things are going or anything! It really bothered me especially when it turned into a longer trip I was like ??? why aren't people concerned about you? The family thing does kind of get explained near the end but it was still not great in my opinion.
- Also all the adults he met on his trip were completely cool with the fact that an UNESCORTED CHILD was wandering around. No one called the police or anything! People even helped him. I WAS SO CONFUSED! Like yeah he's mature for his age but HE IS STILL ONLY 11!!
- Mental illness (specifically schizophrenia) is introduced to the story pretty late and I felt like it was kind of just thrown in there randomly as an excuse for a character being absent in the story which I didn't like. I don't think it was handled particularly well but others might not agree so I don't know.
- The supporting characters were all pretty meh. I found them to be a little flat. I also found it to be SUPER WEIRD that these adults dropped their lives to help some random child on his quest. Like... isn't that kind of weird? Shouldn't you be more concerned about why he isn't with his family? Am I the only one that thinks this haha?
- The dog that is on the cover is missing for half of the story so THIS BOOK IS FALSE ADVERTISING!
- Finally I think Alex (the child main character) is written as WAY older than 11. There were some moments where he would say annoyingly profound things and adults would be all 'wow ur so smrt' but I'm over here like no child would ever say that so I don't know it just felt very obvious that this was an adult trying to write as a child ya feel?
As a positive though I liked that the story was about space and that the main character was so passionate about it. I enjoy characters who love being educated. Despite all my complaints about this, I was still compelled enough by the story to keep reading! I wanted to know how things would wrap-up. Although I didn't enjoy this book, a lot of people probably would so if you're interested then definitely check it out.
*SIGH* File this one under 'disappointing reads of 2017'. I first heard about this book at a Penguin Teen event I went to in January and thought it sounded super cute so when it came out I picked it up. The story follows our eleven year-old main character who is space obsessed and wants to launch a golden ipod into space (Carl Sagan and Nasa once sent a Golden record). He ends up going on this BIIIGG journey and meeting a bunch of people and 'discovering himself' and stuff but I just didn't particularly enjoy this.
So here's a rundown of things I didn't like:
- THE FORMATTING EUGH. Okay so the entire book is told in the 'voice recordings' on his ipod so that when he sends it into space the aliens can know about his life. It's a cute concept but reading it is really frustrating and by about the 50 page mark it was driving me crazy. It read like this "so I said let's go to the shops because then we can get ice cream and Joe said that's not a good idea because it's only an hour before dinner and I said that's no fun do you guys have ice cream on your planet if you don't it's this really cold stuff that comes in all different flavours and my favourite flavour is rainbow which Mikey from school says is for girls but I don't agree." It just keeps going like that!! There's no quotation marks to indicate speech and it's just this running commentary from a young character which got really annoying especially because he repeats himself so much. I'm sure a lot of people would find it charming but I did not!
- This book used a trope that I hate... the absent family trope! Normally this is only seen in YA books so teens can go out partying and their parents never protest. In this book and 11 year old kid goes on a road trip and his mum doesn't object and his brother (who lives interstate) doesn't call to check how things are going or anything! It really bothered me especially when it turned into a longer trip I was like ??? why aren't people concerned about you? The family thing does kind of get explained near the end but it was still not great in my opinion.
- Also all the adults he met on his trip were completely cool with the fact that an UNESCORTED CHILD was wandering around. No one called the police or anything! People even helped him. I WAS SO CONFUSED! Like yeah he's mature for his age but HE IS STILL ONLY 11!!
- Mental illness (specifically schizophrenia) is introduced to the story pretty late and I felt like it was kind of just thrown in there randomly as an excuse for a character being absent in the story which I didn't like. I don't think it was handled particularly well but others might not agree so I don't know.
- The supporting characters were all pretty meh. I found them to be a little flat. I also found it to be SUPER WEIRD that these adults dropped their lives to help some random child on his quest. Like... isn't that kind of weird? Shouldn't you be more concerned about why he isn't with his family? Am I the only one that thinks this haha?
- The dog that is on the cover is missing for half of the story so THIS BOOK IS FALSE ADVERTISING!
- Finally I think Alex (the child main character) is written as WAY older than 11. There were some moments where he would say annoyingly profound things and adults would be all 'wow ur so smrt' but I'm over here like no child would ever say that so I don't know it just felt very obvious that this was an adult trying to write as a child ya feel?
As a positive though I liked that the story was about space and that the main character was so passionate about it. I enjoy characters who love being educated. Despite all my complaints about this, I was still compelled enough by the story to keep reading! I wanted to know how things would wrap-up. Although I didn't enjoy this book, a lot of people probably would so if you're interested then definitely check it out.