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halfbloodapril 's review for:
All This Time
by Rachael Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry
Umm.
What on EARTH just happened?
Let me just mentally prepare myself to delve back into this book:
So. All This Time first caught my attention because it is penned by two of the three authors who wrote the bestselling Five Feet Apart, which was quite an idiosyncratic and entertaining read. I expected this novel to be at least somewhat similar.
I was wrong. (SO wrong.)
I mean, even though All This Time claims to be Five Feet Apart's spiritual successor, it didn't strike me as the same vibe at all, in the worst way possible. In All This Time, the main character is irrational and toxic. And that's not even mentioning the absolutely horrible plot, which was what mostly earned the 2-star rating.
The recurring theme in this book is trauma. Basically, the protagonist, Kyle Lafferty, gets broken up with by his lifelong girl Kimberly right off the bat. Then, while they're fighting in Kyle's car about why they don't work together anymore, there's a freak storm that causes Kyle and Kimberly to get in a car crash. Kyle wakes up to learn that Kim is dead. Unable to cope, he defers his dream school, UCLA, which he was supposed to go to in September. After months of nightmares and not really living, he meets Marley, a sweet girl who shares similar trauma. They grow up and get past their trauma together.
Up until this point, I was able to stomach everything. The freak storm and the sudden death were a bit odd, but the story seemed to be going okay. The way things were going, this book was just going to be another fluffy romance novel.
I was WRONG, again.
This is where it gets juicy: in the spoilers.
I know, Kyle. Me too.
I seriously thought that after that, the book couldn't get any weirder.
It did. It most certainly did.
After getting over the shock that the last "year" (which was actually only six weeks) was all a dream, Kyle can't handle the fact that Marley isn't real, and begins to prioritize trying to hunt Marley down over his own health. All the character development he got over the course of his coma-induced dream is thrown out the window. He's obsessive, manipulative, and completely crazy all over again.
I mean, any guesses as to why Kim broke up with him in the first place?
And then, he realizes that Marley is actually a nurse in the hospital he works in. She is literally a nurse who fantasized about her and Kyle being together, so she read him stories about the two being a couple, and Kyle heard her stories while he was in a coma and now believes that he is head over heels in love with her.
Let me just spit this out because I can't say it more than once because it's too weird: AFTER THAT, Kyle and Marley grow back together, they loooove each other even though they literally never even knew each other except for Marley's completely creepy fanfiction, but then Marley almost dies. While she's in the hospital basically on her deathbed, Kyle somehow...spiritually sees...into her mind? Like, he sees Marley trying to join her dead sister, and leaving the human world? WHAT??
And obviously, the ending is happy and blah blah blah.
This was the most forced, toxic, strange book I have ever read. A 1-star rating would have been much more suitable, but for that beautiful cover and the eloquent writing, I have to tack another one on. There are so many attempts at plot twists that it's a confusing, nonsensical pile of pages. I really could have done without this book. I wish I had.
What on EARTH just happened?
Let me just mentally prepare myself to delve back into this book:
So. All This Time first caught my attention because it is penned by two of the three authors who wrote the bestselling Five Feet Apart, which was quite an idiosyncratic and entertaining read. I expected this novel to be at least somewhat similar.
I was wrong. (SO wrong.)
I mean, even though All This Time claims to be Five Feet Apart's spiritual successor, it didn't strike me as the same vibe at all, in the worst way possible. In All This Time, the main character is irrational and toxic. And that's not even mentioning the absolutely horrible plot, which was what mostly earned the 2-star rating.
The recurring theme in this book is trauma. Basically, the protagonist, Kyle Lafferty, gets broken up with by his lifelong girl Kimberly right off the bat. Then, while they're fighting in Kyle's car about why they don't work together anymore, there's a freak storm that causes Kyle and Kimberly to get in a car crash. Kyle wakes up to learn that Kim is dead. Unable to cope, he defers his dream school, UCLA, which he was supposed to go to in September. After months of nightmares and not really living, he meets Marley, a sweet girl who shares similar trauma. They grow up and get past their trauma together.
Up until this point, I was able to stomach everything. The freak storm and the sudden death were a bit odd, but the story seemed to be going okay. The way things were going, this book was just going to be another fluffy romance novel.
I was WRONG, again.
This is where it gets juicy: in the spoilers.
Spoiler
Basically, Kyle wakes up to find that he's been in a COMA. Seriously. So the whole thing with Marley was just a dream. Kim is alive, Marley is gone, and Kyle is scratching his head in confusion, like, "Whaaat?"I know, Kyle. Me too.
I seriously thought that after that, the book couldn't get any weirder.
It did. It most certainly did.
After getting over the shock that the last "year" (which was actually only six weeks) was all a dream, Kyle can't handle the fact that Marley isn't real, and begins to prioritize trying to hunt Marley down over his own health. All the character development he got over the course of his coma-induced dream is thrown out the window. He's obsessive, manipulative, and completely crazy all over again.
I mean, any guesses as to why Kim broke up with him in the first place?
And then, he realizes that Marley is actually a nurse in the hospital he works in. She is literally a nurse who fantasized about her and Kyle being together, so she read him stories about the two being a couple, and Kyle heard her stories while he was in a coma and now believes that he is head over heels in love with her.
Let me just spit this out because I can't say it more than once because it's too weird: AFTER THAT, Kyle and Marley grow back together, they loooove each other even though they literally never even knew each other except for Marley's completely creepy fanfiction, but then Marley almost dies. While she's in the hospital basically on her deathbed, Kyle somehow...spiritually sees...into her mind? Like, he sees Marley trying to join her dead sister, and leaving the human world? WHAT??
And obviously, the ending is happy and blah blah blah.
This was the most forced, toxic, strange book I have ever read. A 1-star rating would have been much more suitable, but for that beautiful cover and the eloquent writing, I have to tack another one on. There are so many attempts at plot twists that it's a confusing, nonsensical pile of pages. I really could have done without this book. I wish I had.