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thebookberrie 's review for:
Gunslinger Girl
by Lyndsay Ely
Forgive me Father for I am about to smack a debut novel in the face yet again.
Gunslinger Girl begins with Serendipity "Pity" running from her home commune after her father sells her off due to her being a fertile female. After getting attacked and losing her best friend, Pity gets the chance of a lifetime in Cessation, a city known for lawlessness. Pity inherited her perfect aim and skill for shooting from her mysterious and long dead mother and she'll need all her talents to keep her place and make a life for herself.
Ughhhhh miss me with this mess, please. First off this takes place in a futuristic dystopian that has turned into the wild west. Does any of that matter? Not a goddamn bit. Minus some technology that is PURELY for convenience: cars, electronic door locks, fancy drugs, easy birth control; this is just a wild west setting (minus the wild) with extra politics and the same gross sexism that no one liked the first time. Even worse? There is talk and brief scenes in the beginning of outside the city walls where it gets wild but we never really get to see it. Sorry we don't do adventures here- this is all about the shows!!! Caraval found dead in a ditch.
This entire book takes place in a theater and it is not an epic futuristic wild west adventure. It isn't any adventure. This is a romance. Worse yet, this is a YA romance that just has every YA trope known to humanity. Unlucky for me I didn't know any of this going in but lucky for you, I'm saying it now. If you happen to like super generic YA dystopians that are really just a background setting for a basic angst filled romance, this book is for you. I just found it hilarious how generic it was, so sorry. It's like the author (with James Patterson probably creepily mouth breathing down her neck), googled all the popular YA tropes from 5 years ago and made sure to hit them all.
I unfortunately do not that kind of book anymore and this one takes what could have been an interesting setting but just turns into a million pages of reading about what outfits Pity is wearing for her shows (EVERYONE HAS A GUN THIS IS THE WILD WEST WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE COME OUT TO SEE HER SHOOT???), get swoony with her bae, get drunk and cry about it, and then just be "strong" because she can shoot guns but like, not actually strong. She's a pawn to everyone else and tries and fails to be like every other YA heroine ever. Having a "badass" talent doesn't equal having a personality or any other strength. Also her story ends up being based entirely around her love interest fyi.
Also it's so weird when the second Pity shows up in the city, the people who saved her instantly take her in and give her an entire show based around the weirdly specific talent she has?? Y'all already had an opening for "teenage girl wears sparkly outfits and shoots guns"?? She doesn't have to struggle in this so called lawless city to make her own way, everything is pretty much handed to her. Seriously even random backstory about her mother is just handed to her out of nowhere by some character who was seen twice. Thanks I guess??
Not the book for me by a longshot (heh). Also, I love how James Patterson really has to put his name all on the cover too, just in case we forget that he is gracing us with his "talent" and blessing debut authors (who all have been women so far, wow thanks Jimmy).
Gunslinger Girl begins with Serendipity "Pity" running from her home commune after her father sells her off due to her being a fertile female. After getting attacked and losing her best friend, Pity gets the chance of a lifetime in Cessation, a city known for lawlessness. Pity inherited her perfect aim and skill for shooting from her mysterious and long dead mother and she'll need all her talents to keep her place and make a life for herself.
Ughhhhh miss me with this mess, please. First off this takes place in a futuristic dystopian that has turned into the wild west. Does any of that matter? Not a goddamn bit. Minus some technology that is PURELY for convenience: cars, electronic door locks, fancy drugs, easy birth control; this is just a wild west setting (minus the wild) with extra politics and the same gross sexism that no one liked the first time. Even worse? There is talk and brief scenes in the beginning of outside the city walls where it gets wild but we never really get to see it. Sorry we don't do adventures here- this is all about the shows!!! Caraval found dead in a ditch.
This entire book takes place in a theater and it is not an epic futuristic wild west adventure. It isn't any adventure. This is a romance. Worse yet, this is a YA romance that just has every YA trope known to humanity. Unlucky for me I didn't know any of this going in but lucky for you, I'm saying it now. If you happen to like super generic YA dystopians that are really just a background setting for a basic angst filled romance, this book is for you. I just found it hilarious how generic it was, so sorry. It's like the author (with James Patterson probably creepily mouth breathing down her neck), googled all the popular YA tropes from 5 years ago and made sure to hit them all.
I unfortunately do not that kind of book anymore and this one takes what could have been an interesting setting but just turns into a million pages of reading about what outfits Pity is wearing for her shows (EVERYONE HAS A GUN THIS IS THE WILD WEST WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE COME OUT TO SEE HER SHOOT???), get swoony with her bae, get drunk and cry about it, and then just be "strong" because she can shoot guns but like, not actually strong. She's a pawn to everyone else and tries and fails to be like every other YA heroine ever. Having a "badass" talent doesn't equal having a personality or any other strength. Also her story ends up being based entirely around her love interest fyi.
Also it's so weird when the second Pity shows up in the city, the people who saved her instantly take her in and give her an entire show based around the weirdly specific talent she has?? Y'all already had an opening for "teenage girl wears sparkly outfits and shoots guns"?? She doesn't have to struggle in this so called lawless city to make her own way, everything is pretty much handed to her. Seriously even random backstory about her mother is just handed to her out of nowhere by some character who was seen twice. Thanks I guess??
Not the book for me by a longshot (heh). Also, I love how James Patterson really has to put his name all on the cover too, just in case we forget that he is gracing us with his "talent" and blessing debut authors (who all have been women so far, wow thanks Jimmy).