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krpolaski 's review for:
The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik
by David Arnold
This book. How do I describe this book?
Confusing. I found myself wandering around pages and constantly re-reading to try and understand what was going on. Now, I'm not saying that it's bad for a book to be a challenging read, but this was almost ridiculously bewildering. The thing with his back is never fully explained by Noah, so that whole plot point just made me more confused about him as a character.
The excerpts from Noah's favorite author felt unnecessary to me. Because both the novel and those excerpts were actually written by the same author, the writing styles were very similar and they didn't stand out when they should have.
Also, the fact *spoiler* that it's all a hallucination and nothing that happened for like 75% of the book was real was, I'm sorry, so dumb. The literal embodiment of the 'it was all a dream' trope. Because of this, none of the characters ever really canonically developed and they all sort of felt flat to me (well except his little sister, she was a gem and the main reason I kept reading). I couldn't understand anyone's motivations and much of the conversation dragged on with no real purpose. All the long drawn-out conversations between Noah and his two friends about like peach gummies and the meaning of the universe?? Those conversations do happen between real teenagers, but they have a more significant lead-up, and the writer has to earn them, not just throw them in every 3 pages.
So yeah, this book really disappointed me. The concept is interesting but it wasn't used particularly well in my opinion.
Confusing. I found myself wandering around pages and constantly re-reading to try and understand what was going on. Now, I'm not saying that it's bad for a book to be a challenging read, but this was almost ridiculously bewildering. The thing with his back is never fully explained by Noah, so that whole plot point just made me more confused about him as a character.
The excerpts from Noah's favorite author felt unnecessary to me. Because both the novel and those excerpts were actually written by the same author, the writing styles were very similar and they didn't stand out when they should have.
Also, the fact *spoiler* that it's all a hallucination and nothing that happened for like 75% of the book was real was, I'm sorry, so dumb. The literal embodiment of the 'it was all a dream' trope. Because of this, none of the characters ever really canonically developed and they all sort of felt flat to me (well except his little sister, she was a gem and the main reason I kept reading). I couldn't understand anyone's motivations and much of the conversation dragged on with no real purpose. All the long drawn-out conversations between Noah and his two friends about like peach gummies and the meaning of the universe?? Those conversations do happen between real teenagers, but they have a more significant lead-up, and the writer has to earn them, not just throw them in every 3 pages.
So yeah, this book really disappointed me. The concept is interesting but it wasn't used particularly well in my opinion.