adaora_ble's reviews
297 reviews

This book was fantastic! It was so real and the characters were complex and interesting. You could feel how each issue or insecurity led to the next, how the games they created really was just a reflection of themselves, how friendships can change you for better or for worse and how terrifying it is to be vulnerable even with the people you're closest with.

It did such a good job of fleshing out every character it touched whilst still focusing on the MCs. Even though they were frustrating and complex and unable to hold necessary emotional conversations with each other, I still loved every single character through deep and unabiding love for each other to dispassionate hate to everything inbetween.

Marx really is the better half of Sam and Sadie, the glue that holds everything together, probably the best character from an objective standpoint and certainly the most emotionally healthy of the main trio. However, in choosing my favourite character it has to be Sam, digging into his psyche and all his neurosis and hang ups and things he just cannot say even though he truly wants to I feel so bad for him and simultaneously so mad at him and yet you get his deep fear.

Up until the moment I finished it I thought of this book as contemporary fiction, or as my high school librarian would call it 'That's Life', but when I was tagging/shelving it on StoryGraphs I was suddenly struck with the realisation that it could very well be classed as a sci-fi. Like a low stakes (and less fucked up) Black Mirror; it speculates on the effects/consequences of technology on individuals and society, even if it's something as basic as a 90s video game and not Ready Player One, it speaks to our own world and the problems we face as a society.

I can't recommend this book enough, I was fighting tears on the train at the end and even though the first part (of ten parts) was fairly slow it soon sucked me in and got me invested in even the most brief character.

Content Warnings

Siren Song by Holly Scott, Jaimie Duncan

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book started off so well 😭
It had all the adventure and the stakes and the characterisation of a classic SG-1 adventure and then it all fell apart in the second half. It got repetitive and boring and just downright depressing. It took so many interesting concepts and ideas and moral debates and quandaries and then just did nothing with them. I feel like I'm a book where Daniel Jackson is front and centre there needs to be more debates about the ethics of some of their actions especially since the characters seem to only briefly think about them when there was the time and scope to get deeper into it. I think one of the great things about Sci-fi is that it likes to take societal expectations and challenge them, looking at them from the outside in (even if we are bias) The Orville does it, Star Trek and Star Wars does it and Stargate does it but just not in this.

Also another problem with spinning off a show into a book series with different writers, Sam Carter felt very much out of character for most of the book but I'll write that off because they were in a very stressful situation and she'd been injured. You can also really feel the writers trying to slot it into the existing TV canon without affecting anything too much but I won't hold that against them.

All and all a good concept, probably would have been amazing if it had been in the show and limited to 45 mins instead of trying to drag out the back half into a 300 page book when it probably only needed 200.

Content Warnings

Loveless by Alice Oseman

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challenging emotional funny informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The story takes us through the first year of 4 Durham fresher, 3 of whom are old friends and it tackles expectations around sexuality, romance, what we're supposed to be doing at uni and fitting in and growing up and I think it handles it all in a really great way. The stakes aren't huge but they're real and personal and for anyone who's ever felt a little bit on the outside for any reason it's very relatable.

The characters make mistakes and assumptions and they don't say what they mean even when they want to and they think people are one way when they're actually another and they make all the mistakes that we can except young adults to make and certainly some I've made myself at uni.

Very glad I didn't read this in my actual first year at uni since I was in the covid year and we barely had any irl events and if we did you had to sit in a group of 6 and not move so reading this would have made me very jealous even if the characters aren't always having fun at said events.

I think it can be hard to write a book about a certain period in your life that you've moved in from and have it remain real to the people who then grow into that age bracket because times change and it's easy to make something that doesn't age well or becomes outdated but between this, Radio Silence and Heartstopper these thoughts, feelings and situations all feel very real and it think it reminds its readers of a very important lesson on the significance of friendships that sometimes gets forgotten in a world where everything seems to be gearing towards romance.

This book may be part of the Osemanverse but it's very much a standalone book and can be read as such, and I definitely recommend it if you like books about friendships, coming of age (when they actually are coming of age) or Shakespeare.

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adaora_ble's reviews 297 reviews

adaora_ble's reviews
297 reviews