classyklassen's reviews
389 reviews

Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors by Aravind Jayan

2.75

ngl guys this was a bit of a nothing burger. this is about a guy who lives in a smallish town in india and his brother has a sex tape leaked. it's kind of a domestic drama as you can see how this affects the whole family. I liked the sentiment and thought it was about something interesting but it was just wasn't written in a very captivating way. really boring prose and if you're gonna have a slow moving plot you need to have something else that draws me in. anyway not bad but I wouldn't necessarily recommend nor dissuade anyone from picking it up. solid 2.75 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 1—Phantom Blood, Vol. 1 by Hirohiko Araki

3.75

 oh! shout out to my friend james, this is the fourth book I've read on recommendation and finally we have one that I've liked🤩🤩🤩🤩 so happy!! this is about a rich guy called jojo and just this insane guy who becomes his adoptive-ish brother who literally tries to ruin his life in increasingly horrible ways😭😭 this was my first manga! definitely not my sort of thing but despite that I still did enjoy this story and many parts of it had me audibly gasping!! definitely not something I would have picked myself but not bad. 3.75 stars 

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jim Benton

4.5

bro. this is art. I read this for the first time when I was maybe ten and I owned physical copies of the first two books and all of the others (that had been published at that time) I had on my kindle. guys I was obsessed with these books. I had to unfortunately borrow this from the library cause I gifted most of.my books to my younger cousin and it was too embarrassing to ask to borrow this from my now nine year old cousin😭😭😭 (she has read these and also loves them btw so it's also approved by modern nine year olds). anyway this is the diary of jaime and about her shenanigans at school with her bestie isabella and rival, the super popular angeline. guys this book is just fabulous. I never knew this but it got turned into a movie musical back in like 2010 and I watched it for the first time about a month ago and I'm not even joking when I say this but it's one of the best movies I've ever seen. comedic timing? brilliant? musical numbers? iconic. child actor performances? genuinely crazy good. plot? stellar. script? perfect. costumes? outstanding and matches the time and vibe. direction? I could cry. book accuracy? took perfect plot elements and incorporated them in well AND matched the vibes of the book PERFECTLY. I couldn't necessarily call the movie better than the book because they did change it to better match the medium but I would say that the movie is a better movie than the book is as a book. does that make sense. it does in my head. my love for this book is definitely clouded with nostalgia and I have been in my middle grade era for the past 1.5 years and have just been thriving because of it. if you go in with the right expectations you will love this. perfectly captures the experience and emotions of a young girl and sprinkles subtle positive messages without being preachy and just is such a fun fun book. I don't really expect anyone to pick this book up cause that's not really my demographic lmao but I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend that anyone who was once a tween girl or at least felt like it to watch the movie right now. drop everything. it will change your life! 4.5 stars (am going to change the rating as I continue with the series) 

The Explosive Conclusion (Extinction, #2) by Lizzie Wilcock

2.0

oh ://// okay so that happened ig😭😭 this is the sequel to a book I reviewed the other month and I can't really explain the synopsis for without spoiling the entire first book but long story short these twins time travel and save the world!! so um. this was not good😭😭 sorry. I think someone under the age of 13 could enjoy this but really wow this is just terrible writing. it doesn't really make any sense. none of the characters really stand out from each other (I kept forgetting which was which) and they kept coming to the most random conclusions that don't follow any logical progression but were somehow correct? they would meet random side characters that would just happen to randomly give them vital pieces of information???

  like one of the plot points is that they need to find the "most pure forms" of the elements ie. water, air, fire and earth and random side characters that aren't really involved at all give them wild estimations of what they could possibly be looking for that just happens to be correct??? huh??

the expository dialogue and random explanation website (see review for the first book) was not as bad as last time but was still not great. so yeah. very easy to read cause it was for kids but not well-crafted at all. read hitchhiker's guide for your kid-friendly sci-fi fix🤪🤪 2 stars 

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

4.25

omg cute!!! so glad I finally read this! my dad read this to my siblings and I probably like 12 years ago?? (he used to read us every night, usually only fantasy and sci-fi stuff) but I can't remember if we finished it and the only thing I actually remembered from the story is that at one point the main character is about to die and he goes "damn I wish I had listened to my mum growing up, maybe I would know what to do" and the other guy is like "what did she say" and main guy goes "I don't know, I didn't listen" lmaooooo. anyway this is about a guy called arthur who lives in england but then earth needs to get destroyed cause the president of the galaxy is trying to make a new galactic bypass and earth is in the way but right before it gets decimated a human-like alien that has been studying earth for his book (the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy) saves him! then the book is about their shenanigans. I loved this!!! douglas adams you are not like other girls!! this is such a quirky lil fun book but if you're not into the humour then I can see why you would hate this. a good ~commentary on society~ and I see it as a personal crime against the world that it is has not been made into an animated series. that would go so hard. I would highly recommend this to people that are interested in getting into sci-fi, this is just such a fun fun book that also has meaning!!! wild!!!! 4.25 stars 

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

3.5

omg what do I even say. I'm not trying to sound braggy but it's pretty rare that a book takes me longer than a week or two to finish but this almost took two entire months😭 it's not even that it was bad, cause I would have dnfed if it was but i was lowkey dreading picking it up cause I was bored but I also really liked it and it was interesting 😭😭 idk😭 this book is about a turkish girl raised in america who goes to harvard to study linguistics and you kinda just follow her throughout her first year. this was a bit of a quirky book but tbh I think it was. a bit too long. the sentences were really short and it reminded it me a lot of sally rooney's writing where the sentences are very clipped and characters are matter-of-fact and make lots of little observations which don't necessarily have a conclusion. not a bad thing but made it a bit annoying to read. maybe 3.5 stars??? I'm not sure. this will definitely fluctuate. would definitely be interested to hear what others have to say! 

The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberley, Austin Siegemund-Broka

2.5

 very very inspired by taylor swift and very very not super good. this is about our main pop girlie who divorces her husband of 3 months and then writes an album with one song about every ex she's had. the most popular song is about her college bf but the ex husband keeps saying it's about him so she invites her college bf to perform with her on tour?? huh??? the plot didn't really make any sense and the male mc was so fucking annoying 😭 this book definitely would have benefited from being only in the girl (Riley)'s perspective. i didn't feel their chemistry whatsoever and while this was inspired by taylor swift it didn't feel like the authors had an understanding of her. like Riley is playing the character that the media portrays her as. riley seeks out heartbreak so that she can make great songs?? huh??? just so much other stuff that I didn't like and it was remarkably unsexy too. I liked the first book that I read from this author duo (the roughest draft) but the past two I have read have been flops. I'm only gonna read another one if I'm super super intrigued by the synopsis cause tbh I've lost faith in them :// 2.5 stars 

Happy by Celina Baljeet Basra

2.75

 bruh you can't just name a book happy and then make it sad😭😭 this is about a guy called happy who moves from india to europe/Italy to be movie star. it's basically just about immigrant exploitation. a really upsetting book only made worse because happy is such a charming but naive narrator you really feel for him😭😭 unfortunately I wasn't a very big fan of the way this book is formatted and just didn't vibe with it on a level that I think I would have if it was written in like a "normal" way. 2.75 stars 

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

4.0

 if you couldn't tell from my previous review, I really really enjoyed the series. this is the last book in the trilogy and unfortunately I think it was the weakest. not to say that it wasn't amazing. I really really did like it. I just think that ends could have been tied up a bit better and to be honest I read this so quick that I lucky I forgotten some of the plot. I haven't really retained it that well because I find that that happens when I finish a book within one day🤭🤭 so yeah, I still really really enjoyed it there and would highly recommend this series if you're a fantasy person. I just felt like to build up was getting to somewhere a bit better than where we ended up. I was just like.oh.... that's it? okay. but anyway I still really highly recommend this series!!! 4 stars 

The Wicked King by Holly Black

4.75

 oh my god oh my god. oh my god guys. you don't fully understand like you actually do not understand how much love I have for this book. I have not felt so like so captivated and just TAKEN with a book that I just could not physically put it down, in SO long. I have really just missed this feeling so much. This I why j love books!!! I could not put this down. I was reading it at night time but I was so so so tired but I just couldn't stop so what I did is I found the audiobook on my library and listened to the audiobook as I fell asleep. (I actually didn't fall asleep very quick. I think I stayed up for one of the like 2 hours listening) and then finally I fell asleep listening to the audiobook, then as soon as I woke up I found where I was up to and just kept reading it until I finished it. then I immediately digitally borrowed the third book from the library and read that until I finished it as well. I just like cannot describe to you how much I love this book. I don't even know if it's like 100% like even that good objectively but I actually don't give a fuck like it was just exactly what I needed in the moment. I thought this world was so awesome. you can really tell that holly black really thought about all the character and their dynamics so well I just don't even have words. just, oh my god. you need to read this book if you're a fantasy girl. if you're a YA fantasy person with a touch of romance, then this is something you really need to pick up. like right now. I can't believe it took me this long! I think maybe the first book is actually a bit better than this one cause I'm trying to review them individually but yeah wow I was blown away. I can't wait to reread this in like a year and just take so much more from it because wow like I just love it!!! I don't even have anything to say like it's one of those books where I just love so much that I'm just speechless like oh my God I love this book 4.75 stars!!!!