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oraclereadings's Reviews (107)
dark
mysterious
Groundhog Day meets Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Emelie Hornby is a people pleaser. She lives life by the rules, following a daily checklicks, does everything in her power to please her divorced parents, and avoids any and all conflict whatsoever.
Emelie is set out to have the best Valentine’s Day ever! She’s bought the perfect gift for her boyfriend, Josh, and even plans on exchanging “I Love You’s”. But the universe has some different ideas in mind.
She starts off her day by slamming into the back of Nick Stark’s truck, watching from the sidelines as her van gets totaled and towed away. Nick gives her a ride to school and she is let down once again by an internship informing her that she won’t be able to attend their program in the summer. To make things worse, she walks out to see Josh kissing his ex-girlfriend.
After a much needed leaving early from school, Emelie begrudgingly walks home in the frigid February weather. Only to learn that her dad was offered a promotion from his job that requires him to move to Texas.
Emelie just wants this day to be over. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds herself having the exact same morning as the day before. Her step-mom knocking on the bathroom door while she tries to shower, her and her dad’s banter in the kitchen at breakfast, and crashing into Nick’s truck again.
She’s stuck in a time-loop.
As the repeating days progress, Emilie finally comes to the conclusion that she is going to live for herself. If she’s going to be stuck in a loop reliving the same day over and over again, she might as well say “fuck it” and live how she wants to. Because, afterall, who knows when February 15th will come.
So she has a DONC (Day of No Consequences).
I am going to be completely honest. . .
The only reason I picked this book up was because the title was lyrics to the song “Hunger” by Florence and the Machine and I am a huge gay for Florence, so I thought the book would relate to that song somehow.
I’m not really sure what this book is about. We open up to Feyi and her best friend Joy at a rooftop party. Joy is trying to talk Feyi into hooking up with some rando because it’s been a while for Feyi. This is how Feyi meets Milan and they end up getting it on in the bathroom. Feyi doesn’t want anymore to do with Milan after that, but he’s persistent and gets her number.
And it doesn’t take long before we never see or hear from Milan again. Something about him being too needy or whatever.
So then, Feyi ends up hanging out with Nasir, one of Milan’s homies. They sort of date, but not really, while never going past more than making out with each other. Pretty soon, Nasir is signing her up for an art gig and invites her to his father’s mansion. And how does this woman repay him? By getting the hots for his dad.
And like, sure, his dad is some celebrity chef and has his own TV series or whatever, but Feyi takes it a lot further than just a mild celebrity crush.
I don’t care that there is a blatant nineteen year difference between Feyi and Nasir’s father, Alim. Feyi is in her late twenties and is a full adult with the capability of making her own decisions. However, if my girlfriend or boyfriend decided to date one of my parents while sort of dating me, I would riot.
This was just not for me.
I know that this is considered a young adult book, and I usually prefer young adult books to adult or even new adult, but this just felt so immature. I don’t know if it was because of all of the pop culture references, which I am not a fan of in books. One or two is okay, but for every page to be filled with reference after reference, is just a no for me.
And then there is Mahalia’s character.
Mahalia Harris wants.
She wants a big Sweet Sixteen like her best friend Naomi.
She wants the super cute new girl Siobhan to like her back.
She wants a break from worrying--about money, snide remarks from white classmates, pitying looks from church ladies . . . all of it.
This girl is supposed to be just a little bit of sixteen-years-old and she acts like she’s twelve. Literally in the first chapter she comments on how bratty she is. And being bratty is one thing, it’s a whole nother thing to just be a brat at that age. Especially with all that her mom is going through, being a single mother living in a shitty ass apartment while they both share a car to drive to school and work and while also dealing with medical problems on the side. Giirrlll, if you don’t stop acting like a damn fool. . .
And then the whole romance between Malhalia and Siobhan just seemed so unrealistic. Like, there’s this new girl that just moved overseas from Dublin, Ireland and is already the school’s most popular jock’s girlfriend. Sure, I couldn’t blame Malhalia for having a crush on the girl, but it just seemed so creepy to “want” after her when a) SHE ALREADY HAS A BOYFRIEND, and b) YOU DON’T KNOW IF SHE IS QUEER.
And then, oh my goodness. And then. . . Siobhan just decides to kiss Malhalia and break up with her boyfriend for “no apparent reason” other than she really likes Malhalia.
Lastly, is it too hard to just ask for some good bi/pan representation these days?
Awkward, anti-social, Molly Parker has no idea how to “get the girl”. After spending four years in high school with her mom as her only best friend, she is determined to make college different. Her dreams of that happening are shattered the moment she arrives at her dorm to realize that she is living in a single, not sharing with a roommate like she had hoped. She gets pressured into attending a college party, finally residing in the fact that that is the only way she is going to make friends. Plus, her crush since the eighth grade, Cora Myers, is going to be there.
Alex Blackwood can’t seem to keep the girls away. She is very flirty and outgoing, but her problem is keeping the girl. Before going off to college, Alex and Natalie (her girlfriend that’s also in a band) go through a pretty tough breakup. Natalie accuses Alex of not taking their relationship seriously. Alex wants to reassure Natalie that she can be a good girlfriend and conspires a plan to help Molly get the girl of her dreams.
This did not feel like it took place over the course of a few weeks or a month or whatever it was. I blinked and suddenly the book was over. I probably would have loved this a lot more than I did if it weren’t for how we’re introduced to Alex’s character at the beginning. She’s written as being this flirtatious womanizer that has cheated on her girlfriend multiple times. Sure, she’s got a lot of shit going on with having to financially support her alcoholic mother and her dad dipping when she was only five. Cheating is just one of those things that I find it hard to excuse and is an automatic “No” for me based on a character.
Also, I just learned that Rachel Lippincott wrote this with her wife, Alyson Derrick, and that is the cutest thing ever.
Representation: Molly is Half-Korean and deals with the negativity of her culture from her mother (who is Korean and absolutely hates her own culture).
2023:
I am a firm believer that Cassandra Clare finds new words and likes the way they sound, so she uses them as much as possible in her books.
Clary and Simon’s relationship still felt awkward and so forced. Like, <i>“Oh no, Jace is my brother. Too bad. Well, I guess I can just make out with Simon instead. That should fix my feelings for Jace, right?”</i>
2016:
I had high expectations for this book because so many people said that it was better than the first. I just couldn’t get into this one, though.
The whole thing with Clary and Jace made me so uncomfortable. They had just found out they were siblings in <i>City of Bones</i>, and whether or not it stays that way, it’s still creepy. Clary seemed to be finally developing a friendship with Alec and Isabelle in this book, instead of acting like she hates them or always wanting to fight with one of them, and that was something I could approve of.
Clary and Simon being together made me cringe so hard throughout the book. It felt like she was only with Simon because she couldn’t be with Jace. And then their relationship just suddenly ended and it all just seemed so unnecessary.
One thing I realized about Cassandra Clare’s writing is that it seems repetitive most of the time. I feel like I’ve already read the same sentence two or three times in each chapter, when they’re really just worded differently.
Despite not enjoying this one as much as the first, I’m still planning and looking forward to read the rest of the series.
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• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 3.5 ✰ I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t have quite the impact that I thought it would.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I am a firm believer that Cassandra Clare finds new words and likes the way they sound, so she uses them as much as possible in her books.
Clary and Simon’s relationship still felt awkward and so forced. Like, <i>“Oh no, Jace is my brother. Too bad. Well, I guess I can just make out with Simon instead. That should fix my feelings for Jace, right?”</i>
2016:
I had high expectations for this book because so many people said that it was better than the first. I just couldn’t get into this one, though.
The whole thing with Clary and Jace made me so uncomfortable. They had just found out they were siblings in <i>City of Bones</i>, and whether or not it stays that way, it’s still creepy. Clary seemed to be finally developing a friendship with Alec and Isabelle in this book, instead of acting like she hates them or always wanting to fight with one of them, and that was something I could approve of.
One thing I realized about Cassandra Clare’s writing is that it seems repetitive most of the time. I feel like I’ve already read the same sentence two or three times in each chapter, when they’re really just worded differently.
Despite not enjoying this one as much as the first, I’m still planning and looking forward to read the rest of the series.
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• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 3.5 ✰ I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t have quite the impact that I thought it would.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
This could hardly be considered a retelling or a revision. The first part of this books takes place within the exact setting from the beloved Disney animated movie, even going as far quoting from the film word for word. We start from the beginning of the book, I mean cartoon, with Aladdin stealing a loaf of bread (famous line included) and being chased throughout the market. And the movie, I mean book, takes us all the way to the scene in the Cave of Wonders.
Except. . .
Aladdin is not the one who ends up with the lamp.
Jafar is.
A Whole New World takes imagining into what would have happened if Jafar were the one to end up with the lamp instead. And it is honestly no different than movie version of Jafar. He makes his predictable wishes to become Sultan of Agrabah and the most powerful sorcerer.
While under his imprisonment, Jasmine is the one to befriend the Genie instead of Aladdin. I did enjoy the little bit of backstory that was introduced with Genie and the history of the Jinn.
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• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 3.5 ✰ I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t have quite the impact that I thought it would.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Except. . .
Aladdin is not the one who ends up with the lamp.
Jafar is.
A Whole New World takes imagining into what would have happened if Jafar were the one to end up with the lamp instead. And it is honestly no different than movie version of Jafar. He makes his predictable wishes to become Sultan of Agrabah and the most powerful sorcerer.
While under his imprisonment, Jasmine is the one to befriend the Genie instead of Aladdin. I did enjoy the little bit of backstory that was introduced with Genie and the history of the Jinn.
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• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 3.5 ✰ I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t have quite the impact that I thought it would.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Why is it that I can always write reviews for books that I either didn't like or were just meh, but when it comes to writing reviews for books that I actually enjoyed my mind goes absolutely blank?
The history of the Titanic has been one that I have been interested in ever since I was a little girl. When I saw that this book was about four young women boarding the ship with a heist plan, and that there was a LGBT+ romance involved, I was immediately interested. I grabbed this book without hesitation and began reading.
I was instantly pulled in with the thrill of our first heroine, Josefa, running away after successfully stealing a way onto the Titanic. And then my interest started to fade as more characters were introduced. I find it hard to focus when books have multiple point of views from more than two characters.(At least those are written in a third person perspective or I would have dropped this book.)
Honestly, I couldn’t match the characters to the cover until they were boarding the ship. I absolutely despise when there is a full page dedicated to the characters appearance, but without the cover I would not have been able to picture these girls at all.
Josefa
Our leading main character, the one with the plan behind the heist. She ran away from her old boarding school in Spain for a life of freedom and takes upon thieving from the rich.
Violet
An incredible actress and dissembler originally from Croatia, working hard to send money back to her brother Marko.
Hinnah
A circus acrobat that was kicked out of her family home of 1912 India (now known as Pakistan). She has the ability to contort her body and push herself to perform amazing tricks.
Emilie
An amazing artist who can replicate any drawing by hand. She is responsible for recreating the infamous Rubaiyat and forging documents for the crew. Emilie grew up in France with Haitian heritage. She agrees to help the other young women in hopes of meeting her relations from Haiti.
A romance starts to bloom between Emilie and Josefa and it starts to sidetrack their mission. I honestly felt no chemistry between the two and it felt very forced. There was also a blatant hatred that Violet held for Emilie and it was never explained, other than Violet thinking that Emilie was a spoiled rich girl. I was kind of expecting for Violet and Josefa to have had a past relationship of sorts and that was why Violet held so much aggression towards Emilie, but that wasn’t the case.
We soon realize the real reason that Josefa wanted to board the Titanic and it splits the friendship between the girls. All while this is happening, the four of them get accused of stealing a hairpin that Emilie had lost at the beginning of boarding the ship. I thought that there would be some sort of meaning behind the accessory, or that a plot twist would happen revolving around Emilie, but neither of those things happened.
Towards the end when the Titanic started going down, I was hoping for some Easter eggs to the real life events. Throughout the entirety of the book, it did not feel like our main characters were on board of the Titanic. I even forgot at one point that they were on a ship at all, let alone a historically famous one. We must be saving all of the bits for end, right? I kept telling myself. But other than the ship sinking and mention of the passengers climbing onto the lifeboats, there was no real setting of what had happened that night.
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• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 3.5 ✰ I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t have quite the impact that I thought it would.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I was instantly pulled in with the thrill of our first heroine, Josefa, running away after successfully stealing a way onto the Titanic. And then my interest started to fade as more characters were introduced. I find it hard to focus when books have multiple point of views from more than two characters.
Honestly, I couldn’t match the characters to the cover until they were boarding the ship. I absolutely despise when there is a full page dedicated to the characters appearance, but without the cover I would not have been able to picture these girls at all.
Josefa
Our leading main character, the one with the plan behind the heist. She ran away from her old boarding school in Spain for a life of freedom and takes upon thieving from the rich.
Violet
An incredible actress and dissembler originally from Croatia, working hard to send money back to her brother Marko.
Hinnah
A circus acrobat that was kicked out of her family home of 1912 India (now known as Pakistan). She has the ability to contort her body and push herself to perform amazing tricks.
Emilie
An amazing artist who can replicate any drawing by hand. She is responsible for recreating the infamous Rubaiyat and forging documents for the crew. Emilie grew up in France with Haitian heritage. She agrees to help the other young women in hopes of meeting her relations from Haiti.
A romance starts to bloom between Emilie and Josefa and it starts to sidetrack their mission. I honestly felt no chemistry between the two and it felt very forced. There was also a blatant hatred that Violet held for Emilie and it was never explained, other than Violet thinking that Emilie was a spoiled rich girl. I was kind of expecting for Violet and Josefa to have had a past relationship of sorts and that was why Violet held so much aggression towards Emilie, but that wasn’t the case.
We soon realize the real reason that Josefa wanted to board the Titanic and it splits the friendship between the girls. All while this is happening, the four of them get accused of stealing a hairpin that Emilie had lost at the beginning of boarding the ship. I thought that there would be some sort of meaning behind the accessory, or that a plot twist would happen revolving around Emilie, but neither of those things happened.
Towards the end when the Titanic started going down, I was hoping for some Easter eggs to the real life events. Throughout the entirety of the book, it did not feel like our main characters were on board of the Titanic. I even forgot at one point that they were on a ship at all, let alone a historically famous one. We must be saving all of the bits for end, right? I kept telling myself. But other than the ship sinking and mention of the passengers climbing onto the lifeboats, there was no real setting of what had happened that night.
⋆⁺₊⋆⁺₊⋆
• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 3.5 ✰ I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t have quite the impact that I thought it would.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I honestly did not expect to love this book as much as I did. It was just so addicting and I did not even realize how fast I was reading until near the end! I have recently been researching how autism could relate to me and I have never related more to a character than I do with Stella.