thestoryprofessor's reviews
865 reviews

It's All or Nothing, Vale by Andrea Beatriz Arango

emotional sad fast-paced

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

2.0

Two things are apparent about the author after reading this book: she doesn’t actually know what it is like to live with chronic pain, and she doesn’t actually know what it means to be an athlete (let alone one with chronic pain).

The plot relies heavily on the main character, Vale, coming to terms with her new chronic pain after an accident and how it affects her life as a champion fencer, so a lot of nuance surrounding such conversations is relegated to page turning dribble. It is used to just keep the story going instead of actually stopping long enough to consider how devastating and life altering it could be. You get a sense that the author was trying for that notion, but because she didn’t truly grasp what being an athlete is like, again, it comes down to just details in the plot.

In addition, there are just a lot of weak storytelling choices to this novel that were frustrating:

1) Novel-in-verse: the point of novel in verse is to use poetry as means to access a narrative, creating a new perspective using poetic language as the mechanism for characterization and plot structure. This novel felt like it was written in verse because the author thought it would sell better. There is little to no poetic language used. It’s baffling why this wasn’t written as a prose novel when it already feels like one that was just poorly chopped up into the structure of a novel-in-verse.

2) First Person Perspective “Telling”: To have the main character commit with full self-awareness on something they are choosing not to believe or consider is weak characterization. For example, there is a character, Myrka, that Vale has a crush on but is also bitterly jealous of, and over and over again, Vale tells us the reader that despite being jealous or having a crush, she doesn’t actually have a crush or is jealous. It makes for weak characterization because we are being told that Vale is jealous or has a crush via her repeatedly telling us she isn’t or doesn’t. It’s annoying, too, when Vale telling us this thing or that thing is or is not the case is the unrelenting characterization for 75% of the book. In general, there is far too much telling over showing anyways, and this version of it made it all the worse.

3) The Romance: And because the characterization is left to Vale telling us everything, the romance in this story is extremely forced and eye-rolling. Just because it is an LGBTQ relationship does not mean I can’t immediately recognize the weak use of the manic pixie dream girl trope. Myrka is perfect and everything Vale is not and even her hair is pink!! It’s cliche, boring, and well-traveled by other sapphic romances that have done it far better. I wish that we could have seen a lot more of Myrka that would have made her seemed more alive beyond Vale’s perspective of her. Yet, we are giving nothing more than a few interests, her sexual orientation, and her perfect parents. When she gets mad at Vale for accusing her of throwing a match at the end of the story, I was actually surprised to see her get mad because I thought she was going to give her standard, robot manic pixie dream girl response. I wanted more of that!

These weak storytelling choices made a story with important subject matter seem lazy, forced, and boring. By the time I reached the end, I was thinking about the family’s coconut pancakes and whether or not I’d like those more than I cared even remotely for anything else.

When We Ride by Rex Ogle

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

An extremely powerful and emotionally charged novel-in-verse about the strains of a strong friendship because of drug addiction.

Rex Ogle strips away the fatty tissue of a prose novel to find the terrifyingly dark pulse of dealing with drug abuse. There isn’t flowery language or rumination or author’s opinions to buffer the reader; straight, raw, honest storytelling that gets to the realities of drug use.

I adore Ogle and his writing, and this is another novel he can add to his great works that will completely wreck your heart and restore it better than before.

Content Warnings

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

4.5

If stories construct us and how we view the world, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon takes this to another level to show us how our fates, relationships, and thankfulness are measured and drawn by stories.

This is an incredible novel that uses storytelling to tell the story of a girl rewriting her story, how myth and fantasy are more deeply connected to our realities than we might first believe. This simple novel reminded me of my innocent love of stories and the power they hold to shape our future.

Watership Down by Richard Adams

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Everything about this book is heart pounding, heart breaking, and heart lifting. The characters are so strongly rendered as to have your love from the very beginning; the world build is so unique and grounded, it is hard not to walk away from this book viewing rabbits in a completely different light; and the plot is going to grip you by the throat with its vicious teeth and not let go until the epilogue. If long, tense, and dark are not your flavors, this book may not be suitable for you, but the ending leaves a strong sense of hope, and the courageousness of all the characters and their individual arcs will leave them imprinted on your mind and heart for a very long time.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing 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? It's complicated

4.75

A critic called this novel a warm hug of a book, and that is both an apt comparison and also not a completely accurate rendering. This is a wholly unique novel with incredibly wonderful characters, a cozy and comforting tone, a fun plot that ultimately is shaped by the characters, and a romance that subverts a lot of the romance cliches that tend bog down romance subplots. I thoroughly love this book, and I will readily recommend this intelligent and creatively written comfort drink any time of year.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced