Dear god, this is such a shit story, it's sexist, poorly written and insulting to all women at best. I stilAmerica:
"i'M nOt liKe oThEr GuRLs"
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Dear god, this is such a shit story, it's sexist, poorly written and insulting to all women at best. I still bought the 3rd book though - and cannot wait to read it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nobody's perfect - this book surely isn't - but I'll be dammed if I don't find out the whole tea of Shithead Maxom, Shithead King and Shithead Aspen.
Update 1: Honestly Gwyneth is fucking unbearable and childish - not sure I'll finish this one.
Update 2: Yeah, no. Fuck this. DNF.
My Review:
This book isUpdate 1: Honestly Gwyneth is fucking unbearable and childish - not sure I'll finish this one.
Update 2: Yeah, no. Fuck this. DNF.
My Review:
This book is an international bestseller that holds an average rating of 4.12 Stars on Goodreads and it was released on 2011 - That’s pretty impressive. Plus the plot is quite appealing, a family in which every generation there’s a time traveler whom is prepared his/her entire life for their quest ahead, and in Gwyneth’s case it’s her cousin Charlotte, but turns out the time traveler was ACTUALLY GWYNETH???
Cool as fuck amiright? I’ve had this book on my TBR for ages and at last in 2018 I thought Why not read it now?
WHAT A WASTE OF TIME.
I read 77% of this book and it was painful the entire time. I would’ve dropped it sooner had I known it wasn’t gonna get better, I honestly thought I was missing something - literally wondered if I’d read a different book, like maybe I’d gotten a spoof version of the original translation?
Thankfully I found reviewers that echoed my thoughts and they are linked down below so you can check them out, and I’ll also quote a direct paragraph of Amanda Pearl’s review:
“Overall Ruby Red reads very immature. It's aimed at tweens and I can't really see anyone who reads more critically than that age group finding much of interest here.”
So yeah, the logic behind the whole time traveling thing is terribly underdeveloped. It reads lazily, the main character is so immature that she’s downright unbearable and what seemed like a promising plot ended up being silly.
and the average rating of this still blows my mind.
I swear I wanted to like it, and it wasn't that bad, but oh god, it wasn't good.
It. wasn't. good.
It was cThis is me wanting to like this book:
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I swear I wanted to like it, and it wasn't that bad, but oh god, it wasn't good.
It. wasn't. good.
It was cheesy guys, it was so fucking cheesy, so fuuucking cheesy! I know it's a romance novel, and romance novels tend to be around the corny side of things, but dear god, I had this face the whole time I was reading it:
[image] That's me thinking, holly hell, did I really just read that?
[image] Yes. I just read that.
I couldn't believe I was reading certain lines, dialogues and actions - because CHEESY. It got to the point where it was just impossible for me to take the book seriously and I just wanted to break into nervous laughter because of how ridiculous it all seemed - and I LOVE COLLEEN HOOVER, I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. I don't remember thinking Slammed, Point of Retreat or even Hopeless was that cheesy. For sure, they were all pretty much cliches, but I was able to buy the plot and enjoy it, not have a grimace the whole time I read them like I did with maybe someday.
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I'm not even kidding people, that was my face through the majority of this novel. The worst part is that I don't think the story was half bad - not bad at all actually, but the execution reeaaaally made it a tough experience for me, because I wanted to like it, but in the end I just.... nope.
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The soundtrack wasn't bad though :B I reeeaally enjoyed Trouble, I even added it to my ipod, 'cause that's how much I enjoyed it. The rest of the songs where pretty good companions for the book, an interesting experience.
But the rest of it oh no. hell no. And why, can anyone please explain WHY Sydney was ALWAYS CRYING. It drove me NUTS.
Things that most definetly did not require crying would be happening and then, out of nowhere the next line would say "I begin to cry".
like, why?
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*sigh*
I swear I wanted to like it.
my faith in Colleen Hoover has not vanished, it's just that Maybe Someday was more of a Maybe NOT for me. Maybe Never.
I still recommend Slammed and Hopeless - I actually insist you read them if you haven't, those are gems. Maybe Someday, well, maybe pass on it....more
I REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK AND I FIND THAT TO BE PROBLEMATIC.
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*Deep breath*
Let’s get this review started.
First, this book has terrible ratings.I REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK AND I FIND THAT TO BE PROBLEMATIC.
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*Deep breath*
Let’s get this review started.
First, this book has terrible ratings. I know it has a 4.16 average rating - which is pretty good - but the low rating are bad.
All of the one star reviews I’ve read (plenty) are merciless, to the point, and also right.
They say it’s The Batchelor, meets The Hunger Games meets Throne of Glass and they are all right. They also talk about how it is un-feminist, poorly written, and overall sexist - and they are all right.
I know these things, they are true, they are in the book - and still I enjoyed it. Now you must understand that I strongly identify with feminist values and make conscious efforts to criticize things that are sexists, encourages patriarcal ways of thinking, and can, in any way, be harmful to women. BUT I STILL LIKED THIS BOOK. Just as much as I like The Weeknd! An amazing singer that can’t seem to refer to women in any way other than Bitches and objectifies them in almost every song.
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I’m a bad feminist (Reference to Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay). I truly am. I am not perfect and this book is a clear examples of how my beliefs collide with what I like. I can’t help what I like and what I don’t like, and in this particular case I think the best thing I can do is acknowledge all the flaws in this book and keep on liking it as a guilty pleasure - because, as I just said, I can’t help what I like and what I don’t like, but I can be conscious of its many faults. Let’s talk about some of them.
The Bachelor. I feel insanely guilty every time I watch the bachelor, it feels archaic and overall really fucking stupid - I still watch it. That happens with this book, a bunch of “Randomly selected girls”” (Bullshit) are all taken to a small guarded environment (castle) so that a man (prince) can mingle and date every single one of them and simply dispose of those he doesn’t seem fitting to be his queen.
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Girls are the enemy. Now when the Selected girls are placed in such environment of course they turn against each other - because other girls are the problem and not the system - and they go out of their way to discover what the prince likes and wants because obviously they’d much rather be everything that a man wants instead of being themselves.
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Not that kinda girl. In the midst of this caos we meet our protagonist: America Singer, true to herself, wears little to no makeup because those who do wear heavy makeup are obviously fake; She dresses in simple clothes, prefers pants instead of dresses - because obviously dresses are just dumb girly things - and we don’t want to be associated with that, no. All while staying true to herself and slowly winning the heart of the prince.
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See my problems here? See them???
To her credit Kiera Cass (Author) does make an effort to acknowledge some of these things, and towards the end of the book all of the Selected, instead of going against each other, start to slowly support one another - which is awesome, because girls are awesome, and girls that are friends and want the best for one another instead of pitting them against one another is AWESOME.
but still all of these efforts didn't make for a redeemable read - and I still liked it, because it was fun.
I had a good time. I read this so quickly (less than two days) and I just had a simple enjoyable time in the world of The Selection, but I will still acknowledge its problems and continue to speak openly about them.
My final rating would be a 3.5 and I may or may not continue with the second book - haven’t made up my mind yet, but the reviews for that one are also awful.
Now if you made it this far into my review - thank you soon much for reading and if you happen to feel just as conflicted as I am - high five sister.
First, I want to make clear to everyone that I Looooove TMI and TID, Loved them. But there's already The Dark Artifices co
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Here We Go Again.
First, I want to make clear to everyone that I Looooove TMI and TID, Loved them. But there's already The Dark Artifices coming and now this?
The thing about lots of books in a series is that, for them to work well, the author has to built this whole excellent world that is just so well written and so thought of that you can't help but want continue to be in it - for example Harry Potter. The Nephilim world is amazing and I've loved learning more and more about it and I can't seem to get enough of CC's books but.... no more.
Let's think about TMI and TID for a minute.... they are different periods of time and yada yada... but what are the similar things??? ....Oh Hell, I'll just say it: Characters. Now please don't hate me for this, but Will is Jace, Jem is Simon, Jessamine is/was Isabel just as Tessa was Clary. Of course there were differences, like how Clary was more... feisty? not sure if that's the word I want to use, but whatever. While Tessa has a more quiet strength in her. Still, they are very similar.
The same theory that applies to the story applies to the characters: Jace for example, was an Amazing character to read, he was refreshing, funny, charming, EVERYTHING. Which is why it did not bother me at all to see the same qualities in Will, but... but.... no more.
CC is an amazing writer, but I would just love to see something new from her. She seems to have so much potential and I really think she has the talent to create a whole other new world, with more new and refreshing characters, I would just really like to see her explore that side.
That being said... maybe I'll read her new Nephilim books. I did not continue reading the second part of TMI, but I did love the whole TID series... I just think that too much of something can really be a turnoff. Personal opinions people, I just felt like ranting. ...more
Errr.... Where do I begin? There was a lot going on in this novel, lots of things bothered me and confused me. It is hard to explain how I☆2.5 stars.☆
Errr.... Where do I begin? There was a lot going on in this novel, lots of things bothered me and confused me. It is hard to explain how I felt about this novel, so I will do this point by point, both the good and the bad:
*One: Welcome to Level 2/Limbo, where you can only access your memories. Level 2 is the space between earth and....heaven? In this point you can only view your memories over and over, but you can also sort of trade your memories with the rest of the dead people. Ok so, this is really depressing, I mean, think about it, you die and you can only look at what you had, the people you loved, what you lost. I'd want to kill myself even if I was already dead. I personally think it would be really miserable and seriously depressed, just there never going anywhere. Because even though our memories are what make us, I still don't think I'd just want to spend the rest of... limbo watching them.
Felicia was not depressed and neither of her companions - that's fine. But they also weren't really questioning things or trying to break free. They seemed way too calm for my taste, also immature. One would think that after watching your life a couple of thousands of times you would have a different vision of things, be a bit of an 'old soul', but no; Felicia and her 'friends' are just a bunch of teenage giggly girls that want boys.
*Two: Flashbacks/Memories. Lots of them. Usually when there's flashbacks in books they annoy me, in Level 2 they were actually enjoyable. I think they were better than the 'present'. Bonus point on the author for managing the memories well, they weren't tedious, nor was I tapping my foot impatiently waiting for them to be over. So yeah, thumbs up to that.
Oh and speaking of memories, Felicia has this really terrible terrible past, well, I personally didn't think it was THAT terrible. Sure, she made lots of BIG mistakes, but I felt like she was a little bit too dramatic about them - my opinion, of course.
*Three: Religion. Another good point for the author. Writing about things like the in between and heaven and such can be a tricky subject. There's God, good, evil and so many things that can be hard to go through, but I do think that the author handled them really well. And even if a lot of Felicia's memories had to do with Church and her Christian Camp, it didn't feel like they were trying to shove religion down my throat. Double thumbs up.
*Four: The characters. All, and I do mean ALL of the characters in this novel were as flat as cardboard sheets. If something happened to any of them, I didn't care. There was an exiting moment for Felicia, I felt nothing. She was in love, nothing. She was angry, nada. Just, meh. I passed the pages, and I never engaged with the novel. They could have all died and I really would have not cared at all.
There were parts that were meant to be inspiring, but I just read and read and kept thinking 'yeah yeah, what's next?' The only emotion this book managed to provoke in me was frustration. Here and there Felicia would say or do things that made me want to hit her, she seemed too selfish or too stubborn to me. Her little tantrums would appear here and there through the book, apart from that, she was flat.
*Five: The wanna-be Love triangle? I'm not even sure if it was supposed to be a sort of Love triangle, but I really felt nothing for either of the boys. Neil seemed as plain as Felicia. Julian was the only character that seemed slightly interesting and I have no idea of what happened to him by the end of the book. Basically he would be the only reason why I would read the next book in this series (I still don't know if I will)
*Six: The Ending (no spoilers, don't worry) I mean, what? I read it two times and I believe that I was meant to feel something? like, you know, apart from confusion? I guess it was meant to be sort of...intense? because a lot of things do happen in those last few pages but, em... yeah, no, just no.
CONCLUSION? The book wasn't THAT bad. I did NOT love the story, nor did I hate it. It was a simple meh. It's sad, I really hoped I would like it, especially because the story did have its value. It really points how our memories make us who we are and that they are really all we have. The people we meet, the things we go through, both good and bad are all part of us, you can't erase anything, otherwise you wouldn't be the you you are right now. I tried to engage with the story, but it didn't work. This was all my personal opinion, lots of people loved this book, in fact I have yet to stumble on a bad review, maybe I'm just weird, but this was not my type of book.
I do think that it's a book worth a try. I suggest you pick it up and see what you think, because just as it was not my cup of tea, it can easily be your perfect cup of tea. Overall it was okay, I guess. Will I continued with the next book? Maybe.
This book was given to me by the publisher. This was my honest review. ...more
Here We Go Again. It looks long but it goes fast ;)
The Story is the most cliché thing you’ll find. Girl afraid to fall in Love. Boy that Loves her. ShHere We Go Again. It looks long but it goes fast ;)
The Story is the most cliché thing you’ll find. Girl afraid to fall in Love. Boy that Loves her. She pushes him away. They get back together. End of the story. A lot of books have this plot and I LOVE IT! It's my favorite subject – I think… - and so when I read the summary I knew I had to read it. Sadly, my relationship with this book didn’t turn out nearly as good as I hoped :/ This is not a hate review whatsoever, it’s just a take on my personal opinion.
The first half of the book was great, it’s the part where the girl – Quinn – and the guy – Ben – fall in love. It was really good. This is also the part where she starts to get scared – Normal – and then they break up – Normal. I was sure I was going to give it 4 stars. The next half make me think I would give it 1.
They got into this Here We Go Again thing that was a pain in the butt. It went like this:
She did something. Something really bad. He’s pissed and goes away. She begs. He decides to forgive her. She tells him to go away (if the guy is willing to forgive you, why the hell do you tell him to go? O.o).He goes to a party with another girl. She yells at him stuff about moving on too fast and him dumping her for the ‘promiscuous’ girl [I say promiscuous to make it sound nicer] (whaaaaat? She dumped Him. Then he begs her again. She pushes him Away. Tells him she hates him. Feels bad afterwards. And blah blah.
There where WAY to many of this episodes and I was LITERALLY rolling my eyes by the end. And it was so much time that passed after they broke up, she says so herself, more than 100 days! It was somewhere around 5 months. So It also seemed unreal that they weren't moving past this, it's like 'Dude, Move On!!!' I was seriously – practically begging – for the book to end with both of them going their separate ways.
Another thing was the families. Ben’s mom was a bitch! And not once does he confront her. And also Quinn’s dad is a bitch! He’s sleeping with their neighbor! And her mom is crazy – literary. She has problems with them but she also never actually confronts them. In one chapter her dad is being pushy and she takes out the your-cheating-on-my-mom card. But that’s all, no sorting things out, just a check mate.
Being Scared is one thing, scared to fall in love, to confront someone and to just live your life. It is a whole other thing to be weak, which was what I got form Quinn :/
It had some good points, because she learns some valuable lessons, and by the end it seems that she finally got it, and even though a thousand Here We Go Again episodes happened, I was ready to see her come to her senses and talk to Ben. And when she’s at his house, she suddenly says:
“Never mind, it was stupid of me to come.”
Oh. Dear. God. Kill Me.
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She threw everything she had learned, all the things she went through during the book directly to the trash with that line. All I wanted to do was grab the book and hit my forehead against it! If it wasn’t because there were 2 pages left I wouldn’t have continued reading it.
I’m not a girl that likes Here We Go Again relationships – been there – and I sort of can’t stand people who feel sorry for themselves, I get it, you get down sometimes – done that – but you get UP again. And the same goes to Quinn, she went through a lot of stuff, but you have got to move on.
So I’m giving it 2 stars. More like 2.5. Which means that it was OK. It had its meaning, but it just didn’t work nearly as well as I hoped. More than that I feel crushed, I wanted so bad to love it
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If you can stand way to many Here We Go Again episodes then this book is for you.
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