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3.27 AVERAGE
3.27 AVERAGE
I LOVED this book! I’m not really a fandom type person, but these characters sucked me right in. I love the setup of the story being told through blog posts and comments, emails, and texts. There is very little backstory on the sections that happen beyond the technology, so there’s a lot of room for the reader to get involved in the story.
OH. MY. GOD. THIS. BOOK!! It gave me so many feelings!
beautifully written, extremely relatable and fun! Also, so extremely sad! I couldn't put it down!
beautifully written, extremely relatable and fun! Also, so extremely sad! I couldn't put it down!
Was a reread of a book I adored in high school so I recognize my bias (although - last time I read this I was Gena, and now I am Finn, which made it hit super different) but this is one of the best books About The Internet that I've ever read, not to mention one of the most tender queer coming of age stories ever written
3.5 stars. This was a book written for my soul, which was painfully true to my experiences of online fandom and deep, complicated relationships that defy labels. The epistolary format felt forced at times, and there's a sucker punch about halfway through that pushes the book into a different genre imo, but it's still an enjoyable read.
I enjoyed this muchly. It starts off sort of like fan fiction about fandom, which made me a little skeptical at first. The plot takes a hard left at the 2/3rds mark which literally (à la Chris Traeger) made me gasp. In the aftermath of that turn, there are some beautiful passages of writing that I will hold on to for a while.
Pretty okay until about three-quarters of the way through when it became a hot mess. Honestly was like watching a train wreck whoops
I thought I outgrew contemporary YA, but then this book unexpectedly came along and it was the kind of book you read in one sitting and where you want everyone around you to shut up and leave you alone so you can go back to reading it, it was that kind of compulsively readable. It went in a completely different direction than I was expecting in the third half, but very nice characters and relationship dynamics and excellent dialogue and voice (which is super important when it's a novel wholly made up of emails/chat/blog posts like this one).
Read as part of the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2020, to fill 34) A book you meant to read in 2019.
Solid 4.5, close enough to a 5 that I felt comfortable rounding up rather than down. I really enjoyed this book. As someone with a lot of experience within fandom spaces, and especially with friendships that form as a result of those experiences, this was super relatable without being overly cliche.
I liked that both main characters had clear, distinct voices, and that it felt believable in the epistolary format. Too often, epistolary novels involve a lot of blatant recapping of events in letter form, and I found a refreshing lack of that in this. It broke my heart a little and I found myself wanting more from the relationships in the text, but overall, this is a very well-written encapsulation of what the pacing of fandom friendships can be like.
Solid 4.5, close enough to a 5 that I felt comfortable rounding up rather than down. I really enjoyed this book. As someone with a lot of experience within fandom spaces, and especially with friendships that form as a result of those experiences, this was super relatable without being overly cliche.
I liked that both main characters had clear, distinct voices, and that it felt believable in the epistolary format. Too often, epistolary novels involve a lot of blatant recapping of events in letter form, and I found a refreshing lack of that in this. It broke my heart a little and I found myself wanting more from the relationships in the text, but overall, this is a very well-written encapsulation of what the pacing of fandom friendships can be like.
There are lots of people who are really connecting to this story and enjoying it and relating to it and ... I'm not one of them. The style of telling a story through emails, chats, etc., isn't my favorite, and I'm not hardcore into any fandom like the characters are. That being said, I think this book will resonate with more than a few readers, and for that I'm grateful.
I received a free ebook copy of this from NetGalley for the purpose of review.
Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling this one. By about a third of the way through I was asking, "do I want to bother finishing this?" And took that as a very bad sign and decided to put it down.
Mostly it was the portrayal of fandom. It wasn't inaccurate, exactly... but no offence, the first third had a lot of the type of fangirling that gets old after a while. Or maybe it was just a bit too much capslock for my tastes.
Either way: I didn't hate it, but I wasn't liking it enough to bother to go on. To each their own; it isn't to mine.
Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling this one. By about a third of the way through I was asking, "do I want to bother finishing this?" And took that as a very bad sign and decided to put it down.
Mostly it was the portrayal of fandom. It wasn't inaccurate, exactly... but no offence, the first third had a lot of the type of fangirling that gets old after a while. Or maybe it was just a bit too much capslock for my tastes.
Either way: I didn't hate it, but I wasn't liking it enough to bother to go on. To each their own; it isn't to mine.