opheliapo's reviews
345 reviews

Maybe this book just wasn't written for someone like me (or maybe it wasn't written for anybody because I've seen a lot of very negative reviews from Indian women about the inaccuracy of the subject matter).
I thought the writing style was pretty in an 'I'm going to be nominated for a book award' kind of way, and I enjoyed that Avni Doshi was willing to be gritty and gross about the realities of her situation. Other than that, I thought this book was just too surface-level to be interesting. For a character driven book, by the end I didn't feel that I really knew the protagonist at all, just a log of all of the events in her life. The plot was also incredibly linear, even though it was mainly told in retrospect, and I think it would have really benefited from some more refined plotting. Toward the end I thought Doshi was going to pull out a Han Kang and etherealise the narrative in a really satisfying way, but instead it felt like she just ran out of things to say.

There's nothing more frustrating than a book that could have been brilliant.
I liked a lot of the techniques he applied, and if the author had just dug a little deeper and peeled back humanity like it seemed he wanted to, I really could have seen this becoming a new favourite.

YOU CAN’T HAVE A CHARACTER BE ALMOST RAPED AND THEN IMMEDIATELY WANT TO BANG THE PROTAGONIST!!!
And as someone whose embarrassing guilty pleasure is westernised samurai media, even I had to cringe at some of these passages.

Just wanna clarify that my rating does not have anything to do with my opinions on Obama as a politician.

Today I learned that the politicians of America love nothing more than to willingly stick their feet into other people’s toilets and then complain that their shoes stink.
I picked up this book hoping to learn more about Obama’s political philosophy and how it has adapted and changed since he was in office, but instead I got a linear blow-by-blow of his first term as president; a good-natured, but overly diplomatic leader (to the glee of the republicans). It really exposed how much American politics is akin to a popularity contest between a bunch of celebrities, and unfortunately exposed Obama, as he appears to the general public, as a fabricated persona of hope, that cannot always reflect the realities of leading one of the largest nations in the world. I do like Obama, as a person. He seems exceptionally grounded, intelligent, and genuinely has done his best to improve the country in a manner that puts its people at the forefront. That didn’t stop the repeated sentiment of ‘America, richest country in the world = America, best country in the world’ that was present throughout the book, but I guess that comes along with the good Christian value of patriotism.
I finished my reading with the frustrated feeling of trying to get the scope of a room by looking through a keyhole; even if that keyhole has been installed by a man you have a great deal of respect for. There simply is no scope for a look into American politics from one man’s perspective (though, that isn’t really Obama’s fault).
My favourite part of the book was when Obama (and I guess his editors) was writing about LGBTQ+ rights and (accidentally, I’m sure) refers to us as ‘the gays’. I’m not mad, it genuinely made me laugh!

The concept of this book? Phenomenal. The execution? Pretty crude.

I tend to rate YA a little differently from adult because I know that I’m not the target audience and that there are certain tropes and themes that are more acceptable. YA nowadays is more of a fun romp for me, and a palette cleanser, not that there aren’t exceptions.
This book seemed like loads of fun, I really liked the concept and the plot kept me entertained until the end. There was great representation and none of it felt forced, and for a book that never dropped pace Bayron managed to stay immersed in her world.
Unfortunately, the heavy-handedness of the themes presented in the book were so clumsily executed that I laughed out loud a number of times during scenes that were definitely not intended to be amusing. Ham-fisted is an understatement; at times it felt like reading one of those ‘I programmed an AI to read thousands of twitter posts about feminism and this is what it came up with’ stories.
To give you an idea, there is a scene in which the (evil) king is giving a (evil) speech and stops to approach a random girl in the crowd to tell her that she should ‘smile more. you look prettier when you smile.’ KILL ME.
All of the ‘evil’ characters were comically sexist, and although I wasn’t expecting a particularly nuanced discussion of gender politics in this book for teens, it felt insultingly like Kalynn Bayron was trying to appeal to somebody who has literally never heard the word sexism before. Even as a teen, especially one born in this technological era, I think I would have been a little ticked off at the way that this was written.

First time reading this for my Scottish Lit course. Honestly really looking forward to finding out more about the context of the book, because I’m so uncertain whether I really loved or I really hated it.

I would’ve really enjoyed this if it weren’t for the following:
- Addie has literally sold her soul to see the world and has all of time to explore it, and she spends 300 years in the aesthetic parts of Europe and the USA only (there’s never even a hint that she travels beyond the western world), sleeping with pretty nondescript artists and writers. Her character never develops drastically, which doesn’t ring true to life, especially considering she can apparently remember everything she did since being cursed perfectly.
- Henry was a drip. ‘Oh, but he was depressed!’ yah, one can be self serving, juvenile, and depressed all at the same time. I had very little sympathy for him.
All Henry do is cry about breakup from woman with no redeeming qualities, cry about perfect job in New York bookshop, and cry about amazing friends.
- The writing was pretty but sometimes it felt like Schwab was laying it on a bit thick, and the plot and characters felt like the product of an aged up YA novel.
- The bathroom plothole??? Like I can’t believe I haven’t seen a single review about this! How can a woman who is forgotten as soon as someone leaves the room spend 300 years schmoozing men in bars without them once getting up to use the bathroom?? Has V. E. Schwab ever been to a bar? People are pissing all the time!!

First time reading for Scottish Lit 1A.
I liked what Jackie Kay was trying to do with this novel, I’m just not certain she had the tools to do it.
Also MASSIVE tw for transphobia, holy fuck (this isn’t a criticism, it was an important part of the narrative).

This was the first novel I ever read, back in 2003 :’)
I am utterly full of nostalgia.