sara_berlin's reviews
270 reviews

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I love how Alice Oseman really understands the culture of fandom (probably because she has participated in and been the subject of it) and how teenagers behave, all of which really shines here. I was obsessed with the characters and related so hard with what both Angel and Jimmy were going through (even though I’m not a worldwide celebrity), and I was really touched. Also I didn’t feel like there were any explicit references to a specific boy band, even though they did remind me a little of One Direction.
It’s like If This Gets Out by Cale Dietrich and Sophie Gonzales but focused more on the fans, which I think is both more realistic and more relatable to most readers of this book.
Serendipity: Ten Romantic Tropes, Transformed by Marissa Meyer

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Bye Bye, Piper Berry (The Fake Relationship) by Julie Murphy - 3.75/5
Anyone Else But You (Stranded Together) by Leah Johnson - 4.5/5
The Idiom Algorithm (Class Warfare) by Abigail Hing Wen - 4/5
Auld Acquaintance (The Best Friend Love Epiphany) by Caleb Roehrig - 5/5
Shooting Stars (One Bed) by Marissa Meyer - 4/5
Keagan’s Heaven On Earth (The Secret Admirer) by Sarah Winifred Searle - 4.5/5
Zora In The Spotlight (The Grand Romantic Gesture) by Elise Bryant - 5/5
In A Blink Of The Eye (Trapped in a Confined Space) by Elizabeth Eulberg - 5/5
Liberty (The Makeover) by Anna-Marie McLemore - 5/5
The Surprise Match (The Matchmaker) by Sandhya Menon - 5/5

Total Average Rating: 4.75/5 

I think this collection really demonstrated to me that writers of young adult books are better suited to writing engaging stories when they have time to flesh out the characters and all the fun dialogue and side plots, and that really helps make the story what it is, unlike here where it all seemed a little rushed and there just wasn’t enough build up for me. However, for what it is, I think they did a pretty good job, and there’s really no good way to fit all those elements I mentioned into a short story.
Also, maybe this is silly, but I wish it was a less romance-focused romance short story collection, and more about the casual kinds of love that pop up in unexpected, yet mundane, places instead of crazy situations or years-long feuds or grand gestures. There were a few of those but I guess the other style just isn’t for me, especially for a short story format like I said. If it’s going to be dramatic, I need it to drag on for a whole book, or else what’s the fun in that. I do appreciate that each author seems to have been given the opportunity to have a prompt and fly with it.
Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Bi the Way: The Bisexual Guide to Life by Lois Shearing

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 28%.
I mostly picked this up just because of the title. I think it’s a little too beginner level for where I am, at least as far as I read, and combined with the writing style/formatting it just wasn’t for me. It was a little interesting to see what kind of actual research has been done, so I might pick it up again, but it’s unlikely. 
Gemina by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

I’ll be honest, the second and third books kinda bled together in my mind so I don’t have much to say. It wasn’t as existential as Illuminae, but I did like the commentary on people not being all good or bad or just generally one thing.
Obsidio by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

If the first book was an exploration of AI and what would happen, and the second book was a meditation on morality and what makes someone a good or bad person, then this last, grand finale linked it all together to paint a portrait of war and what it does to people, and that it is most definitely not black and white. This whole trilogy is about what desperate people in desperate circumstances do, whether that’s being stuck on a frozen rock or having to rely on a (previously) murderous AI to save the Universe. The one thing I was kind of craving more of was Leanne Frobisher’s story, I was a little confused about how she got the point that she did, but maybe that’s addressed in the novella. All in all, I think it achieved the aim of creating a wide spanning, multi-character and multi-media picture of what death and life in a technologically advanced world would look like, and it was scary, but it also made me feel hope for the future. 
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’m white, so I realize that I am not the target audience, for once. However, I still really admire Akwaeke’s work and beautiful words, even if it’s from a distance, and I think it’s definitely unique that they are able to share these sensations and perceptions of self with the rest of us with such evocative words and writing.  Despite my race and (relative) lack of spirituality and connection to these senses, I still find something very deeply touching and understanding in their storytelling. All this to say, I felt very lucky to be able to have read this.
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Honestly, I went into this with a synopsis, the faint recollection of positive reviews, and one person who said “oh that was really good” and didn’t elaborate further. None of that prepared me for just how undone reading this would make me. I liked the explorations of a variety of difficult topics, and just so much was unexpected. Extremely well written too; I’ve had trouble getting fully into written stories lately, but this properly sucked me in and I completely blocked out the outside world while reading it. A strange escape, but an escape nonetheless. 
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

And yet again, I am faced with the conflict of reviewing a memoir, but rather than try to asses someone’s life story and how worthy it is of being told, which is absurd, I’ll instead focus on the writing. McCurdy writes in a plainly direct way that perfectly conveys her perspective at whatever time period the book is currently retelling, and yet doesn’t take away from any of the emotion or reflection that she felt at the time and feels now looking back on it. It’s very emotional and raw and purely human; there’s a reason this resonated with so many people and why she chose to write it.