for starters, you would not believe how many quotations there are in this book. it’s giving when you would fthis may sound juicy, but don't be fooled.
for starters, you would not believe how many quotations there are in this book. it’s giving when you would finish an essay but be wildly short of word count and just perform in text citations like a madman till you got there.
this unfortunately also means that most of the very interesting ideas here are other people’s.
this is like reading a book-length version of one of those essays in The Cut where the whole time you’re just thinking “how did the editor convince a human being to publish this.” except it's fictional (or is it?) so in that way it's guilt free.
there's something about it that feels alarmingly self-insert, like writing justin bieber fan fiction in which he falls in love with a girl with your hair color who goes to your school.
bottom line: i had a hard time putting this book down, but i also had a hard time enjoying it.
this reminded me why i love them! it's a fun, fluffy, summery romance with lots of character development and quirky dmy first love: ya contemporaries.
this reminded me why i love them! it's a fun, fluffy, summery romance with lots of character development and quirky dialogue.
at the beginning, i wasn't sure i would like this book. it was an immediate lurch into a high-energy, inconsistency-riddled world of carnival-like birthday parties for rich and famous teenage influencers and strict families of prodigy children run like circuses by doctors with very hyphenated last names.
but then we went off to camp and everything chilled out.
i love seasonally immersive books, whether they be autumnal halloween-y stories or cozy christmassy tales or summery s'mores-y fluffballs like this one.
this is a book about a family nail salon sabotaging the chain that opens up across the street.
as someone who is a fan of both pranks and supporting smthis is a book about a family nail salon sabotaging the chain that opens up across the street.
as someone who is a fan of both pranks and supporting small business, i just hope the happy ending does not involve learning some kind of lesson about how crime is bad.
worse, it's not really about sabotage at all — more about kind of upsetting hijinks and financial errors committed by a family trying their best.
it aims for a lot, like separate plotlines and happily ever afters for each of the 5 family members we follow and themes of gentrification, family, immigration, community, and success.
as you can imagine it didn't quite stick the landing on everything.
but it wasn't a bad read, and it made me really hungry for vietnamese food. that's good enough in my book.
if feeling like i have to read at least one book by every popular author is wrong, i don't want to be rightif feeling like i have to read at least one book by every popular author is wrong, i don't want to be right...more
i'm sorry but if you turn my teenage favorite books into graphic novels i am going to read them.
the ending feels a lot more abrupt in this version, toi'm sorry but if you turn my teenage favorite books into graphic novels i am going to read them.
the ending feels a lot more abrupt in this version, to the extent that i ignored where it said "the end" and "volume 4/4" in the ebook and ignored where it says "the heartwarming final installment" in the synopsis and clicked on the series title to try to add the 5th volume to my tbr.
fangirl is my comfort book in some ways, but it's also my problematic fav: i don't like the simon snow parts, or the part where she submits fanfiction as an assignment, or the unresolved familial issues (more so here).
i love the anxiety representation (so #me) and the yearning (best part of romances).
neither to be found in here, so this was meh for me!
bottom line: i'll always have a soft spot for the original...but not for the adaptations....more
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their rellike a reverse irish exit?
anyway.
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their relationships: inexplicable. the plot: filled with years-long gaps to the point of being incomprehensible.
but the writing itself? the dialogue? the little jokes? excellent.
the other thing to know is that it is very weird. it's a white woman who was once a backup singer in a Black group and can't get over it. that's not much to carry us through 250 pages and it never feels any more normal.
maybe it was a different time.
bottom line: sometimes books are forgotten for a reason.
i expected this to be a sarcastic dry funny edgy book. instead it is a kind sweet corny kinda cringey occasionally funny booemails never find me well.
i expected this to be a sarcastic dry funny edgy book. instead it is a kind sweet corny kinda cringey occasionally funny book. and it turns out i'll take that trade!
i caught myself teary eyed (?!) at the nice moments at the end of this, and even if it felt unrealistic and a bit much in parts, it's also the book kind of therapy where everything starts bad and then ends magically. so i'll take it.
