Oh before that, assalamualaikum to my readers. If I have any.
OK, back to this post. This is not the first time I'm doing this. I remember back in high school where I finished one book in 3 days a week before my SPM trial and another book in 2 days a week before SPM and mind you, they were heavy stuff. Dan Brown heavy.
But this book, I actually bought a few months ago out of pure curiousity and I'm not going to lie - because of the cover page. It was so girlish and cute that I just had to pick it up. Instead of waiting for the Big Bad Wolf sale, I paid RM 35 for it. So immediately after I bought the book, I read a few chapters for 2 days and then I completely stopped due to a forgettable reason. Probably because I didn't have to study back then.
The first few chapters were OK. Like any other YA books you might have read. I'm not an expert when it comes to writing but I personally feel that this book didn't have a proper storyline.
It was basically just a girl who had problems at home because her mum left her, her twin sister and her father. The abandonment took a huge toll on all of them as her father had a few cases of manic relapses, her sister took up heavy under age drinking and her being a bit antisocial.
So this afternoon as I was studying for my finals, I picked up this book and continue from where I had left off and I couldn't stop reading because I was interested in knowing what happened next to all of the characters Rowell had introduced and I had learned to love and whether or not Cath (the protagonist) will ever sell her first book (she's an English major and her fiction-writing professor's pet).
Unfortunately, I didn't get what I wanted.
They were so many questions left unanswered. So many that I began to feel that Rowell purposely did this to me because she might want me to conclude them on my own which I find very cruel and heart-wrenching.
Here are a few things I feel that Rowell should have clarified or at least attempted to and the things I don't like about this book:
1) I hate the fanfiction/book about Baz and Simon. Oh God, it's so similar to Harry Potter that I feel like it's just a sad ripped off from the mega saga. I personally think that it's a lazy example of a fiction to put in a book. At least make it not so predictable like a fallen angel or a werewolf or even if you have to put in a wizard, make it about a girl instead. I skipped most of the fanfiction/book sections of the book.
2) Can we just take a moment and realized that a huge part of this book was about Cath's family issues regarding her walk-out mother but it was poorly explored. Laura (the mother) left them when they were really young and I could totally see her as a bitch and suddenly wanted to reconnect with them which was kinda nice but again almost at the end of the book disappeared. There was no coherent message to her disappearance, appearance and re-disappearance. I feel like it's not necessary to put her appearance in the book just to tell the readers that she didn't want to stay but she was just checking up on them. Which was weird. I'd feel a lot better if she appear and then disappear in a way that would hurt them more, because that'd make more sense on not just disappear but still become friends with one of her daughters on Facebook. It's just weird that the family's misery is not exploited deep enough and it's sad that there were no values that could be taken out of this because Laura was not given a backbone in this story other than being a selfish bitch.
3) Wren had alcohol poisoning and she fought with her best friend Courtney due to unknown reasons. I feel like Rowell owed Wren a few explanations on what happened to her and Courtney and why did she let herself get wasted all the time. There were no concrete reasons to her behaviour. I assume she was just experimenting as a new college student but that just sounds vapid and I hate to think that Wren is vapid because she didn't sound like one. A brat, maybe, but not vapid.
4) They were be a lot of almost sex scenes of Cath and Levi that were so awkward to read and didn't feel natural or human.
5) There was no distinct flow of the story. No beginning, no ending, no climax. I'M UTTERLY CONFUSED BY THE PLATEAU STATE OF THIS BOOK.
6) Why didn't that bastard Nick get kicked in the balls by Levi? or Wren? or better yet, Reagan?!!!
7) I wish I could read more of Cath's final project "Left" instead of just a short insignificant snippet of it.
OK, I'm done. I think I trashed this book miserably. I did love the characters though. I think they were perfect for the story. Just not well developed. I give this book 4/10.
I heard great reviews from her previous book Eleanor and Park which I'm definitely going to give it a read. Hopefully it's different from this one.
*sigh
Where are all the good books at?!
Signing off,
Yours truly.
