Review: Scarlett Epstein Hates it Here - Anna Breslaw

Scarlett Epstein Hates it Here
Anna Breslaw
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Razorbill
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

Guys. I was so excited to read this book. Before its release, it seemed to be popping up on everyone's TBR's (Kiersten even featured it in a Waiting on Wednesday post) and I heard tons of good things so I was intrigued. A fanfiction-writing girl who starts writing about her classmates in the wake of her favorite show's cancellation? Count me in!

Unfortunately, it just didn't deliver. I tried hard to be forgiving, to remember this is how some 16/17 year olds are, to pore through the pages of 5-star reviews on Goodreads, wondering why I was one of the three people who felt differently. It was to no avail, as my opinions remain the same.

The book is told in Scarlett's point of view, and reads like an inner monologue or a journal entry. Something I realized early on was that I really did not like Scarlett as a person. Usually, I don't need to like a character to like a book. Sometimes, I love a book even more if the protagonist is awful (not the kind of awful where you lowkey like them but when they're just a bad person used as a vehicle to tell the story). Like, Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books, but no one can deny that Holden Caulfield is a little shit and totally full of it; that doesn't stop me from liking the book. This time, though, I couldn't stand Scarlett or her inner monologue narration and because the book was so entrenched in her and her decisions and her thoughts, it definitely made the whole thing less enjoyable.

She's a junior in high school, so that puts her at around 16/17, but the book reads like the voice of maybe a 13-15 year old. I was reminded of the times I look back on my obnoxious high school underclassman days and cringe at how annoying I was. I didn't expect her to be super mature and self-actualized or anything, but I think she definitely should have been a smidge more grown-up as a human.

I think I realized about five pages in that I wasn't going to like her character when she started going on about her lunch table -- the Girl Geniuses, a group she herself isn't a part of, but is allowed to sit with because her best friend (and her only real life friend) is. She says all this negative stuff about them, like how "it's uncomfortable seeing people try that hard" and making fun of this girl's crazy eyes and her 4.0 GPA. She actually tried to be condescending about how some girl had a perfect GPA, compared to Scarlett's own 2.9. It all just felt very weird because her best friend Avery is in this group too -- she is one of these overachievers, one of these people who "run on Adderall and fear." Also, she talks about how no one understands her except her internet friends and her only solace is fanfiction but if she got off her high horse and stopped judging everyone else people would probably talk to her.

And she doesn't just hate on the Girl Geniuses for being smart and having good grades, she hates on literally everyone. She judges her mom for reading popular novels like Jodi Picoult books and Eat Pray Love and for watching rom coms like Bridges Jones's Diary (one of the best rom coms honestly). She freaking says "I'm Anne Hathaway and she's Jennifer Lawrence!" when she can't figure out why a boy likes another girl more than he likes her. She explains that Anne Hathaway is unapologetically herself and people think she's abrasive and don't like her (for the record, I've never heard anyone say anything negative about Anne Hathaway) while Jennifer Lawrence is fake awkward and her PR team tells her to trip and fall and be "real" so people like her because it's manufactured, and so obviously Scarlett is Anne Hathaway and the other girl is JLaw. She makes some comment about something being "the most destructive force for women's body image since Barbie" which is less "judgey" and more Trying Too Hard to Be Relevant (also I'm not trying to start an argument but I don't think Barbie is the most destructive thing like there have been worse you could have picked a better example). On the same note of trying too hard to sounds relevant and feminist and stuff, Scarlett makes a comment about how she doesn't buy bras that fit because of the patriarchy. Like, Im 100% a feminist, but I would not blame the patriarchy because I didn't know how to buy a bra. Check yourself, dude.

I know I've been ranting for the entire length of this review about why Scarlett is not a good character and I haven't talked about anything else, but it's 60% because I have a lot to say about her and 40% because not a lot happens in this book and it's all Scarlett's inner monologue so that is what I am working with. I'm gonna switch gears and talk about what does happen and then go back to hate. As you know, she starts writing fanfiction about people she knows from school because she doesn't actually know how to write original characters (side note: I don't know why she couldn't write about the show even when it ended. Harry Potter ended and I still read James/Lily fanfiction and they were barely in the books). Of course, she doesn't change anyone's names because she's an idiot, and it doesn't end well for her.

The book took forever for anything to actually happen. It was ~200 pages of Scarlett talking about stuff, and then in the last 80 pages, there's a Sad Thing, a Romantic Resolution, a Confrontation With Mean Girl She Wrote About, and the whole fact that she wrote about people from her school kinda just fades away. It was really disappointing.

I also thought not all the characters were fleshed out. Scarlett clearly was, I just didn't like her. Her best friend Avery, though, didn't seem to have much personality. She didn't serve any purpose other than a best friend role, and all we knew about her was that she was smart and by the end had a boyfriend. Gideon, her own love interest, was a little better, and we knew he liked comedy and was rich, but they always just talked about being misfits and liking comedy and writing when they were together. It didn't get much deeper. The two best characters were Ruth and Dawn, and Ruth isn't even in the whole book. Ruth is her 73 year old neighbor who she befriends because she's ~quirky~ but she's really cool and definitely made the book palatable. Dawn is her mom, who she calls by her first name for a reason that we don't know. It's not because they aren't close, because it seems like they are. It's not because she's too cool for that, because the coolest mom in the world, Lorelai Gilmore, even has her daughter call her Mom, so that can't be it. And she calls her dad "Dad." We just have to roll with it. Anyway, Dawn is funny and a little bit on the fritz and I just really liked her, she seemed sweet.

The whole book is interspersed with the fanfiction Scarlett is writing about the real life people, and while it's a little better to read than her inner monologue, it's still not great. Like, you know how Rainbow Rowell ended up writing the fanfiction from her book Fangirl into a full length novel? I doubt anyone is gonna ask Anna Breslaw to do that anytime in the near or distant future. Speaking of those fanfiction bits, every time she posts one, we see a snippet of her instant messages with her fanfiction writer friends and she gets so mad every time they don't interpret it the way she wants them to, like when they start shipping the "wrong" ships or calling her self-insert character a Mary Sue (which she literally is, that's the definition, a self-insert).

There were a few parts of the book that weren't so bad to read but those were the parts where Scarlett kept her monologue to a minimum. She was really just so sanctimonious. She said stuff about how she felt like "my entire high school experience felt like being the only one who already knows the end of a movie, when everyone else you're going with is excited to see how the movie will end. Spoiler alert: a 20 percent discount at Target" (oh yeah, she seems to think everyone who leaves her high school ends up working at a grocery store forever as if she's from small town in the midwest but she's literally in central New Jersey and as someone who lived there for 15 years I can assure you most people don't do that). Or she had some revelation about how The Great Gatsby makes Daisy look like "a flake" but from her point of view, he's a "flashy, patronizing asshole." As if everyone who ever read the book hadn't already figured that out!

And she would talk constantly about how she was just so funny but she was really not that funny. There were a few gems in the book where I admit her thoughts were pretty amusing, but for the most part she tried way too hard to put on a funny front. In one scene, she comes to the table and says "Yes, this is my cheap-ass poor person lunch," I announce when I sit down with my tray, and they laugh, like they do every time." Tell me that doesn't like a pity laugh because if you don't laugh it'll look like you're taking the "poor" thing too seriously.

By the end, I felt like she hadn't gone through enough character development. Sure, she changed a little, but she's still annoying and judgey, she just doesn't write about real people as much and found a new TV show to watch (speaking of, her wailing over the cancellation of the show seemed really melodramatic. You know how teachers tell you "show, don't tell?" It was a lot of telling us she was sad but not too much showing).

I'm sorry I've just been going on and on, and I'm sorry if you read all this. If you skimmed, the gist is: the book's pacing was way too off, Scarlett as a character was too Awful, and the book wasn't as funny or feminist as it's being lauded for being.

My opinion is clearly in the minority so I won't hold it against you if you go read it, but I saw some pitches saying it was "Amy Schumer meets Rainbow Rowell" and another saying it was "modern day Harriet the Spy" and another comparing her to Judy Blume, and I can say with certainty it's not even a little close.

- Noor

Do you read any fanfiction?

Let us know in the comments!

Double Review: A Thousand Nights - E.K. Johnston

A Thousand Nights
E.K. Johnston 
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Retelling, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Rating: Did Not Finish
Goodreads 

Thanks to Disney-Hyperion for the eARC I received via Netgalley!

I am so sad to be writing this review right now. So sad. I had really high hopes for A Thousand Nights - the cover is absolutely gorgeous, and the premise sounded really interesting. However, this one just fell flat, and for the first time ever with a book I wasn't required to read for school, I had to DNF it at 30%.

A Thousand Nights started off really strong. At the beginning of the book, I was really drawn in by the writing style - it has this folklore feeling to it that feels like magic on a page. The way Johnston sets up the story really draws the reader in and establishes the world quickly. However, after multiple chapters of this style, it started to lose its magic and felt like it was dragging along. There were moments where it seemed like something promising was going to happen, but ultimately, it mostly put me to sleep.

Basically, my feelings on this book can be summed up by the following image:

Part of me really wishes I could keep reading this - I'm intrigued by the magical elements of the plot that were set up thus far - but having just come back from not reading for several months, reading this book is kind of a chore. I'm sure there are people out there that are mesmerized by the style and continue reading, but unfortunately, it just fell flat for me.

- Kiersten

Noor's Review of A Thousand Nights
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

This book took me an entire month to read because it was just so boring. Like, when you boil it down, it was just so hard to get through because every time I thought about picking it up I would be like "or maybe I could not do that" and then I would go and do a different, more fun thing. I so desperately wanted to like it too, because I'm such a huge fan of retellings and 1001 Nights is so vast that Johnston could have done so much with it, truly. I just think it missed the mark.

I actually really liked the beginning of the book and so when I first started reading I thought it was going to be a nice, fun time. The writing style was super eloquent and kindof lilting -- it felt like the descriptions were being elegantly draped over me and I think if the prose weren't written the way it were, I couldn't have finished the book. Anyway, that's really my main positive for the book, that it's written well in terms of actual writing prowess, but I feel like Johnston spent so much time focusing on the prose that she neglected the story itself. You can't just have pretty writing for a whole book with no substance, it gets old after like 50 pages when you realize nothing is going to happen!!!

Anyway, the entire book I kept waiting for things to happen and nothing was happening. It was so stressful, honestly, because sometimes things would get teased at happening but then they wouldn't happen. Like, home girl has some magic going on in her system, right? That's not a spoiler, you know that from the back cover. And I was waiting for this facet of her being to be explored, to see what was special about her, but all I got were small little fragments. An instance of Psychic Embroidery here, a flash of sparks from her hands there. There was no exploration. The whole book felt like some kind of limbo. I wasn't sure if I was going towards a Big Important Plot Thing or if this was a relevant scene or if the "I volunteer as tribute" scene in the beginning was the biggest thing that was gonna happen -- it was a lot of waiting and very little actually happening. You could skip entire sections probably and not miss anything.

Probably 3/4 of the book had zero plot development or real content and then Relevant Things happen in like this very concentrated chunk of the end and then there's like the resolution where you tie up the ends and everything and honestly I didn't think the climax was worth suffering through the whole book for. Like it goes from 0-100 and I just was not here for that 100. It felt more like a 65 to be honest.

Also, did you notice I haven't named the protagonist in this review? That's because she has no name!! NO ONE in this book other than Lo-Melkhiin, the evil rapey demon king, has a name. At first I thought it was ~~fun and unique~~ but it got so painful to read as she kept going because she constantly wanted to wax poetic on members of her family but had no real names to call them by so you would get pages of her talking about "my father's father's father" and "my sister's mother" and "my sister's brother" and "my married brother." Imagine an entire full-length anecdote where the "hero" you're telling it about is consistently referred to as "my father's father's father." I know they apparently live in a time period where years aren't a thing and they measure age in summers so I guess language is still developing but you would think they'd have terms for grandparents???? It just got really redundant and it made the characters really unmemorable.

By the end of the book, even the writing that I found enchanting in the beginning had started to annoy me and just sounded like she was trying too hard to sound ~authentic~. Like, at one point she's talking to someone and says "I had to come at him like the wadi, with its meandering lines. I could not come at him as the sand-crow flew," and then a chapter or two before that she'd written "The wadi's path through the desert was not straight as the sand-crow flies, but it was a safer path," referring to an are about to be settled. I swear this isn't me nitpicking a redundancy or anything, but not everything has to be compared to wadis and sand-crows and sheep. It simply felt like trying too hard. (Side note: not that I'm a bird expert, or a sand-crow expert, but what kind of bird flies straight enough paths to be used as a simile for straightness?)

Anyway, I think I'm rambling at this point so some final thoughts:

• I was unsatisfied and a little uncomfortable with the ending and I didn't think it was worth plowing through so much nothing for that little bit of action (and disappointing conclusion). 
• The narrator didn't really have much personality beyond "loves her sister." 
• The pretty writing was not enough to distract from the fact that there was no real content. 
• There are so many ways to draw from 1001 Nights and I think it didn't deliver on the way it attempted.
• The cover is still pretty and I still appreciate it.

- Noor

Have you wrongly judged a book by its cover?

Let us know in the comments!

Review: Tape - Steven Camden

Tape
Steven Camden
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

I picked up Tape as an ARC at BEA 2014, which was almost a year ago so it hasn't been an ARC since it's publication in September, which is why it fulfilled the requirement to be chosen as "an old ARC you never got to" for my January pick from my TBR Jar. Yes, I know it's April. I know I'm behind. Judge me all you want, this is the most stressed I've ever been in my life and now I have to deal with looking for internships and moving and -- okay, I'm going to save the ranting about my life for Life of a Blogger posts.

Anyway, you might recognize this title from Amrutha's Stuffed Animal Saturday at the end of January. Looking back at that post, the book seemed so much more promising than it turned out to be, but that post was just also hilariously off the mark. I suppose you can't blame her, she is a simple dolphin after all. *cue someone telling me that dolphins are smarter than humans and the word simple is offensive*

Okay, we're getting off track here (okay, I'm getting off track here), there is a two star rating that needs to be addressed. This book could have been so much. Just look at that cover. It's beautiful enough to be my February TBR (read a book solely judging by its cover). And the blurb promises a story of "two teenagers separated by time but infinitely connected." A story that "to really get it, you just have to read it." Well, I read it, and there are parts I still don't get.

Like the tape itself. For some background, Ryan and Ameliah are our two main characters and the story alternates between their storylines, Ryan's in the 90's, Ameliah's in the present day. Ameliah has found, in her attic, a stash of old audio tapes, many of which are static, but some of which relay the voice of a boy sometimes saying her mom's name and telling her stories. Ryan, meanwhile, is often found recording tapes for his mom, but also sometimes for other purposes. There comes a point in which they both say something into their respective cassette playing devices and they end up being able to hear the other. Woah, weird, right? Twenty year gap, but this is happening, and I can totally roll with it because hey this is a book, and books have magic or science fiction or weird happenings all the time. Except it literally never happens again until the like the last two pages and it's never addressed and it doesn't have any bearing on the plot whatsoever. And the entire rest of this book is set in reality with no magic or time travel or anything that isn't realistic fiction and it just irritates me so much that there are these three pages in the whole book that have these useless scenes that I could honestly rip out and nothing would be lost upon the next reader (I won't do that I can't damage books it's against my moral code). What was the purpose of that????? If you were going to make that a thing, why didn't they talk to each other regularly, or find out some deep intricate plot secrets from one another, or I don't know, this could have gone so many ways. Honestly, it should have just been taken out, it seemed thrown in as an afterthought but it so clearly wasn't.

However, that's not my only issue with the book. The beginning was just so hard to get through. And by beginning I mean like the first half. I keep saying it took me so long to read it because I haven't had time but I think it's also very much because even when I did have time this book was so dry that after a few pages I would just put it down and do something else. The writing was just so monotonous and boring and everything was described in weird ways. It wasn't too detailed or anything, it just wasn't memorable writing, I honestly can't remember anything except for the fact that he overused the phrase "he/she puffed out his/her" cheeks" way too much and started to bother me so much I would get genuinely angry when I saw it. What does that even mean? I tried puffing out my cheeks and it does not express any of the emotions the characters are showing when they are doing that, which is every emotion because he uses it when they're confused, frustrated, happy, sad, upset, curious, thinking, talking, deliberating, anything really. I tried reconciling it in my head by imagining them like blowing air out their mouths but kindof through their cheeks if you can picture that but that connotes frustration so it wasn't applicable everywhere but it got me through.

Anyway, the first half was spent mostly just introducing the characters and talking about their lives and it was honestly just, like I already mentioned, dry and not fun to read, and I could feel myself waiting for the stories to connect so I could find something to be interested in or at least want to follow. I don't know why it took so long, there are only like three and a half characters probably. But so much time was spent on irrelevant things and it felt like it moved so slow and nothing really happened. By the time things picked up, I had already figured out the big reveal (it wasn't hard you probably already know) and even the twist at the end with Joe wasn't hard considering there were one of two possibilities for him.

The characters for the most part felt dull but they had their moments (not enough moments to warrant more than two stars). Ryan and Eve felt kinda insta-love but it wasn't too too bad where I'd harp on it like I can see where it can also be kinda "13 year old boy sees 13 year old girl and they think the other is cute and then they talk and they're like wow we are in love" because that's how kids are I just remember 13 year olds being not very forthright about this stuff but what do I know I'm like an old lady (no I'm not I'm 12) and also it's a book who cares. You know who was definitely insta-love? This might be a spoiler, so like, avert your eyes? Ameliah and that supermarket boy. What was that? So cheesy and lame and I'm all for cheesy and lame all the time. Spoiler over by the way. Anyway, speaking of Ameliah, she felt like a shell of a character, and so did Heather, like they both had stock personalities with nothing built upon that. Those aren't characters I enjoy reading. Ryan and Nathan were pretty cliched as well and their development happened too abruptly but I liked that it happened and I liked their stories more than Ameliah's up until the end when she started learning about what happened. Overall, the book was kindof a mess and there are definitely more things I could pick on but if this gets too long no one will read it.

Also, the last thing I want to comment on is I suppose a personal problem but I just really did not like the formatting of the book at all. My biggest problem was that none of the dialogue (which, by the way, was dry and boring and forced) was in quotes! Instead, there were just em dashes ( -- ) used to signify someone was speaking but there was no "he said" or "she said" or like labeling or person talking so you just had to figure out who was talking and sometimes in a conversation someone got two em dashes in a row or three and it was just???????? Also, more minor than that, I didn't like the typeface chosen for neither Ryan nor Ameliah's parts and I didn't like how they looked next to each other. I thought they very much clashed. Like this book did with my brain.

- Noor
 

Amrutha's Review of Tape

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Stars

If any of you read my stuffed animal saturday (linked above) this past January and accidentally purchased this book based on my analysis of the first three pages, I AM SO SORRY. Again, like many books, it sadly has only a nice cover and very little else to offer. I also got this book at BEA 2014 and like Noor school and classes and internships and things are literally the realest struggle. 

Okay so it has been well established that one of my least favorite things are static characters, which Noor touched upon above. Our homegirl Ameliah literally has the most static stock personality of all time, and none of the supporting characters are much better. Like actually, from the blurb if nothing else, I expected some quirky traits to signify the difference in time but no not even that was given to us. Again, S I G H. Also there is instalove which happens with both the main characters (Ameliah and Ryan) on two different occasions so like ???????? if it /absolutely/ has to happen once I guesssss that's maybe understandable (not really but better than doing it twice). 

Okay so like even if we ignore all of my preferences about books and characters such as non-stereotypical/cliched/static characters and instalove and really awkward mushy I-tried-to-sound-like-a-middle-schooler-in-love-but-failed language, we literally cannot ignore the plot. First things first, the tape was like almost completely irrelevant to the story, which Noor touched on above. Honestly if the book wasn't named tape they could have easily changed this any which way and had the plot really not deviate from where it already is at all -- this should be a sign that the book in question cannot be good, because changing the (what is implied to be) central plot point of the story and still having the same story is just ???????no. 

Because of this, the actual story was a little annoying to follow because I have no idea how this tape playing at the same time worked -- because everything else was so realistic I was like ????? is just just magic should I just accept this or will there be more and just overall it was just really poorly explained. If there is going to be a magic aspect to the book at least explain it, and also that might have made the tape part a little more necessary to the plot. 

Also, Noor said this, but the layout of the book was just kind of ugly for me, in that there are no quotes but dashes instead, making it really hard for me to read through and know who was talking at all times. Also the dual point of view was a little awk in this just because it'd be one chapter with two points of view and sometimes I'd forget who we had switched to and the lack of quotes and indication of who's talking did not help. 

All in all, good cover, but I vote no on the plot. 

P.S. Tape is super predictable like super super predictable like I'm almost 100% sure you guessed what the connection between Ryan and Ameliah is from the blurb or review or the first part of the book. 

Have you ever made anyone a mix tape?
Let us know in the comments!

Review: Wait For You - J. Lynn

Wait For You
J. Lynn
Series: Wait For You, #1
Genre: New Adult, Romance
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars
Word Rating: Vomit Inducing
On Goodreads

As a diehard romantic, I am always excited by the prospect of a cheesy, wonderfully sappy, lovey-dovey novel. Regretfully, Wait for You was disappointing in every aspect. This book was, in simplest terms, cringe worthy. My copy of Wait for You was an uncorrected proof from Book Expo America, which I borrowed from Kiersten because “it looks good!”

Unfortunately, I was very very (I cannot stress the “very”s enough) wrong about this. The book contained b-e-a-u-tiful gems such as: “My tummy tumbled.” The main character, Avery Morgansten is skittish and terribly annoying. As aptly said by the blurb, she wants to forget the tragedy that changed her life (I’ll be italicizing words that emphasize said tragedy, because J. Lynn felt that was necessary to foreshadow). I promise you, dear reader, you do not need the italics – instead, within the first 20 pages what the tragedy is will come to you (Trust me. You’ll know. It’s that obvious).

But let us forgive this predictability.

Let us talk about the characters. We have Avery, who is changed by the tragedy, and because of this, she is so very different. But oh no! Not to worry! Just because her personality is such that she is completely antisocial (albeit, for good reason), a great, handsome, funny, caring, charismatic, and completely perfect boy falls in love with her. W H O A. Mind blown. Cam is flawless – he has everything from washboard abs to an understanding attitude and even to the ability to miraculously transform from a player to a monogamous boyfriend. Cam even has the ability to *gasp* wait for Avery (hence the title, Wait for You) for a relationship and sex. Congratulations, Cam, for your overwhelming self control. Cam is completely static - in the entire novel he made exactly one mistake for which he showed an appropriate amount of grief and apology.  Even minor characters such as Jacob and Brittany are ridiculously cliché – Jacob is gay and J. Lynn never lets us forget it, by having his character be the most flamboyantly homosexual guy ever while Brittany is clearly the stereotypical blonde bimbo who needs to get “laid” every other day.

This book has two redeeming aspects, the first of which is a character who rarely appears in the story but nevertheless, is real and hurt and possibly the best thing about the book. Her name is Molly and she is the only character in this book who holds others accountable for their mistakes and owns up to her own; she is sad and disappointed but above all of that, she’s fierce. The second redeeming factor is that J. Lynn tried really hard to make amusing comments such as:

"'I'm beginning to think cookies is a code word for something else.' 'Maybe it is.' He tugged on my bag again as he took a confident step back, forcing me down another step. 'And just think about it. If cookie was a code word, whatever it symbolizes, it's been in your mouth, sweetheart.'"

She really did try.
Sadly, despite these two factors, Wait for You was, in my eyes, a train wreck. Thanks for trying, J. Lynn. But next time, don’t bother. We’ll be able to guess the entire plot line based off of the first twenty pages anyway.

- Amrutha

What makes you dislike a romance?

Let us know in the comments!