forevermorepages's reviews
811 reviews

Full review here for the entire series: http://bookhuggerreviews.com/shiver-quartet-review/

-Book Hugger

I cried through the last 25 pages, partially because I was already emotional about something, but mostly because this book is fairly tragic at the end.

I won't write a review because this was for school, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, although the pacing was...strange.

-Book Hugger

Okay, so that snuck up on me. Review to come, I suppose, but expect it to be short (considering I read this for school).

-Book Hugger

Sylvia Plath is my new favorite poet. Though, I didn't really have a favorite before.

If you read any of her poems, any at all, try "Daddy" and then try to tell me you won't read any more.

-Book Hugger

There are some books that come to you at the exact right point in your life and no matter the small flaws and the time jumps, you just have to rate it five stars because you're pretty sure it taught you something that will stick with you for the entirety of your life.

So yeah, I loved this book, and I also needed this book, and I am incredibly grateful I chose to pick this book up at this moment in my life. Under fear of oversharing, I think I'll leave it at how I am currently reexamining a friendship of mine, one that has put me through more pain than joy the last few months, one that has too many similarities to Stella and Kevin for me to be comfortable.

Imagine Us Happy is about a toxic relationship, but even more than that, it’s about the right and wrong reasons to be in a relationship. Stella loves Kevin because he makes her okay...most of the time. And as someone who has placed my being okay in the hands of someone I thought I loved (although unrequited), I can attest to how unhealthy this truly is. While I don’t believe you must love yourself to be in a relationship, your relationship should not be dependent on them making you feel okay. Love does not cure. Love is just another complexity on top of it all, a complexity that must be handled with care and not tossed into the hands of someone who may not be trustworthy. Neither should you question their love to the point of insanity. If you have to question it, it is not love. (And there was one scene in particular where Kevin holds back his "I love you too" clearly in an emotionally manipulative way.) So, in reading this, I’ve learned a lot about myself, about how toxic it is to put your entire well-being into the hands of another, about how you should be the one to make yourself happy.

Among the small quibbles I had, was the time jumps. However, I do think they were important. In a book about emotional manipulation, it would be pretty awful of the author herself to emotionally manipulate you, the reader, into thinking that it would have a happy ending. From the first page, you know it doesn't. While I did find the jumps in time to be awkward in some instances and to be slightly confusing, I won't argue that they aren't necessary because they are. It also ended up playing like one of those movies where the main is reflecting on everything from a therapist's office or something, and I kind of loved the way that worked out? It read like a diary of Stella's realizations and at the ending she wasn't too much more developed, but through the way the story was told with italicized "yeah I know I did wrong here" we could see how much she did develop. And man, if character development is not my Achille's Heel.

Kevin is a very toxic person for Stella, he doesn't know how to communicate his feelings, he is distrusting, even of the girl he loves, and he's emotionally manipulative. But he's not painted as perfectly evil, although we are blinded by Stella's love for him for most of the novel. 

As for Stella, there is not one moment in this novel that she is vilified for being in a toxic relationship, for staying in one, for trying to make one work despite her parents' failing relationship as a real-life example for her. There is one moment, though, where she believes she is complicit in the problem, where she says that she would have done the same thing as Kevin, and initially, I read this wrong, that this meant she too was as toxic as Kevin. However, this is a drunken Stella speaking the night after a huge fight with Kevin. Stella feels complicit because she is justifying Kevin's actions. If she thinks she would have done them, then they aren't so bad in her head. 

One thing, though, that I thought was very...untouched was how Katie leaves Stella at a party while drunk because she was too afraid of her parent's reaction to her being out late at a party. That whole thing is wrong. You don't take your friend to a party and then leave her drunk, practically passed out, with a bunch of boys. That's party etiquette! Especially in this day and age! And it's literally never approached in the text! Stella isn't mad at Katie for leaving her; she doesn't even blame her! And while nearly everything else in this book calls out bad things people do to each other, especially in relationships, it doesn't look at how flawed Katie was to do that to Stella. It just looks at the result of having Kevin pick Stella up instead.

Speaking of that, no one should ever be afraid of their significant either nor should they feel as though they have to get permission from them to do anything. These are two things the novel touches upon, yet never specifically. I actually liked that Stella didn't have this huge realization of "oh wow, Kevin was a possessive jerk" but more the narrative allowed us to notice this. This book gets showing not telling right; there was one point where I set my book down and was just like "THAT WAS SO GOOD" about something I realized that wasn't straight-up spoken. I like that in a book.

Also East of Eden references? Quality. Lin really just reminded me of one of my friends. 

This book isn't something I'll fangirl over, like I did with Radio Silence all of last year. It isn't happy, it isn't pretty, but it's important. I won't ever reread it, probably, because there's something so painful about the idea of reliving it all. But wow, was that an incredible novel, and something I just needed.

-Book Hugger

TW: self-harm (not by main character), toxic relationship, emotional abuse/manipulation, fighting

So I started out absolutely adoring Strange the Dreamer. The beginning was the most interesting part, but after that, everything deteriorates. The first one hundred (maybe) pages take place in the library and the city surrounding it. Lazlo has a boring life, but he's an interesting person. If the entire book took place here, I'd be fascinated, mostly because I loved the character dynamics, the mystery, and Lazlo himself. However, we're taken quickly out of there by a rather contrived scenario that realistically never would have affected Lazlo, a very normal human being. 

The first fault then is that Lazlo never should have been affected here and therefore never should have gone to Weep. In any real life world, the very normal human being wouldn't be picked up by the special people just because he intrigued them. The other Not Normal thing Lazlo has going for him...only one other person knows about.

Anyway, then we're thrown into about fifty pages of walking. Walking. The most boring activity humans do aside from breathing. And when Lazlo finally sees Weep, I expected a huge paragraph of awe, but Lazlo acts as though he's seen a floor lamp (read: he doesn't react at all).

And then! Suddenly the characters switch at the part. Part switching feels useless to me, especially if it breaks up the natural rhythm of the story and this definitely broke it up. While I love Sarai, it took far too long for her story to connect to Lazlo's. For awhile, I felt like the book was in limbo and the plot felt disjointed. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy plenty of this book, but there were so many faults. It wasn't a two or one star read because I fell so deep in love with the characters and the writing (even if it was total insta-love) that it warranted a three. One thing I suppose I've forgotten to mention is that Laini Taylor is one of the most beautiful writers I've ever read. I would read everything she writes, honestly, if plot and pacing weren't her biggest flaws. 

This book has worked for so many people, but plot- and pacing-wise it just didn't work for me. 

-Book Hugger

Not perfect, but just what I needed honestly!

Review to come (wow I keep saying this; I swear I'll write some this weekend)

-Book Hugger

It really shouldn't have taken me so long to get to this review honestly, considering I loved this book so much. I actually cried when it ended, partially because "what on earth had just happened" and partially because "wow, I hate goodbyes." If you've read it, you'd understand both perspectives, I think.

Anyway, I think one of the most important things to acknowledge is how different Vengeful is from Vicious. It ended up working for me on two accounts: the dark aspects and the pacing. Both books are incredibly dark, but in different ways. Vicious dealt more with the intentional transformation to an EO, meaning that both Victor and Eli basically committed suicide to put themselves in that state. However, Vengeful was darker in the murderous, violent aspects, which mentally, was better for me. Vicious was difficult for me to read because of the "suicide" (not with intent to die) aspects and in that sense, Vengeful was much easier to swallow. As for pacing, both books jump in time, but where Vicious is more methodical and slow, Vengeful jumps into action immediately and stays there. For some, this was disappointing, and while I do agree that there is a disconnect between the writing of both (especially considering how long was spent between the publication of both), I found this pacing to work more effectively for me. I'm a fast-paced kind of girl.

So for me, Vengeful excelled where Vicious did not and that's what made it a fantastic sequel. Although, I am in the unpopular opinion realm with this.

I could go on for hours about how effective Schwab's writing is, how she drills her points in so easily, how effortless the writing reads (despite knowing how much effort is put in on her behalf), how descriptive yet smooth it is. She is one of the most skilled writers I have had the pleasure of reading. Not to mention, she masterfully writes two brilliant antiheroes, Eli and Victor, both of whom I simultaneously hate and love.

Victor. Victor was easy to love in Vicious. He was angry, yet determined. He was searching for something. And he formed the most...tender found family I have possibly read about. However, he has sharp-edges (and I do love sharp edges). In Vengeful, he transforms. He's angrier, seeking vengeance (ha), less reliant upon his family, more strict with Sydney. I adore Sydney and I adore him, but their relationship seemed so flawed here (and not in a bad way); Schwab really highlighted the tensions of their growing pains well. I both understand his actions in the ending and don't. In a nutshell, he was harder to love in Vengeful, but he was also more human in Vengeful, if possible as an EO.

Eli. I found it easier to hate Eli, but I realize the flaw in my own mind here. Victor's backstory was on page, but Eli's was not during Vicious, and I mistook what I had seen of Eli as all there was to see of him. When Schwab introduced Eli's backstory in Vengeful, my heart broke. I adopted Eli into my group of sad and damaged, misfit, fictional characters that I want to hug (even if they'd stab me for coming within ten feet of them). Eli isn't pure evil and Victor really isn't either; both of them have been damaged so much that their actions are warped as a result.

What did I want then? Who did I want to win? My idealistic brain wanted a truce, some way for them to be happy forever, but completely distant from each other. Victor could go live with Mitch and Sydney and Eli could go live...elsewhere. But they'd both be alive! And healing!

Hah.

Before I get into spoilers and how exactly Schwab destroyed every ounce of my soul, I should get into the new editions: Marcella and June. Marcella and June were not easy to like. Marcella was interesting, yes, but too revenge-seeking for my taste. With that said, however, I was fascinated by her, and found her parts just as enticing as the others. June, on the other hand, creeped me out. I couldn't help but feel that she was preying on Sydney. Just...no... But nevertheless, I found her someone rather interesting to read about as well. Schwab writes some pretty darn good characters.

Onto Spoilers.



(Is that centered? Who knows?)

Okay. The ending was...weird. I had to read it twice over because I didn't believe what I had read. Victor surely told Sydney where they would meet again, right? They would live happily ever with Mitch and the dog and hot chocolate, right? Was he going to die? Certainly not!!!

Uh.

I'm half dissatisfied and half stunned at the cleverness. Yes, the ending is tragic, but it's also...well, it's Victor, isn't it? No, he doesn't die, but yes, he does walk out and leave his lovely found family. I was so angry with him and I still am, but I guess it does make sense. Does Victor believe himself worthy of happiness? Does he believe himself necessary to their lives? He's a loner through and through. And I do believe that there's more coming (especially since Schwab posted this morning on IG that there will be one more!!!). But anyway, it was angsty. And it was sad. And I cried because I didn't want to see them say goodbye and I also didn't want to say goodbye myself.



Anyway, if you haven't tried this duology-series-whatever it is, I highly recommend doing it. But if you're not in the right headspace for Vicious, your mental health should come first and foremost. It's not an easy book to read.

-Book Hugger

Is it cliché of me to love this book? Yes. But did I expect to love this book? Hard no.

Greetings, friends. This is your public service announcement that if you are calling the monster "Frankenstein," you are disowned, unless you're spilling the tea that Victor Frankenstein is the real monster, in which you're doing the lord's work.

Okay, so I loved Frankenstein. I love Mary Shelley. I want to tattoo this entire book on my body (maybe I don't want to do that, but still, I have to get the message across!) and I want to remember it forever (which I do want to do).

This isn't just a book about the threat of technology. Your high school teachers have lied to you. This is a book about what it means to be human and it's so much deeper than the biological meaning. Sometimes I put my book down to say "wow, she did that" and sometimes I put it down because man, was Victor annoying, and sometimes I put it down because I love the monster, I really do, but he did that. I mean, yes, it is about the threat of technology, about how one man took everything way too much, about how Victor is the embodiment of the Enlightenment era, and it's so clearly anti-Enlightenment. 

The best thing about it is that there's no singular protagonist and no singular antagonist. The system is the antagonist. The world is the antagonist. The villagers are the antagonist. Victor is a contributor to that, but he's also the pinnacle of want and need and those are such human traits that I can't help but feel a teenie bit of connection to him. And as for the protagonist? There's no singular protagonist either. The monster isn't one, even if we all secretly root for him, because he commits some crimes and does some bad things that I think the general world can agree are Very Bad. Yet, we love him.

This book is just a massive realm of moral-grayness, and I love myself some moral-grayness. 

I didn't expect to love this classic, but I did, and I highly recommend reading it. 

-Book Hugger

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