lonnnneke's reviews
822 reviews

A nice, funny summer read.

I really like the concept of this books. Children going to strange worlds who fit them better than the real world? Sounds good, but there actually isn't anything really happening. Even for this amount of pages I think the world could be worked out better. The beginning was so extensive which left no time for better worldbuilding, character development or plot. Guess this series just isn't for me.

Maybe I can't be objective as a dutchie, but this was so bad. Literally all the things that were supposed to be 'very dutch' aren't true. People is The Netherlands and especially in Amsterdam or Utrecht don't look like twins or triplets or whatever. A cheese sandwich is absolutely not weird for breakfast here (it is actually quite a typical breakfast) and we don't know everything about canals just because we have them. I think most people don't know shit about canals. We also dont speak Danish because it 'looks like Dutch' (it doesn't). Gayle Forman probably messed that up with German, but then still it's not true. We might kind of know what the Germans are talking about, but it's not that similar that we can just flex out some German any given moment. The only thing she got right is that a lot of dutch people speak pretty good English. I listened to the audiobook and that made the experience even worse since the wannabe Dutch accent was trash. I read somewhere that Gayle's brother helped her with the dutch stuff since he is dutch/lives here or something. Obviously something went very wrong here and some things could have even been fixed with a quick google translate. I could go on naming examples but I think I made my point.

But that's not even the main reason for giving it two stars. I think this story wasn't cute at all. Alison is even worse than a damsel in distress. She goes to Paris to find the guy she spend one day with even though she was thinking he left her after he got what he wanted (sex). If someone in real life would actually do this everyone would say it was pathethic as hell. She just stops living because of this guy she doesn't even really know. How is this cute? She is supposed to have grown at the end but to me she's still an idiot. Everytime she showed some courage it was because the story needed it for plot and not because it fitted the character. One page she was scared, then all of a sudden she found some balls, but then she would just lose them again. Also, at the end she was thinking this guy was a player but she needed to see him to say thank you? No. That's stupid, not cute.

I could keep ranting but I think it's obvious I think this book was bad. Alison needs to get her priorities straight. However, the side characters were lovely and I really like the travel aspect. Because of that I added one star.

“The Corporation would like to apologize for the preceding pages. Of course, it's not all right for girls to behave this way. Sexuality is not meant to be this way - an honest, consensual expression in which a girl might take an active role when she feels good and ready and not one minute before. No. Sexual desire is meant to sell soap. And cars. And beer. And religion.”

“Why do girls always feel like they have to apologize for giving an opinion or taking up space in the world? Have you ever noticed that?" Nicole asked. "You go on websites and some girl leaves a post and if it's longer than three sentences or she's expressing her thoughts about some topic, she usually ends with, 'Sorry for the rant' or 'That may be dumb, but that's what I think.”

I did really love the satire parts in this book. The characters were great and it really hit the nail on the head with some quotes. If you want some lowkey feminism which doesn't take itself to serious, this is definitely the book for you. The story however just couldn't really capture my attention and I noticed myself getting distracted while listening to this so many times. I am really happy I read this book though, because the good parts are REALLY good.

Such a fun middle grade series!

Really enjoyed listening to this book on audio. I liked how Edinburgh was the setting of this book, since it's perfect for a creepy setting and a story about ghosts. It's always fun having descriptions of places you've been to in books so I really liked the story mentioning Arthur's seat, the castle, the cemetry and a few other things. This story is middle grade so it didn't go full scary, but since I'm a wuss this was actually the perfect level op spook for me. Besides that I also found the story very enjoyable. The idea of being able to go through the veil standing behind the human and ghost world was very interesting and I'm curious to see what Cassidy will do with it in the next book now she knows more about the world behind the veil.

I can see why people like this so much, but it just wasn't for me. It's really interesting how this story starts with two sisters and follows with alternating chapters about the descendants of each sister. The story structure however made me feel like I was reading short stories (which I'm not a fan of) instead of reading one big story. When I started to get into a character his or her story and feel for him/her, their part in the book would already be done. When reading a book I like to feel connected to the characters or the story but for me this felt really surface level. You only get to see a little part of one person's life. The story overall however is really important, it shows the effects of history over time and how things change over generations, but also how some things haven't changed at all. If you don't mind a short story structure I would still really recommend it, even though it wasn't completely my cup of tea.