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voidkid's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Oh this book was just not it for me.
I get that it’s a relatively older book, but it was kind of funny having all of this happening in 2024, when that’s the current year. The age of this book also definitely shows in the way characters of color are treated (which is. Not great, if you were wondering).
I’ve read another book by this author and it’s one of my top hated books of all time, and this one wasn’t exactly THAT level of bad, but goodness was it not great.
There are lots of things happening all the time, making the book really fast paced in a way that doesn’t really work well. It felt less like all of these disasters were happening and causing a chain of events and more like the author had to keep adding in more and more things for the characters to do.
The characters were also not great. Dean, the main character, was insufferable, spending a good chunk of the narration whining about how he’s unpopular and pining for one of the girl characters. The only thing I liked about him was that he was good with kids, which was a good character trait to have.
The kids were really the only likable characters in the book, but their personalities were just “nice, cute, sometimes funny kids”, so even they weren’t great.
All of the characters were stereotypes. I understand that the author has a background in character acting and seemed to base lots of her character work after the kind of writing used for character acting. That would work well in a light hearted comedy, but a dark apocalyptic story like this? It fell very flat.
It also felt like the author didn’t know what to do with the characters. The cast of this story is large, but the author kept narrowing it down. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but the way she did it was often out of nowhere and didn’t make any sense.
She also took one character out of the story for a while just to have her replaced by a very similar character. Astrid runs off and a few pages later, Josie is up and active and takes over her role as child caretaker.
Which was another odd thing, the female characters in this story had only three roles: object of desire/sexy, child caretaker, or child. One of the “sexy” characters was a 13 year old, which was incredibly off putting. I found the descriptions of the outfits she’d wear very uncomfortable. I had to skip through most of them. This same 13 year old is almost assaulted and only then is she seen as a “good” character, which is another uncomfortable thing.
I want to read the other two books, just because I’m curious and this author’s way of writing is kind of addicting (in the sense fast food is addicting: it’s greasy and not great but you keep coming back to it). I don’t recommend this book though.
I get that it’s a relatively older book, but it was kind of funny having all of this happening in 2024, when that’s the current year. The age of this book also definitely shows in the way characters of color are treated (which is. Not great, if you were wondering).
I’ve read another book by this author and it’s one of my top hated books of all time, and this one wasn’t exactly THAT level of bad, but goodness was it not great.
There are lots of things happening all the time, making the book really fast paced in a way that doesn’t really work well. It felt less like all of these disasters were happening and causing a chain of events and more like the author had to keep adding in more and more things for the characters to do.
The characters were also not great. Dean, the main character, was insufferable, spending a good chunk of the narration whining about how he’s unpopular and pining for one of the girl characters. The only thing I liked about him was that he was good with kids, which was a good character trait to have.
The kids were really the only likable characters in the book, but their personalities were just “nice, cute, sometimes funny kids”, so even they weren’t great.
All of the characters were stereotypes. I understand that the author has a background in character acting and seemed to base lots of her character work after the kind of writing used for character acting. That would work well in a light hearted comedy, but a dark apocalyptic story like this? It fell very flat.
It also felt like the author didn’t know what to do with the characters. The cast of this story is large, but the author kept narrowing it down. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but the way she did it was often out of nowhere and didn’t make any sense.
She also took one character out of the story for a while just to have her replaced by a very similar character. Astrid runs off and a few pages later, Josie is up and active and takes over her role as child caretaker.
Which was another odd thing, the female characters in this story had only three roles: object of desire/sexy, child caretaker, or child. One of the “sexy” characters was a 13 year old, which was incredibly off putting. I found the descriptions of the outfits she’d wear very uncomfortable. I had to skip through most of them. This same 13 year old is almost assaulted and only then is she seen as a “good” character, which is another uncomfortable thing.
I want to read the other two books, just because I’m curious and this author’s way of writing is kind of addicting (in the sense fast food is addicting: it’s greasy and not great but you keep coming back to it). I don’t recommend this book though.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault
ghostecrack's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Car accident, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
jaidlyn_7's review against another edition
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Blood
Moderate: Drug use, Pedophilia, and Sexual assault
Minor: Pregnancy
planetshelf's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Hearing women complain that Dean doesn’t seem “authentically male” is bizarre and — dare I say — sexist.* By complaining that the main character isn’t [stereotypically] male enough, these complaint compilers have contradicted the message in their statement of “Not all girls are motherly.” My message to them: Not every guy will think the same way, just like not every girl will act the way the ones in this book do.
*Definition: sex•ist
/ˈseksist/
adjective
adjective: sexist
1. characterized by or showing prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
Typically. TYPICALLY. (in case you forgot) ONLY typically!
I’m no expert on the weird science going on in this book, and I have no clue what the inside of a boy’s brain “should” look like. What I do know is that I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
P.S. If you still want to know more about the chemical compound, there are versions of this book that contain an extra short story called “Dress Your Marines in White” that adds a little more atmosphere, if not information, to its background.
*Definition: sex•ist
/ˈseksist/
adjective
adjective: sexist
1. characterized by or showing prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
Typically. TYPICALLY. (in case you forgot) ONLY typically!
I’m no expert on the weird science going on in this book, and I have no clue what the inside of a boy’s brain “should” look like. What I do know is that I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
P.S. If you still want to know more about the chemical compound, there are versions of this book that contain an extra short story called “Dress Your Marines in White” that adds a little more atmosphere, if not information, to its background.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child death, Confinement, Drug use, Gun violence, Infertility, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Body shaming, Cursing, Gore, Pedophilia, Excrement, Grief, and Pregnancy
magnoliabloomfield's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
So the safest place to start without spoiling anything would be with trigger warnings and boy are there some doozies.
Triggers:
Underage drinking
Drug use made worse by it being minors
A promiscuous 13 year old child
Pedophilia
Pregnancy
Black characters described as chocolate and mocha colored. Actually, I felt like a lot of ethnic and racial descriptions were a bit off but as a super white girl I couldn’t say exactly how with any knowledge or confidence in the accuracy.
As a 30 year old that likes reading YA to AVOID “spicy” scenes I must say that it was uncomfortable to read some scenes. I hate to use this phrase but most people get the idea, it’s very Wattpad, or it could also be described as a CW show too.
The writing style got to me a few times, especially using the same word multiple times in the same sentence. I mean, yeah, don’t resort to calling eyes orbs just to avoid repeating the same word, but there’s just something off about a sentence like
“A monster hailstone hit Josie on the forehead and a big pink gash opened on her dark forehead.”
Oddly enough it was the adults that seemed the most unrealistic, especially the ones on the news describing the events. Maybe I’m numb from the pandemic but I just wasn’t buying the way the kids were affected by the chemicals.
Also I don’t buy sobbing over a dead body one second and then making out the next.
Triggers:
Underage drinking
Drug use made worse by it being minors
A promiscuous 13 year old child
Pedophilia
Pregnancy
Black characters described as chocolate and mocha colored. Actually, I felt like a lot of ethnic and racial descriptions were a bit off but as a super white girl I couldn’t say exactly how with any knowledge or confidence in the accuracy.
As a 30 year old that likes reading YA to AVOID “spicy” scenes I must say that it was uncomfortable to read some scenes. I hate to use this phrase but most people get the idea, it’s very Wattpad, or it could also be described as a CW show too.
The writing style got to me a few times, especially using the same word multiple times in the same sentence. I mean, yeah, don’t resort to calling eyes orbs just to avoid repeating the same word, but there’s just something off about a sentence like
“A monster hailstone hit Josie on the forehead and a big pink gash opened on her dark forehead.”
Oddly enough it was the adults that seemed the most unrealistic, especially the ones on the news describing the events. Maybe I’m numb from the pandemic but I just wasn’t buying the way the kids were affected by the chemicals.
Also I don’t buy sobbing over a dead body one second and then making out the next.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, and Alcohol
zarzone's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Homophobia and Stalking
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