thatlizhunter's review against another edition
4.0
this was very fun and an excellent contemporary read with a strong voice and lots of Orlando vibes
endlesstbr's review against another edition
5.0
There is so much truth in this novel, between the family you build in high school, especially in theatre, and the complications in those relationships that ebb and flow through different situations.
I received this as an early review copy from NetGalley and Inkyard Press. All opinions are my own.
I received this as an early review copy from NetGalley and Inkyard Press. All opinions are my own.
megs004's review against another edition
2.0
This book was not for me. I could not get into the story and I felt like some of the jokes were insensitive. I would not want a younger YA reader to read this and think what was said in the book is okay to say. I felt really uncomfortable reading this and had to force myself to finish. The illustrations for the cover was beautifully done though.
mindlessmartyrr's review against another edition
4.0
I decided to revisit this book after taking the time to not review after what the author said on Twitter. And this was a pretty decent read.
I read this book fairly quickly, and I thought it was pretty well done. I like love triangles and thought the characters were intriguing. There is good in this book with the positive outlooks on women, sex positivity. And being brave enough to do the tings that scare you. All of those made me go yes, this is awesome and I love it.
The last part of the book was a turn off for me though. I think the f it list was great, but it seemed like everything went wrong at once. Too much going wrong seemed melodramatic and took me away from the story. Yes, it all ended well and everyone was happy. But I just think it could have gone better if there wasn’t so many things wrong at one time.
Overall, this was a fairly awesome read. I would suggest it to those teens who want a read that will keep them reading and thinking.
Thank you NetGalley and Inkyard Press for the ARC.
I read this book fairly quickly, and I thought it was pretty well done. I like love triangles and thought the characters were intriguing. There is good in this book with the positive outlooks on women, sex positivity. And being brave enough to do the tings that scare you. All of those made me go yes, this is awesome and I love it.
The last part of the book was a turn off for me though. I think the f it list was great, but it seemed like everything went wrong at once. Too much going wrong seemed melodramatic and took me away from the story. Yes, it all ended well and everyone was happy. But I just think it could have gone better if there wasn’t so many things wrong at one time.
Overall, this was a fairly awesome read. I would suggest it to those teens who want a read that will keep them reading and thinking.
Thank you NetGalley and Inkyard Press for the ARC.
booksandpops4000's review against another edition
3.0
I overall liked this read. But it did not wow me. I know it was loosely inspired by the Othello myth. I really did like the theater elements of this book and how it focused on a theater world in general. As a theater teacher I appreciated it. The one element of this book I really struggled with was the focus on the relationships and becoming more like love triangle and I really struggled with that part of the book. I also liked the main character but did not love, but i also felt connected to her and being in her head was not always easy. Overall, It was a okay read but it did not wow me.
sweet_dee_reads's review against another edition
1.0
I'm so disappointed and I am not okay with this book. I was beyond excited to read a story about a young girl who falls in love with herself and spreads a positive feminine image. I WAS WRONG. There were so many times I came close to DNFing, but I kept going because I knew I had to give my honest review and share my issues with this book, since it seems to be a popular title.
There were so many problematic things within this story, but let's start with the main character, Olivia. Olivia is such a selfish and unlikeable character. She is not the role model I was hoping that young girls would have in this book. She constantly complains about her situations in life instead of doing things to change them, she only has confidence or validation when others give it to her. This is extremely problematic for young readers. As someone who was a lot like Olivia growing up, the never having validation within yourself causes you to seek it in all the wrong places. For me it was men and men who took advantage of it. I was groomed at the age of 12 by an older boy and was robbed of my virginity. Olivia's character BREAKS MY HEART!!! This is not what we want young kids to read!!! They need to learn to love themselves just the way they are. Nothing needs to change. Olivia's disregard for others feelings was completely appalling as well. The ease at which she moved from one crush to another with no regard for how her actions made others feel is RIDICULOUS!! Selfish people are what's wrong with the world right now!!
Moving away from Olivia, it's time to talk about the completely and utterly unacceptable "jokes" made regarding the Palestinian and Israeli character. ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUSLY GOING TO PRINT THIS?! GENOCIDE IS NOT A SEXUAL JOKE!!!!!! WE ARE LIVING IN 2020!!!!! AND FROM AN AUTHOR OF COLOR?!!!!!!! NO!!! NO!!!! NO!!!!
Also if I'm not mistaken this is marketed as a young adult novel. Young adult is classified as the ages of 12-18. Please tell me why there are so many FUCKS in this book?!! I cuss like a sailor in my everyday life, but I do not want to cuss around a 12 year old or have a 12 year old reading all the fucks in this book.
As you can tell by my review I am so beyond disappointed in this book and hope you as a publishing company will seriously reconsider your final prints of this book. If I could I would give the edition I read NO STARS.
There were so many problematic things within this story, but let's start with the main character, Olivia. Olivia is such a selfish and unlikeable character. She is not the role model I was hoping that young girls would have in this book. She constantly complains about her situations in life instead of doing things to change them, she only has confidence or validation when others give it to her. This is extremely problematic for young readers. As someone who was a lot like Olivia growing up, the never having validation within yourself causes you to seek it in all the wrong places. For me it was men and men who took advantage of it. I was groomed at the age of 12 by an older boy and was robbed of my virginity. Olivia's character BREAKS MY HEART!!! This is not what we want young kids to read!!! They need to learn to love themselves just the way they are. Nothing needs to change. Olivia's disregard for others feelings was completely appalling as well. The ease at which she moved from one crush to another with no regard for how her actions made others feel is RIDICULOUS!! Selfish people are what's wrong with the world right now!!
Moving away from Olivia, it's time to talk about the completely and utterly unacceptable "jokes" made regarding the Palestinian and Israeli character. ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUSLY GOING TO PRINT THIS?! GENOCIDE IS NOT A SEXUAL JOKE!!!!!! WE ARE LIVING IN 2020!!!!! AND FROM AN AUTHOR OF COLOR?!!!!!!! NO!!! NO!!!! NO!!!!
Also if I'm not mistaken this is marketed as a young adult novel. Young adult is classified as the ages of 12-18. Please tell me why there are so many FUCKS in this book?!! I cuss like a sailor in my everyday life, but I do not want to cuss around a 12 year old or have a 12 year old reading all the fucks in this book.
As you can tell by my review I am so beyond disappointed in this book and hope you as a publishing company will seriously reconsider your final prints of this book. If I could I would give the edition I read NO STARS.
themoonwholistens's review against another edition
2.0
ARC received from -Inkyard Press- in exchange of an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
— overall thoughts: DNF @47% / page 171 —
It makes me sad to just be saying this but it was cringey for me. From the writing style to how our mc was acting.
There were a number of insensitive jokes made but I think the biggest problem with that was that these jokes weren't addressed or resolved properly. (A character makes a joke -> mc says it's bad -> we move on). Info dumps were done every few pages in the first part of the story which really took me away from the narration.
I really thought I would enjoy the plot of this more than I did as someone who is into musicals/music. I'm not that familiar with Othello but honestly this to me just reads like every other ya contemporary. Perhaps someone who has more knowledge about Othello might be able to connect to the story on a deeper level than I did.
There were so many overused tropes in this book with the best friends who have windows facing each other and a love triangle (I was really looking forward to a love square between guys and our main girl). Our mc is also going through the "I didn't know I was beautiful until a guy made me realize I was" phase. I understand that this could be relatable to some people but I'm just tired of reading that kind of trope.
On a brighter note, there are still a lot of positive aspects to the story in terms of body positivity but in my eyes I felt like it leaned more towards the first world romance problems rather than Liv’s own character development.
Olivia isn't perfect and she messes up (a lot), as do the other characters. However, I didn't really like Liv's motivations personally, she just seemed so hard wired into the problems of her romance life and expects everything to revolve around that? Again, I didn't finish this so perhaps she does develop more but up to the point that I read... I wasn't present in the story anymore.
Especially when I read the Israeli/Palestinian joke that other people were talking about, I didn't want to force myself through the rest of it. Which to be honest could be triggering to people and just contributes to the stigma that we have been trying to get rid of.
At the end of the day, it's a story about finding confidence in yourself. It was also very vocal about sex positivity which was a nice touch. There were parts that were entertaining and I see why people enjoy it... it just wasn't sold to me and the reasons that I read this book for weren't as prevalent as I thought they would be.
------------
I FOUND OUT THAT THE MAIN CHARACTER GETS THE ATTENTION OF FOUR (4) BOYS AND !!!!!
We love love-squares ♡♡♡♡ love-triangles are so overrated... give me pentagons, hexagons, and all the other polygons
------------
Booktuber books always make me so curious so I got really excited when I saw this in my inbox.
Oh and it's also an #ownvoices novel so there's that :)
instagram | blog | ko-fi | booksirens
— overall thoughts: DNF @47% / page 171 —
It makes me sad to just be saying this but it was cringey for me. From the writing style to how our mc was acting.
There were a number of insensitive jokes made but I think the biggest problem with that was that these jokes weren't addressed or resolved properly. (A character makes a joke -> mc says it's bad -> we move on). Info dumps were done every few pages in the first part of the story which really took me away from the narration.
I really thought I would enjoy the plot of this more than I did as someone who is into musicals/music. I'm not that familiar with Othello but honestly this to me just reads like every other ya contemporary. Perhaps someone who has more knowledge about Othello might be able to connect to the story on a deeper level than I did.
There were so many overused tropes in this book with the best friends who have windows facing each other and a love triangle (I was really looking forward to a love square between guys and our main girl). Our mc is also going through the "I didn't know I was beautiful until a guy made me realize I was" phase. I understand that this could be relatable to some people but I'm just tired of reading that kind of trope.
On a brighter note, there are still a lot of positive aspects to the story in terms of body positivity but in my eyes I felt like it leaned more towards the first world romance problems rather than Liv’s own character development.
Olivia isn't perfect and she messes up (a lot), as do the other characters. However, I didn't really like Liv's motivations personally, she just seemed so hard wired into the problems of her romance life and expects everything to revolve around that? Again, I didn't finish this so perhaps she does develop more but up to the point that I read... I wasn't present in the story anymore.
Especially when I read the Israeli/Palestinian joke that other people were talking about, I didn't want to force myself through the rest of it. Which to be honest could be triggering to people and just contributes to the stigma that we have been trying to get rid of.
At the end of the day, it's a story about finding confidence in yourself. It was also very vocal about sex positivity which was a nice touch. There were parts that were entertaining and I see why people enjoy it... it just wasn't sold to me and the reasons that I read this book for weren't as prevalent as I thought they would be.
------------
I FOUND OUT THAT THE MAIN CHARACTER GETS THE ATTENTION OF FOUR (4) BOYS AND !!!!!
We love love-squares ♡♡♡♡ love-triangles are so overrated... give me pentagons, hexagons, and all the other polygons
------------
Booktuber books always make me so curious so I got really excited when I saw this in my inbox.
Oh and it's also an #ownvoices novel so there's that :)
instagram | blog | ko-fi | booksirens
stenaros's review against another edition
4.0
Liv is not the outgoing one in her trio of friends. When she decides to change things up she makes a list. That list leads to many new experiences for Liv.
I loved how this book explored fluctuations in friendship and navigating crushes and milestone experiences. Liv was a great character and she for sure goes on a journey.
I loved how this book explored fluctuations in friendship and navigating crushes and milestone experiences. Liv was a great character and she for sure goes on a journey.
amberinpieces's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content and Cursing
Minor: Racial slurs, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Grief, Infidelity, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Vomit
morganthelibrarian's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25