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ramreadsagain's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
On balance this is just over a three star read as there are a lot of things I liked but also quite a bit I didn’t like.
I thought the characters weren’t very well developed beyond their main “thing” and half the time I didn’t understand why they all because such good friends as they never seemed very compatible.
Julian was just straight up an unpleasant character.
However I did like the message of first impressions often being wrong and the need to be honest and communicate, the “found family” aspects as well as some of the character growth shown.
I didn’t like how Alice’s character was framed as it really just boiled down to “technology and influencers bad”. I understand the point about authenticity and a lot of celebrities and influencers being unauthentic and their online lives being shallow/fake however the book also just seemed to treat her career (because that’s what it was) in quite a derogatory fashion.
I thought the characters weren’t very well developed beyond their main “thing” and half the time I didn’t understand why they all because such good friends as they never seemed very compatible.
Julian was just straight up an unpleasant character.
However I did like the message of first impressions often being wrong and the need to be honest and communicate, the “found family” aspects as well as some of the character growth shown.
I didn’t like how Alice’s character was framed as it really just boiled down to “technology and influencers bad”. I understand the point about authenticity and a lot of celebrities and influencers being unauthentic and their online lives being shallow/fake however the book also just seemed to treat her career (because that’s what it was) in quite a derogatory fashion.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction and Alcoholism
Moderate: Death and Pregnancy
Minor: Homophobia, Suicide, Outing, and Classism