sweeney_31718's review against another edition
5.0
Great read!! An unlikely love story but one worth waiting for!!
findyourgoldenhour's review against another edition
5.0
This is Bryn Greenwood’s gift: she creates characters who are normally on the margins of society, and she makes them so real and so relatable, you find yourself rooting for them. Then, just as you have completely sworn your readerly allegiance, she has them do something so awful you feel personally betrayed. You don’t think you can ever forgive them, or her. In other words, she writes truly human characters.
I loved her first book All the Ugly and Wonderful Things<\i>; it sparked one of the best book club discussion of all time. I was eager to read this until I saw that one of the characters is autistic. My son is autistic, and I normally steer clear. Novels with autistic characters tend to annoy me: they’re either riddled with cliches, using the autistic person as a device to make a feel-good point. Or worse, the autistic character is a a source of pity or seen as a burden. No thanks.
But in Greenwood’s hands, the character of Gentry is a person. He’s autistic, and his autism is singular to him. He’s not a cliche. And without making any clear conclusions, she presents a question my husband and I struggle with all the time: how much do you respect his independence and personhood despite his differences, even if it means bad things might happen? Or do you swoop in and protect him from an often cruel and unforgiving world because those differences make him so vulnerable, even if it means undermining his right to make his own choices for his own life?
Once again, Bryn Greenwood has given me a page-turner that was compelling to read and a story that I will be thinking about for a long, long time.
I loved her first book All the Ugly and Wonderful Things<\i>; it sparked one of the best book club discussion of all time. I was eager to read this until I saw that one of the characters is autistic. My son is autistic, and I normally steer clear. Novels with autistic characters tend to annoy me: they’re either riddled with cliches, using the autistic person as a device to make a feel-good point. Or worse, the autistic character is a a source of pity or seen as a burden. No thanks.
But in Greenwood’s hands, the character of Gentry is a person. He’s autistic, and his autism is singular to him. He’s not a cliche. And without making any clear conclusions, she presents a question my husband and I struggle with all the time: how much do you respect his independence and personhood despite his differences, even if it means bad things might happen? Or do you swoop in and protect him from an often cruel and unforgiving world because those differences make him so vulnerable, even if it means undermining his right to make his own choices for his own life?
Once again, Bryn Greenwood has given me a page-turner that was compelling to read and a story that I will be thinking about for a long, long time.
sjj169's review against another edition
5.0
After reading [b:All the Ugly and Wonderful Things|44093805|All the Ugly and Wonderful Things|Bryn Greenwood|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1550911602s/44093805.jpg|46061078] I knew when I heard that Bryn Greenwood was about to release another book my face started doing this right here.........
I loved that book. Hard.
But now? I'm having a hard time choosing a favorite between that book and this one.
I have a problem though. I can rant for hours when I hate a book...but when I love it? I turn into a big old hot mess and can't word for nothing.
Here goes my rambling though. (And it's not really a synopsis of the book. You can read that yourself.)
I'm going to just tell you all the ways I'm in love with this book.
1. Bryn Greenwood's writing. This woman is one of the very few authors I read that just comes up with completely fresh new ideas. She has this gift of not falling for the usual tropes and I LOVE that. She writes real world to me...the endings aren't cookie cutter. Shit happens. You deal. You learn or you don't.
She also doesn't write perfect, gorgeous characters either. Her characters have flaws. They are not the typical book characters with wonderfully perfect bodies and easy lives.
Which leads me to number 2.
2. The female main character in this book. Zee aka my favorite female character in a book in years. This character is so real. She comes from a childhood where her dad spent almost a lifetime in prison and her mom is a hoarder who finally filled the house to the point to where Zee was left no option but to make it on her own. She isn't beautiful in the traditional sense. She even sells and partakes of few drugs. Her choices are not always the best. She does love her family though. I could be this girl. In fact I am in so many ways that we won't discuss on this review because I blab too much anyways.
The fact that I connected so well with this character totally brought this book to life in my head.
*sigh*
3. The main male character. I'm gonna admit..the first chapter from Gentry's viewpoint had me wondering how this book was going to vibe with me. He speaks old king's English...has voices that talks to him and thinks he is a k-night.
I should learn to just shut the fuck up and read because I loved this guy.
4. The whole storyline. I saw every single bit of this book inside my head. Does that make me crazy? Probably. Do I care? Not. It's rare when I can completely lose myself in a book and it happened here. I'm just so mad that I'm done reading it and I don't have any more pages in which to spend with these people.
Now for the wrap up. Is everyone going to love this book? Probably not. It's alright though...I love it enough for 342 people.
Booksource: Received a copy from the publisher. I would have and will buy a copy.
I loved that book. Hard.
But now? I'm having a hard time choosing a favorite between that book and this one.
I have a problem though. I can rant for hours when I hate a book...but when I love it? I turn into a big old hot mess and can't word for nothing.
Here goes my rambling though. (And it's not really a synopsis of the book. You can read that yourself.)
I'm going to just tell you all the ways I'm in love with this book.
1. Bryn Greenwood's writing. This woman is one of the very few authors I read that just comes up with completely fresh new ideas. She has this gift of not falling for the usual tropes and I LOVE that. She writes real world to me...the endings aren't cookie cutter. Shit happens. You deal. You learn or you don't.
She also doesn't write perfect, gorgeous characters either. Her characters have flaws. They are not the typical book characters with wonderfully perfect bodies and easy lives.
Which leads me to number 2.
2. The female main character in this book. Zee aka my favorite female character in a book in years. This character is so real. She comes from a childhood where her dad spent almost a lifetime in prison and her mom is a hoarder who finally filled the house to the point to where Zee was left no option but to make it on her own. She isn't beautiful in the traditional sense. She even sells and partakes of few drugs. Her choices are not always the best. She does love her family though. I could be this girl. In fact I am in so many ways that we won't discuss on this review because I blab too much anyways.
The fact that I connected so well with this character totally brought this book to life in my head.
*sigh*
3. The main male character. I'm gonna admit..the first chapter from Gentry's viewpoint had me wondering how this book was going to vibe with me. He speaks old king's English...has voices that talks to him and thinks he is a k-night.
I should learn to just shut the fuck up and read because I loved this guy.
4. The whole storyline. I saw every single bit of this book inside my head. Does that make me crazy? Probably. Do I care? Not. It's rare when I can completely lose myself in a book and it happened here. I'm just so mad that I'm done reading it and I don't have any more pages in which to spend with these people.
Now for the wrap up. Is everyone going to love this book? Probably not. It's alright though...I love it enough for 342 people.
Booksource: Received a copy from the publisher. I would have and will buy a copy.
kateymarie's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
cher_n_books's review against another edition
4.0
4 stars - It was great. I loved it.
A quirky novel with the main characters placed in difficult situations with no easy or obvious choice (a personal literary love). The plot is not predictable, trope ridden or cookie cutter and the characters aren’t easily defined as morally “good” or “bad”. I’m officially a fan.
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Favorite Quote: Everywhere you go, you leave behind the corpses of your failed relationships. If you’re lucky you can shove the body down into a crevasse, so you don’t have to look at it, but some bodies you can’t get rid of. You have to walk past them all the time.
First Sentence: People talk about having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.
A quirky novel with the main characters placed in difficult situations with no easy or obvious choice (a personal literary love). The plot is not predictable, trope ridden or cookie cutter and the characters aren’t easily defined as morally “good” or “bad”. I’m officially a fan.
-------------------------------------------
Favorite Quote: Everywhere you go, you leave behind the corpses of your failed relationships. If you’re lucky you can shove the body down into a crevasse, so you don’t have to look at it, but some bodies you can’t get rid of. You have to walk past them all the time.
First Sentence: People talk about having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.
lorimichelekelley's review against another edition
2.0
Audio version: I loved All the Ugly and Wonderful Things. That was such a different book. This one was too, but I listened to half of it and I just didn't care about a single one of the characters or what happened to them. It was all just so mundane, if a bit quirky at times. So I returned it.
heatherhazereads's review against another edition
4.0
I had higher hopes for this one given how much I LOVED All the Ugly and Wonderful Things. This was good, but didn't rock me quite the same. I enjoyed this "romance" even through some of the parts that dragged (which seemed aplenty). I listened to this more than read it because Gentry's Middle English was not the easiest. I loved all the narrators, especially Zee.
lunajh's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
pantsbooks89's review against another edition
2.0
DNF at 69% Honestly I struggled getting into the story of this one. Near the end of my reading I couldn’t care less what ended up happening to them. I could not connect with any of the characters