ambertjeeeee's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder
g_books2022's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
burstnwithbooks's review against another edition
1.0
The three main characters (the ones whose point of view we saw) were Gigi, June, and Bette. Gigi was the new girl, black and from California, so she was nothing like the other girls, who were already trained to be hateful and take revenge on their friends for any little reason. Her family was loving and caring. June was half Korean, and didn’t know who her father was. She had a serious eating disorder (I don’t know what it’s called when you don’t eat anything but what you do eat comes back up) and was extremely underweight (less than 100 pounds at 16 years old- yikes!). Bette- Bette was probably the worst. She had been in her sister’s shadow from the start, because Adele got the part of Sugar Plum Fairy (I think) when she was Level 6 (I believe). Her mother was awful; almost always drunk, abusive, and just plain cruel. Bette was high for about 90% of the book, and her best (and only) friend was Eleanor, who essentially did everything she said. She used to be friends with Will, who Henri suspects she made drop Cassie (Henri’s girlfriend) while doing a lift. She was prepared to do anything and everything to be on top, no matter what the cost.
I haven’t even spoiled anything, honest! (This book is approximately an inch thick.) Shall we talk boys? First- Alec. He starts the book as Bette’s boyfriend. They have always had an on and off relationship. While Bette is used to getting all the lead roles, so is Alec. They have never been paired with anyone other than each other. However, they begin to grow apart, and that is when he decides to move on from Bette, which causes her to become destructive, depressed, and even vicious, if that makes sense. Will is Alec’s best friend, and he used to be Bette’s as well. He has red hair and it is fairly well-known that he is gay. Will definitely doesn’t like Bette. Henri is probably the creepiest of the guys. As I mentioned before, he is Cassie’s boyfriend. Will dropped Cassie (who was playing the big part in something the year before) during a lift, causing her to be severely injured and have to stop dancing. Henri believes Bette caused this to happen. However, the way he “controls” Bette… Yeesh. I really didn’t like the guy.
As for the plot, I won’t spoil anything, but Bette and June start pulling pranks on Gigi and basically just doing awful things to her. The book just got worse and worse as it went on and the story just built and built. At some point it was just going to have to fall over. The thing is… If this book were a tower or something, it would need a whole new foundation. Essentially, I’m trying to say that this plot completely fell through. Honestly, there was really no storyline. The entire book was: Girl hates girl. Girl gets a better part than girl. Girl takes revenge. Girl takes revenge. Girl takes revenge. Continue that for hundreds more pages, and you just discovered the plot. To get to my point, there was pretty much no plot, except for one word: revenge.
Tiny Pretty Things had a bad ending as well. It wasn’t conclusive, and it wasn’t interesting enough to qualify as a cliff-hanger, in my opinion. It was just like the rest of the book. As I was reading, I know for a fact that my mouth was open in horror 99% of the time. It left me with a great sense of displeasure, and I definitely don’t want to experience that again. I even ended up not liking Gigi! Overall, I didn’t like this book in the least, and I definitely would not recommend it.
Read the whole thing on my blog: https://abookwormsperfectapple.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/lets-talk-winter-no-silly-not-the-season/
I haven’t even spoiled anything, honest! (This book is approximately an inch thick.) Shall we talk boys? First- Alec. He starts the book as Bette’s boyfriend. They have always had an on and off relationship. While Bette is used to getting all the lead roles, so is Alec. They have never been paired with anyone other than each other. However, they begin to grow apart, and that is when he decides to move on from Bette, which causes her to become destructive, depressed, and even vicious, if that makes sense. Will is Alec’s best friend, and he used to be Bette’s as well. He has red hair and it is fairly well-known that he is gay. Will definitely doesn’t like Bette. Henri is probably the creepiest of the guys. As I mentioned before, he is Cassie’s boyfriend. Will dropped Cassie (who was playing the big part in something the year before) during a lift, causing her to be severely injured and have to stop dancing. Henri believes Bette caused this to happen. However, the way he “controls” Bette… Yeesh. I really didn’t like the guy.
As for the plot, I won’t spoil anything, but Bette and June start pulling pranks on Gigi and basically just doing awful things to her. The book just got worse and worse as it went on and the story just built and built. At some point it was just going to have to fall over. The thing is… If this book were a tower or something, it would need a whole new foundation. Essentially, I’m trying to say that this plot completely fell through. Honestly, there was really no storyline. The entire book was: Girl hates girl. Girl gets a better part than girl. Girl takes revenge. Girl takes revenge. Girl takes revenge. Continue that for hundreds more pages, and you just discovered the plot. To get to my point, there was pretty much no plot, except for one word: revenge.
Tiny Pretty Things had a bad ending as well. It wasn’t conclusive, and it wasn’t interesting enough to qualify as a cliff-hanger, in my opinion. It was just like the rest of the book. As I was reading, I know for a fact that my mouth was open in horror 99% of the time. It left me with a great sense of displeasure, and I definitely don’t want to experience that again. I even ended up not liking Gigi! Overall, I didn’t like this book in the least, and I definitely would not recommend it.
Read the whole thing on my blog: https://abookwormsperfectapple.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/lets-talk-winter-no-silly-not-the-season/
literarynessie's review against another edition
4.0
Initial thoughts: 3.5 stars? IDK. The heck?!
Final thoughts: While it may not be everyone's cup of tea, the depictions of race and the ballerina world felt realistic. The authors managed to capture a real-world topic without dumbing it down for their younger readers. It also has a Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl edge with a maturity that I can appreciate. I
I'm a huge fan of Pretty Little Liars (judge me all you want). I hate drama in real life, but I love suspense for some reason. I picked this up b/c the authors are women of color and I want to support diversity in books. That doesn't mean I'll be biased in my review.
I enjoyed the writing style. Both the authors went to a competitive graduate school and I think this was part of their final thesis projects. You can tell. The writing is strong and coherent and the authors did an excellent job at giving the multiple characters their own individual voices.
I really bonded with Gigi as a character because of personal experiences with bullying and feeling like I can't achieve the same goals because of how I looked. Bette was absolutely god-awful, but there are a lot of girls who for some reason like the mean girl because they hate girls like Gigi who are seemingly too nice and too innocent. This is also why I've struggled making friends as well. Like other people who read this book, I feel like there wasn't as much June to really see the point of her. However, I'm happy that she was in the book because it helped to balance out this sort of "good versus evil" distinction between Gigi and Bette. I would much rather have the gray area, and I think June represents that gray area in morality (if we're getting really deep about it).
My plan was to give this a solid 4 stars but then that ending. I couldn't process it. I felt like I got hit by a train. But after having time to process that ending, I will certainly give this book a solid 4 stars. I'd like to read the sequel but I'm not dying to read it immediately.
Final thoughts: While it may not be everyone's cup of tea, the depictions of race and the ballerina world felt realistic. The authors managed to capture a real-world topic without dumbing it down for their younger readers. It also has a Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl edge with a maturity that I can appreciate. I
I'm a huge fan of Pretty Little Liars (judge me all you want). I hate drama in real life, but I love suspense for some reason. I picked this up b/c the authors are women of color and I want to support diversity in books. That doesn't mean I'll be biased in my review.
I enjoyed the writing style. Both the authors went to a competitive graduate school and I think this was part of their final thesis projects. You can tell. The writing is strong and coherent and the authors did an excellent job at giving the multiple characters their own individual voices.
I really bonded with Gigi as a character because of personal experiences with bullying and feeling like I can't achieve the same goals because of how I looked. Bette was absolutely god-awful, but there are a lot of girls who for some reason like the mean girl because they hate girls like Gigi who are seemingly too nice and too innocent. This is also why I've struggled making friends as well. Like other people who read this book, I feel like there wasn't as much June to really see the point of her. However, I'm happy that she was in the book because it helped to balance out this sort of "good versus evil" distinction between Gigi and Bette. I would much rather have the gray area, and I think June represents that gray area in morality (if we're getting really deep about it).
My plan was to give this a solid 4 stars but then that ending. I couldn't process it. I felt like I got hit by a train. But after having time to process that ending, I will certainly give this book a solid 4 stars. I'd like to read the sequel but I'm not dying to read it immediately.
marcopoloreads's review against another edition
3.0
*3.5 Stars
I listened to this book on audiobook.
Okay, so this is not a book I would recommend but I enjoyed it anyways. It is filled with problematic issues and plot holes and writing that wasn't the best but was so much fun! This is one I would recommend if you're looking for some trashy overdramatic YA and can handle lots of drama. The characters are actually diverse which is great, but there is also some eating disorder discussion that isn't done well so know that before going into it.
I listened to this book on audiobook.
Okay, so this is not a book I would recommend but I enjoyed it anyways. It is filled with problematic issues and plot holes and writing that wasn't the best but was so much fun! This is one I would recommend if you're looking for some trashy overdramatic YA and can handle lots of drama. The characters are actually diverse which is great, but there is also some eating disorder discussion that isn't done well so know that before going into it.
shellbell102186's review against another edition
4.0
That was some ridiculous drama...but fun nonetheless!
theinkwyrm's review against another edition
4.0
Wow I really enjoyed this. For some reason, books (and film) about dancers are just so enjoyable to me even though I can’t relate to them at all. I enjoy how we don’t really know for sure who is actually behind quite a few of the “pranks” that are inflicted on Gigi. The only reason I gave it four stars is because I really don’t like some of the characters (which is potentially intentional, but even if it is, I don’t like them). I was kind of excited to find a space where the authors messed up on the plot (nothing major, but still). Although I’m a little confused as to how Cassie will play into the other book, I can’t wait to finish this duology!
rachielove9's review against another edition
3.0
I liked this. I blew through it pretty quick and was eager to find out things. But I'm left wondering what REALLY happened. I need closure!