A review by noahelijah
The Bridge by Bill Konigsberg

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I was really intrigued by the concept and also think this is a great message and can give a lot to different people struggling with this topic.

My 2.5 Stars are my personal enjoyment and opinion. This really wasn’t for me. 
At the beginning I was really into it. But the further I read, the more frustrated and bored I got. Don’t get me wrong there certainly were emotional and impactful scenes but I found myself not being emotionally invested in the characters overall at all. 
I often had the feeling, that I only saw the author wanting to make it emotionally impactful. 

It took me ages to finish it. After the halfway point we didn’t really get anything new. All the realizations we’ve already been through, and the thing I was interested in ist seeing the surroundings (which we got in Part 3 and I liked the most) but the truths the characters learned were repetitive? The writing wasn’t my taste at all but has nothing to do with the book generally. I would have loved to see the impact on family and friends with such a topic. Or more like: what does their life look like in coming years (in all parts! Not just part 3). A few parts felt very ‚look-how-sad-your-family-will-be‘ what a lot of people in those situations get to hear often and it rarely helps that person. 

I really tried to connect to the characters. But I couldn’t.

All in all a solid YA Novel that I see being helpful to a certain audience. 

Please reach out in ways you are able to if you are in this or similar situations! Talk to loved ones and find things as small or big as you want to help you get through this. You will!

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