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A review by thebookberrie
The Loose Ends List by Carrie Firestone
1.0
Uhh okay this one did not work for me. The idea was interesting at first but the writing and the tone was just really weird and not funny.
This book begins with Maddie planning her summer before college when she learns that her beloved grandmother is dying. Instead of going the slow route, Gram decides she's going out with a bang- an eight week "dying-with-dignity" cruise and she's taking the entire family with her. While Maddie promises to live with no regrets on their trip, she makes new friends on the Wishwell cruise. She goes down memory lane with her grandmother and the rest of her family and grows closer to a cute boy named Enzo. As the trip goes on, Maddie tries to cope with the fact that her Gram isn't going to come home after their amazing summer of new experiences, love, and grief.
This book was an impulse buy for me a few years ago. I saw the cover and I just grabbed it, and only got around to reading it now because it was a random pick. Basically I don't think I was ever interested in this book and even after reading it, meh.
All of the characters in this book were insufferable, flat out. They were judgemental, they were annoying, and honestly a few of them were interchangeable at a point. A book about family and I barely knew anyone. These characters were all adults, with even Maddie turning eighteen in the book... but everyone was immature as hell. So many awkward penis jokes. So many.
The worst character was the mc, Maddie. Every person she meets, she describes by a negative trait they have and even after learning their names, she still calls them by their mildly rude nickname. She describes disabled and sick people as "grotesque" and even mentions how when she was a child, she didn't like looking at them in fear she would become one. Of course throughout the book she learns that hey- maybe sick people are people too but that message is pretty messed up. I get the point is for her to learn to live in the moment and enjoy life but using sick and dying people to teach her that lesson doesn't work for me.
For some reason this book about a family and a girl learning to say good-bye to her grandmother has a pretty strong romance in it- which it could have done without. I'm sorry but it was pretty bad too. It was insta-love at it's finest and I wasn't buying their confessions of love quickly after either. It was pointless and I disliked them together so much. Also it was kind of gross and not romantic at all.
The tone of this book was just bizarre and so was everything that happened. None of this was believable and it was just so weird. The tone and "jokes" make this book seem like it wants to be a dark comedy but nothing is funny and it doesn't do anything to balance out how sad the situation is. I understand with such a situation dark humor could have made everything better but it didn't work. At least not for me. There were also a lot of weirdly repeated phrases.
This entire book was just not my thing and I've gone back and forth between one and two stars but I really didn't enjoy anything about it.
This book begins with Maddie planning her summer before college when she learns that her beloved grandmother is dying. Instead of going the slow route, Gram decides she's going out with a bang- an eight week "dying-with-dignity" cruise and she's taking the entire family with her. While Maddie promises to live with no regrets on their trip, she makes new friends on the Wishwell cruise. She goes down memory lane with her grandmother and the rest of her family and grows closer to a cute boy named Enzo. As the trip goes on, Maddie tries to cope with the fact that her Gram isn't going to come home after their amazing summer of new experiences, love, and grief.
This book was an impulse buy for me a few years ago. I saw the cover and I just grabbed it, and only got around to reading it now because it was a random pick. Basically I don't think I was ever interested in this book and even after reading it, meh.
All of the characters in this book were insufferable, flat out. They were judgemental, they were annoying, and honestly a few of them were interchangeable at a point. A book about family and I barely knew anyone. These characters were all adults, with even Maddie turning eighteen in the book... but everyone was immature as hell. So many awkward penis jokes. So many.
The worst character was the mc, Maddie. Every person she meets, she describes by a negative trait they have and even after learning their names, she still calls them by their mildly rude nickname. She describes disabled and sick people as "grotesque" and even mentions how when she was a child, she didn't like looking at them in fear she would become one. Of course throughout the book she learns that hey- maybe sick people are people too but that message is pretty messed up. I get the point is for her to learn to live in the moment and enjoy life but using sick and dying people to teach her that lesson doesn't work for me.
For some reason this book about a family and a girl learning to say good-bye to her grandmother has a pretty strong romance in it- which it could have done without. I'm sorry but it was pretty bad too. It was insta-love at it's finest and I wasn't buying their confessions of love quickly after either. It was pointless and I disliked them together so much. Also it was kind of gross and not romantic at all.
The tone of this book was just bizarre and so was everything that happened. None of this was believable and it was just so weird. The tone and "jokes" make this book seem like it wants to be a dark comedy but nothing is funny and it doesn't do anything to balance out how sad the situation is. I understand with such a situation dark humor could have made everything better but it didn't work. At least not for me. There were also a lot of weirdly repeated phrases.
This entire book was just not my thing and I've gone back and forth between one and two stars but I really didn't enjoy anything about it.