A review by themoonwholistens
Smash It!, by Francina Simone
2.0
ARC received from -Inkyard Press- in exchange of an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
— overall thoughts: DNF @47% / page 171 —
It makes me sad to just be saying this but it was cringey for me. From the writing style to how our mc was acting.
There were a number of insensitive jokes made but I think the biggest problem with that was that these jokes weren't addressed or resolved properly. (A character makes a joke -> mc says it's bad -> we move on). Info dumps were done every few pages in the first part of the story which really took me away from the narration.
I really thought I would enjoy the plot of this more than I did as someone who is into musicals/music. I'm not that familiar with Othello but honestly this to me just reads like every other ya contemporary. Perhaps someone who has more knowledge about Othello might be able to connect to the story on a deeper level than I did.
There were so many overused tropes in this book with the best friends who have windows facing each other and a love triangle (I was really looking forward to a love square between guys and our main girl). Our mc is also going through the "I didn't know I was beautiful until a guy made me realize I was" phase. I understand that this could be relatable to some people but I'm just tired of reading that kind of trope.
On a brighter note, there are still a lot of positive aspects to the story in terms of body positivity but in my eyes I felt like it leaned more towards the first world romance problems rather than Liv’s own character development.
Olivia isn't perfect and she messes up (a lot), as do the other characters. However, I didn't really like Liv's motivations personally, she just seemed so hard wired into the problems of her romance life and expects everything to revolve around that? Again, I didn't finish this so perhaps she does develop more but up to the point that I read... I wasn't present in the story anymore.
Especially when I read the Israeli/Palestinian joke that other people were talking about, I didn't want to force myself through the rest of it. Which to be honest could be triggering to people and just contributes to the stigma that we have been trying to get rid of.
At the end of the day, it's a story about finding confidence in yourself. It was also very vocal about sex positivity which was a nice touch. There were parts that were entertaining and I see why people enjoy it... it just wasn't sold to me and the reasons that I read this book for weren't as prevalent as I thought they would be.
------------
I FOUND OUT THAT THE MAIN CHARACTER GETS THE ATTENTION OF FOUR (4) BOYS AND !!!!!
We love love-squares ♡♡♡♡ love-triangles are so overrated... give me pentagons, hexagons, and all the other polygons
------------
Booktuber books always make me so curious so I got really excited when I saw this in my inbox.
Oh and it's also an #ownvoices novel so there's that :)
instagram | blog | ko-fi | booksirens
— overall thoughts: DNF @47% / page 171 —
It makes me sad to just be saying this but it was cringey for me. From the writing style to how our mc was acting.
There were a number of insensitive jokes made but I think the biggest problem with that was that these jokes weren't addressed or resolved properly. (A character makes a joke -> mc says it's bad -> we move on). Info dumps were done every few pages in the first part of the story which really took me away from the narration.
I really thought I would enjoy the plot of this more than I did as someone who is into musicals/music. I'm not that familiar with Othello but honestly this to me just reads like every other ya contemporary. Perhaps someone who has more knowledge about Othello might be able to connect to the story on a deeper level than I did.
There were so many overused tropes in this book with the best friends who have windows facing each other and a love triangle (I was really looking forward to a love square between guys and our main girl). Our mc is also going through the "I didn't know I was beautiful until a guy made me realize I was" phase. I understand that this could be relatable to some people but I'm just tired of reading that kind of trope.
On a brighter note, there are still a lot of positive aspects to the story in terms of body positivity but in my eyes I felt like it leaned more towards the first world romance problems rather than Liv’s own character development.
Olivia isn't perfect and she messes up (a lot), as do the other characters. However, I didn't really like Liv's motivations personally, she just seemed so hard wired into the problems of her romance life and expects everything to revolve around that? Again, I didn't finish this so perhaps she does develop more but up to the point that I read... I wasn't present in the story anymore.
Especially when I read the Israeli/Palestinian joke that other people were talking about, I didn't want to force myself through the rest of it. Which to be honest could be triggering to people and just contributes to the stigma that we have been trying to get rid of.
At the end of the day, it's a story about finding confidence in yourself. It was also very vocal about sex positivity which was a nice touch. There were parts that were entertaining and I see why people enjoy it... it just wasn't sold to me and the reasons that I read this book for weren't as prevalent as I thought they would be.
------------
I FOUND OUT THAT THE MAIN CHARACTER GETS THE ATTENTION OF FOUR (4) BOYS AND !!!!!
We love love-squares ♡♡♡♡ love-triangles are so overrated... give me pentagons, hexagons, and all the other polygons
------------
Booktuber books always make me so curious so I got really excited when I saw this in my inbox.
Oh and it's also an #ownvoices novel so there's that :)
instagram | blog | ko-fi | booksirens