Me Before You is such a great book, though I fully acknowledge it certainly isn’t for everyone and it isn’t perfect, however it is well researched, weMe Before You is such a great book, though I fully acknowledge it certainly isn’t for everyone and it isn’t perfect, however it is well researched, well written and it made me feel something. I spent a lot of time contemplating the characters and the story. I loved how the author made sure to humanize each and every character in the end.
After reading After You and Still Me all I can say is the author should have left well enough alone, or perhaps just stayed on theme, and/or had cared about books 2 and 3 enough to do the overall character arc of Luisa justice.
I feel like the author lost the thread somewhere early on while writing After You. Sure, if you’re going to continue a story after such a tragic loss it is necessary and even understandable for Louisa to be dealing with unimaginable grief. I understand why she would be dealing with depression and even not quite knowing what to do next.
But Still Me is just a lesser version of After You, which if I’m being completely honest is mediocre. In Still Me a lot is said and none of it is particularly noteworthy.
Still Me is a disjointed mess wherein Louisa does stuff and keeps tripping upwards. I feel like Jojo Moyes didn’t know what to write so she basically plagiarized Girl, Wash Your Face complete with a love interest who is not only a distraction for our protagonist but he’s nothing but red flags (and no, I’m not talking about the Will doppelgänger, although, yeah, he’s also super problematic).
Each new character is less developed than the last and you really don’t care what happens to them. Even Louisa, because she’s not really doing anything interesting with her life. She isn’t living boldly.
2 stars. The second star is only because of Dean Martin the pug....more
I love Emily Griffin, I love her messed up protagonists and the dumb decisions they make. I love seeing them figuring out their mistakes and making amI love Emily Griffin, I love her messed up protagonists and the dumb decisions they make. I love seeing them figuring out their mistakes and making amends and become better people.
This book isn’t any exception, until the last chapter or so. And then—wow!—I was floored by the last minute plot twist. Gross. Ugh. There are several hours I wasted on this book, I want those hours back. ...more
I wasn't particularly impressed with this story at first. The writing was at times sort of clunky, the story had a disjointed feel to it. Characters aI wasn't particularly impressed with this story at first. The writing was at times sort of clunky, the story had a disjointed feel to it. Characters accepted strange occurrences in the blink of an eye and didn't ask many questions. However as the story progressed I could tell the author began to hit her stride and I could see why so many love the writing of Octavia E. Butler.
Now that I'm finished reading all I can say is this book is going to haunt me for a while.
I have an ancestor named Jinney. That's it, just Jinney. She didn't have a last name because she was a slave. And she had several children with the white man who owned her. But her children were allowed to have their biological father's last name, the eldest son is named after him. They were free. And for whatever reason I wanted to believe that perhaps Jinney's life wasn't too horrible. That maybe, against all odds, she was loved by the father of her children. I wanted to believe that she might have, at the very least, found some small piece of happiness with him because he clearly cared for their children. He claimed his mixed race children at a time and place where such a thing was just not done and he gave then their freedom. In my mind that had to mean something.
Don't get me wrong, for as long as I can remember I've been aware of slavery. As I grew up I grew to understand the horrors endured because of slavery. I know all the disgusting details. I just didn't think of the possibility that Jinney might have lived a life similar to Alice's. Trapped in a relationship so sick and one-sided.
I can see now how stupid I've been. Even a relatively kind slave owner is still a slave owner, a light lashing is still a lashing, a master having sex with his slave is still rape because a slave can't say no.
I have nothing more to say besides this book is great, I highly recommend it, the last line especially hits it out of the park. 5-stars....more
I read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin's debut novel, waaaaaaay back when it came out and I genuinely enjoyed it. Jemisin's brand of storyI read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin's debut novel, waaaaaaay back when it came out and I genuinely enjoyed it. Jemisin's brand of storytelling was something uniquely all her own, and so was her writing. As soon as The Broken Kingdoms came out I was all over it like butter on bread and I loved it even more than the first book in the Inheritance trilogy. Then book three came out and I couldn't even finish it as it was a bit too much-much, in the sense that it was full of sexual situations I couldn't wrap my head around (insest, quasi-molestation and so forth). I also realized that I didn't actually care about any of the characters featured in the story so I jumped ship.
A few years later I went back and read the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and I didn't really love it anymore, the writing was messier than I remembered, not quite cohesive, though I went on to reread the Broken Kingdoms and discovered I still had a special place in my heart for it.
I genuinely came to the conclusion that maybe N.K. Jemisin wasn't for me, or possibly she was a one-trick pony of sorts. So I didn't read the next series she wrote.
Then at the tail end of 2015 I discovered everyone was peeing their pants over N.K. Jemisin. It took me a while to pick up the Fifth Season because I don't tend to enjoy most books that the rest of the world loves as they are typically predictable and formulaic.
All that said, I'm glad I took the plunge and purchased the Fifth season. It really is all that everyone is claiming it to be. Original storytelling, interesting writing and full of adventure. Though it was all new to me it felt familiar in the best way possible. The Fifth Season has all the elements I appreciated from the Broken Kingdoms and then some.
The world building is done in an easy-to-digest fashion, where bits of information are doled out only when necessary so it comes up in an organic manner. I never felt overwhelmed as there never is an info-dump.
POVs are switched from time to time and one POV is told with second-person narration but it works because of the character's situation, you need to read it to understand why. I believe there is a total of 5 different POVs but 2 of the 5 are very minor.
I could go on, discuss the plot extensively, but that would take much too long and it would do no justice to the story.
If you're looking for a great fantasy/sci-fi (honestly I never really thought of what genre the Fifth Season falls into until now, though I feel its much more fantasy than anything else) please consider giving this book a try. It is worthy of all the hype.
ETA: The Fifth Season is easily among my favorite reads in recent years.
ETA: Please excuse any mistakes in this review, I have a baby that's learning to crawl. It's so difficult to write anything these days....more
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