Publication Date: October 17th, 2023
Read: February 8th - 9th
Rating: 3/5 stars
There’s so much to say about this book, but I’ve already talked about it so much that it almost feels like I’ve already written a review…even though I very much have not.
Publication Date: July 1st, 2014
Read: February 3rd, 2024
Rating: 1/5 stars
It’s amazing how I managed to entirely wipe this book from my mind, and yet when I saw it on Kindle Unlimited, I felt a glimmer of recognition nonetheless. Because I read this book. I don’t know when I read it, or even if I finished it at the time, but I know that I read this book.
And now, I have read it again.
Great news! It’s bad.
The premise of this book is: What if there were some congressmen who had campaigned tirelessly to make it legal to keep genetically engineered petite teenage girls as pets? Specifically so they could abuse these girls with absolutely no consequences? Wouldn’t that be messed up?
And then the plot of this book is: Wearing pretty dresses, eating lentils, and sitting on the edge of the pool & yearning for literally the first human boy you’ve ever laid eyes on.
Publication Date: February 6th
Read: February 16th
Rating: 4/5 stars
I don’t really why I decided to acquire an ARC of this book, given that I found both XOXO and The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea pretty middling. Maybe the cover appealed to me? Regardless, I was genuinely charmed by this book. I think that’s largely because of Sori, our lead. In XOXO, I remember thinking that she seemed like two different characters before and after she becomes friends with Jenny, but here she felt fully-realized and interesting, and I really liked the contrast between her cool & seemingly aloof outer persona with her soft, stuffed animal-loving interior. Sori is someone who seems cool but is actually cute, and that’s a character archetype I just like a lot. She also has a lot going on; she worries that she’s drifting away from Jenny, she’s often caught in the middle between two parents who should really get divorced, and she’s worried about disappointing her mother when she finally comes clean about the fact that she doesn’t want to debut as an idol. She’s used to balancing the needs of those around her and putting them before her own desires, which is why opening herself up to the fact that she wants to be with Nathaniel is a challenge for her in this book.
As for Nathaniel…I’m totally neutral on him. No, seriously. I don’t really like him or dislike him? He had believable ENOUGH chemistry with Sori (he listens to her, shows that he knows her well in various situations, cares about her, etc), but outside of that, I just didn’t feel like I got to know him well or was really invested in what I learned about him. One of his big personality traits is supposed to be that he’s a really jokey and flirty person, but I feel like even that didn’t come off super strongly? I mean, he made jokes, but I wasn’t necessarily cracking up when the jokes happened. Nathaniel is fine, and he has an acceptable amount of chemistry with Sori, so because she wanted him, I rooted for them.
Oh wait, I should tell you the premise.
