eloise_bradbooks's reviews
765 reviews

I think this may be my favourite PJO book.
It's still just as fun and easy to read as ever, Percy is so naively adorable and yet so strong and brave, Annabeth is simply the best, jealous, ambitious and always so smart, together they are perfect. Although they are not even together yet. Yet. Knowing all of that, I even really like Rachel, it's great to see 'mortals' tag along with demigod quests. And of course Nico. I'd forgotten how much he was present in this one and I love him more and more every day.

This book was definitely not what I expected... at I kinda liked it? Mostly?

It's a NA romance with a whole lot of love and a whole lot more of angst. This is due to the fact that we follow two men who fall in love, however one of them is an alien Prince who can't stay on Earth because of political reasons.

So at first we get the friendship, then the love, and that part was absolutely adorable. I love the characters and also recognized myself in certain things - I completely got that alien feeling (socially inept, hello!).

THEN we get to discover more about Harry, his planet and their culture, which was also interesting.
However...
1. It was quickly explained, in order to understand the problems we were faced with but then move back to the relationship aspect. I found the information interesting but too easily given away - could be more developed maybe?
2. Harry's planet seems to include the perfect cultural norms and laws that especially create the angstiest issues between Harry and Adam.

I do like reading angst, don't get me wrong, and political intrigue too. But the political intrigue here seemed to have been conceived in the author's mind just so we could have the angst between the boys? And I'm not sure I like that idea...

Anyway, even though a couple more things bugged me here and there, I can't help but be amazed at how much I was into this story. I read it in almost one sitting and found it adorable and heartwarming most of the time.
It's a nice short book to read when you're searching for an uplifting sweet romance.

This is a powerful book, well deserving of the hype and praise it's getting.

It deals with serious issues (police brutality, systemic racism, gang violence, social classes etc) that need to be talked about. And it's great to see it in a YA book.

Furthermore, I was pleased to see that even the aspects of this book that aren't directly linked to those "serious topics" (friends, family, love, teenage life) were absolutely brilliant too! I love the characters and the relationships they have with each other.

It's a story of family and friendship and of people coming together and doing what's right, despite the consequences.

4.5/5 - I'll add Shaun David Hutchinson to my list of favourite authors, I guess.
He always seems to write such powerful stories:
You laugh. You cry. You have no idea what's going on or what's going to happen, but you stay tuned all the way because he has a way of writing such beautiful, realisticly flawed but understandable characters living in worlds that are so cleverly created.

And this is exactly what this book did. I laughed and I cried and I was confused but I loved it.
I loved the little moments about physics (yeah, I miss not learning about physics...) and even philosophy. As expected there were beautiful metaphors about struggling to find yourself, drowning or breathing under water, moving forward and closing doors...
There was a whole bunch of diverse characters (the queer youth represented in here is great - gender-fluid, gay, bi and even asexual - thank you!). And a whole bunch of important issues too. Mental health, hurting yourself, sexual abuse, domestic violence, financial trouble and more.

Sometimes I thought there were a little TOO many important issues in this one book - maybe some could have been saved for a different story?
It seemed like really shitty things had to happen to every single character, which I don't think was necessary.
Especially as Ozzie, the main character, was going through all the issues over and over in his head so many times, sometimes I just wanted to say 'Okay, we know by now that this this and this is going on, move onto things we don't know'...
But in the end you can't complain for having an array of different people with a wide-range of problems.

I also read the author's note at the end about his own struggles with mental health, depression, cutting and suicide attempts, he urges people to ask for help and how his books show people dealing with mental health in ways that aren't always the best. They are realistic, but you should learn that they are not always the best ways to deal with stuff.
It was very moving.

So basically, I really enjoyed it.
I'm going to compare it to We Are The Ants because that was one of my favourite books of 2016, the reason I picked this one up and had such high expectations. And to be honest it wasn't as good as WATA. But by no means was it bad.
It was great and well worth the read.

Je viens de réaliser que je n'ai rien dit à propos de La Voleuse de Livres.
Ça fait trois ans depuis que je n'ai pas lu ce livre que je considère un coup de cœur. Il est temps de le rouvrir.

THIS REVIEW IS IN FRENCH AND IN ENGLISH.

EN : Well this book was beautiful.
It’s a realistic, sweet and sad look into being unique, not looking like other people and how you and the people surrounding you live with it. It is a reminder that this world is full of mean people, people who bully and make fun; but that it is also full of amazing people who love life and love people and make living a difficult life so much better.
I loved every single character.
It was great to see not just Auggie’s POV but also his friends’ and family’s. And I just loved every single one of them. If I could hug them all I would.
I think I’ll just hug it after I’ve wiped all my tears away.

FR : Magnifique.
C’est un livre réaliste, adorable et triste à la fois, qui montre ce que c’est d’être unique, différent des autres, comment on est notre famille le vit. C’est un rappel que le monde est rempli de personnes horribles, mais qu’il est aussi rempli de personnes merveilleuses qui rendent vivre une vie difficile, tellement plus simple.
J’ai adoré absolument tous les personnages. C’était super de ne pas seulement voir le point de vue de Auggie mais aussi de sa famille et ses amis. Et j’ai craqué pour chacun des personnages. Si je pouvais tous les embrasser je le ferai.
Je crois d’ailleurs que je vais prendre un moment pour faire un câlin au livre, une fois que j’aurai fini de pleurer.

What a gem, this is.
Such a positive, feel-good, happy story revolving around the most loveable gay ice hockey player who loves to bake and loves his friends just as much.
available on the author's tumblr page : http://omgcheckplease.tumblr.com/episodes ENJOY.
more more more more more gimme more

So.. the moral of this ending is "If you buy me stuff it means you love me"? ...
That's really not even the most problematic thing in this book...

The whole story is about a girl asking a guy to do sexual things to her because she's really uncomfortable. Basically they both agree that, and I quote, he'll "seduce [& fuck] her out of her anxiety"...
And it works.
She is autistic. But many of her autistic traits fade away when he's around... I mean... this is an ownvoices (autism) book so I wanted to believe in the rep but the fact that the symptoms just go because of a love interest? Really?
I picked this book up purely because I wanted aspiegirl rep (bc we don't get enough autistic girls in books), but everything else was the worst... I should have DNFed but I had faith it would get better...

Oh and I hate their relationship dynamics. I understand that some people will like this. I don't. The strong man knows life and teaches the vulnerable woman how to behave... Thanks to that he becomes overly possessive and she only feels safe in his arms.
(Kinda sounds like 50 shades said like that...)

Yep.
I now remember why I loved it the first time.
Everything is so well thought-out. The darkness (and greyness) of the characters gives me life.
I really hope Vengeful won't disappoint...

This essay is heteronormative and very focused on gender being only binary. It would be nice to add a note at the beginning to clear up the language to make it more respectful for people of all genders (and sexuality).
But other than that, all of this essay is true.
I'd like to get 10 copies and distribute it to the people around me who have discussions with me about this subject (but who often disagree).