3 Stars
“I knew how to die. It was living that scared me.”
I'm guessing in due time everyone will be comparing this to Fault In Our Stars, since anything that is remotely similar to a popular book must be differentiated.
Well, there's no use comparing Side Effect May Vary to Fault in Our Stars, and not because they have no similarities, it's merely the fact all novels containing the subject of cancer always have vast resemblance. So, what I’m evidently saying is - I will not judge this book based on its originality but on its content.
It’s hard to break this book into my own blurb because there is not much to summon up. It’s essentially about a girl named Alice who is revealed to have leukemia. She creates a bucket list of things she needs to complete before her death. Forming a close relationship with Harvey is one of them. They were buddies during their younger years, before fate took them to different directions
“Then we’d drifted. High school did that to you, turned you into pieces of driftwood. And the parts of you that you’d tried to keep in one piece became the property of the wind and water, sending those dear pieces you were not.”
After a while, their relationship begins to blossom again. Once Alice is certain her expiry date will come soon, her doctor exposes she’s on remission.
3 Stars
I have this bad habit when I’m reading particular books. As I’m reading, I precipitously nod off (I’m still reading, but unconsciously) My mind however has wondered off and I'm thinking about other things. Such as: “What should I eat tomorrow? Or “What the hell did I even do today?” Now, I don’t essentially notice I’m doing this, surprisingly. It’s only after a while when I return back to reading yet again, and the book is going on about something I don’t even remember occurring, I then comprehend that I must have nodded off. And the furthermost bothersome part about this habit is: I have to go back and read the section I missed, again.
This happened more often than I'm able to count in the lovely bones. Don’t get me wrong, the lovely bones has a nice structured idea (not very original) but nonetheless a good Idea.
However, the author accomplished to make my tedious life more entertaining than a book. Is that what the book lacked, entertaining the readers? The characterization was spot on for some characters, (not all) but then again that does not mean the characters were attention-grabbing. The book was intriguing at first. I’m not being a creep or anything, but the only stimulating part in the entire novel was the opening of chapter one, and that's when she gets murdered. The rest was in slow motion, and then in the last 100 pages it was instantly fast-tracked five years into the future.
3 Stars
Neil Gaiman is a fairly good at writing books that will entertain all ages. I suppose he even sometimes has a difficult time deciding what genre his next novel should be categorized, since his story can range from children to YA to adult books.
I necessarily don't have much to say about 'The ocean at the end of lane', besides essentially that it was a crossroad between children and an adult novel.
The novel commences with a middle-aged men who after he attends a funeral, he goes to his childhood place, which is a farm at the end of the land. He then abruptly starts having recollections of curious events that happened in childhood, after gazing at a pond.
The beginning was purely wonderful and enjoyable. I loved the setting of story, and I especially loved the tone of his seven year old self.
“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”
The middle and the ending became neutral. It simply became a book with a lot of weird magic in my view
4 Stars
Out of the easy is rather a simple story if you dig under the layers of the plot. I don’t mean that in either a good or bad way. The story should have been slightly more complex for a historical fiction. I’m not particular sure if it intended to inform us about the life in New Orleans back in the 50’s, because nothing was added to my knowledge that I didn't already expect of 50’s New Orleans. Out of the easy taught me the importance of social class and your background in 50’s New Orleans and...basically that’s all.
“My mother’s a prostitute. Not the filthy, street walking kind. She’s actually quite pretty, fairly well spoken, and has lovely clothes. But she sleeps with men for money or gifts, and according to the dictionary, that makes her a prostitute.”
So from the opening paragraph you can already guess there was going to be major mummy issues. This book was based on mummy issues. I thought there might be some fights between the heroine and her mother about her being a prostitute. But the would have been too ‘simple’. The mother instead had to be the most cold-hearted parent that every existed – or that’s how she’s portrayed. Well, she’s not far from being the worst, however the constant mention of all the bad things the heroine’s mother had done got extremely tiring.
Josie on other hand is the opposite of her mother. She’s intelligent, demanding and caring. I’m not particularly sure how many times the secondary characters had to mention that Josie is intellectual, but they did it enough times that I finally remembered. You know because I can’t understand the first time. So you have to do it again and again and again.
