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A review by goodverbsonly
Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah
2.0
really, at the end of the day, this is only ok.
1. the writing is mediocre, repetitive, even bordering on annoying. the Larger points about mental illness/physical illness, understanding your body, trauma, etc are heavy handed, and like wrong
2. it’s possible gabe is like. a bad person. he’s 25 and decided that his life is over because he had a nervous breakdown while in a competitive college...bro. he uses his mental illness as an excuse to treat people like shit, and i have no sympathy for him whatsoever PLUS! the performance of male voices is terrible. awful.
3. jo...also not awesome. let’s ignore the child endangerment...i feel for her, she did what she had to do. but the way she talks to her peers makes me crazy, she acts like she’s the only person who can do no wrong
4. ursa is annoying but she’s also 8, incredibly smart, and the only reason i’m going to give this book 2 stars. i hear stories about kids who have lives like hers all day long, and my heart hurts for their little lives. i 100% don’t think this is science fiction; she is just a little kid. and even though she is smart, she is still a kid, who needs the kind of support children need. and when jo would treat her like an adult, i thought it was kind of inappropriate — obviously kids are people, but no matter how smart they are they are children, and deserve to be treated like children at every turn; when the detectives are questioning her at the end! they need to stop when she’s becoming distraught and the fact that jo thought it would be helpful to make a speech in front of ursa that she would do anything to be her foster mother!!! terrible!!! social services was saying: hey maybe don’t, because it’s unhelpful!!! oh my god!!!
5. a lost link in jo’s loss of fertility and her desire to raise ursa, in spite of the fact that other characters would ask, jo never like, let herself consider that, and how the implications of that really played out, IN SPITE of the fact that it’s RIGHT THERE.
1. the writing is mediocre, repetitive, even bordering on annoying. the Larger points about mental illness/physical illness, understanding your body, trauma, etc are heavy handed, and like wrong
2. it’s possible gabe is like. a bad person. he’s 25 and decided that his life is over because he had a nervous breakdown while in a competitive college...bro. he uses his mental illness as an excuse to treat people like shit, and i have no sympathy for him whatsoever PLUS! the performance of male voices is terrible. awful.
3. jo...also not awesome. let’s ignore the child endangerment...i feel for her, she did what she had to do. but the way she talks to her peers makes me crazy, she acts like she’s the only person who can do no wrong
4. ursa is annoying but she’s also 8, incredibly smart, and the only reason i’m going to give this book 2 stars. i hear stories about kids who have lives like hers all day long, and my heart hurts for their little lives. i 100% don’t think this is science fiction; she is just a little kid. and even though she is smart, she is still a kid, who needs the kind of support children need. and when jo would treat her like an adult, i thought it was kind of inappropriate — obviously kids are people, but no matter how smart they are they are children, and deserve to be treated like children at every turn; when the detectives are questioning her at the end! they need to stop when she’s becoming distraught and the fact that jo thought it would be helpful to make a speech in front of ursa that she would do anything to be her foster mother!!! terrible!!! social services was saying: hey maybe don’t, because it’s unhelpful!!! oh my god!!!
5. a lost link in jo’s loss of fertility and her desire to raise ursa, in spite of the fact that other characters would ask, jo never like, let herself consider that, and how the implications of that really played out, IN SPITE of the fact that it’s RIGHT THERE.