al_exposition's reviews
19 reviews

the only "funny and furious" thing here rn is me. bc i am a fool for finishing this book solely so i can add it to my goodreads. and im furious at myself.

bro idek where the hell to start. but as a spoiler, this review will not be nice because i feel like i was catfished

truly is amazing how bella mackie can take the interesting premise of a woman scorned murdering her family after her mom dies, and then churn out this mess. OH LORD i am truly rambling but that;s basically all she did in the book, so i guess it's fine if i ramble too, isn't it?

at first i loved the first person narrative with all of grace's inner monologues and being able to experience her family members from her perspective and her memory. and then suddenly the entire book became 90% internal monologue. which is definitely a writing choice that can go over well! but the issue is that grace is not nearly funny or interesting enough to hold this choice for the whole book. near the end, she churns out paragraphs and paragraphs of internal monologue that adds no value to the story and just reiterates information and characterization that has ... already been reiterated to us 100 times before.

i can easily suspend my disbelief. the fact that grace was able to get away with everything despite having flimsy non existent plans? i can get behind that. but the fact that

Spoiler

it all amounted to literally nothing because of some unspoken half brother who was secretly there all along?

the worst kind of plot twists are those that add no value to the story as a whole and those that serve only to BE a twist at the end of a story. that's literally what this is. oh no but

Spoiler

he was mentioned as that person who asked her for a light and he interacted with her when she killed lee!!!!

that literally doesn't count because those moments of interaction were brief and inconsequential. much like many portions of this book when grace just talks and talks and talks and talks.

i couldn't tell if we as readers were meant to root for grace or pray for her downfall. it's okay to want a character who is morally gray, but also idk me personally - i will not be invested in a character that is just so... not written well? idk how to explain it but like. i love me an anti-hero. i love how her whole scheme revolves around wanting revenge for her mom and partially for herself. but

Spoiler

killing her cousin? being an overall shitty person to her loved ones and genuinely viewing people as nothing more than pawns?

like how am i supposed to root for that. and not even root for it - but just stay interested enough to keep reading and wanting her to win.

another thing - the use of the present timeline truly added nothing to the story other than the twist that

Spoiler

she was in jail for a death she had nothing to do with

which again - a twist in itself is nOT a good twist. i mean i guess the present timeline was needed to include

Spoiler

kelly and then have that payoff at the end?

but again there's that issue where the twist only serves one aspect of the story and not the story as a whole.

the last 40 pages actually made me want to rip my hair out. i cannot believe i read this whole thing and i am just so upset that this story idea was executed this way

@ author dear lord i hope ur not reading this - i am SO HAPPY FOR YOU that you are published

yall are LIARS in here giving it stars. is it because i listened to the audiobook? would reading it with my eyeballs make this better? probably not because 5 minutes into the audiobook i already wanted to quit.

liiiiisten i love me some enemies to lovers but what in the world do you mean that the only reason they're enemies is because... he was horny for her and because she's too bubbly and outspoken... also the fact that he was thinking of undressing a barely-21 year old girl when he was ... 29??? 28???? i know in america the age of consent is 18 but holy fuck bro. don't get me wrong, i can get down with an age gap, but not when one of them doesn't even have a fully loaded frontal lobe.

and don't get me started on the huge ass exposition dump at the beginning. jk get me started! because how did we go from them being hot and bothered in a closet to her trauma dumping to me about a JACKET and her longstanding friendship with emmy??????? it's OKAY to withhold information from readers and it's especially okay to do a nice lil show not tell moment to tell me how close they are.

dear lord gus and teddy's banter isn't even fun man TT^TT. her version of banter is just so childish (re: her leaving the closet and doing the "hehe u got smth on ur shirt. sike!" prank on him so that she has the "final word"). AGAIN THEIR ENEMIES TO HORNY ARC WAS JUST SO QUICK LIKE WHY ARE WE SAYING THIS IS AN ENEMIES TO LOVERS BOOK WHEN IT IS NOT. where the hell is the angst and yearning. i feel bamboozled

what i liked: the relationship between teddy and the kid was very very sweet. but like oh god the age gap btwn teddy and gus really made it feel like she was a teenage babysitter rather than a future mommy figure. idk man

also i genuinely could not take the spicy scenes seriously.

playlist based on midnights with you by clare osongco

clare's writing shines when it comes to writing about the filipinx diaspora and that experience, but publishers love a good YA romance, so can i really blame her? no. but that's why i'm sad about it all.

i need to have a conversation with rebecca kuss, your editor.

DISCLAIMER: i am just a girl! and this is just an opinion!! i am so happy for clare osongco for being a published author.

real rating: 3.75, rounded up

what i feel for this book is how i feel about deedee's mother. i am upset at her flaws (and there are big flaws), but how upset can i be when there are peeks at something deeper and more meaningful?

at first, i thought that i'd have preferred to read about her mom's life and all that happened. until i realized that deedee basically is living her mom's life. getting blamed for the death of a parent and having a rocky relationship with her own identities. i think that this book just overall makes me disappointed because there are hints at something more, something better. but it gets bogged down by the pacing and the random wattpad-esque writing. and it's not like all of the writing is bad - a lot of it is really good (mainly the aspects not having to do with the romance). but the fact that the book revolves around jay and deedee's relationship imo feels like a hinderance to the actual good parts of the book.

Spoiler

the conversation between candace and deedee otw to suzy's house for prom? that was great. chapter 52 really emphasizes this for me - the conversation between andoy and deedee just hits so good and i wish i wish. everything past chapter 51 is a damn near 4.5 star rating. it really is the early romance and writing style at the beginning of the book that brings my rating down. but truly if you can get past it, it does get better.

more specific thoughts:

thoughts on deedee's mom: it hurts to read because it's so real. the way her mom hurts her but not "enough" for outsiders to consider it abuse or to consider it something bad. there are more thoughts in my head but they won't come out. but iykyk

this one is actually very upsetting to me:

Spoiler

why am i reading that deedee and jay had sex right after she tells him about her trauma with thinking that she is the literal reason that her father died?? i know some of you might say "well they're teenagers ofc they're stupid." but no. there were sm moments in this book where i wanted to scream from frustration but this takes the cake.

i genuinely am glad they broke up at the end of highschool, and i am glad that they grew and changed and didn’t jump right back into a relationship. this definitely bumps up my rating, but again it’s just like… why are all the good things i like…. in the last 10% of the book

why are deedee and jay laughing and giggling and chuckling every 5 sentences. do we not know any other dialogue tags? did i miss the memo that teens laugh at every thing another person says? it gets better after chapter 13-- a lot of the writing style does-- but like the one time i would understand a chuckle dialogue tag is the one time that clare doesn't use it:

I clear my throat. “So are we going to drift? Do some donuts?”
“Are you going to buy me new tires?” Jay clicks on the overhead light.

there are so many miscommunications between them, so many missed opportunities for them to just TALK. but it feels real to the teenage experience so i'll overlook it. if i just pretend like my frontal lobe is less developed, then i can get through the book easier.

every time i think they're going to blow up at each other because the other person pressed a button they didn't know existed. and every time i'm wrong. for some reason they always just pivot the conversation to something else, and it rarely ever feels organic. when jay DOES finally blow up and explode all over the place, it's a hard read.







quotes that tickle my heart

~“I’ll give you some advice, okay? Listen close.” She grips the doorframe, leaning in toward me. “Never have kids. They ruin your life.”

~“Okay,” he says, tucking the two pictures into the pocket of his jacket, over his heart. “They can live next to each other.”

~“It’s obvious they actually like each other. Things might get bad sometimes, but there’s this warmth there, strange to me. So unbearably cozy with them around the table, I want to crawl out of my skin.”

~“You can’t be depressed, Deedee, that’s for white people who don’t know how good they have it!” She sounds like she’s at her wit’s end. “Get up! How dare you be depressed, with everything you have, honestly! It’s selfish to indulge in your emotions like this!”

~“You have to forget about history to live comfortably in this country.”
That’s all she’s ever wanted, isn’t it? To live comfortably.
“Your people fought us, killed hundreds of thousands of us. Tried out waterboarding on us. Dominated us. Made us think we should be like you. Propped up a dictator who terrorized us. Now you can’t even find us on a map.”

~“I think when you’re younger, and you’re hurting from other things, being in a relationship can feel like…a solution. But it can open up a whole new world of problems, you know?”

my first dnf, what an honor.

list of things that caused me to dnf at~50%
1.THE COPAGANDA oh my god i forgot about this scene until i looked at my notes. because WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE KAREN NEIGHBOR DRAMA GETS RESOLVED BECAUSE THE MALE COP IS DATING A GUY???? i genuinely- it's 2024. why the hell are we including copaganda in books. especially books centered around marginalized communities that have been historically harassed and brutalized by police officers. and genuinely, if anyone disagrees, talk to a wall idc.

2. their names were dylan and derek. why in the world would you name your two main characters with the letter D anD have both of them use he/him pronouns. it especially sucked during dialogue scenes because i could never tell who was speaking. they spoke the same and all the dialogue either didn't have a dialogue tag, or ended in some form of "he said."

3. third person pov isn't necessarily a bad thing, but paired with the first point, it makes it hard to keep up with who's thoughts we're getting a glimpse of. there are ways to do 3rd person omniscient well, but this was not it.

4. they both randomly get mad or start a fight with each other over very simple misunderstandings. and i'd get it if they were in their early 20s or something,,, but these are grown men. you're telling me that at your historic age you can't have conversations about your triggers?

5. page 190.

Spoiler

because why was there a spicy scene on page 189, and then 190 literally starts with "my dad died when i was sixtenn." -.-

like genuinely what i am i supposed to do with that other than want to have a stern talk with the editors.

6. there are so many side characters that get introduced just to be introduced and never come back again. what makes it worse is that they aren't actually introduced - they just show up and spawn and then leave.

tldr: what the hell

HELL YEAH WE LOVE! i am such a fan of how the books became increasingly meta and how each book truly built on each other (outside of just the book titles). also the joke about his boner being "just part of the decompression after my hypersleep" IS SO GOOD TO ME

+ 1 star for the characters yelling about peace btwn man and book while railing each other

- 1 star for the quick marriage trope (personal preference also what's the plan for long distance???)

- 1 star for the in ur face "love is the answer to stopping war" because i can

real review: 3.75 rounded down to a 3

won't lie, the original pacing was very slow for me at the beginning, and the multiple perspectives AND multiple time frames was confusing to follow. but once it became more linear and the book progressed, it became easier to figure out the time jumps.

at first, i was thinking to myself that the twists at the end were stupid, but tracking them, almost all of them have at least one line of foreshadowing throughout the book, which eats down.

Spoiler

like the fact that it was beth all along was something i already guessed, mainly because it felt too clean for it to be jason. but the twist being that beth had swapped her back story with cassie's and that cassie wasn't actually dead and that the family photo was actually cassie's parents?? it kinda tracksssssss.

- we thought beth didn't want cassie to see the photo because cassie loved beth's parents. irl it was because it was cass' parents.

- rick literally told us that beth knew everything about cassie and that they were close af. and he was right!! they were in cahoots bro

minus so many stars for the dissociative disorder plot line... why can't girls just be crazy to BE crazy? the ptsd kinda? makes sense? but like,,, if she was in the system and was abused growing up, it makes sense for her to be crazy for the hell of it. the diagnosis imo just wasn't necessary.

i'm glad the ending was a sort of cliff hanger and that i am just left to imagine what happens next with the group.

Spoiler

were they caught? do they get away with it? will jay ever learn his damn lesson?

the world will never know