booksandbraids's reviews
1863 reviews

I don’t know what to say about this book. The idea was great. It actually was a pretty good book until things went so catastrophically wrong.

As soon as Lester went in his uniform to speak to them, I was unhappy. And then it just kept getting worse. I DID like when she tried to kill herself (as awful as that sounds) but WTF Lester… he really ruined the book for me. I disliked everything he did. I would have preferred a story where they continue the fight legally and it somehow got resolved. I know how it was actually written has more drama and is probably more interesting, but just felt like too much. Kathy just had such poor miserable luck in life- first the luck with her husband, then the tax/house business, then the poor luck to get involved with Lester who was a nut…

MOVIE UPDATE July 29, 2022:
I actually really liked the movie. They did a wonderful job. The casting/filming locations/etc was much better for the movie than it was in my mind while reading the book. My only complaint is that they changed the ending slightly.

Behrani didn’t strangle and try to kill Kathy. I didn’t like how Kathy had to find them dead. And who is to say that the police don’t accuse her of murdering them? We didn’t see him write a note. Also, the fact that Behrani wrote a note for his daughter not to take less then xxx amount for the house sort of showed that he cared more about the house/money even at the end… which sort of had a big impact on me when I read the book. It feels like they changed his character at the end to make him seem more victim less jerk. Not that he was a total jerk. It was a bad situation for everyone all around.

I downloaded this book as part of the Amazon First Reads program. 

I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did. It was actually very good! I had some issues with the opening...

particularly the fact that Reggie quit that exercise in the way that she did. I really despised her initially because of that scene. Quitting like that was essentially her throwing a hissy fit. THAT is what should have ruined her chances of going to the moon. It would have been far better for her to continue with the exercise, demonstrating that she can recover from a misstep. Surely there will be accidents and missteps while on the mission, so demonstrating that she can respond to obstacles in a calm logical manner would have shown she was a good candidate for the space mission.

Other than that, though, I really enjoyed the book. I wound up liking Reggie. I liked Jon. I liked everything about it!

I watched the anime years ago but never read the manga until now. I am so impressed by the illustrations! I love this series so much.