katiemack's reviews
1398 reviews

3.5 stars—this volume dragged a lot more than the first and was denser than its form was meant to accommodate (though my coworker did remind me that there were years between volumes, so there was a lot to tell), but I still enjoyed reading about the biodynamic individuals of this rich world.

That cliffhanger, though!

It baffles me how Orson Scott Card, who is terrible, could have written such a beautiful, elegiac work. The characters are well developed, and Card continues the work he did in Ender’s Game with world-building and lore. The final resolution with the piggies was satisfying yet unsettling.

While I liked this far better than Ender’s Game, I was disappointed to see that the female characters were, once again, shoved to the side. (Ah, yes; there’s the Card with whom I am familiar.)

I was really looking forward to the release of this book because the premise of radical acceptance is so powerful and important for young readers. Like others who read this book, however, I felt let down by the way the story progressed.

Spoiler

When Ben is teased for his colorful nails, his dad decides to paint his nails in solidarity. The narrative doesn't acknowledge this action after the fact--it only mentions that the kids continued to tease him. Eventually, the kids come around and all paint their nails for Ben's birthday, but there's no concrete step to suggest why they had this change of heart.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

From a gaming standpoint, I think this book does a good job of conveying the seriousness of online trolls a la Gamergate. The terror and anger I felt while reading the harassment Divya and Rebekah went through was palpable, though Divya's ultimate resolution seemed like she was giving up, conceding to what her harassers wanted. The romance was also pretty well done--Aaron and Divya's relationship was a nice, slow burn, and Aaron was a sweet and genuine foil to other shitty male characters like Jason and the Vox Populi.

My main problem was with the unresolved subplots. There were a lot of little events with Aaron's Dad and his online gaming, with Aaron's mom wanting him to be a doctor, with Divya's mom's education and financial situation, etc. that were only briefly mentioned or were not resolved. I also felt like Divya was whitewashed; there was no discussion of her cultural background aside from the fact that she experiences harassment as a non-white gamer, and her father (and her parents' separation) is only briefly mentioned. We also don't see much of her mother. Conversely, as other reviewers have mentioned, Aaron's family and heritage is more fleshed out.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The anger and hostility Riad Sattouf depicts regarding his surroundings and his family is still intense. It's the fourth volume of the series, and Riad's father is still terrible and racist, and it's hard to read about Riad's identity struggles (doesn't belong in Syria, but also doesn't belong in France), especially in his adolescence.

I was intrigued by the idea of an alternative history of the late Tudor reign, so I was looking forward to reading this book. I thought Meconis' illustrations were really striking (especially the facial expressions of the characters), and it was a fun read, but I was expecting a little more depth to the story. I also felt like it tried to appeal to both middle-grade and YA readers but didn't have a firm foothold with either age group. (Our library cataloged it as YA, but it felt a little more middle-grade based on the way Meconis told the story.)

While I appreciate the author's sensitive portrayal of one of the characters with high-functioning autism, I was disappointed that this relationship contained few of the nuances of the one in Anna and the French Kiss. It developed incredibly quickly, so much so that I didn't feel invested in it, nor was I as drawn to the characters as I was in the first book.

This is a beautiful ode to storytelling. I wish I had devoted more time to it (I had to return it to the library) because it's really dense.