#3.5-3.9

Opinions going in/why I picked it up:

We're back at it again with a thriller as the book club pick for this month, this one in particular being nominated by my good friend who reads thrillers more than any other genre. I say this every time, but I don't tend to really enjoy thrillers, but I went into it with an open mind.

I knew literally zero going into this book other than the fact it was supposed to be similar to Yellow Face by R. F. Kuang, which I have read and liked. I didn't even read the back of the book to figure out the premise, just opened it and started reading.

Likes:

The second half of this book was a fever dream, and I mean that in the best way possible. Every moment was so surreal and demanded my attention so fervently that I may have taken several extended "bathroom breaks" at work so I could focus soley on consuming this book.

And the audiobook narrator, Yu-Li Alice Shen, did a phenomenal job. She was honestly the only reason l why I did not DNF in the first half of the book (more on that later)

And then to get on to the themes of the book, it was mostly a critique of the fake, manufactured, "perfect" lives displayed by influencers, specifically those specializing in making content in the lifestyle/travel/make up spaces.

I'm no expert, but while I think aspects of it was exaggerated, it seemed like a pretty accurate portrayal of to superficiality of influencers and their obsession with power, money, and popularity. There is one side of this, though, that I think should have been at least touched on that was completely absent in this book, which leads us to the dislikes...

Dislikes:

While I think it's fair to criticize the types of influencers that Zhang criticized in this novel, I do think of you're going to talk about the absurd level of wealth, pretentiousness, and self-centered natures of influencers you cannot only talk about the women without it coming off at least a little bit misogynistic.

There were dozens of women in this novel, each one horrible in their own way (except like one), but there was only a handful of men present at all and most of them were victims of one or multiple of the women's ambition or ego.

It's true in society that female presenting influencers are much more heavily scrutinized, but for the book about how shitty influencers can be, one would expect at least a problematic man or two. It's not like there's a lack of inspiration (Shane Dawson, the Paul brothers, Mr Beast, James Charles, Jeffree Star, etc. etc. need I go on?)

But going back to the women, pretty much every single character in this book was deeply unlikable, especially the main character. Don't get me wrong, that was definitely the point and was intentionally done by the author, but that doesn't make it suddenly enjoyable to read. This section is called 'dislikes' and not 'list of objectively poor quality things' for a reason.

I do think if the main character was just a tiny bit more realistic at the beginning, the book would be better for it. Don't get me wrong: mean, bitter people do exist irl, but the main character is cartoonishly cruel to everyone around her from the get go. She lived through a very tough upbringing and suffered at the hands of her abusive aunt and cousin, but I am of the opinion that having a hard start to life does not give you the excuse to treat people you don't even know like garbage.

The main character was so awful to literally every person she came across and was so selfish and entitled that I nearly stopped reading. And what made it worse is that, 9 hours of audio book later, she is exactly as mean, selfish, and entitled as she was at the beginning.

I think if there was just a little bit of a character arc, especially a corruption arc, where the main character goes from a fairly normal person to a influencer worth critiquing, the book could have been a bit more interesting at the beginning.

Rating Breakdown

Characters: 5

Atmosphere: 7

Writing: 7

Plot: 8

Intrigue:7

Logic: 7

Enjoyment: 8

Dialogue:8

Opinions going in:

I've read and loved Book Lovers by the same author, and I knew the whole "Roommates with my ex-fiancé's new fiancée's ex-boyfriend" premise, but other than that I went in blind.

What made me actually pick it up though was 2 things: 1)I'm in a bit of a slump and needed something light/silly/goofy/simple and 2) My hold on this eBook became available at my local library

Likes:

The characters were all super fun and real to me, if a little too emotionally intelligent. Their various personalities were different enough that they all felt distinct and yet still similar enough that they still had chemistry.

A speaking of chemistry -- Oh my Lord did Daphne and Miles have chemistry. While it didn't make me laugh as much as Book Lovers did, I still loved all of their banter and back-and-forth. Not to mention how their cuteness and care for one another was so sweet. There were so many times that I was smiling on the train to and from work like an absolute idiot.

The plot was very straight forward/simple/predictable, but that's what I needed at the time and one of my main motivating factors when I pick up a contemporary romance, so complaints from me.

Dislikes:

This was one singular line that really isn't that bad it just stuck out to me. At one point in the book, fairly late into the romance, Daphne is very upset about something and Miles is trying to console her. He's being super sweet and supportive then out of no-where goes:

"And you're also hot, if that helps."

And like..? I don't know if he was trying to make her laugh, ease the tension, or what, but it was so out of left field for the moment. It's like 'Oh you're upset? that's okay, you'll get through this, is there anything I can do to help, your feelings are valid, also you're sexy as fuck haha'

And just??? Again, one singular line, so not that impactful for my final score, just very odd to me.

Another not-super-impactful dislike, but I am so tired of characters who have some relation to/career in books/literature/publishing. If you expand this net to also include characters who just like to read/are a reader, then it happens more often than not.

This is a completely personal (and probably unpopular) opinion and does not make a book 'bad' by any means. I understand 100% why this is common: authors are often given the advice to write what they know and its an easy way to get your audience to connect with the character, etc, etc. -- It just personally doesn't work for me.

I will probably make a longer post about this pet peeve of mine in the future, but I'll stop there for now.

In a similar vein, any time an author puts in a line about how "books let me escape" or "reading lets me live so many lives" I just cringe at how trite it sounds 95% of the time -- this books instances included.

My biggest complaint: This book needed to be at least 50 pages shorter. Even though I was actively enjoying it, I got to the end of a chapter, saw I was at page 301, and was baffled that there were 80+ pages left.

Like I said before, I did like all of the characters, but I still think that one of the side characters should have been cut. They all serve a purpose in the story, so I understand why they are all there, but it was harming the pacing.

Rating Breakdown:

The rating system I am going to use is based on Book Roast's CAWPILE system -- you can learn more about it on their channel. The only change is that I added dialogue as a separate category from writing.

Total: 7.4/10 or 3.7 stars

Characters: 8

Atmosphere: 6

Writing: 6

Plot:5

Intrigue: 7

Logic:6

Enjoyment: 5