Introduction to my book obsession
In my junior year of high school I got really into reading books again. Maybe it was because I was just exploring the beauty of literature or maybe I was craving nostalgia and an escape from reality because I felt I was tumbling toward senior year and the thought of college applications made me feel nauseous. The shining knight who came to show me the way back to reading was Booktok. It was great at the time! It was a resource to figure out what genres you were interested in, a way to get recommendations for new books, and a community to talk crap about the fictional character you had beef with.
Well, in theory, it worked that way but it then turned into a place of overconsumption, strictly smut, and the praise of some weird authors with weird books with weird plots (this is about like 10 people)…Anywhooo this article isn’t about critiquing them because I’m a doofus who fell for it. These reviews will be based on the vague memory I have of them and the mini Minecraft notebook I use for my book reviews (I wish I was joking). There will 10000% be spoilers so just be aware. Also, I will be including a quote from my Minecraft book for each book, so thanks to 16-year-old me.
The Love hypothesis by ali hazelwood
Girl, what is this? The whole basis is that Olive, a PhD student, gets into a fake relationship and then a real relationship with Professor Adam Driver. Oh, my bad, Adam Carlsen. Fun fact actually, this is an Adam Driver fan fiction turned to published novel so do with that what you will. You could call Olive “multi-faceted” how she lies a lot, is incapable of having a mature conversation with love interests despite being a very intelligent woman and a grown woman at that, and tries to tell Adam how to be a professor despite not being one. That being said, Ahn, Olive’s so-called best friend, pushed her to make most of her poor decisions.
Adam was low-key a stalker and that’s all I can remember about him. This book also falls into the he’s-so-tall-I’m-so-small thing that I think gets uncomfortable really fast. But, and I mean a very small one, this was a very entertaining book. This book had drama like a middle-school theater arts class. I won’t say whether that is a good or bad thing but it kept me reading.
16-year-old me’s opinion: ” Backtrack on Olive, don’t make a problem by lying and say ‘Oh no, my luck!’ No, it’s not luck, it’s your fault!”
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E Schwab
On a brighter note, I actually mostly enjoyed this book! A very relatable book for if you’re a girl that relates to the fig analogy made by Sylvia Plath or you too have made deals with dark entities in the woods. A girl in the 1700s named Addie LaRue panics about the limited life choices she could make so she makes a deal with the gods that her grandma would pray to. She gets what she wished for, but she now is cursed to live forever and for nobody to be able to remember her. It was heartbreaking to read about her going through the pain of having her family not recognize her, knowing her friends and family had passed, and having love for people that can never reciprocate to a full extent.
But one day, a guy remembers her and apparently made a deal with the same evil entity! Get yourself a man that matches your freak like that. Overall, it was a very endearing book with some pretty good plot twists. I do believe this book did not need to be as long as it was. The repetitiveness of the “shucks, he doesn’t remember me” does get old. It’s also a pretty slow read so keep that in mind.
16-year-old me’s opinion: “Dude I loved Addie and Henry they were sweet and flawed. It made them human and beautiful (cringe)”
The Paris Apartment by Lucy foley
This isn’t from Booktok but the Booktok adjacent section in the Target book aisle. I’m making the executive decision it counts. This book had me gobsmacked. Every single character in this book is coo coo crazy. Jess goes to Paris to escape the law (she did what she had to do in my opinion) and finds out that her brother Ben went missing. The whole thing about Ben is that he’s this suave and handsome man who’s looking to investigate a sex trafficking ring that gets him nearly murdered as the ring leader was the father of his college friend and ex-situationship. Or whatever you would call doing things in an alleyway in Amsterdam.
Ben is played as this super flirt which is pretty intriguing to his character as he’s willing to get with anyone to get to the bottom of this case. I think the twists became a bit much though. When we found out he hooked up with the college friend, his friend’s mom, and kissed the friend’s sister I was like alright I see why you nearly got murdered. Also, Mimi, the college friend’s sister, is terrifying. Mimi is the equivalent of the little freak Barry Keoghan plays in Saltburn. You know what, this whole book is like Saltburn with baguettes and chic bobs.
16-year-old me’s opinion: “When it’s the don’t be creepy asf challenge and Mimi is your competitor” and another one because apparently, I had a lot to say about this book “Just because you ****** and ****** your friend in an alley in Amsterdam, doesn’t mean he wants you”
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
This book is a classic and deserves all the hype it gets so I’ll just leave you with this anecdote 16/17-year-old me needed to share: “Peeta is dead*** useless”.
Conclusion
That’s all I’m willing to share from my Minecraft notebook, it’s going straight to the back of my drawer… until I finish another book.