Pages: 400

Genre: contemporary young adult, lgbt characters

Synopsis

Angel Rahimi does not know what she wants to do with her life, but she knows she loves The Ark, a famous pop-rock trio boyband. She’s very involved with the fandom, which is seen to have its positive and negative sides as we also experience Jimmy Kaga-Ricci’s opinions about it. He’s one of the members of the trio boyband, playing with his childhood friends. The music is what makes him like it, being on stage and performing. But he can’t go out on the street alone without being assaulted by fangirls, he barely have any free-time with their busy schedule and his anxities are getting worse as he feels his privacy is invaded. When they started to get popular he was accidentally outed as trans, so he knows a couple things about privacy concerns. His dream has turned into the beginning of a nightmare, caging him in. Angel and Jimmy is forced to figure out the balance together, as one helps the other.

The Audiobook

There’s two narrators for the two different main characters, Angel and Jimmy. I really liked both of them, the accents were lovely, but sometimes they got on my nerves as well which was strange. Jimmy’s narrator voices all the guys though, and the voice he gave Mac (a minor character) is the most douchy and annoying voice, which made me laugh and grin my teeth together at the same time. Didn’t surprise me when he was starting to act a bit douchy as well, it fit well.

My thoughts

Rating out of five: four

Writing books about internet and fan-culture seem to be a difficult thing based on the books I’ve read that has gotten it wrong. There’s many reasons for that, most of all how fast it’s changing, making it difficult to capture even one particular moment in time. Alice Oseman does it so well, describing it as well as dvelving deeper into the pros and cons of idolizing groups and celebrities and how much space and influence to give them in our own personal lives. And she does all this in anentertaining way! Alice has some really on-point thoughts on it, with different sides conveyed through Jimmy and his other bandmates Rowan and Lister, along with their “biggest” fans Angel and Juliet.

idolization

I’ve always had a difficult time idolizing people, like I’ve always known that on some general level all those people have flaws as well. Also I’m very scared about meeting people I look up to, in case I have to experience those flaws first-hand. I’ve not been a big fan of artists, even though I wished I was at times. The community I saw friends building, bonding over their favourites, going out and promoting their records, waiting in line for their concert. All this is things Angel would do, and during this book she goes out of her way to help the guys of her favourite band. To an almost comical degree, because she finds herself in weird situations with them. But it wasn’t unrealistic enough to break the fun it was to see these characters interact and the questions, prejudices and reactions they all had to each other. Angel and Jimmy especially had some hilarious and cringy scenarios together, where the characters goes a bit meta and describes how much it’s seeming to turn into a fanfic, but it’s always done cleverly and tastefully.

characters & plot

Through this light and fun story Alice serves, there’s also greater themes pointing to internet and fandom culture, as well as indentity and how we might use things we enjoy both to escape and to connect with others. There’s always lines between interests being healthy and unhealthy, losing yourself in it. Still, I did not appreciate Jimmy’s grandpa telling Alice how things were and that she needed to focus more on herself and stop thinking she was in love with the guys from the band. Okay, some of it made sense, but when he started his speech I realized how much Alice grew on me through the book. I didn’t like Jimmy very much, I thought he should’ve reached more out to his friends, but I also wanted to defend his anxiety and the need of a good support system, which none of them had. So there’s proof that he had his place in this story as well. They all did. I thought I knew where this book was headed for a while, but the ending was a (kind of) pleasant surprise.

Feelings I had reading this book: enjoyed it, clapping my hands at the well-written characters and their personal struggles coming to terms with their popularity or identity, want to read more Alice Oseman books right away

Pages: 320

Genre: contemporary young adult, lgbt characters

Synopsis

What if you aren’t the Chosen One? The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?

What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.

Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.

Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.

The Audiobook

Narrated by James Fouhey, which had a good and fitting voice. It was just good in general.

My thoughts

Rating out of five: four 

“Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.”

It’s a good read if you don’t go into it expecting a fantasy story. You get a “normal” coming of age story, of a teenage boy Mikey who are worried about what to do after high school, but mostly just trying to survive the year. Aren’t we all? (Like seriously, I have nine long months left). It’s definitely a surreal experience reading Mikey’s description of the special “indie” kids (aka with powers) disappearing and dying in the fight against monsters and green lights. It’s explained by a clear separation between who is a indie kid, one of the heroes of a regular fantasy novel, and who is the cilivians. His town is definitely a warzone. And as a reader you just have to go with it, to not ask too many questions or it will fall apart.

I don’t know what I think about a book where asking to many questions about their situation will dig enough plot holes until it’s mostly holes and not much left to enjoy. I feel like Patrick Ness often seem to keep to the line of “is this real or the main character’s imagination” until about half the book has passed, when action start to set in. Still, I couldn’t stop myself asking questions. Like why don’t they move out of town, if it’s overrun by monsters? Why haven’t they found weapons that work? Lots of these questions aren’t even asked in the book, the reason I suppose is that Mikey isn’t a part of that world. But he is, constantly seeing and choosing to ignore or investigate it. They all are, which makes it interesting.

The balance between having a normal highschool life – being with friends, parties, schoolwork, drama, relationships – and the monsters wrecking shit in town and endagering humans is a really funny and heartwrenching one. It’s a bit too relatable, as while I was reading it dealing with major health concerns that come in like one of those monsters. A lot of this book is about contrast and responsibility. While the basic plot of the friendgroup was enjoyable, with camping and relationship and friend drama, everything else brought added dimension, perspective and funny satire of the stereotypical fantasy hero novel. For example, the “indie” kids have apparantly chosen, maybe just been born for, fighting against the monsters alone. They insist that it’s their job, and the civilians are happy to comply.

Last thing worth mentioning is the vivid descriptions of Mikey’s anxieties and OCD, I haven’t read many books about it, but he describes being trapped in thoughts and actions and it seems very real. It does not help having anxiety that feels like something bad is going to happen soon, when monsters are roaming, but that seems to be the point.

Feelings I had reading this book: trying to survive the schoolyear is relatable af, i also want to go camping with friends (it’s never supposed to go well is it?) … also sometimes monsters has to be talked about and dealt with i guess?