missbrie

I have a lot of good things to say, but I'll start off with the bad things because that's what's fresh in my mind and that's the type of person I am.

This book could have possibly gotten a 4 1/2 star rating had Oscar just fucked off out of this book.  I really hated the Jude/Oscar romance because right from the beginning it seemed so forced.  She was this closed off person, and I thought that this would be one of those stories where he chisels her out of her shell.  That's only partially true.  A lot of her character development happens away from him, and to be honest I thought that those were the best parts of her story.

It was instalove.  They were "meant to be" and they were... whatever the hell they called soul mates in this book.  All of the lovey dovey stuff was too much, especially since all of that happened maybe weeks after they met and just after he made out with that girl.  Who even knows what else he would have done with her had Jude not walked in?

It's just.

I do not like these gorgeous charming characters who do self destructive things, but look at how saaaad he is about the problems that he brought onto himself.  And he happened to be at the right place at the right time so that he could magically redeem himself.

I really hated the relationship and how the author went out of her way to make it seem like they were meant to be with the picture and the "prophesy" from both of their moms, and I just would have like either no romance, or for her to have a romance with someone else at a more natural pace.

Which brings me to something that I loved about the book:  Noah/Brian.  I will ship that relationship in hell.  I felt like Jandy Nelson did a wonderful job at developing their friendship and showing some hints that Brian might feel the same way about Noah.  She wrote the little things really well, like when they were looking threw the telescope together and Noah's back was touching Brian's chest.  That scene alone affected me way more than talk of prophesies and soul mates.

Which brings me to the other thing that I didn't like.  There's so much about Jude at the end and that makes sense since they were told through her perspective, but I really did not appreciate reading on and on and on about how perfect she and Oscar were together (I give that relationship a week) and then I get like three sentences about how Noah and Brian's relationship turns out.

Sorry, as I said, I really enjoyed this book as a whole, but I did not like the last 20% of it.  There was confession after confession after revelation after revelation and it put a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.  I liked the rest of the book, but unfortunately right now the good parts of the book aren't as fresh in my mind right now.