I rather enjoyed the brisk pacing, and I would wonder what fiction is aside from the intentional stirring of one's heart, which confuses me when you say it's "manipulative" as if that wouldn't apply to other great (partly) tragic works. So aside from the poorly defended critical points, I believed this review was okay.
I really completely agree with this review. Actually, the transparent manipulation took everything out of the book for me - I didn't even enjoy it, and I'm glad to find someone else who doesn't adore everything about it.
What you mean by manipulative?
Your review hit many switches in my brain, triggering a feeling I don\'t know how to describe. When a review is gibberish to me, the emotions I feel upon reading it are also appropriately gibberish.
Add a title. Stay safe; stay well. Live beyond… memento vivere! Should intermittent vengeance arm again his red right hand to plague us?
I feel like there is some need to explain \"emotionally manipulative\" here. Yes, all fiction tries on some level to manipulate our emotions, but it shouldn\'t feel like it\'s doing that. And that is likely to happen if a someone\'s suffering has no other story or thematic function, it doesn\'t tell us about the character or is used by the plot later, it is simply there for making the reader cry. That is liable to evoke a feeling of \"it would be sad, but why should I care?\"
I agree that the review seems muddled, but that might accurately reflect what the reviewer felt.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
I also tend to be turned off by works that try too hard to make me sad. I need to care about the characters and story first- a tragic character being tragic isn\'t enough, and it tends to just feel forced. It\'s why I never really got into this story.
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Shamelessly manipulative but heart-wrenchingly genuine simultaneously.
It's a preachy book. It's manipulative and shameless and very, very transparent.
It's about a girl, a teenager, fairly sarcastic and deeply intelligent, sensitive and just a bit self-loathing, a self-confessed fangirl — in other words, a perfect caricature of the story's intended audience. Oh, and also, she has cancer. Because when you want your characters to be "deep" and "tragic" and to spend their time contemplating human nature and mortality, you give them cancer, I guess.
The first chapter is ridiculous. In the span of only a handful of pages, we meet our main character, she meets a boy, becomes attracted to him in a way she's never even thought possible, grows thoroughly disillusioned, disgusted, and outraged with him, and then comes back around to give him another shot. In most other books, that would BE the book, but no, here, it's just the introduction, and it comes off just as rushed and off-putting as it probably sounds.
But for all its cliche contrivances and all its lengthy diatribes, I'd be lying if I said it was anything but incredibly compelling, emotionally touching, well written, mostly well paced, thoroughly thought out, occasionally very funny, and just very strong all around. I couldn't put it down — read all the way through in a single sitting. Despite initial appearances, it does have some poignant points to make and some very memorable philosophies to share. It was an excellent experience.