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[2.5]
I wanted to like this so bad but this had major problems and was not ready to be published. It had first draft energy.

I think at its heart way deep down there is a good book in there and every now and again I would be rewarded for my effort in persisting with this book. The major problems were:
- Continuity errors
- Logical inconsistencies
- Logic errors
- Ava's inconsistent characterisation

I also struggled with the cringey internal monologues that would have been fine if they didn't happen constantly. "I thought I was weak... but actually I am powerful" type of BS is fine in small doses but this book is full of them. The writing quality was also quite inconsistent. Sometimes it would be perfectly fine, and then other times it felt very slapped together like the author intended to go back and edit it later but never did.

The general plot I think was fine, I liked some of the twists. I like that rekindling the friendship between the two leads took precedence over the romance. I liked the atmosphere of the woods. I liked the rapunzel retelling aspect.

Unfortunately this book has major shitty first draft energy, and wasn't even close to being in a good state to publish and so everyone who reads this, even those who enjoy it, will be disappointed.

Rereading an old favourite for the first time in a long time can be so risky, but I'm so glad to say I still love it!

I think it does take a while to get good. There's the time needed to introduce all the characters and set up the world, so I was a bit nervous in the first quarter when it wasn't overly exciting lol. But once Po comes on the scene, seeing Katsa's friendship with him develop and the drama!! Ugh so good. Their relationship feels like the centre of gravity of the book as they learn to trust each other and understand each other in ways that no one else could. I love them so much!!!

The plot takes so many twists and turns and requires the characters to do a lot of problem solving and strategising, that at times it felt more like a thriller which I think is what makes this book feel so unique compared to other YA fantasy of the time. Sure, nowadays we have other stuff like Holly Black's Folk of the Air trilogy, but in 2008 not so much. It's part psychological, part survival, part political intrigue, part spy/assassin.

I also forgot just how GNC Katsa is and I love it. I think GNC rep, especially GNC women rep is so lacking even today fifteen years later. Apart from even that aspect, she's so wildly different from any other character I've read. Her preoccupation with survival and free will at all costs is very powerful. She experiences the complexities of self-sufficiency vs love and friendship and learns to overcome her blind-spots and move closer to finding out who she wants to be rather than who she's been forced to be.

[3.5]

If I hadn't been spoiled (by my own choice) about this book it would have been a DNF. I think my biggest problems lie with believability. I constantly lost immersion and if the following things bother you maybe strongly consider whether or not you want to bother with this:
- Memory loss doesn't work like that. For a book so preoccupied with trying to make things make sense this seemed like a huge oversight. You can't have magically convenient flashbacks that are always linear in a book preoccupied with realism.
- Things were over-explained. I think it may be a me problem that I didn't need to have the science behind things explained constantly, it felt like it dragged everything to a halt when I was here more for the plot. The problem solving aspect of the science would be fine in smaller doses but it makes up 80% of a reasonably long book. I also was constantly thinking about if any of it was actually realistic or not.
- the 'things going wrong' aspect of the plot just got so repetitive. It's my biggest problem with sci-fi in general. It didn't help that a lot of the problems were very minor and either didn't need to be solved or simply had no impact on the wider plot and started to feel like filler episodes in a tv show.
- apparently the main character knows how to do bloody everything. He started to feel like a Gary Sue. He's just so special uwu! He's always there for everything important in flashbacks to earth and he knows so much science completely unrelated to his specialty of microbiology and I don't buy the high school science teacher thing, sorry

Other more minor complaints is that this book wasn't nearly as humorous as the blurbs made it out to be, that or I just didn't get the humour. The writing style also wasn't for me. It uses a lot of very simple sentence structures throughout and the explanations of how things look also felt overly simplistic. For me personally I kind of wanted more out of the writing 'cause sometimes it felt like the book was treating me like an idiot and this is adult sci-fi. Without spoilers: the linguistic aspect of this book had me rolling my eyes but I luckily could mostly accept it.

I DID LIKE SOME THINGS THOUGH. However they all fall into spoiler territory. As minimally as I can say it, I liked the dialogue and interactions in the book. I also found the ending very satisfying!

I think for such a popular and well-loved book I'm shocked by how much I didn't enjoy this at times. I also thought it was way too long. However, there were still aspects that I liked enough that it bumped up my rating a bit.

dnf @ 73% // 2.5 stars

The writing style is nice but for me I felt too distant from the characters and events. I love a slow-paced life journey type fantasy (e.g. Assassin's Apprentice) but this was far too bland imo. Things happen but rarely did they feel impactful, aside from a few moments with the romance. I didn't care one way or the other about the love triangle and I didn't really care by the point I dnf'd about who she ended up with.

Unlike some negative reviews I did feel like the romances were well developed, especially the initial one. Their banter was cute and it wasn't as insta-lovey as some reviews made it out to be.

Unfortunately by part three I just stopped caring and even switching to the audiobook only helped so much (it was fine but I'm not sure the narrator was a great choice, I love her but not for this one).

[3.5]
After loving the heck out of I Wish You All the Best, I hoped to like this more, but I still had a good time overall. Basically just a queer teen romcom with fake dating tbh.

I really liked Wyatt, they're just like me fr fr. (especially Wyatt's Taylor Swift opinions are SO valid). Neil has to grow on you. He's immature, often a jerk for no good reason, very selfish, extremely short-sighted (so basically a teenager lol). Some of which he learns to overcome over the course of the book as he learns to communicate better, recognise his own feelings, and check his privilege. On a lot of levels he reminds me of Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls.

The biggest frustration was the third act breakup, sorry if you feel like that's a spoiler but this book is extremely formulaic. It was weird how it all went down and how it was resolved was fine but not something I particularly enjoyed.

I read quite a lot of queer (especially trans) YA romance and this is a middle of the road read that is perfectly enjoyable if not revolutionary.

I'm gonna tell my kids this is The Great Gatsby.

I never read any of the original and only made it 5 minutes into that movie version from like 10 years ago. So I went in knowing basically nothing except that people already shipped Jay and Nick from the original so there was precedent and these days I just really want to read trans stories because the cis annoy me sometimes so give me that t4t joy.

I really enjoyed the trans rep and overall queerness in the story, it was a cool speculation on queer community in the 1920's. I found most of the characters to be shallow in that YA kind of way but still just complex enough to be enjoyable and intriguing. I think if you enjoy reading about messy people and their drama this is a good one, but personally I found it a little tiring at times. The obsession with wealth, class, and aesthetics was not something I personally enjoy a lot which is why I haven't bothered tackling the OG but I think the commentary on race was interesting to read seeing as it's own voices and I'm not American. I was pleased with how well the themes of which were woven into the story.

I don't if it's just because I've been having a health crisis in the days of reading this but this shit made me cry. The queer joy and acceptance in this story is its biggest selling point in my opinion and so I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this even if it didn't fully capture my interest.