so bad – The Book Chick

| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Meet Santa Claus, the epic hero. From internationally bestselling author B.C.CHASE comes an imaginatively fantastical take on the man in red featuring a brilliant host of classic and original fantasy creatures including dwarves, dragons, goblins, and of course elves. This not-to-be-missed allegorical tale of courage, determination, and selfless love has been critically acclaimed as an instant classic destined to be passed down for generations to come. Also available as an abridged children’s edition.

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My thoughts: What a bad book. I’m so sorry Chase but this was not good in my opinion. The writing is terrible and it is really hard to read. Keep in mind that I read books with more than 1000 pages as if it was a magazine and English is not even my first language. I should not have this kind of problems. I’m not the only one who had troubles either. This was elected to be the December book in our book club. All of us (sure we are not that many) had trouble. I’m not even sure the others even finished it because they as me, struggled so much. But since it was a book club book and I also run this review blog, I wanted to finish it. I so wanted to like it and gave it a chance after chance. There was nothing fun about it and now I regret that I didn’t DNF it early on. Because god damn this was boring. And I payed 8 dollars for this.

The idea of an darker Santa story was intriguing and maybe it would have been a lot more fun to read if not for the writing. For me it felt like Chase tried to make it more than it was with a complicated way of writing. This is not Kafka, Chaucer, Mellville or Tolkien we are talking about. Books should not be hard. They should be enjoyable and fun to read. Don’t destroy it with a veil of sophisticated texts that clearly just isn’t you. I did not feel the author at all. There was no soul and for me, in my opinion, this one is just not worth the time.

| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Leah Burke—girl-band drummer, master of deadpan, and Simon Spier’s best friend from the award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda—takes center stage in this novel of first love and senior-year angst.

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat—but real life isn’t always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she’s the only child of a young, single mom, and her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she’s bisexual, she hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her friends—not even her openly gay BFF, Simon.

So Leah really doesn’t know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It’s hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting—especially when she realizes she might love one of them more than she ever intended.

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My thoughts: I didn’t like Leah in the first book, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, but I did like Simon and Albertallis way of writing that I wanted to give Leah a shot. However, I still do not like Leah and now I’m leaning to actually hating her. There is not that often characters bug the hell out of me like Leah did. And there is a lot more about the book that I don’t like.

Leah is a bitter, angry, mean, infuriating and unreasonable character who feels sorry for herself and taking it out on others who certainly do not deserve it. I really tried to understand Leah. I really did and to some degree I actually succeeded. Me too have been a teenager with all that it means. So yeah, I do understand, but there is limits to what I feel is acceptable and there was a lot about Leah that I did not accept or even liked.

And the story itself fell kind of flat. There was nothing I liked. No I do not wish to talk about this book anymore. It is just making me mad.

Tag: so bad

Santa Claus: The King of the Elves – B.C. Chase

Leah on the off beat – Becky Albertalli