Imani ♥ ☮'s Reviews > In Some Other World, Maybe

In this book, there was a single line that managed to keep this book slightly (very, v e r y slightly) above average. It was a line about privilege and that even a life of privilege can be sad. Or something. Honestly, I had to return this book and the line wasn't that memorable to begin with. I just liked it (very, v e r y slightly) because it was the line that for me, cemented the fault with the entire book. At least the author managed to acknowledge the very problem with this story, or rather the stories, of these fine and very privileged young adults. If the author hadn't, my god, this book would have been getting a straight 2 star rating. But because there was some admittance of fault from the author I can admire the book a little more.

This book wasn't really boring. I yawned a great deal anyway. Know why? Despite everything -all the ups and downs of the relationships, the falls and rises of the drama through the ages (I'm not kidding, I don't know how old anyone is supposed to be half the time but I think they all age like...20 years or something by the end?¿)- I saw them all, I knew all of it would happen.

Call me psychic.

I wish I could say I was kidding. It's hard for me to even not spoil anything because all of it was so incredibly predictable that from the moment I picked it up and got a gist of the characters -spoiled but deep, nerdy but troubled, poor but genius, troubled but...troubled blah blah- I'm like oh yeah, tons of sex and tons of illicit romances and running away and blah blah blah blah. It's fun stuff, really. I just kept yawning.

I wasn't kidding about the "fun stuff" thing. It really was relatively entertaining. Kinda like watching St Elmo's Fire for the first time and thinking these new graduates were the deepest, darkest things in the world when really, these characters graduated from a top university and they're complaining because they don't have their lives together, ever (join the club). It's dysfunctional and the kind of fodder I would probably write as soon as I graduate college. It's fine if you like watching racy, angsty dramas on HBO. It's fine if you like...Sylvia Plath? I'm not sure but it just wasn't my thing. I didn't feel like I knew any of these characters (besides the fact that they're all jerks and do jerky things before complaining about how they do jerky things) and honestly, it wasn't a loss. I didn't want to know any of these characters because knowing them too well would feel to me, like capitulating into the shoddiness that was their lives (and jeez, the whole time I was reading it, I just hoped I wouldn't turn out like these characters by my mid-thirties). Also got a little One Day gist in there. Just a tad. Not. Good.

Overall, I really probably would have liked this book a tad, slightly (very, v e r y slightly) if the author had stopped pretending that Oliver and Sharon were actually main characters. The author was obviously more dedicated to Phoebe and.... Jake (?)...Adam (although I could see that when she DID manage to write about Sharon she seemed to be a bit more dedicated to Sharon than anyone else. Well the writing wasn't bad...general angsty writing that can be fun for read for about 200 pages or less.