The Spectacular
Mar. 19th, 2025 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThe Best Kind of People by Zoe Whitall was one of my most memorable reads of last year, so I put a few of her other books on my wishlist and got hold of The Spectacular this week.
And - it was sadly very disappointing (though I think that's more to do with me than the book).
There's a lot of summary and a lot of 'telling', and much of it feels very counter to the title...
I didn't really like either of the viewpoint protagonists (I very much liked the third viewpoint protagonist, but she was barely in it) and I really disliked various aspects of the journeys they went on over the course of the book.
It also felt weirdly homophobic for a book with queer protagonists - and the presentation of the bisexual women was pretty terrible.
There was a drastic shift in the second half that made it feel like it suddenly turned into a completely different book, with very little connective tissue.
Okay - so maybe it was the book and not me...
A real shame, as I was hoping for a lot of great reading experiences from this author, but now I'm not sure I want to try any of the others.
And - it was sadly very disappointing (though I think that's more to do with me than the book).
There's a lot of summary and a lot of 'telling', and much of it feels very counter to the title...
I didn't really like either of the viewpoint protagonists (I very much liked the third viewpoint protagonist, but she was barely in it) and I really disliked various aspects of the journeys they went on over the course of the book.
It also felt weirdly homophobic for a book with queer protagonists - and the presentation of the bisexual women was pretty terrible.
There was a drastic shift in the second half that made it feel like it suddenly turned into a completely different book, with very little connective tissue.
Okay - so maybe it was the book and not me...
A real shame, as I was hoping for a lot of great reading experiences from this author, but now I'm not sure I want to try any of the others.
