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maria_f_2024's review against another edition
2.0
Moments of tremendous humor and insight, but they're ultimately outweighed by pages of details that ineffectively attempt to show rather than tell. I
carolineyvonne's review against another edition
5.0
Not a favorite while I was reading it but something kept me going. It has stayed with me and actually, I enjoyed this better than Catcher in the Rye. Lou, unlike Holden is not suffering from a mental breakdown, she is a quirky individual and her eccentric nature comes from her upbringing. Or lack thereof, I should say. I really felt for her and have at times felt as much of an outsider or on the fringes of everyone else around me as she did. Yes, it is the classic teenage angst but there's something else as well. Something that has made me decide I will revisit this book in the future, some may argue she is suffering from a mental disorder of some kind but that's not the impression I got. She was simply an odd duck who didn't fit in well and wasn't even sure if she fit in with her own self much less anyone else. Definitely a book to explore again and see if there's something new to pick up on that I missed the first time around.
clr00's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
ryunojoou's review against another edition
1.0
From the summary, I expected this to be a sinister, chilling story where the main character ends up in a situation much like "The Stepford Wives" or some such where the perfect suburban outer shell of her host family hides disturbing secrets.
Instead, I got a girl who desired to change her life and wanted nothing to do with her family, only to... not change her life and act exactly as she described her family. It was hard for me to feel any empathy for Lou, whose problems were her own fault.
Instead, I got a girl who desired to change her life and wanted nothing to do with her family, only to... not change her life and act exactly as she described her family. It was hard for me to feel any empathy for Lou, whose problems were her own fault.
bxredd's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
lynnenad's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book is about a dysfunctional Rotary exchange student from Australia in the USA. It shows her self-obsessed decline into drugs and promiscuity. She appears to have few redeeming features, despite being super intelligent. The author does a quick bail-out on the main premise of the story in the last few pages. It’s as though the author herself got sick of the character. Don’t waste your time.
jade_smith's review against another edition
reflective
tense
slow-paced
3.5
I saw people saying that this book was trying too hard to be Catcher in the Rye. I've never read Catcher in the Rye, but perhaps I should since I enjoyed this book a lot. I found Hyland's stream-of-consciousness writing style engaging and easy to digest.
Louise is a deeply flawed protagonist but I didn't find her unlikeable or annoying. I personally think her character makes a lot sense of if read as autistic, even if she wasn't expressly written that way. Her hyper-intelligence but overall lack of "common sense," her general feelings of alienation and confusion at the behaviour of those around her... if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, well... I think that perhaps this lens makes her less "annoying" (to borrow a critique I saw levelled at Hyland's protagonist) and more a picture of a young woman unable to access the supports she needs.
I found the blurb on the Penguin edition I read to be quite odd. It shaped it almost as a psychological thriller, which this absolutely isn't. The drama doesn't come from a family's hidden secrets, but from Louise's disalignment with the world around her.
Louise is a deeply flawed protagonist but I didn't find her unlikeable or annoying. I personally think her character makes a lot sense of if read as autistic, even if she wasn't expressly written that way. Her hyper-intelligence but overall lack of "common sense," her general feelings of alienation and confusion at the behaviour of those around her... if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, well... I think that perhaps this lens makes her less "annoying" (to borrow a critique I saw levelled at Hyland's protagonist) and more a picture of a young woman unable to access the supports she needs.
I found the blurb on the Penguin edition I read to be quite odd. It shaped it almost as a psychological thriller, which this absolutely isn't. The drama doesn't come from a family's hidden secrets, but from Louise's disalignment with the world around her.
daja57's review against another edition
5.0
A young girl is desperate to escape her poor Australian family. She has a one year student placement in the United States where she stays with a rich family. But the parents expect her to conform to some rigid rules, the daughter resents her and the young son wants to have sex with her. She struggles to fit in and her 'bad' behaviour has consequences.
Perhaps the fundamental problem is that back home there has been petty squalor while everything in the US is too perfect. She feels the pressure to be perfect while being aware that she isn't, and the world isn't. The few friends that she does make are other misfits: the sin-exploring Mormon, the drug-addled millionaire's son, the rebellious Russian chess-player. When she has the opportunity to shine in the 'perfect' world, landing a part in the school musical (by auditioning with the savagely ironic song 'Anything you can do, I can do better'), she needs alcohol to cope. She is the classic outsider (in the Colin Wilson sense): she can see the short-comings of the world and yet she desperately wants to be a part of it,
"The carpet is so threadbare you can see through to its veins." (1.2)
"As I lay there, I could smell the dirty dishcloth Mum uses to wipe the lino." (1.2)
"After years of exposure to this advertising frenzy, people must start to despise each other for being ugly, for having so much as a birthmark on their chin with hair growing out of it." (1.5)
"There are so many healthy, good-looking teenagers, that a few crooked teeth, or short, fat fingers, suddenly take on the proportions of deformities." (2.11)
As a metaphor for this, she has endemic insomnia. Something else that everyone can do which she can't (although she can sleep fine in other people's beds, just not in her own). And of course the metaphor is perfect because she can wander around the house at night and look at everyone else while they are sleeping, another outside seeing the rest of us sleep-walking through our lives.
"Within minutes of closing my eyes, my brain springs open, like a flick-knife." (1.2)
"The wave of sleep has washed up on the shore of my unhealthy skull." (2.15)
"It's like sitting down to a plate of food, only to find that you have no mouth to eat it with. Even worse than that, it happens when you are hungriest, when the food is of most use to you, and when you are quite sure you have a mouth. ... In fact, only yesterday, you were sure that your mouth was working very well indeed. You even saw it there on your face when you looked in the mirror." (3.20)
A classic tale of a teenage misfit.
Perhaps the fundamental problem is that back home there has been petty squalor while everything in the US is too perfect. She feels the pressure to be perfect while being aware that she isn't, and the world isn't. The few friends that she does make are other misfits: the sin-exploring Mormon, the drug-addled millionaire's son, the rebellious Russian chess-player. When she has the opportunity to shine in the 'perfect' world, landing a part in the school musical (by auditioning with the savagely ironic song 'Anything you can do, I can do better'), she needs alcohol to cope. She is the classic outsider (in the Colin Wilson sense): she can see the short-comings of the world and yet she desperately wants to be a part of it,
"The carpet is so threadbare you can see through to its veins." (1.2)
"As I lay there, I could smell the dirty dishcloth Mum uses to wipe the lino." (1.2)
"After years of exposure to this advertising frenzy, people must start to despise each other for being ugly, for having so much as a birthmark on their chin with hair growing out of it." (1.5)
"There are so many healthy, good-looking teenagers, that a few crooked teeth, or short, fat fingers, suddenly take on the proportions of deformities." (2.11)
As a metaphor for this, she has endemic insomnia. Something else that everyone can do which she can't (although she can sleep fine in other people's beds, just not in her own). And of course the metaphor is perfect because she can wander around the house at night and look at everyone else while they are sleeping, another outside seeing the rest of us sleep-walking through our lives.
"Within minutes of closing my eyes, my brain springs open, like a flick-knife." (1.2)
"The wave of sleep has washed up on the shore of my unhealthy skull." (2.15)
"It's like sitting down to a plate of food, only to find that you have no mouth to eat it with. Even worse than that, it happens when you are hungriest, when the food is of most use to you, and when you are quite sure you have a mouth. ... In fact, only yesterday, you were sure that your mouth was working very well indeed. You even saw it there on your face when you looked in the mirror." (3.20)
A classic tale of a teenage misfit.
rhea44's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
jijibug's review against another edition
3.0
Leaves you wanting more... dwindling ending... An all too common fate.