Why I DNF(d) Weird Girl and What’s His Name by Meagan Brothers
What: Weird Girl and What’s His Name by Meagan Brothers
Who: Three Rooms Press
When: October 13th 2015
How: A copy of this novel was provided by Three Rooms Press for review via Edelweiss.
In the tiny podunk town of Hawthorne, North Carolina, high school geeks Lula and Rory share everything—a love for sci-fi, resentment toward the parents that abandoned them, and Friday night binge-watching of old X-Files episodes. But when Lula discovers that Rory has been secretly sleeping with his creepy middle-aged boss—she disappears on a journey to find her long-lost actress mother in New York. When she returns, nothing is the same, and she is forced to make amends or risk repeating the mistakes of the generation that caused the two friends so much pain. Meagan Brother’s piercing prose speaks to those who have ever felt unwanted and alone, and who struggle to find their place in a world that seems to reject them.
Why I Did Not Finish This Book
– The characters were so goddamned precious and unique and misunderstood. Good god no. Please stop with how utterly, unflappably, unequivocally special you are. We get it. You’re loners, you have quirks, you are the only two people in the world that get each other. We fucking get it.
– The characters were also indistinguishable. The first ~50% of this book is told from Rory’s point of view. And then it swapped to Lula. And there was absolutely no difference between the two. They were both so witty and philosophical and I could not continue with it any longer.
– There was no plot. The blurb of the book described Lula going off for four months and returning. I thought that’s what the book would be about. But Lula only returns when her chapters start, which I mentioned before was at ~50%. The other 50%? Just Rory going on and on about how utterly amazing Lula is, and how they’re the special two, and when they did this and that blah blah freaking blah. We understand. You’re besties. You’re super special. You’re “geeks”. OKAY.
– I had no investment in the special, special characters, or their dull existences. I did not care that Rory’s boyfriend dumped him, or that Lula wanted to know her mother. I just did not care at all. Probably another reason why they felt so utterly smited by the world.
– The X-Files spoilers. Oh, god. Okay, just because they are fans did not mean they needed to quite every single freaking damn episode and ruin it for people who have yet to watch it. And I don’t care about “spoiler expiration date” or whatever. Besides the fact that I now know HUGE plot points of a show I intended to watch in the near future – it did not convince me of the characters’ love for the show. You can love something without bringing your life in and making parallels every freaking paragraph. You can write about characters loving a show without bringing in every important plot point.
I went in expecting an awesome story about best friends, and was left completely dissatisfied.
© 2015, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.
Oh, this just sounds terrible. I never heard of it and don’t think I’d ever pick it up because these characters would just annoy me too much. Plus, I want to watch X-Files at some point and do not need a terrible book forever sticking in my brain just because it spoiled things for me! Honestly, there are so many books out there that reference pop culture, but just say that so-and-so liked something without going into detail about all of the plot points. Is that so hard? Sorry you had to go through this, but great review!
Yeah, the characters were pretty irritating, I must say.
SAME. So I was super annoyed when there were spoilers everywhere :( I know, right? When I mention that a character loves something, I don’t spoil *screaming*
Thanks, lovely!
Oh wait WHAT there were spoilers in the novel? Of the TV show? Man that absolutely sucks. Because sure there could be a spoiler warning, but even then it’s still in the book, and you have to read the book in order to review it.
The characters themselves sound meh. I hate it when they don’t have their own individual personality. They are just there, as agents, for the plot, which apparently isn’t even that good. Man I am sorry you read this. Well technically you dropped it, so that’s a good thing right? Yay for DNFing!
Hope your next read is better Chiara!
There were! And I was super disappointed! DON’T SPOIL ME WITHOUT WARNING.
Yeah, I couldn’t really see much of a difference between the two when the POV changed, and I wasn’t a big enough fan of either of them to bother finding out what happened, haha. I did drop it! I am learning to DNF and it’s fabulous.
Thank you, lovely! <3
TV spoilers? That alone is enough for me not to pick up this book. I haven’t watched X-Files myself, but it really sucks that you were spoiled. And that this book was so…meh. I find super quirky characters really annoying. It’s one thing to have quirks, but I hate it when characters are made to be otherly (my computer wanted to change that into motherly…) and so special. It gets old really, really fast.
#notspam
I know, right! It sucked so much D:
It gets really old, because its just like … am I supposed to be constantly appreciating how completely ~unique! these characters are? Sigh. (LOL at motherly!)
Okay, I’m getting the faint sense you didn’t like this. And this is one of the reasons I love DNF reviews so much! I used to feel really awful writing them, because it felt like a cop out, but… they’re fun. They’re interesting. I learn what others didn’t like, what they couldn’t stand, and writing them helps me get off my chest annoyances with a story. The golden rule of reviewing is that we can’t love everything. Or it should be the golden rule. It’d make things so much easier on us.
This is a really through review and I have to say this does not sound like something I’d have gotten through, either. Characters like that just… rile me up. It’s like stroking a hedgehog the wrong way. You only get prickles. (What. I don’t even know anymore.) And boo to spoilers. I’m with you on that. It happens a lot with Star Wars in books- like, we love it! Remember when ALL THESE THINGS HAPPENED. Yes, *I* do, but what about everyone else you just ruined it for?
HUMPH. *whispers* and it has such a pretty cover.
Oh really? HAHA XD I don’t DNF very often, and when it’s a review book I feel like I should kind of tell everyone WHY I couldn’t bear to finish it, yaknow? I don’t rate them, because I think you have to finish a book to rate it, but I’ve found I quite like DNF reviews, ha!
Yeah, the characters were kind of insufferable, not going to lie. And the spoilers were horrible. Like what EVEN, especially since there’s a new season of X Files coming out and I just *screaming*
I KNOW. So pretty :(
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