Jessica’s Comments (group member since Nov 05, 2020)

Jessica’s comments from the The Perks Of Being A Book Addict group.

Camilla, you read our last book for the main SS!! Yayyyy go Daisies

My thoughts!!

(view spoiler)[ Spoiler alert: I actually cried.

This book contains: parental abuse, death of loved ones, mental health issues, suicide, depression, bullying, and other possible triggers

All of the reasons I disliked The Midnight Library, and the way it touched on mental health, were the reasons I loved this book. This book took the opposite approach dealing with a very sensitive topic.

I've seen many reviews saying that they disliked the way Eleanor was portrayed or how she spoke. However, I think people failed to see that that was the point. Eleanor suffers from mental health issues (and possibly autism). Much of this is due to trauma from her childhood that has not been worked through or dealt with. It was sad to see how many reviewers thought she was just strange or weird and were put off from the book due to that.

Yes, the phone calls with Mummy are hard. That is the point. As someone who has had a tumultuous relationship with a parent...these things exist and happen. Parents do speak to their kids like this. This was all part of the story building

Ultimately, this book isn't going to be for everyone. No book is. If you want a book about rainbows and sunshine, this isn't it. If you don't want to know about possible negative parent/child relationships in the real world, this isn't the book for you.

However, this is the best book I've read so far this year and I'll be recommending it to be book friends. It was incredibly impactful to me (hide spoiler)]

Oh goodness haha. This is copy pasted from my review!! It speaks for itself lol. I had many issued with the book unfortunately 😕

(view spoiler)[Bring on the hatred for my review.

CONTAINS: Self harm, suicide, mental health concerns, death of pet, death of loved one, terminal illness, other possible triggers

Is how this book SHOULD have started off. The fact that there was zero warning about the suicide bothers me. That can be so triggering for some people and it just came out of nowhere.

This book was really not what I was expecting it to be. I went into it believing the focus was going to be more on the library....considering that's the title of the book. I can promise you the library is arbitrary.

Nora is annoying and whiny and honestly I feel that she just chooses to be unhappy in all of the lives she goes to.

Lastly, my biggest gripe with this book is the portrayal of mental health. It feels like any life Nora tries out and she sees that she's on any kind of medication (anxiety, depression) that life is then considered a failure. As someone who suffers from these things, that really strikes a bad note with me. Why can't a life be a happy life just because you're anxious or need medicine to help balance your brain out? I just feel like the way this is portrayed in the book is all wrong and honestly pushing negative stigmas.

In the end she just decides to get over her regrets and go back to her original life and live happily ever after. Bye depression. All better.

Predictable, lame-ass ending. So disappointed with this book that was supposed to be the best fiction book of the year. I'm truly baffled as to how it won. (hide spoiler)]

Kristie I'm curious how you liked this one? As we both ended up reading it late

I've finished the book!! It was amazing. I'm going to mark it as "read" sometime tomorrow when I have my thoughts a little more together to write up a review for it. It left me with a lot of feelings and there were several points I wanted to touch on in my review LOL!

5 stars for me. I just finished and I'm still soaking on my thoughts....will come back to add to this probably tomorrow!! However, I immediately loved this compared to Midnight Library. I absolutely hated how mental health was discussed and handled in that book. I think this book did a much better job approaching the topic and portraying someone with mental illness.

Oh Diana you were right! Eleanor Oliphant is charming!!! I'm about halfway through and this is MUCH better than Midnight Library.

No, we don't. But it's ultimately more work if we don't pair our remaining SS books to the mini haha.

Sorry Robynne I meant your read from this morning!

For Robynnes most recent book I think our connection could just be books involving murder.

Camilla, yours also involves murder. What is the shady past of the male character? Does he drink at all (for us to say he is a heavy drinker or a womaniser?)

Robynne I'm in the middle of 2 books myself so please don't feel like you need to cram a bunch in

Can't believe we're down to 7 books!! (plus the extra 13 for the mini)

Alissa I agree. I just put unlikely hero down. because the cat is an unlikely hero lol

I also added a backup to the 2 related to the authors surname. In the captain chat it kinda seemed like the mods weren't going for that one...

Lol I had to do some Google searching into the books!! I've never read or seen Schindler's list. I did a lot of digging into the Wikipedia page XD

Diana - I added those 3 books to the mini challenge page. The dates column got a little wonky and wouldn't let me add the dates the same way the others are entered? But they're in there at least! yay

Lol thats probably all the creativity I'll have for the rest of the month!! I took the week off of work and I've also been snowed in so maybe the extra sleep has helped

For Mimi Lee Gets a Clue...Books about unlikely heros? Books about saving the wrongfully accused? lol idk I'm tryna work it.

For Murder at the Mayan Temple, the main characters surnames start with S

I looked at those ones and couldn't think of anything other than maybe murder?