This is adorable in the same way the show is.   Some of the art is more similar to the show than the rest, but ti's all gorgeous.   More importantly, to me, is that the characters are true to the show, and they are.   The characters, and the world, are written to perfection. 

 

There's just nothing nasty about Steven's universe: some characters get pedantic, or very specific, or grumpy, but they're all treated with kindness.   There's villains, sure, and they are treated with boots up, well, where boots go when you're fighting someone.   Some villains turns out to be simply confused, or lashing out in pain, and once this is made clear, they're again dealt with, but not in a way that would further traumatize them.   

 

Same here.   Adorable shorts that just work, in the world Sugar has created in general and as short little vignettes in Steven's life.   Love, love, love.  

It left me feeling...IDK. I couldn't quit reading it cause it was great storytelling even though I knew it wasn't going to end good. I don't know, everything in it was foreign to me. I couldn't put it down, and now I'm just sitting here zoned out like a zombie.

I first read this author as a buddy read, one of my first buddy reads in fact, and the book we read was the author's first as well, The Kingdom of Childhood. It was a very controversial book about a taboo subject and I was amazed at how sensitively and brilliantly the author handled the subject matter. 

 

This is her third and once again she has taken a character that the reader should immediately disdain for the horrible acts she has participated in, willingly or not. Yet, somehow this doesn't happen, instead we meet a character who has made wrong decisions, regrets them and takes responsibility for them. Coleman uncovers the little things that lie underneath everyone's exterior. The mistakes people make, how one wrong decision and their whole life changes.t made me think back to my own past, how some of the things I did could have gone so wrong,. In this book Clare does something much worse than I ever did of course, but the author unveils exactly how she came to be in this position and maybe garners a little sympathy for the person she could have been, the person she was.

 

The ending I thought 

was the weakest part of the book, but despite that I really admire this author's talent.

 

ARC from NetGalley.

 

 

If this book did not have an interesting topic (adult woman seducing a teenage boy) it would have gotten only 1 star. I think Coleman's writing was trite, her foreshadowing clunky and obvious, and her lack of consistency in characters downright annoying.

Most of my notes from the first third of this book have to do with frustration that Coleman doesn't appear to understand how much the typical 16-18 year old knows about sex and the world at large. When Judy first meets Zach (as one of her son's friends) she is shocked at his use of inappropriate language (come being offensive for her) and feels that she cannot or should not discuss the Lewinski-Clinton drama with these "kids".

I thought the Mrs. Robinson discussion on their way home from the OH trip to be so ridiculously overt as to almost warrant a cessation in my reading.

I thought Russ's drug use (and overdose) was just added drama. I think a book like this (done well) could be an interesting character piece on its own with just a hint of the neglectful (because he is too busy with work) husband, rather than the drug abuse and overdose having been thrown into the mix. Along the same lines, I thought the fact that the school was going broke (and even closes and her last paycheck bounces!) was unnecessary plot/drama.

I also found Zach to be unbelievably inconsistent. First, he is the obnoxious kid who is telling jokes and doesn't ever work up to his potential. Then, he is the super mature and responsive son who takes extra care of his pregnant mother (bringing her lunch in bed) and loves his soon-to-be-born baby sister despite her potential problematic parentage. He is also the kid who never lies and worries about the morality of the affair. Blech...too much wavering here; he needs to be either aloof and teenager-ish or moody and removed, but not alternating super-engaged and checked out.

I found the whole culmination at the Winter concert to be too rushed and silly (would the mid-wife really seek Zach out to warn him?) and the fact that Judy returns to find Russ dead (but amazingly not from an overdose that she caused) to just be too sudden. I get that she is mentally ill and has become obsessed with Zach, but I was surprised that she had not even really remembered that Scott exists and that after his DAD DIES she simply ignores them and allows him to leave the state (isn't there a funeral? aren't there other family members who come to take care of things even if Judy has lost it?). I also found it astonishing that their daughter doesn't come home. I know she has turned weirdly religious, but wouldn't she still come home because her DAD IS DEAD????

Overall so much of it was just not plausible. Coleman was trying to address an interesting topic, but she made it so ridiculous that the book was not worth the time or energy to read.

When you first read the synopsis of this book it sounds like a romancey type of thing doesn't it? Oh ho ho, it's so much more. Jill and Cade do fall in love. There's your romance. That's about it. Shortly after Jill becomes pregnant they go to stay with Cade's family and things take a dark, twisty and crazy turn.The characters in Heaven Should Fall are wonderfully thought out. They are real, they are flawed and they make you want to slap them across the face a time or two..or maybe give them a hug? I really connected with these people and I know I'll be thinking about them for a while.How much can a person stand? How far can someone be pushed before they lose sight of what and who they were? This book is compelling and desperate and compulsively readable.