Bridget's Book Ramblings

Pancha Ganapati, is a modern five-day Hindu festival in honor of Ganesha that comes to an end on the 25th. The festival was created in 1985 as a Hindu alternative to December holidays like Christmas by Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (born Robert Hansen), a Westerner who embraced Hinduism.

Book themes for Pancha Ganapati: 

Ok, it is kind of lame but I read The List which has blue on the cover. It could also qualify for the need for forgiveness because obviously, writing the list or mocking people on the list is not really nice and most of the characters could have a need for forgiveness, but it is not expressly said.

Tasks for Pancha Ganapati: I wanted to post a picture of those books but 2 of them are e-books and one of them an audiobook, so I will add the pictures here. Those are my 5 favourite books (so far) that I read in 2017:

an amazing book about racial issues in the US (review here)

   Marie Lu + video games... nothing to add (review here)

   One of my favourite series of all time (review here)

 This book was amazing and will probably be one of my favourite book of 2017 (I wrote this in January and have not changed my mind! Review here)

   My first Brandon Sanderson book ever, but not the last (review here)

Every year at Mount Washington High School, a list is published with the four prettiest and the four ugliest girls of the school, one for each grade. This book shows how the list affect every one of these girls.

I really enjoy the concept because it is so realistic. It also shows how important the opinion of other matters to teenagers. I think it is scary because it is so true. What other people think of you will always affect you, but even more so as a teenager. Even if you think it does not matter to you (like Sara in the story), you know it does.

All these girls know each other in some way and I like the fact that you get to know every one of them. My only complaint is that with eight characters, it can get confusing and it also did not go as deep as I wish it would. Also, I listened to it as an audiobook and it was even more difficult for me to understand who was whom (I have a visual memory so it is easier to remember names when I read).

I enjoy this book but it could have been even better in my opinion, I was expecting more.

Goodreads Synopsis: New Year's Eve ended with a bang and Mary, Kat and Lillia may not be prepared for what is to come.

After Rennie's death, Kat and Lillia try to put the pieces together of what happened to her. They both blame themselves. If Lillia hadn't left with Reeve... If Kat had only stayed with Rennie... Things could have been different. Now they will never be the same.

Only Mary knows the truth about that night. About what she is. She also knows the truth about Lillia and Reeve falling in love, about Reeve being happy when all he deserves is misery, just like the misery he caused her. Now their childish attempts at revenge are a thing of the past and Mary is out for blood. Will she leave anything in her wake or will all that remain be ashes?

Review:

I really liked this book but hated the ending! (we’ll get to that).

So at the end of the last book Reeve and Lillia were fine and happy but suddenly in this book they weren’t together and were avoiding each other. We never found out what happened between them! I can see how finding out about Rennie could have put a spanner in the works but why did they not just agree to be friends? I guess we’ll never know.

It was really sad what happened to Mary but messing with Kat getting into college was just plain mean. I know she’s a ghost and wasn’t really thinking straight but she then became the bully. What she was doing to Reeve was awful!

I enjoyed this book but what was that ending?? They literally could not have summed up the rest of the story any worse! So Mary spends the whole book hell bent on getting revenge on Reeve, but then she sees him bleeding out and suddenly has an epiphany that her killing herself was actually her fault. Okay I would get over that sudden change in attitude but then she just disappears! no apology for nearly killing them all or even a heartfelt goodbye, just poof!

Thats not even the worst part, they then give us a glimpse into the future and not only are Lillia and Kat not even really friends anymore but her and Reeve aren’t together!! He didn’t get to play football and she settled for Alex, what?! How does that in any way make sense? This has to be one of the most unsatisfying endings to a book ever! I just can’t wrap my head around how the authors thought that was a good idea.

Overall I really enjoyed the series but I have to admit that ending left a sour taste in my mouth. Not cool.