Trigger Warning// Self harm, suicide, ableism, mental health
This book was entertaining but there were many parts that I felt uncomfortable with how they were written. I think there definitely should have been a warning for much of its content, (The only warning is a small line of text above the bar code stating the book "contains some violent scenes", which is not specific enough. Violent scenes are suicide are two different things) and the handling of self harm and suicide was awful. I wouldn't have picked this book up had I known it would deal with such topics in such a way. The author was not careful dealing with this, and the sudden way that it was brought up could be triggering for some readers. I am not saying the book shouldn't deal with such content though, I think it is very important for these issues to be discussed but it just wasn't handled right.
The actual plot is fairly interesting. We follow a very wealthy teenage girl who is starting a new school in New York City. Stereotypical fictional school drama happens as the girl starts to 'befriend' the 'mean girls'. This was the least interesting part and sadly I don't think the author knows how to write teenage girls. I thought it was stereotypical, but maybe that is how wealthy teenage girls act. I doubt it though.
The tunnels and the other New York is what interested me though. There is a tunnel that is activated by a gem that one of the 'mean girls' has. When you walk through the portal in the tunnel, you are travel into the future. You can't go back through the door and must reach the other end of the tunnel to travel back to your time. This wasn't used as much as I would have liked.
There was a lot of potential for this to book to be brilliant but it really fell flat. Large majorities of it is stereotypical and done many times before and the aspects that are interesting aren't explored enough. Then there's the handling of suicide, self harm, mental health and ableism. This dragged this down from a three star, alright but kind of forgettable book to a two star, wouldn't really recommend book.
So while I found the book entertaining enough to read fairly quickly, I wouldn't recommend this book.
This book was entertaining but there were many parts that I felt uncomfortable with how they were written. I think there definitely should have been a warning for much of its content, (The only warning is a small line of text above the bar code stating the book "contains some violent scenes", which is not specific enough. Violent scenes are suicide are two different things) and the handling of self harm and suicide was awful. I wouldn't have picked this book up had I known it would deal with such topics in such a way. The author was not careful dealing with this, and the sudden way that it was brought up could be triggering for some readers. I am not saying the book shouldn't deal with such content though, I think it is very important for these issues to be discussed but it just wasn't handled right.
The actual plot is fairly interesting. We follow a very wealthy teenage girl who is starting a new school in New York City. Stereotypical fictional school drama happens as the girl starts to 'befriend' the 'mean girls'. This was the least interesting part and sadly I don't think the author knows how to write teenage girls. I thought it was stereotypical, but maybe that is how wealthy teenage girls act. I doubt it though.
The tunnels and the other New York is what interested me though. There is a tunnel that is activated by a gem that one of the 'mean girls' has. When you walk through the portal in the tunnel, you are travel into the future. You can't go back through the door and must reach the other end of the tunnel to travel back to your time. This wasn't used as much as I would have liked.
There was a lot of potential for this to book to be brilliant but it really fell flat. Large majorities of it is stereotypical and done many times before and the aspects that are interesting aren't explored enough. Then there's the handling of suicide, self harm, mental health and ableism. This dragged this down from a three star, alright but kind of forgettable book to a two star, wouldn't really recommend book.
So while I found the book entertaining enough to read fairly quickly, I wouldn't recommend this book.