Saving Zoë // DNF’d @ 150pg

I DNF’d this at 150 pages because it was way too hetero for my liking, along with other reasons. But let’s start with the excessive heterosexuality and move on from there. 💁‍♀️

I don’t personally know what it’s like for straight people who write characters who are also straight, but…as a lesbian, when I read/hear that someone is completely unsatisfied in relationships with men — or even uninterested — I presume it’s because they’re more likely to be gay or asexual…not that they just haven’t found the right man yet.

So, for about a hundred pages, I’m reading about this freshman whose relationship sucks because the author hasn’t realized her sexuality is probably not straight.

In these pages, I’m coming to terms with the character casting: all white, all straight, all bland. No one has anything special about them. Echo’s pissing me off because, regardless of fucking grief, she’s betraying her dead sister and Dead Sister’s Ex-Boyfriend is letting her.

I watched the movie.

About two chapters into the book, I started watching the movie. Unimpressed, because it was blatantly different from the book, I stopped. Some chapters later, I watch the movie because the book is too reminiscent of the days I tried finding enjoyment in dating men.

The movie is monumentally different from the book, but it’s also told from a more mature standpoint.

The book’s first-person POV makes Echo even more aggravating, to the point that she feels fake/like an unreliable narrator. She’s the epitome of what’s wrong with female characters in YA, in that no matter how great the story is, weak and whiny female characters will still kill it.

[book-info]

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