'All of the Above' by James Dawson | Book review (SPOILERS at the end)
By Julita Stefaniak - May 07, 2019
Trigger warning: self-harm, eating disorders
Rating: 2.5/5
I’ve been putting off writing this review for a few
weeks now. Coming back to this book was not an easy decision, because it influenced
me more than I anticipated. But, finally, I’m sitting down to it (mostly because
I want to go to the library and give it back).
All of the Above by James Dawson tells a story of a sixteen-year-old
Toria that moves towns and ends up in a small city from which everyone is
desperately trying to escape. She makes friends with a group of outcasts that
quickly become her second family.
It’s a story about friendships, first love, struggling
about sexuality and mental health.
At the beginning of the book I really clicked with
Toria. She was witty, but a little bit awkward and shy, always thinking through
how to behave and what to say. Reading from her perspective was so easy I flew
through the first half of the book absolutely loving it. She had me at all her Harry Potter references. What I also
liked about her was how honest she was with the reader. What other character
describes the shits she got before exams? The raw thoughts were brilliant and
made reading the book a pleasurable, funny experience.
The relationship with Nico – love, love, looove. He
was such a cute guy and reading about Toria and him made my heart feel so warm.
I also enjoyed seeing the diversity presented in this
book and the fact that there were both characters that were cool with their
sexuality and others that were just coming to terms with it.
Unfortunately, there are no more good things about
this book and I decided to make a list.
1.Toria should really stop writing poetry. It was
cringey and just bad and after a few of the poems I stopped reading them completely.
They weren’t worth my time.
2.WHY THE FUCK ARE THE CURSE WORDS CENSORED IN THIS
BOOK? I don’t get this (especially since cursing was one of the traits of
Polly, which is like the second most important character in this book?). And it
wasn’t even f**k, no, the author decided not to give you any clues to what
Polly was saying, to give you an example: ‘****.****
**** ****.’. I know it was 'fuck', but it's just annoying?
3. Toria’s character development was soo bad. Usually
it is a good thing, but in this case, I would rather have Toria stay the same as at
the beginning. The stupidity of her thoughts and actions just exhausted me.
4. The storyline was messy. There were too many
problems for a book 300-pages-long. They weren’t properly resolved. I think
James wanted this book to be relatable to everyone and was left with a messy,
unfinished plot. It’s not possible to put everything in a one short teenage
book.
5.The ending was so slow and annoying and the last 20
pages were so useless to me, I skimmed through them and after each page, I was
checking how many pages there are left.
Favourite quotes:
You’re never truly by
yourself when you have a book in your bag.
HERE BEGINS THE REVIEW WITH SPOILERS
I usually write spoiler-free reviews, but in this case
I had to share my thoughts.
The short list of good things:
1.I usually want the cute relationship to be the
endgame, but in the case of this book, I was soo happy when Toria and Nico ended
things up. He was too cute for her.
The list of bad things:
1.I need info on Freya. Why was she in the friend
group when he hated all of them and never talked to anyone? It is simply not
realistic for the group to invite her out when all she did was sit and read.
Also, she seems like such an interesting character and I would love to get to
know her story too.
2. Polly is soooo annoying. Who does she think she is?
She wants the whole world to do as she pleases (Oh, Toria has a boyfriend, who
cares, I’m gonna kiss her, be mad at her because she doesn’t want to kiss me
again and to make things more awkward I’m gonna masturbate in a cell cause I’m
that sexy).
3.The golf course situation gave me Lemonade Mouth vibes. I understood that they
were mad about that place closing down, but for god’s sake, it’s just a golf
course. And of course, Polly thinking that she has to have it her way. She
wants the golf course to stay so she’s gonna handcuff herself to a freaking seal.
Real smart and mature.
4.Am I the only one that got annoyed at Toria when she
stopped talking to her internet friends? Before they were the only thing she
had, but she quickly moved on (this is what I’m talking about, the change in
her is for worse).
5.Also, how could Toria be a bitch to her mom, when
she knew she had problems? She didn’t even try to talk, help out, nothing. She
only thought about herself and Nico/Polly.
6. I absolutely hated how Toria made Daisy’s eating
disorder all about herself. Just because you know somebody for a few months and
become friends doesn’t mean they have to tell you everything, especially things
connected to mental health issues. This was the only time I liked Polly because
she wasn’t scared to tell Toria to grow up.
Have you read All of the above? What do you think?
2 Comments
I have never read this book, nor did I read about such delicate topics as eating disorders and self harm.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's not easy to write on such things. The author has to balance on the edge between being too literal and straightforward (not to encourage such beahviours), and being too judgeful (not to condemn people who are in trouble with this). It's really hard to get the insight without being too periphrastic.
I love it that you liked the characters and that you really dug into it and have some questions about the plot. It really describes how you feel after reading this book and the review is helpful!
I am really looking forward to getting some reading updates or reviews from you soon!
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