I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi- ARC Review*
Hey there curious soul!👋
I never wrote a full review for this book and whilst I revisited the audio and my notes to do so- does a book about a lock-down and a huge threat to mankind sound familiar to what's happening in the world right now?- I realised it's time to do some backpedaling. 😅
Let Me Explain:
I may have changed my review rating... |
"What a beautifully heart-wrenching book! This is exactly what I want my young adult contemporary books to be like.
I'm grateful to BookTube for introducing me to this new release, because it restored my faith in YA contemporary fiction, which I feared I might have started to outgrow.
Books like this assure me that it will never happen, so I got THIS message (pun fully intended, sorry folks 😅).
4 stars."
So, those were my very own words in a previous bookstagram post about this book. And it seems like a glowing review.
I now recognize I wrote this in a haze of distancing myself from YA contemporary and wanting a book to change my mind.
Oh and I remember my mindset back then, because this book had so much POTENTIAL!
But in the end, my only complaint was stronger than any other element in this book:
I could not care less about most of the characters and their stories.
So let's write this one right, shall we?
Key words: Aliens, end of the world, finding a home when you have lost everything.Quick synopsis: Three points of view, three teenagers looking for a way to be close to their family members after the extraterrestrial message threatening to eradicate mankind.
The composition of this book makes it a primarily character-driven story, which is why I mostly want to talk about said characters.
Plot is more of a setting to this book rather than a main element.
Unfortunately I could not be more detached from the protagonists, which in turn made me not pay much attention to their back stories.
I liked Cate the least, because she was... well, generically different. Does that make sense? All YA contemporary protagonists seem to be introverts with a quirky personality, a passion for something and a familial struggle.
Even her name is very usual, but with a spelling twist.
She was not unlikable per se, just not very interesting on paper (or audio).
Adeem held a bit more interest for me. Though made with almost the exact same recipe as Cate, his fascination with radio and its role to the story was an intriguing element.
His main goal was to locate his sister and "sibling bonds" is one of the most compelling reasons for me to keep reading anything (I know this is very subjective, it is my own review after all).
My favourite character was by far Jesse, mainly because he reminded me of a certain character from a British soap opera with exponential growth and a tumultuous past (whom? Oh, you'll have to wait for that in a future post 😜).
He's the bad guy, the con, the troublemaker. Only difference is, he knows it. He blames himself for it. He perpetuates his altercations and illegal affairs and he loves punishing himself any way he can.
Plus he's fiercely protective of his own.
Except he rarely calls anything- or anyone- his own.
Final rating: ⭐⭐⭐
To sum up:
While a downgrade from 4 to 3 stars doesn't seem like a big deal, this young adult contemporary with a speculative element (ugh, sounds exactly my type) ends up in that endless pit of forgettable 3-star books I will hardly think about again.
HOWEVER, the world-in-crisis part of the book feels eerily prophetic since the book was released just a few months ago, so maybe I'm being too harsh.
Besides, I KNOW I will keep an eye out for the Amazon adaptation.
In a way, I think this book will translate better on screen, if the production does it justice, and I'm glad the author is adapting the novel.
Personal involvement of the writers in adaptations of their novels is a good way to ensure the passion that inspired their stories will flow into the screenplays.
Audiobook: While I did not like the narrator in the beginning, the audio certainly helped me push through after hitting the halfway mark.
The narration turned out to be easy enough to listen to, even on a higher speed.
Mini readalike session (I couldn't resist):If you liked
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
or
We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson (I haven't read the latter, but their premise sounds very similar),
you should give I Hope You Get This Message the chance it deserves.
*Listen to the I Hope You get This Message audiobook with a two-month FREE subscription on Scribd
And that's it from me, love! Till next time! 💋
Come chat with me in the comments:
- Have you read I Hope You Get This Message?
- Tell me your favourite YA contemporary (preferably hard-hitting):
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