Reviews and Comments

This was a great concept for a book and very well-researched, but I think it had pacing problems and the end.

It's difficult to write from the point of view of a child and I think this book mostly pulls it off. One thing that worked very well for me was Helga's conflicted and evolving feelings toward Hitler. She's naturally repulsed as a small child and, because of her upbringing and propaganda, talks herself into a more positive view as an adolescent.

My biggest problem was pacing. The chapters in the bunker started to get rushed and perfunctory toward the end. I thought it was ramping up for a big scene on May 1, but that wound up being mostly off page, so kind of an anticlimax.

I thought the parallels with Snow White worked very well.

Credit for delivering on the title, the narrator did in fact have chocolate cake with Hitler several times.

I'd be interested in reading the author's other book about the bunker next April.

I appreciate the writing challenge Rosen sets for himself here because the detective operates underground/outside the law and can't just go to the police at the end.

This was suitably twisty and turny for a mystery novel, and I enjoy how Rosen writes all different kinds of queer characters.

It kind of tried to make a statement about freedom of information and reading, but didn't really have anything new to say.

The story was fairly conventional but the character work was very strong. I liked seeing how young Elwood was personally affected by the civil rights movement, especially in contract to Turner. That's an angle I haven't seen very much.

I had seen the movie before reading the book, so I knew the twist at the end going in. I kind of wish I had not and I had been able to see it develop on its own. I thought the encyclopedia scene was important to Elwood's character development, and was surprised with wasn't included in the movie.

I listened to on audiobook and the narrator generally did a good job giving the characters unique voices.

This was enjoyable, but I didn't like it as much as Nothing to See Here.

Now is Not the Time to Panic was more personal, and also had a great sense of time and place. It captured what it felt like to be a smart, weird kid in a small town in the South.

Wilson has a way of making the main characters feel real and the side characters a little cartoonish (e.g., the three brothers).

I think the audiobook was read by Judy Hopps?

This is very interesting as a product of its time, in that it's attempting to grapple with racism and tell a story where the black character is the hero, but ultimately has the black character dying for the sake of the white protagonist. The author had good intentions, but didn't seem to have made black people part of the writing process.

The story was exciting and set up a lot of challenges for the protagonist, but I would have appreciated one or two more twists and turns.

Listened to the audiobook. Well performed, but the accent wouldn't fly today.

4.5 stars for procedural/plotting, 2 stars for characters. Averages out to 4 stars because there's a lot more of the former.

Excellent procedural problem-solving writing and enthusiasm for science that bleeds through the page. The science facts and problems were fun.

I found the characters pretty flat. Noone other than Grace passes the Phantom Menace test, and Grace's emotional arc didn't work for me at all. The reveal toward the end wasn't justified by what happened before or after.

Looking forward to the movie, wondering how they'll make it work with Rocky's speech and the timeline.

I think "breezy" and "lightweight" often mean the same thing, but you use one or the other depending on whether you liked the book or not, so I'll say breezy.

I enjoyed the contrast of the characters and how they arrived at the same problem (unwilling to express self) from different angles (lack of confidence, trauma).

I thought the Natalie/Alex relationship was well written and liked how Natalie used therapy-speak to run Alex down.

This was generally well pitched to a YA audience. Suggestive instead of sexual, profanity was used sparingly and was effective when it was used.

The book was entirely uninterested in men, which is totally fine.

I think a month was too fast for the amount of events that occurred, but I'm not 18 anymore.

Found out afterward that the book was semi-autobiographical and written by two wives, would be very interested to find out what their writing process was.

Listened to the audiobook in one day on a long car trip. I thought the audiobook was generally good, except a little too much performance.

Continuing my practice of reading a poem every day. Picked this because I like "Danny Deever" from Starship Troopers and "Boots", which I first saw in the 28 Years Later trailer.

Going to be an exercise is separating the art from the political context.