Skip to main content

Click "Archive" or "Labels" in the sidebar to browse reviews, or use the search bar to look for a specific title.


Review: The Running Dream

The Running Dream The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was 10/10. Go read it.

I guess that was the short version of this review. The Running Dream was just so good. Part of my enjoyment definitely stems from the fact that I am a runner myself, but I'm sure that that is not something that's required in order to enjoy this book.

A huge part of what made me enjoy this book was the feels it gave me. I naturally don't feel like I have very many emotions, and that I am instead in a constant state of neutrality. So anything that makes me feel is super welcome in my book, and oh boy, this book made me feel.

"I am a runner. That's what I do. That's who I am. Running is all I know, or want, or care about.”

This is for sure the most I've ever cried from a book... or from any form of media really. I just sympathized with Jessica so much, and I could put myself in her position and it was just... it really hit me. Basically what happens is that Jessica is a 400m track sprinter, the best in her age group, but one day due to an accident she loses her leg from the knee down. Running was her entire life, and it ripped me apart reading about how it was so brutally taken away from her. I cried in the beginning because of how sad it was, and then at the end because of how amazing the whole book was.

I also loved this book simply because: Sports! This is my second sports novel I've read and I'm hooked. I absolutely loved reading about Jess's last race, the description of the run was so exhilarating. It made me really crave reading a book that was just about sprinting, but I knew that that wasn't going to be this book. This was probably my only disappointment about this book: I thought that by the end we would see Jessica compete again. I was craving another sprint during the entire book and I was left still famished.

This book seemed like a really accurate depiction of exactly what it would be like to loose a leg. It was also really accurate in terms of running, and it has a lot of really good quotes. Man, this book was the bee's knees, okay? I maybe didn't really care about the slice-of-life aspects, with school and love and whatnot, but it doesn't even matter because what I do love about it I just love so much.

Ack, I have such a strong craving for reading sport books right now! But most of them seem to centre around romance, with the sport being the secondary focus. Sigh.

Bonus: My Favourite Sports Anime! (No Spoilers!! Just behind a tag)
(view spoiler)


Please consider giving this review a "Like" (it helps me out a lot), and follow me if you want more!

View all my reviews
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Review: 寄宿学校のジュリエット（３）

寄宿学校のジュリエット（３） by 金田陽介 My rating: 5 of 5 stars Brb, crying. Not actually, though. Like, I didn’t shed any actual tears or even get close to it, it’s just that this series… is so good . The romance between Romeo and Juliet is still weirdly innocent, but the actual story is so engrossing and entertaining. It also seems like almost literally every single character is complex and interesting and multi-layered. (Only the background characters like Maru’s lackeys are undeveloped, but honestly they really don’t need any development anyway.) The relationships between characters keep getting more and more complex, and the situations that the characters have to deal with are also super juicy. This is such an addicting series. My initial problem with Romeo and Juliet’s relationship was that it seemed pretty unhealthy and one-sided to me. Later, I found it very weird how sexually immature they both are, and how un-intimate their relationship is. What is interest...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Bitter Witness: Otto Dix and the Great War

Bitter Witness: Otto Dix and the Great War by Linda F. McGreevy My rating: 0 of 5 stars This is a very unique and interesting academic text. There are no other examinations of the German artist Otto Dix, his war experience, and his war-related art that are quite as in-depth as this one, while also covering a wide range of different aspects and angles of not only the artist's story, but also the Great War's. I used this as a source for a University research essay I wrote on the effects of Dix's war experience on the creation and effects of his painting Skat Players (1920). I was very late in starting my research so I unfortunately had to stick to only reading the information I could use for my own examination, rather than being able to devour this book in its entirety. However, the library requires this book be returned at the end of January of next year, so I have some time now to actually finish this book since the semester has finished...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Spells & Sleeping Bags

Spells & Sleeping Bags by Sarah Mlynowski My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book was infuriating. Miri was super annoying during book 2, but she started this book off with some funny burns toward Rachel which made me think maybe she would be better in this book. Ha. No. She wasn’t. Miri. Oh Miri Miri Miri. So dumb. And it was annoying how it seemed like she didn’t even learn anything from the last book. She’s still all about saving the world and whatnot and being a dumbass. And she talked about poofing up money to help her help people, which is extremely illogical because she knows that poofing up money means she’s stealing money from somewhere else. Way to “help” out the world you fucking idiot. For the majority of this book I reckon she was under some kind of “emotion amplifying” spell but honestly that’s no excuse since she’s still her dumbass self. (view spoiler) [Her figuring out that Fake Rachel wasn’t real Rachel was nice and all but felt a bit...
Post a Comment
Read more