Cori McCarthyReseñas

I can’t handle this.

Teenager: *throws temper tantrum*
Also Teenager one page later: I am the most mature teen I know.
Me: you must only know one teen then.

I liked this twist on the Sword in the Stone story. A little to in your face with the LGBT equality. Yes, it's nice to know many people can relate to the differences but it could have been more organic. The scene I'm thinking of . . . yes, we kneaded to know this specific characters preference but the way she just announced it when no on asked? That could have been better, it just felt thrown in. All in all a great book, will recommend. Only took issue with one paragraph, lol.

K-Gr 4—This poignant, brilliant biography about the boy who was born as Gibran Khalil Gibran and came to be
known as one of the bestselling poets of all time creates a beautiful space for his name to live on. From his travels
from Lebanon to the United States and his seeking of peace to his awakening as a writer, it's clear that hope is an
arrow, but its path is not a straight line.

Kahlil Gibran is a world- renowned Lebanese American poet who tried to bring the world together with his words and art. Learn about his childhood and what inspired him to create poetry and art.
This is a beautifully illustrated picture book biography that will introduce the young reader to poetry, art and multiculturism. This book could be read aloud to introduce a study of poetry, Lebanese culture or world peace.

I tried to like this, but the writing was... not good. Excessive use of adverbs and awkward figurative language plus I didn't really find it funny though it was clearly trying hard to be. Not terrible, but really not my taste. I would probably give this two stars, but I really liked the LGBTQ representation. It's strange that this future world is repressive in many ways, but very open when it comes to the fluidity of gender and sexuality. But I like sci-fi with some aspirational elements as opposed to just a straight dystopia.

This could be popular with teens who are hungry for books with LGBTQ representation. I'm not sure if it will please fans of Arthurian stories. I really don't see it appealing to hardcore fantasy or sci-fi readers.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

I have SO. MUCH. LOVE. for this book!! You Were Here somehow manages to be heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time, an emotional roller coaster that you just can't get off of.

Told in alternating POVs, You Were Here follows five teenagers on a quest to complete a series of dares left unfinished by Jaycee's dead brother, and find themselves in the process. I loved this storytelling method: every chapter is seen from a different character's POV - and the narrative style changes accordingly. Jaycee's chapters are all narrated in 1st person, Natalie's and Zach's in 3rd, while Mik's are expressed as graphic novels and Bishop's reproduce his urban art. For me, this was an incredibly original and engaging way to keep the story working even with 5 different points of view, which usually makes it very confusing for me to follow.

I actually really liked getting to know all these characters, and by the end of the book I was feeling them a little bit like my friends, too. Each of them have their own problems and their own dysfunctions, from Jaycee's inability to cope with her brother's death to other characters' mental health issues or situations of family abuse. I think the author did a great job of portraying these difficulties, without trivialising or stigmatising them, and really conveys the message that ultimately, the strength to move on from difficulties can only be found within you, but having good friends and people who love you around you definitely makes this process a whole lot easier. The character development is also pretty amazing. No one stays the same after what they go through together, and they all come out of the book extremely different from how they got in.

This is a fairly intense book, and the themes it deals with are by no means light, but still there are some light-hearted moments and some great banter. And that ultimately makes a lot of sense, because that's the way life goes: for every bleak moment of sadness or outright desperation, there is always the chance of a positive, light and happy time with our loved ones. It doesn't often happen to me to find a contemporary that keeps me truly hooked, but this one I just couldn't put down. I'm certain that You Were Here will stay with me for a long time, and it's one I could actually re-read pretty soon.

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This was a super sweet novel about a variety of characters in a sense coming of age.

The settings of this book were a lot of fun, often places that an urban explorer would dream about. I loved the detail used, especially about the theme park, and how easily I could feel the adrenaline rush and the tension that would come from exploring each location.

Though the story was told from five points of view, only one was in first person which made it a whole lot easier to follow. I felt most connected to Natalie even though she wasn't the main character. The five were also extremely different and had their own backgrounds and ideas which made them a rather unlikely cohort, but a very amusing one.

One character's section was told in a graphic novel sense, and one in graffiti art. While I'm not usually very appreciative of art, I thought the illustrations were absolutely gorgeous and really added to the story. They were also very representative of the characters and contributed to the overall theme.

I loved how this dealt with various different problems that the blurb entirely misses out on. Jaycee might have the biggest problems, but she's in a way looking for the most attention and she gets this throughout the story.

This book was a solid read with gorgeous underlying messages, but I ultimately liked it the most for its creative settings.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

There were ideas I just loved in this book such as Merlin’s entrapment- going through time reliving the Arthur story/triangle. It explains how Merlin gets into this strange future.

I even liked Arthur was a woman/teen. It made things pleasantly different.

It just kind of fell of the rails at times throughout the book. There were a bit too many “oh look we are pushing boundaries” moments that drew attention to themselves. The pushing boundaries was great, but pointing directly at it, took away from the narrative.

It was ok and I enjoyed it at times, but can’t really recommend.

Had to drop it, it was not bad but I wasn't in the right mind to read it and can't really see myself picking it up anytime soon.

This is a bit different from my normal fare but I'm really glad I read it. It's the story of a group of five friends who after graduation, finally come to terms with an event that changed their world years ago, when Jaycee's brother Jake died in an accident on his graduation day. On the anniversary of Jake's death, the group find each other again and begin to heal and move on.

Each chapter is told from the POV of a different character, though sometimes those chapters are wordless and consist of a few comic panels or just a single depiction of some art or graffiti - for Mik and Bishop, the silent one and the artistic one, respectively, this works very well. However, the constant shifting POVs made it hard to really connect to any one character, and there were times I felt frustrated because I wanted to stick with one character and the story didn't.

In the end, I enjoyed the book, and it's sensitive and truthful acknowledgement of the grieving process, and that everybody grieves differently and at different rates.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley½

I thought is was a funny sci-fi adventure and I’m kind of disappointed.
Sometimes it was funny, but not as much as I’d liked. To me it felt like this book put too many concepts in 400 pages.

There’s the king Arthur myth, the sci-fi world, reincarnation and history repeating itself, action scenes, friendships and romances, plus it includes serious topics like space refugees and an evil mega corporation (I didn’t feel like those topics were ever as serious in the book as they truly are)
And all of these things are solid, but didn’t get fleshed out enough for me.
The evil mega corporation was cliche evil, the space refugee situation was mostly backstory and I really didn’t like the romance between Ari and Gwen. Guinevere is one of the core things from this myth, so I hoped there would be a slow love story to go with the dramatic ending. It was the absolute opposite.
I don't know how to describe it other than that it felt chaotic through all that was happening.

However, the reincarnation part of Arthur’s story was really well done. Many familiar elements showed up in interesting sci-fi ways. Everyone wants to do better than the last times, but they all see the signs.

*4.5

This book was so good! I usually never gravitate towards sci-fi/fantasy, but this book has definitely changed that. King Arthur was a fun story to learn about as well and this story was so inclusive in it's characters. I have a few nitpicks, so I didn't feel like it was a full 5 stars, but very, very close and I'm excited to read book 2!

*4.5

Decent, but not interested enough by it to read any more in this series

I was really enjoying this and then I read some of the negative reviews and I kind of agreed with them. This is a fun read, though, for those who like science fiction/future dystopia and medieval myth mashups. I loved the diversity of the characters with sexual and gender fluidity, including different ethnicities.

James Patterson just keeps finding new ways to make money off other people's work...but unfortunately, this one just didn't seem to land.

Two and a half stars. Partly because I just didn't enjoy the story very much, and partly because there were some very weird narrative decisions made by the authors. The first half or so felt like straight King Arthur fan fiction, and because I have only the vaguest knowledge of the King Arthur stories, I felt like I was missing out on a lot of what was happening below the surface. Secondly, the while the dual POV (Merlin and Ari) was generally well utilized, there were some parts where we, as the reader, missed out on some scenes and actions because the story kept us with one narrator over the other. Thirdly, the last act begins with a "One Year Later" gesture, which I absolutely hate reading about. It's lazy storytelling.

However: the diversity rep was great, and parts that I found wacky are very likely to be straight up fun for other readers. I also enjoyed how many genres were mashed together; that part was lots of fun.

I'm not going to give this a rating because I may have just not been the right audience for it. I got about 1/3 of the way in and just wasn't interested. I grew up reading various Merlin/Arthur retellings so I was excited about this, but it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.

I agree with Shannon, Top Gun for teens. I read about 55% of this and then skipped to the last 15%. I didn't really feel like I'd missed much.

Pandemic read.

I was quite pleasantly happy with the ending. Merlin is so sweet at his core.

I also really loved how breaking the cycle appropriately is important to do here, instead of hurting the orchestrator of this particular one. There was a lot of kindness shown & second chances. Empathy is such a powerful tool.

As disappointed as I was to find that this was,,, much more allocishet than I was expecting, I'm so fucking glad I read this.

I expected something fun. goofy. unmemorable.

And I got this absolute emotional powerful relatable book and I'm in awe.

There were so many good discussions - on discrimination, trauma, fame, fandom, who even knows what else - and so many parts that made me cry, and laugh, so much I could relate to - this book was everything I could have wanted.

Read it y'all. You're missing out.

Oh. My. God. I loved this book so much. I'll review it properly soon, but for now all I have to say is: SUPER QUEER SUPER AMAZING ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS FUTURISTIC KING ARTHUR RETELLING WITH A FEMALE KING ARTHUR.

And if that doesn't make you want to pick this up I don't know what will.