The Jack of Hearts and Other Parts, by L.C Rosen, is easily one of the worst YA novels I have ever read. The book follows the story of a high school student named Jack who writes a sex advice column for his peers. Throughout the narrative, Jack begins receiving anonymous love letters from a "secret admirer" that get more menacing as the plot develops, turning into full on blackmail at the end. You may be wondering, "why would a high school student be writing a sex column for his classmates?" because me too. This is the most unrealistic and over exaggerated book on earth, with characters that are as complicated as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I would not recommend reading this unless you want to lose braincells.
Along with being over exaggerated and having bleak one-dimensional characters, this book has a plethora of basic sentences that add little or nothing to the plot, introduce topics that have no relation to what's happening in the story, meaningless conversations between characters that unsuccessfully add comedic effect, and various "filler pages".
The narrator introduces the topic of a "secret admirer" 8 pages into the book, without having fully described the two supporting characters that play a large part in the storyline. Having finished the book, I still have no idea what the secret admirer plot line was trying to add to the story, with the "love notes" being mentioned from time to time at random parts in the book. I think that the "love notes" were adding suspense to the story, but as a reader I felt like they were there to fill the pages and make the main characters life seem more interesting.
Now, to the main plotline of Jack of Hearts and Other Parts, the sex and relationship advice column that Jack writes. In my opinion, this plotline completely destroys the idea that the narrator and main character, Jack, is still in high school. I may be off, but from what I know, no 17 year old high school student is so knowledgeable on relationship advice to have a whole column on it, making the main character of the book someone that an extremely small audience will relate to.
Lastly, we have the "filler pages". These are quite easily the worst thing about this book. Throughout the chapters, the author manages to sprinkle in 1-2 pages of text messages between the characters. I can assure you that you will find one of these text messages pages every other chapter or so. You may be thinking, maybe the texts add to the plot or give the reader more insight about the characters personal lives? Well, no. These are the most bleak imaginary texts I have ever seen, with them only showing that the characters in the book talk to each other and that Jack has many strange encounters with people who want to be with him. This would be fine if the texts were the main things showing how everyone interreacts with each other, but the readers already get that from the pages with actual paragraphs, making the filler pages of texts completely and utterly useless.
Because of the all of the faults in the plotline, characters that barely anyone can relate to, and 1-6 filler pages found in almost every chapter, I would not recommend this book to anyone. I think that the author did a horrendous job of conveying what high school relationships are like and over exaggerated every single thing about the characters, making the book unrelatable to its targeted audience.
Along with being over exaggerated and having bleak one-dimensional characters, this book has a plethora of basic sentences that add little or nothing to the plot, introduce topics that have no relation to what's happening in the story, meaningless conversations between characters that unsuccessfully add comedic effect, and various "filler pages".
The narrator introduces the topic of a "secret admirer" 8 pages into the book, without having fully described the two supporting characters that play a large part in the storyline. Having finished the book, I still have no idea what the secret admirer plot line was trying to add to the story, with the "love notes" being mentioned from time to time at random parts in the book. I think that the "love notes" were adding suspense to the story, but as a reader I felt like they were there to fill the pages and make the main characters life seem more interesting.
Now, to the main plotline of Jack of Hearts and Other Parts, the sex and relationship advice column that Jack writes. In my opinion, this plotline completely destroys the idea that the narrator and main character, Jack, is still in high school. I may be off, but from what I know, no 17 year old high school student is so knowledgeable on relationship advice to have a whole column on it, making the main character of the book someone that an extremely small audience will relate to.
Lastly, we have the "filler pages". These are quite easily the worst thing about this book. Throughout the chapters, the author manages to sprinkle in 1-2 pages of text messages between the characters. I can assure you that you will find one of these text messages pages every other chapter or so. You may be thinking, maybe the texts add to the plot or give the reader more insight about the characters personal lives? Well, no. These are the most bleak imaginary texts I have ever seen, with them only showing that the characters in the book talk to each other and that Jack has many strange encounters with people who want to be with him. This would be fine if the texts were the main things showing how everyone interreacts with each other, but the readers already get that from the pages with actual paragraphs, making the filler pages of texts completely and utterly useless.
Because of the all of the faults in the plotline, characters that barely anyone can relate to, and 1-6 filler pages found in almost every chapter, I would not recommend this book to anyone. I think that the author did a horrendous job of conveying what high school relationships are like and over exaggerated every single thing about the characters, making the book unrelatable to its targeted audience.
First of all...hahahha. I will not be reading this book for sure. I like how honest you were and that you warned us. You made good points and supported it with the text. I agree with the point you made that very few people would be able to relate to this, and filler pages are annoying. When the author uses filler pages, it is obvious and it feels like a waste of time. I wished that you maybe would have put it at least one good part about the book, but this was a good, helpful, and brutally honest review. Good job
ReplyDeleteYour review is hilarious because of how passionately you hated this book. I will keep your opinions in mind about this book if I ever come across it! Are there any good points about his book? Another question, who wrote this review? Actually, never mind, hi Andrea! I figured it out by process of elimination lol. Anyway, thanks for the warning, and I hope you come across a better book next time. Also, I just looked up the book and saw the cover (because I always choose books by the cover) and I'm wondering how you picked it up without suspecting anything about what the book was about (This is a person who is not a fan of annoying high school romance books taking, just to let you know). Doesn't look very good. Neither does the summary. That saying, who knows, maybe you read it for fun, fully knowing you weren't gonna like it. Ranting about a book makes a good review too! Nice work, I look forward to seeing what your next post will be!
ReplyDeleteThis review is very engaging because although you state that the book is not relatable in any way, shape, or form, this review most definitely is. Your review sounds formal yet laidback which is a great way to get a reader to be engaged. I really enjoy the comedy of this and how you are venting about the quality of the book. Filler pages can be super abrupt and most of the time ruin the overall flow of the story. Anyway, this is a great review!
ReplyDeleteAh yes, I remember you struggling to read this book last year. From the few excerpts you showed me, I am inclined to wholeheartedly agree with your evaluation of this book. Though maybe the authors' goal was to remove taboos of sex, I think you explained perfectly how it fails to do so. I appreciate how you separate your qualms with the book into sections and go into depth about how they hurt your overall opinion of the book. Your writing style and tone was engaging and interesting, and I can't wait to see more of it in your next blog post!
ReplyDeleteYour review reminds me very much of reading sapiens in history, your description of how the book falls flat created the same image and feeling in my mind that I felt when reading sapiens. I applaud you for being bold enough to tell your real feelings about the book, and reading your review was engaging and entertaining.
ReplyDeleteThough I have not read this book before, I have heard many comments on it, all bad. I think your review does a nice job summarizing the book, even though some of it didn't make much sense to you. I understand why you think the book is unrealistic, as writing a sex column for your classmates is not something one does. I liked the way you organized your blog, and I loved your analogy using peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Overall, your essay was funny and informative. I might read "Jack of Hearts and Other Parts" just to see how bad it is.
ReplyDeleteAwesome review! Since most blogs I have read are in light of the book they are reading, it is refreshing to read from the perspective of someone who blatantly hates a book. You definitely present a clear opinion on the book, and everything you say is backed by evidence and specific examples from the book. I normally don't like spicy romance books anyways, but you made it clear that it is badly written even for its target audience. Nice job, and thanks for the warning!
ReplyDeleteI have not read, or even heard of this book before, but after reading your review, I certainly plan to. I want to see how poorly this book hits its own target demographic. From the details you mentioned, I am actually more confused by the book now. It is clear that it is meant for highschool age readers, but like you mentioned, includes situations and experiences that no highschooler can relate to. I hope to read this soon, although I am not looking forward to the random filler pages. Thank you for your very passionate review.
ReplyDelete