Coming of Age, Coming Into Your Own, & Flowers.
"Ophelia After All" is basically the story of Ophelia Rojas in her senior year of high school. She is "boy crazy," loves her friends, and is a huge romantic at heart. What happens, though, when a girl walks into her life and makes her feel things she didn't think were possible?
This was one of my most anticipated of 2022 and while I liked it, I felt kind of let down. There is a lot to like about this book. It's funny, the side characters are as complicated and fleshed out as our main character, and the coming of age element / figuring out who you are in terms of sexuality is handled in a very realistic way. I could relate to Ophelia's journey to figuring out she's queer in a lot of ways, having been through some of the same confusion when I myself was a senior in high school. I also thought that the literary references were great and they were among some of my favorite parts of the book. There were some scenes where the drama came to a head that had me gasping and turning the pages - well, swiping them, I read this on kindle - extremely quickly.
Unfortunately, Ophelia had some annoying ass friends and they were always present. There was only one or two of them that didn't absolutely make me roll my eyes in the back of my head. I don't know about you, but if someone made fun of me constantly for having crushes on people, I would simply not be their friend. Ophelia's a better bitch than me. I realize this is YA, so I'm not the target audience, but the melodrama in relation to the prom was really difficult for me to care about. However, I DID NOT TAKE A STAR OFF FOR THIS, because I am not the target audience! Having said that, it was an issue for me. I am an adult who enjoys YA, but when the high school politics are very heavy handed, it becomes a little hard for me. One star came off for the friends being total assholes, and another star came off because honestly, I think that this could've been written a little better, and I hate that I think that, because this was a 5 star prediction.
This was one of my most anticipated of 2022 and while I liked it, I felt kind of let down. There is a lot to like about this book. It's funny, the side characters are as complicated and fleshed out as our main character, and the coming of age element / figuring out who you are in terms of sexuality is handled in a very realistic way. I could relate to Ophelia's journey to figuring out she's queer in a lot of ways, having been through some of the same confusion when I myself was a senior in high school. I also thought that the literary references were great and they were among some of my favorite parts of the book. There were some scenes where the drama came to a head that had me gasping and turning the pages - well, swiping them, I read this on kindle - extremely quickly.
Unfortunately, Ophelia had some annoying ass friends and they were always present. There was only one or two of them that didn't absolutely make me roll my eyes in the back of my head. I don't know about you, but if someone made fun of me constantly for having crushes on people, I would simply not be their friend. Ophelia's a better bitch than me. I realize this is YA, so I'm not the target audience, but the melodrama in relation to the prom was really difficult for me to care about. However, I DID NOT TAKE A STAR OFF FOR THIS, because I am not the target audience! Having said that, it was an issue for me. I am an adult who enjoys YA, but when the high school politics are very heavy handed, it becomes a little hard for me. One star came off for the friends being total assholes, and another star came off because honestly, I think that this could've been written a little better, and I hate that I think that, because this was a 5 star prediction.