Sunny Dae spends his free time with his two best friends creating fantasy equipment for LARPing and avoiding bullies. He thinks he’s not worthy of spending time with the new girl, Cirrus, so he pretends his older brother’s rocked-out room is his. This sends him on a journey to pretend he and his friends are in a band. But what if he likes his old life better than his own?
This is definitely a case of “it’s not the book, it’s me” because for 60% of this book I was dragging my feet, but the last third was okay, and I think I know why.
For most of the book, Sunny is painfully cynical. It wasn’t fun to read when it was supposed to be cute, he and Cirrus bonding over cynical comments made over life and her constant moving around. Even when Sunny does some self-reflection in the end, he was still cynical, and I just didn’t enjoy it.
Some of the nerd stuff was cringy, like some puns made with the word “nerd” to show how uncool Sunny and his friends were. Also, while this is kind of a point made in the book, I kind of felt that it ignored the fact that being nerdy is pretty mainstream, with Marvel/DC movies and D&D making a resurgence.
The plot itself was fine. It’s a rom-com with Sunny bending over backwards to look cool for a cute girl, a classic set-up. She’s a little out of touch, not having lived in America before, hijinks ensue. Like I said, the climax and last part of the book was actually pretty satisfying and I wasn’t even able to guess how everything would fall apart before it got better.
I rated this 2.5 stars. If you don’t mind some cynicism, you’ll probably enjoy the book! It just wasn’t for me.
This is definitely a case of “it’s not the book, it’s me” because for 60% of this book I was dragging my feet, but the last third was okay, and I think I know why.
For most of the book, Sunny is painfully cynical. It wasn’t fun to read when it was supposed to be cute, he and Cirrus bonding over cynical comments made over life and her constant moving around. Even when Sunny does some self-reflection in the end, he was still cynical, and I just didn’t enjoy it.
Some of the nerd stuff was cringy, like some puns made with the word “nerd” to show how uncool Sunny and his friends were. Also, while this is kind of a point made in the book, I kind of felt that it ignored the fact that being nerdy is pretty mainstream, with Marvel/DC movies and D&D making a resurgence.
The plot itself was fine. It’s a rom-com with Sunny bending over backwards to look cool for a cute girl, a classic set-up. She’s a little out of touch, not having lived in America before, hijinks ensue. Like I said, the climax and last part of the book was actually pretty satisfying and I wasn’t even able to guess how everything would fall apart before it got better.
I rated this 2.5 stars. If you don’t mind some cynicism, you’ll probably enjoy the book! It just wasn’t for me.