hello earthlings! so if you don’t know i have a youtube. i’ve had it for a while but i didn’t talk about it because my mom reads these and she didn’t know. but after i accidentally sent a link to my family, they know and i can talk about it. but i have channel and i decided to start a book club where every month i talk about a book that has been involved in controversy and discuss whether or not the book is good. and this month we are talking about handbook for mortals.
so i read handbook for mortals. a book that is mainly known for the fact that it scammed its way on the new york bestseller. i made a whole video about it, go check that out i worked really hard on it. not a lot of people have read this book but still review it on goodreads. i think that’s kind of dumb but at the same time this book doesn’t deserve a high rating. its not very good book. but its not the worst book in the world. maybe its because i’ve read two fifty shades and two after books. but yes not the worst book. i still gave it one star though. i spent four dollars on this book and i’m really glad i didn’t spend another dollar on the hardcover because four dollars was already too much. i feel bad saying that but its true. there was a small part of me that wanted this to be good. i don’t know why. maybe because it has 1.3 rating on goodreads and most of them aren’t really about the book but about the scandal. but the foreword didn’t make my feel better. the first paragraph is about how to say Lani’s name. it’s like annie with L. now i can’t names are hard. people say my last name wrong all the time. but someone should cut this. i can’t judge this too hard because i don’t really count forewords. so let’s move on.
this book follows a girl named Zade who isn’t like most girls, is weird, and isn’t like most girls and is weird, and i’m forgetting something? Ahh yes its that she isn’t like most girls. have mentioned that Zade isn’t like most girls? because this book loves to bring up almost in every chapter. but yeah she is weird and isn’t like most girls so she travels from tennessee to las vegas to join a magic show with this dude named charles who is like david blaine basically even though we never really see him do anything. everyone just talks about what he has done. we learn that Zade is magically. i’m not really sure what she can do or how she can do it because this book doesn’t explain anything. all i know is that she can do stuff and have visions and that magick is spelled with k. she has this thing with a guy named Mac. despite what the plot says there isn’t really a love triangle. there is another guy but like half through he kind of just dips an we are left with Mac. they have a hate to love relationship which has no build up. they go from hating to being in love in five seconds. there aren’t many female characters in this story. there is sofia who is charles girlfriend who he just throws to the side at the end of the novel and its never explained and she automatically hates Zade. because if you don’t know Zade isn’t like most girls. weirdly when it comes to female interactions, i feel like a man wrote them. in one scene Zade is hanging out with a group of girls and they ask her where her favorite place to shop is. you know because they girl. girl like clothes. girl can’t like anything else. Zade can’t relate to the conversation because say it with me now SHE ISN’T LIKE MOST GIRLS! in another interaction, Zade is getting lemonade at the mall and this guy is serving her but then his girlfriend shows up and she literally yells at Zade because she was being nice to her boyfriend and Zade then uses her magic to spill lemonade all over this girl.
Zade isn’t the best main character. for one she feels like a self insert. her life story and description is very similar to Lani’s. I’m not saying that it was on purpose. that’s just how it felt. We don’t know much about Zade other than she isn’t normal and most girls aren’t like her. she uses her magic to harm people. like one time a dude on a bike accidentally bumps into her and she uses her magic to make him crash and is just like ‘karma’s bitch’. it was an accident and all he did was hit your bag. i get it if you were frustrated but like the dude could have gotten really hurt. she just never uses her powers for the right reasons. she uses them to harm people or uses them as tricks. in the beginning she does this trick using her magic and its a bit confusing. she throws a rose onto the stage and the rose stays there because the stage is solid. then she jumps and the stage somehow turns into a pool. i don’t know how she did this but everyone else is like wow so cool which i think is weird. like is anyone even thinking about the physics of this. i know the point of magic is illusions and stuff but even if it was an illusion how would she have do that. how! it makes no sense.
the writing isn’t bad but its not good either. like in the first chapter of the book there are a coupe of lines that i thought were nice. but then there is one line though that you guys probably have heard of but i’m still gonna talk about it.
“I rarely think this but i wish a photographer had taken my picture at that moment as the outfit and the background and i may have produced a cool looking photo.”
i thought that i was just reading it wrong but turns out, i wasn’t. to make sure i sent to j and mason who did confirm that i was not going insane. this first chapter which is technically chapter zero but i’m not calling it that has great atmosphere and unfortunately this is never really in any other parts of the book. a lot of description is given in this chapter and not a lot else happens until the very end. but the descriptions do bring down this book though. its very telly and gives us a lot of information that most of the time we don’t need or things we don’t need in that moment. like later in this book Zade is sees this stage hand and still of giving us his introduction, she just says i would later learn his name was tad and he always says this. like that information would have been so much better shown then told. also if a joke is made the book tells you why its funny. like I’m pretty stupid but i got the joke please don’t explain it.
there’s another line that is another example of how descriptive this book is that i would like to share with you all.
“Both of his hands reached toward his head and he started rubbing his forehead, which he had scrunched up. His eyes were closed and he had the look of someone who had been suddenly hit with a headache. He took a deep breath in and out as if to try to calm himself. His hands moved from his forehead to his mouth and he looked directly at me as if he was deciding whether he should yell at me some more or push me into the pool. He pulled his hands away from his mouth and pressed his lips together tightly. His hands folded together, close to his face. It almost made him look like he was about to pray. He finally brought himself around enough to speak again. His words came out calmly and clearly since he was standing very close in front of my face. It was even, in a soft tone, the way some people sound when they are on the edge of losing it all together.”
i just don’t know how i feel about it. that’s a lie i know how i feel about it. i hate it. the writing has potential to be good but it is dragged down by stuff like this. maybe this would have worked better as film because instead of being told these reactions i could see them. i don’t know.
nothing really happens in this book. everyone is working towards this show, mac and zade continue to have their very boring relationship that lacks any chemistry, charles acts weird and mysterious because that’s his character, and every other female character is girly and a bitch. actually we have zade’s mom who is barely in the story. she is in the beginning and in the end. her relationship with zade is weird because the story isn’t sure if they are lorelai and rory or emily and lorelai. basically in the first chapter they are yelling, then they are crying, then they are making jokes, and then we yelling and crying more. there is are so many mood changes that you can get whiplash. i don’t know how whiplash works. her mom is also magick with k in case you forgot. i think we learn that at the end or maybe we always know that i’m not sure! oh yeah and charles the mysterious guy is zade’s father. which i saw coming. its a pretty predictable plot twist and based off how the rest of this book was i figured that it was probably coming. he is still in love with zade’s mom despite the fact that he has a girlfriend. they get married in the end and i’m guessing sofia just got kicked to the curb which i feel bad about. the book really wants me to hate sofia but i don’t. you have to give a better reason to hate her other than she and Zade don’t get along because Zade just isn’t like most girls.
one thing that bothered was the fact mac had a pov in this book but when its his pov, the book is in italics. this isn’t a big deal. i just didn’t like it. but then later on zade gets hurt and is in coma for a bit. we basically focus on mac and charles but instead of going to mac’s pov like we’ve done before, it’s in zade’s pov. but she is in coma and doesn’t talk or do anything and we are reading this book in 3 rd person but then zade will be like my mom was telling mac this and i’m like GIRL YOU IN A COMA HOW WOULD YOU KNOW! it just makes no sense. why did you bring in this second pov if we weren’t going to use it in the end. i just didn’t get it. it’s so weird. it’s a weird choice to make. this book is filled with weird choices. this book is just a weird book with a weird story and a weird reputation. at the end of the book does hint at a sequel. it ends with mac saying that there should be a handbook for mortals so that he can understand this world which i get because i don’t get it either. and it then says they lived happily ever after… or DO THEY?? that’s reallyy stupid and i feel like that was added as joke. like no one out there is ever thinking that they need to use this to end a book. i really think was a joke. my kindle edition came with a sneak peak and it’s a bit transphobic if i’m being honest. we meet Zade’s aunt who identifies as women but they use male pronouns when talking about her. also they act like trans people don’t exist because opening seeing her, they are all like THIS IS SO WEIRD OH MY GOD! zade even talks about her aunt like its like weird thing and her aunt is crazy and they are just going along with this act. i know that its not a part of the actually book but its not good. if a sequel is going to happen which i doubt then let’s change that because lani i’m pretty sure you don’t wanna be in any trouble then you already are.
the whole point of reading this book was to find out if this book was good. i talked about the scandal and now i have read the book and i can say that no this book is not good. i was holding up hope that i would be proven wrong and this book was secretly a gem. it’s not though and i’m kind of sad. i think without the scandal some people would have found enjoyment in this book and it would have a higher rating on goodreads. i do have to say please don’t review this book if you haven’t read it. i don’t know why this bothers and this book didn’t deserve high praise but i don’t know. i believe that you should at least give a book a try before you review. in a way if you think about it, Lani wanted this book to famous and in a way it is. just not in the way she wanted.
hope you enjoy this post. hopefully i do more post. i’m stuck and my house and there isn’t much else to do. as always i posted rants like this every once and a while. look out for more reviews and other random posts. like, comment, and follow for more rants like these! also make sure to follow my social media links.
you know you love fiction,
Grace
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