Buddy Read-The Scorpio Races (sp for entire book)

BabyRN2006

Where to begin! I am worried I will be shunned because this was not my favorite. I really expected to like it more because I LOVED The Raven Boys.

Puck frustrated me. I'm not a gambler by nature so maybe that is part of it, but I couldn't believe how irresponsible and selfish she was. Luckily, it all worked out perfectly in the end but that seemed pretty unrealistic to me. I hated that she gambled everything on the extremely poor odds that she might win. She did redeem herself to me somewhat in the end. I liked that she went to Malvern and finally got a job and helped Sean get Corr.

I also felt bad for Dove. It seemed cruel to me to make her do the races. The poor thing was terrified and probably traumatized. Another issue I had was the fact that the voices were not distinct enough in the dual narrative. I had a hard time remembering if it was Puck or Sean who was narrating because they were so similar.

WHY did she always use first and last names for every character? It reminded me of my 13 year old nephew's paper he wrote for school that had to be so many words so he made a bunch of characters and always called them by first and last name to get more words in.

I wish more time would have been devoted to the actual races. We got what, 10 pages? The whole book was leading up to the races and it was a let down that we only got a short chapter on them. The pacing of this book was not great and I found myself bored a lot.

I was really hoping we would get a better explanation as to why Gabe was leaving suddenly, and we never did.

I was not invested in the romance at all. I could see them as great friends but not partners.

It wasn't all bad though! I really enjoyed the ending with Corr and Sean. Their bond was one of my favorite parts of the story. I also liked that Finn bet on his sister winning, it was nice that he believed in her (even though I didn't, lol). Finn was an amazing brother and one of my favorite characters in the book.

The writing was gorgeous and saved it from being a 2 star book. This just wasn't my favorite. 3 stars from me.

beebe918

BabyRN2006 said:

Where to begin! I am worried I will be shunned because this was not my favorite. I really expected to like it more because I LOVED The Raven Boys. 

Yeah, I enjoyed it but definitely not one of my favorites.

Puck frustrated me. I'm not a gambler by nature so maybe that is part of it, but I couldn't believe how irresponsible and selfish she was. Luckily, it all worked out perfectly in the end but that seemed pretty unrealistic to me. I hated that she gambled everything on the extremely poor odds that she might win. She did redeem herself to me somewhat in the end. I liked that she went to Malvern and finally got a job and helped Sean get Corr. 

I agree completely.  Towards the end of the book the idea that Puck might win if Dove went straight and the other horses went right was introduced.  I think if Puck had gone in thinking that or had some other justification as to how she was going to win I would have been behind it more but it seemed like she was just flying by the seat of her pants with no plan.   

WHY did she always use first and last names for every character?

I don't know the answer to this but the only person I really noticed it for was Sean and I sort of just thought it was a quirk of the town that everyone called him both names.

I wish more time would have been devoted to the actual races. We got what, 10 pages? The whole book was leading up to the races and it was a let down that we only got a short chapter on them. The pacing of this book was not great and I found myself bored a lot. 

I don't think I was ever bored per se it was more just confused for me.  I don't think I really understood what the races were until they actually happened.  I would have liked way more detail before hand, like how long the race was, what the finish line was like, what the starting line was like etc etc.  I feel like bits and pieces were mentioned here and there but I never really got a full picture of anything in the book.

I was really hoping we would get a better explanation as to why Gabe was leaving suddenly, and we never did.

YES!  I felt Gabe's character was really out there.  He loves Puck enough to stay through the races but he was just going to leave them with no money and no place to stay.  I get that he wants to leave but why didn't he talk to Puck and Finn and help them set themselves up for when he's gone??

I was not invested in the romance at all. I could see them as great friends but not partners.

I wasn't either but I WANTED to be.  Why were they just all of a sudden in love when they never even spoke to each other?  I really wish we could have seen some of their relationship building.    

It wasn't all bad though! I really enjoyed the ending with Corr and Sean. Their bond was one of my favorite parts of the story. I also liked that Finn bet on his sister winning, it was nice that he believed in her (even though I didn't, lol). Finn was an amazing brother and one of my favorite characters in the book.

The writing was gorgeous and saved it from being a 2 star book. This just wasn't my favorite. 3 stars from me.

I agree the writing was gorgeous and I did enjoy reading the book and I LOVED the ending with Corr.  The ending redeemed the book for me I would have given it 2 stars but ended up giving it 3.5.   I feel like I say this about a lot of books but I felt like it had a ton of potential and I just didn't like the way she went with most of the characters.  

BabyRN2006

I wanted to be invested in the romance as well (I am a sucker for a good romance). With 380ish pages leading up to the race you would think she would have had plenty of time to develop that more.