Trite and boring with self-centered characters
935498
What a disappointment this book was after having enjoyed some of her other novels!  The characters are dull and self-centered.  Who cares what happens to them? I kept hoping it would get better, but it didn't.  They haven't worked out isses from high school!  What boring lives they have had!!  The conversation between them is stilted and unreal.  I want to tell them to grow up and move on!!  But don't waste your time reading this book.
55361
If I could give this book no stars, I would.  A shallow main character who wallows in self-pity, thinks the world should revolve around her, has no redeeming qualities, and can't focus on anything beyond herself, alcohol and sex.  Throw in a boatload of commas all over the place,  a neglected child, and a bunch of unbelievable supporting characters and you've got Seeing Julia.

My best advice would be to read the other one and two-star reviews before diving in. They've already said it all, and I couldn't agree more.  I got the book for free and still felt I'd paid too much.
2601701
Convoluted, boring, and a main character that I would not like to know any better than the first couple of chapters.
4292251
The basic premise was good, but the characters were borderline unlikable & the author spent more time describing every single action in excruciating detail then actually delving into the storyline. There's no character development & you don't really even care about the main characters throughout the story. I regret the couple hours I spent reading it.

I support self-publishing, I just strongly encourage the author to find someone to help her develop her skills before publishing her next attempt. I think a majority of the positive reviews come from friends/family of the author & while that's great that they're supporting her, I think the negative reviews paint a more realistic picture.
829425
After the rave reviews I was looking forward to this one, but was sorely disappointed. The main character is a total stereotype--obsessed with finding a boyfriend, cigarettes, weight and chocolate--maybe in reverse order. Her job fills time she would otherwise spend eating and smoking.  Why is it that no one writes books like this about guys? Portrayals of women like this aren't that funny to begin with, and this one wore thin quickly. Don't waste your time on the sequel--I didn't.
400280
Tedious.  Immature.  Self-indulgent.  Self-referential.  It has been a long time since I read a novel I disliked as much as this one.  I read this book because I was not familiar with Harington and the reviews here were highly complimentary.  What a disappointment.  Written in four "movements," the novel opens with an omniscient third person narrator telling the story of Diana Stoving, a rich girl from Little Rock just graduated from Sarah Lawrence, who has car trouble while driving through New Jersey.  In the waiting room of the repair shop, she reads an article in a local paper about a high school student who, under hypnosis, appears to regress into a "past life," that of one Daniel Lyam Montross.  Diana is intrigued, because that is her grandfather's name, and she meets the boy, Day Whittaker, just graduated from high school, and (rather implausibly) they soon set out on a road trip to revisit some of the places where Daniel once lived, now ghost towns all.  Of course, before they go, Diana has Day's high school teacher - who discovered Day's past life - implant a post-hypnotic suggestion allowing her to put Day "under" merely by saying "Go to sleep, Day."  The second "movement" is written by Day in the first person, and the third is a book of poems "dictated" to Diana by Daniel (not particularly good poems, in my opinion).  The last, and most annoying section, is written by Daniel and introduces the author, Harrington, known only as "G," who finds Diana and decides to tell her story.  The book is replete with immature accounts of sexual acts between Diana and Day, Diana and Day regressed to Daniel, and Diana and a bunch of hippies, plus Daniel's accounts of his own sexual experiences with numerous women, including his mentally disabled older sister, in his past life.  The characters are never developed to the point of becoming real, believable people.  What passes for wisdom in this book are trite thoughts like "privies have two holes because love means being willing to defecate together."  It is hard for me to believe this book even got published, and I cannot see what anyone finds in it that is worthwhile.  A major waste of time.
3202501
This was a difficult book to finish. I found the story to be dull and boring. I also found the writing to be distracting. One of my favorite things about reading fiction is being transported to another world or time. It is the ability to step into another person's perspective and life. With some fiction, it can be easy to forget that the character's aren't real people.

But my biggest complaint with this book is the characters. I found them to be dull and stereotypical. There's angst ridden, wounded solder, the idealistic, naive, and young heroine, and a cast of other completely forgettable characters. I didn't care at all what happened to any of them and just wanted the novel to end. I will not be reading any future or past works by this author.
1849992
Did not Finish. About the time she ran to her father and I realized where this was heading, I gave up. The premise is fun, I liked the mystery of it all and ... I basically hated both the main characters. She's boring and self-absorbed and unlikable. He's just an ass. Hey if that does it for you, enjoy the book; but about the time I realized I'd be perfectly happy if they both accidently died off, I decided to put the book down instead.
3586219
Juvenile and trite. Sorry I wasted my time.
3186454
I really loved Something Borrowed and Something Blue.  I read both of them cover to cover in two days, hardly looking up from either of them except to eat and shower-- SO I'd have to say this book didn't really impress me.  Like in Baby Proof, the character was self-absorbed, and manages to spiral into a web of deceit and confusion, seemingly with very little possibility of redemption as a character.  It seemed she was redeemed after all only because the author just got tired of her, like I did, only a few chapters in.  She was dimensionless and boring-- please, Emily, stick with Rachel, Dex, Darcy, Ethan, etc...
4419301
I stopped reading this book at the 7th chapter. I thumbed through the rest of the book and saw I wasn't going to miss a thing by quitting and chucking this book. There is no clear or compelling plot to keep the reader interested, just excessive and unnecessary descriptions about the life and musings of an unremarkable and boring main character. Absolutely boring book, what a waste of time.
3362057
This was a free kindle book. I wanted to like it, but so much fluff and shuttling from place to place was tiresome. Heroine Emerald not likeable and her love interest A was so yuck that I was hoping he was the killer so he'd be gone. Her children are kinda neglected because she's so self centered and into mysticism. Guessed actual killer in first few chapters.  Boring and drawn-out. The tea leaves say no book #2 in my future.
69714
I was very disappointed. The main character was an floozy at most times that one was unable to relate to, which was due to a distinct choice of writing style chosen by the author: the narration. I just hated the narration style. I can honestly say I believe this author was actually purposefully going for shallow and with a middling level of boring. Whether this was a stylistic choice meant to imitate the supposed mindset of young women of the time period  or due to the fact that the author was trying to write to a younger audience than the audience group of her previous series and has poorly misjudged them as  tweens who only care for shallow fashion obsessed heroins, the voice of this book was gratingly annoying and absolutely off-putting. And what's worse, I know she can write better because I've read some of her other series. Some of the supporting cast like Quinsel were semi-decent, and the idea and setting were fascinating and could have been very engaging if we hadn't been dragged down by the awful voice.

. Then there was a unbelievable character transformation that was still dulled down by her obsurd worries about
786938
Thank goodness I borrowed this book from a library rather than wasted my money on such a terrible book. Despite the book being well written in terms of grammar and basic sentence structure, The Magicians can hardly be considered a tolerable fantasy novel. Not only are the characters extremely one-dimensional, they also lack any sort of spark that make any of them stand out in a good way. The plot is forgettable, and dare I say it, boring. Quentin, the "protagonist", is a pessimistic cynical character that has very little motivation or faith in the world; and his journey through the book was a was full of cliches, "borrowed" ideas, and plain boredom. I do not recommend this book to anybody that wants to read a book, fantasy or otherwise. One could argue that the boring plot, cliches, and cynicism were the author's Statement and Point, but either way, this pretentious novel was a waste of my time and should not be considered and touted as a "best-seller".
3366550
Unlikable characters, with self-serving motivations.  That can be interesting, but I found this book dull.  Lots of rambling.  The idea of a screenwriter proving to the movie producer  that his plot would work by actually doing it to her was good.  And I liked the scene where she explained to oblivious men why a sex scene was offensive.  Otherwise, eh.
2346390
The lead character spent too much time in denial and self pity with the world and all the other characters revolving around her. her self absorbed nature slowed down the progression of the book and stretched out a plot that should have ended much sooner than it did, i would return the book if i could.
4019836
I bought the Audible version of Killing Monica because I wanted a fun, well-paced story about fabulous characters that you root for. This book was none of those things.

The principal characters were wholly unlikable. Pandy was an immature idiot. Sondrabeth was a manipulative narcissist, the male characters were all one-dimensionally awful. I hated the whole lot of them! And I couldn't figure out why they liked each other.

The plot was outrageous and at the same time very predictable. A lot of the middle was a plodding, painful account of the deterioration of Pandy's marriage. It was pointless because we all knew where it was headed and the tiresome recount of it only made me impatient and irritable. There was not much humanity in the telling of it-- Pandy was an idiot and her husband was textbook villain.

SPOILER AHEAD:
Oh, I figured out the GRAND FINALE ZINGER halfway through the book. And let's just talk about that plot twist. Really? Are we really trying to keep up with the Kardashians with this? Frankly, I find this book to be rather insulting to the transgender community-- to just kind of piggyback on its recent media exposure without lending any true insights to the experience-- uggh.

What was most disappointing of all is that the premise of the book is a really interesting one, given who the author is. If she had taken the time to write compelling characters and finessing the plot so that it progressed believably in an unbelievably fabulous world, she could have written a fantastic book.

This book was so bad, it makes me wonder if Bushnell wrote it just to piss off her editors. Is Candy (rhymes with Pandy) trying to move away from this book to write more serious literature? Either way, this book left me non--plussed.

PS, can't figure out if the reader made the book MORE irritating.