Book 18 of 2024: The Warning | 2 DNF

The Warning by Kristy Acevedo.

Quick synopsis: Set in the modern day world, doors to an alternate Earth open around the planet. A hologram appears to tell everyone here that this world is about to end and they should all come through. BUT NO TIME FOR THAT, the main character has a boy to date, a best friend, and parties to go to...

Plot: One day hundreds of doors to an alternate Earth open, each with a hologram. The hologram gives a message that in six months a comet will destroy our Earth. However, their Earth is way more advanced, so all the people of our Earth are welcome to come through and live there.

The holograms are also able to answer any questions, and the picture of the alternate Earth seemed too good to be true.

At that point the plot pivoted to focus only on the main character. She's one of those teenagers whose main defining character trait is that she has anxiety. She's endlessly having panic attacks and popping pills.

But hey, there's a hot boy to date and a wild best friend to go to parties with! I almost DNFed the book, because the first half of it was just "teenager in high school" stuff which I have zero interest in.

Somewhere around the halfway point of the book the focus went back to the doorways and the impending doom. NASA, the UN, and other groups around the globe tried but could not stop the comet, so the choice became go through the doors or stay and die.

Blah blah stupid plot tension made the main character stay behind while her best friend and hot boyfriend went through.

The end of the story was really annoying. Turns out the comet was just a hologram. GASP! SHOCK! So the people of the other Earth were lying! Then, in the blink of an eye, the main character went from Captain Anxiety to I WILL SAVE EVERYONE and throws herself through one of the doors just as they're all closing.

Writing/editing: Both were fine. There were a couple small editing issues.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: The whole first half of the book made me feel like I fell for a bait-and-switch. I signed up for a sci-fi story, but ended up with teenage drama.

The second half of the book was a lot better; even though I didn't like the ending, I've started book 2.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ½ (3.5). Since I hated at least half the book, maybe it should be lower. I'll round down to 3 on Goodreads.

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DNF #12: Born to Run by Michael Morpurgo. I tried this one right after Morpurgo's Little Foxes. I think he's just not an author who works for me. There's too much focus on the boy main character and not enough on the animals. Worse, the paragraphs tend to be really long and he seems to believe the opposite of "show, don't tell". DNFed 10% or so in.

DNF #13: Ajay and the Mumbai Sun by Varsha Shah. Set in modern India, a boy named Ajay tries to save his slum neighborhood by starting a newspaper. (I believe slums are called chawls in India, but the book called them slums so I'll stick with that.) The story never hooked me and there was a lot I didn't believe. DNFed it about 50%.