Review: We All Looked Up

Posted October 8, 2015 / Book Reviews / 9 Comments

Review: We All Looked UpWe All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach
on March 24th 2015
(384 pages) • GoodreadsAmazon Barnes & Noble
four-stars

Before the asteroid we let ourselves be defined by labels:
The athlete, the outcast, the slacker, the overachiever.

But then we all looked up and everything changed.

They said it would be here in two months. That gave us two months to leave our labels behind. Two months to become something bigger than what we'd been, something that would last even after the end.

Two months to really live.

my thoughts pinkI actually thought this may be a five star read for me… until I got together with my book club. Funny how things like that can happen! People definitely can open your mind up to different things you never thought about while reading. While I do have to say I loved this book overall – especially the message, writing style, and some memorable quotes – there were some areas that missed the mark for me.

I lovquote we all looked uped:

The writing, to me, was fantastic. (See quote on the left. PERFECTION). I wrote down a number of quotes and loved the way it FELT. I don’t know how else to explain it. The atmosphere of the book just felt cool. The whole end-of-the-world premise may be a popular semi-trope, but I’ll always be drawn to those books. I think the way this was formatted was cool – like the Breakfast Club at the end of the world. I enjoyed seeing a few different people’s perspectives and how the world essentially goes crazy in preparation of the asteroid. The whole plot was interesting. I really like books that leave an impression on you and make you think. I really started to consider what I would do in their shoes; I loved seeing the different reactions people had, as well as the different actions they took with their lives. Knowing you only have two months to live is crazy enough, but knowing everyone is in the same boat? Insane. OVERALL I have really positive memories of this book and am so glad I read it.

I didn’t like:

The characters were kind of the focus of the book and they still weren’t developed enough for me. They felt really, really one-dimensional. They honestly felt like stereotypes pulled right out of a cliche movie about high school. Again, I liked the Breakfast Club vibe, but these characters all had kind of stereotypical experiences. There were some characters (like Bobo and Golden) that honestly felt added just for extra drama. As if the asteroid wasn’t bad enough; there were sketchy drug dealers to deal with too. If that drama wasn’t included, the main characters could have been MORE developed and fleshed out. I still have a lot of questions about each of them and felt that certain parts were unnecessary and, if they were excluded, we would have gotten a better feel for the important people. As usual, the ending can be an area of contention for books like this. You can assume that there are three general outcomes in a book like this (it hits, it doesn’t hit, or you don’t find out either way and the ending is ambiguous). I wasn’t a big fan of the ending. I won’t say more than that!

feels from friends pinkFriends S2 Ep8 - The One with the List [Engsub] - first minutes

rating breakdown pink

Plot & Premise
five-stars
Characters
three-stars
Writing Style
four-half-stars
Pacing & Flow
five-stars
Feels or Swoons
three-half-stars
Addiction Level
three-half-stars
Overall: 4.1

9 responses to “Review: We All Looked Up

  1. I can relate to your thoughts changing a little after meeting with your book club, I know when I first finished I like it quite a bit, then I heard from other people and re-evaluated the book again. I agree about the characters being a bit one dimensional and stereotypical as well. It was very TBC in that way, though I’m a bit more biased towards TBC. 🙂 I also thought certain parts were unnecessary. I did like the extra drama that went on with the asteroid, I thought it made the book more real. Though they may have been in the book a bit too much and not really resolved… I highlighted a ton in the eARC I had of this. The quote you listed was one of my favorites ever.

    Amber @ YA Indulgences recently posted: ARC Review: Romancing The Dark In The City of Light
  2. It’s so true that meeting with your book club can change EVERYTHING.

    But I’m glad you loved it overall! I did like the premise of this book, but I wasn’t really a fan of the ending, only because I NEED ANSWERS to basically everything 🙂 But yes, I also thought the characters were pretty one dimensional, and honestly I don’t remember them at all right now. So they were pretty forgettable unfortunately.

    Awesome review Lauren! Glad your book club read this 🙂

    Valerie recently posted: Review: The Memory Painter
  3. I have read this one and I actually really ended up loving it! I wanted to know how it ended as soon as I got a bit of the way into the book, and I think the writing was done incredibly well and this book was so thought provoking. I didn’t like how teenagers were portrayed in general, but I did like some of the characters – like Peter!

    Olivia Roach recently posted: Olivia Snaps ~ Book Spines!
  4. I’ve just come here from your aesthetic book tag, because the cover of this is so. Freaking. Gorgeous. I hate it when characters aren’t fleshed out, because for me that’s the hardest thing to look past. I can usually put up with an average plot with amazing characters, but I’m not as good at dealing with that the other way around. It sounds like a really well written book though, so I think I’ll have to give it a try anyway! 🙂

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