Where the Forest Meets the Stars

This was bad. The mc was completely unlikeable, she was pushy and self-righteous. She also jumped to conclusions where the author needed her to without any evidence whatsoever. (But that was a general problem, it was just amplified because I had to be in her head with her thoughts for the entire book.) She butted into the love interest's private life after knowing him for two weeks at most, acts like his sister is the biggest bitch on the plant for not letting a stranger that she had never met into the house, when he was sleeping, no less, kisses him even though he recoils from her (but it's okay bc he really wanted it despite his negative physical reaction... sure) and emotionally manipulates and kind of seduces him into shaving off his beard even though he clearly stated that he does not wish to. The kid was supposed to be ridiculously smart (why do children always have to be the smartest of the smart in media, why can't they just be children ffs) but the main way her intelligence manifests is reading Shakespeare and knowing big words. The real problem though is that it was primarily used to advance the plot. There were so many times in that book when the characters justified things like contacting the police or social services about a child that showed up at their house with bruises for example with saying that she's just too smart and would never fall for their tricks. The way mental illness was handled was also terrible. An attempt was made early on in the book to state that mental illness is not just an imagined problem but unfortunately that is completely negated later on when social anxiety disappears if you hang out with an overbearing extrovert for half a day and depression is cured with love. The only time medication and therapy are mentioned are as basically "I don't want that crap in me" and "psycho-analytical manipulation" (I'm paraphrasing I don't want to go back and look up the exact words). The kid's dissociation is also glossed over completely, as is the love interest shooting two people in self-defence, which apparently he was just okay with. also, maybe the book way trying to comment on the way a some foster parents take in children for the money or are abusive and how the focus on putting kids with a heteronormative family unit is stupid.. but also, the mc let a strange child stay with her for over a month and took her out on her research trips in the sun for entire days where she once got a concussion, which is a felony (the book said, I don't care enough to look that up) and she was acting like it was unreasonable for social services and the police to not let her see the child before they'd figured out what was going on, especially since she was acting like a lunatic, camping out in front of the hospital room and was against the police talking to the kid. Also, apparently police decide whether to charge someone with a felony and apparently screaming at them about your prospects as a foster parent will make them not charge you (way to look like an emotionally mature adult, Joanna, well done). The reason for someone not getting charged with a felony was the police not wanting other police to get into trouble. Was that a comment about the judicial system? Who's to say because it worked out in the mc's favour. The book also tried to shove its wokeness down your throat to the point where even when I agreed wanted to disagree out of spite. Also "I knew a woman who made love in a graveyard had to be an incredible romantic" ..... no further comments tl;dr Don't.

Ich weiß gar nicht genau, was ich zu diesem Buch schreiben soll. Der Klappentext verspricht eine Fantasy-Story und so zieht sich der Fantasy-Anteil auch durch die gesamte Geschichte. Doch nur fast. Es geht um das Mädchen Ursa, welches mitten in der Nacht bei der jungen Doktorandin Jo auftaucht. Sie erzählt, sie kommt von einem anderen Planeten und hält hartnäckig an dieser Geschichte fest. Sobald Jo die Polizei informiert, taucht Ursa ab. Während sie weiter versucht, die Herkunft von Ursa herauszufinden, kommt Jo ihrem Nachbarn Gabe näher. Am Ende dann der Schock für mich: Ursa kommt natürlich nicht von einem anderen Planeten. Dafür hat sie aber eine grausame Hintergrundgeschichte. Kann man definitiv mal lesen, allerdings mit dem Wissen, keinen Fantasy-Roman vor sich zu haben. 3.5/5⭐