Title: Anatomy of a Misfit
Author: Andrea Portes
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Source: Purchased physical copy
Pages: 336
My rating: 1.5/5
Anatomy of a Misfit is Mean Girls meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Anika’s hilariously deadpan delivery will appeal to readers for its honesty and depth. The so-sad-it’s-funny high school setting will pull readers in, but when the story’s dark foreboding gradually takes over, the devastating penultimate tragedy hits like a punch to the gut. Readers will ride the highs and lows alongside funny, flawed Anika — from laughter to tears, and everything in between.
General Opinion:
I honestly don’t know where to begin. I tried, I really tried to like this book. The cover is beautiful, the premise sounded promising but the story, oh the story, was just so horrible. The thing about Anatomy of a Misfit is that it was trying to prove a good point, which I appreciate, but the execution of it was so terrible that it caused the story to contradict all the good points the author was trying to make. Since reading it I have donated the book to my local library because I could not stand to look at it on my bookshelf. If you’re interested in why I dislike this book so much, I’ll explain it in more detail below. I’ll also be including quotes lots of quotes!
Reasons Why I Dislike the Book:
-The main character, Anika, is a horrible human. I truly did not like her character whatsoever. She was always so judgmental, rude and whiny. Here are some wonderful quotes from our MC Anika:
“She’s my best friend even though she’s kind of a slut.” (awhhh, slut shaming your best friend, how nice)
“I get my own room. I had to share with Lizzie for a while but I just kept calling her a slut all night till she begged Mom to move her.” (awhhh, slut shaming your sister, how nice)
“This October issue is so gay. All it is back-to-school and Halloween parties. Again.” (awhh, using “gay” as a derogatory term, how nice)
Reading from her POV for the entirety of the novel was painful, to be honest. She had nothing intelligent to say and only proved to be a conceited airhead.
-The love interests. There are two of them and they are both dislikable. The first one is a total nerd who’s like sooooo not cool, but he’s kinda like cute and funny and makes Anika feel like really special. But there’s like no way she can date him, cuz like her social status would be in total jeopardy. And the other guy is a complete badboy, with like no redeeming qualities whatsoever. (ha ha, but that’s honestly how Anika narrates the novel) Here’s a quote that sums up the love:
“I’m gonna kiss you now and you’re gonna like it.” (real charmer, aren’t you?)
-ALL THE STEREOTYPES. I can’t count how many stereotypes I’ve encountered while reading this novel. The most I found were about Christians. Here are some quotes:
“Or maybe she can’t add. She is a Christian. I don’t think they believe in math.”
“Shelli’s mom is a real freak. Like, she’s a total Christian and is always talking about what would Jesus do, and the real meaning of Christmas and how to hate gay people.”
“Her mom makes her burn her hair after she gets a haircut, so no one tries to cast a spell on her.”
Really? Really??? I’m not a religious person myself, but I have quite a few friends who are Christians and this is wayyyyyyyy too unrealistic. I don’t know if the author was trying to be funny, but the stereotype is so strong that it ends up being unfunny and offensive. The novel also contains racist and homophobic comments as well.
-The ending was a case of “tragedy for the sake of tragedy” and was only presented for shock value. It didn’t add anything meaningful to the story and just ended up being another unrealistic event.
Reasons Why I Liked the Book:
-The cover
-That’s it
Overall:
As you can probably tell, I really disliked this book and would not recommend it. Instead I would point you to books such as Falling Into Place and All the Bright Places for a similar atmosphere as Anatomy of a Misfit, but a much better plot (I gave both these books a solid 3/5 stars). And if you happened to love Anatomy of a Misfit, that is wonderful and I wish I could have loved it as well. But at the end of the day we all have different opinions, and that is totally okay!
I hope you all have a lovely day and I’ll see you in my next post♥
Well, if it weren’t for the quotes then a person would think “oh maybe I’ll like this book a bit more than she did” but oh no, after the quotes which are more like evidence to the book being such total cr’p then I don’t think anybody would want to give it a chance, I honestly wouldn’t. I suppose the author thought that by bringing in such horrid rude blunt characters would make the book likeable along with the offensive “humour” if that’s what you could call it. That’s just sad, I hope if any other authors out there are having the same thoughts then I hope they reconsider their decisions regarding both characters and “humour.”
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I felt it was very important to add lots of quotes in this review so people would get an idea of why I disliked this novel so much. And I’m glad it was effective:)
I just can’t imagine someone reading this novel and enjoying it, considering all the awful elements! Offensive humor is one of my biggest pet peeves in books, I just can’t stand it haha
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Haha your review was really funny! Thanks for sharing the quotes too, like that I am sure I won’t ever read it :p
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Haha, thank you Marine!♥
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Oh gosh this book sounds horrible. Those quotes definitely made the difference here in your review. At first I thought, maybe I’ll like this book even though she didn’t. And then came the quotes and all of that went down the drain. I will not check this book out. Slut shaming and stereotyping ? Not my forte.
Great review. xoxo
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Thanks Josie♥
I’m glad I included the quotes, because it brings more attention to what kind of content is inside the book. I cannot stand slut shaming and stereotyping, especially in a book targeted towards teenagers, like what are you trying to teach them? It’s a wonder I even managed to finish it!
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This book doesnt sound too good. Thanks for steering me away from this glad. It sounds like it would have been a waste of time!
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No problem!
It was a waste of time on my part, so I think you’re right in your decision not to read it:)
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I read another negative review which made a lot of the same points you did, so definitely won’t be reading this one! The protag sounds awful and definitely agree with you on the things she says about Christians. One of my best friends is Christian and the way she describes Christians isn’t like her and her family AT ALL.
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Exactly!! The stereotyping is so ridicilous in this book! I honestly don’t know what the author was thinking while writing this novel full of offensive comments, but I’m glad you won’t be reading it:)
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Oh god, this seems like a terrible book! Usually I give a chance to almost all books, even if others gave it a bad review, but I don’t think I’ll be picking up this one. 😦 Those stereotypical quotes are horrible! I can’t imagine what the author was thinking.
I’m sorry this book turned out to be like this, it seemed quite promising and the cover is definitely super pretty.
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I know, I was so disappointed:(
I have no idea what the author’s intentions were, but all the stereotyping was horrible!
Glad you won’t be picking it up♥
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You perfectly summed up how I felt about this book, which had such a promising cover and synopsis, but sadly didn’t turn out as I expected. Great review! 🙂
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Thank you!♥
I’m glad you felt the same way!
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Wow, those slut shaming quotes are freaking awful. Was the author trying to be funny or is she really crazy enough to think publishing those sentences would fly by any readers? Thanks for reviewing, I know I will NEVER pick this up.
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I know! I was trying really hard to be calm when I wrote the review, because I didn’t want to go on a rampage, but just thinking about this book makes me angry. I honestly don’t know what the author was thinking, but it saddens me to think that so many young readers will/or have read this book and think that saying all these offensive things is okay.
Glad you won’t be picking it up!
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I saw this book on amazon and it looked like a quirky/interesting read because of the cute cover but then I read some of the reviews on GR, which were very negative. The main character sounds like a horrible person. I wonder if the author had written her purposeful this way for readers to dislike her because it doesn’t seem like she has any redeemable qualities! Enjoyed reading your review! I’ll give this one a miss ;).
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Thank you!♥
And I honestly don’t know how the author thought anyone would like the main character with all those awful qualities of hers.
Such a waste of a beautiful cover though, haha:D
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