I WAS BORN FOR THIS: TikTok made me buy it! From the YA Prize winning author and creator of Netflix series HEARTSTOPPER

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I only had one tiny minor problem with I Was Born For This: the end. While the entire story was hard to put down, the end dragged a bit and felt too close for my taste. I felt a bit let-down compared to the open ending we got in Radio Silence. Fortunately for us, I’m excellent at faking being okay with things, even when inside my brain there is a tiny screaming gnome who is definitely not okay."

He would be my dad friend , like you know the one who advises you over life and shit , the wise and mature friend! I felt like the description of mental illness and severe anxiety was well executed, although I don’t personally suffer from it in the same way, it seems to be what most of the anxious community goes through.Not only are the main characters far from cis/straight/white but so is most of this book's cast. Let's start with Angel and Jimmy. Jimmy's voice actor is amazing. I loved listening to him, to the rise and fall of his voice. Angel's voice actor is great too, but she really has to work on doing German accents. As a German myself, I know what our accent sounds like, and the version in the audiobook was nothing like it. What really set me off, was her rendering of Mac's voice though. God, he is an annoying person, but listening to the way he talked made me consider fast-forwarding the audiobook. Now moving on to characters, now by this time you all might know how much I love Alice Oseman and one of the main reasons for that is how come she creates such likeable and realistic characters everytime! This novel is meant to criticize the tendency of certain fans to develop a violently unintellectual fixation (fuelled by parasocial fantasies and social media addiction) on one thing, and one thing only, in this case, a boy band. In the beginning, you wonder where Oseman (who seems to write (at least in part) from experience) will go with that, since it's such a huge part of internet culture seldomly examined outside of fandoms themselves, but after some time, the protagonist's endless repetition of phrases along the lines of OMG I LIKE THE ARK SO MUCH becomes exhausting and starts to feel like a very, very hamfisted way of telling the reader that fandom culture is unhealthy and involves creepy fixations on real people and is very bad indeed. This book heavily talks about the “good side” of fandoms and the “bad side” of fandoms throughout the entire story. And I’ve never really been obsessed with a “boy band” but I have for been a part of fandoms that have quite literally saved my life. Sometimes you have to put your time, energy, and passion into something other than your “real life” to feel like you belong, and that’s valid. Hell, that’s more than valid; it’s amazing. Angel for sure uses The Ark for escapism and for a sense of belonging, and we get to see the good, the bad, and all the in-between moments.

But this was a very sweet, heartful little book, and the characters were easy to get behind. Was it always believable? No, but I'm not really looking to read a book that's the same as real life. Real life is boring and messy and exhausting and it's full of irritating moments that aren't ever resolved. They just stay irritating forever. That's adulthood for you. They’re not like normal musicians. It feels like they’re our friends and they understand us and care about us.” The writing was good, I read the whole thing in almost 1 day and I think this kind of prose works best for contemporaries where it is good but not too poetic as to be distracting. I always read contemporaries when I want to take a break from fantasy so I like it to be light when I do so.

About Alice Oseman

Now if I get a chance I will make her my bestfriend , like she is so cool and awesome , I can spend nights with her obsessing over the boys. Lister Bird - The Ark’s drummer. Eighteen, white, bi, pan or some MGA, and I believe is dealing with depression and alcohol abuse. The book follows up a story of a teen, hijabi Muslim girl Angel who is like a huge fan of this teen boy band 'The Arc' and she is visiting her online friend Julie for first time so they can attend this concert of The Arc .

Probably more of a 3.5 but I suspect that has a lot to do with my total disinterest in contemporary novels. It's always the same. It was the same with Sandhya Menon's lovely When Dimple Met Rishi. Like this one, it was a very nice, soothing story with great characters, but just not 100% my jam. I just don't think it's fair to rate a novel lower because I personally cannot be arsed with the contemporary genre. That's not on the book; it's on me. The book explores the theme of fandom, idolization , fame , way we treat our idols, friendship , importance of friendship, layers of friendship, mental health, alcoholism, LGBTQIAP+ representation. literally every aspect of this book is just depressing and sad. there's no joy. there's no passion or drive or even love. everyone's miserable and participating in a tragedy contest. things just continue getting messy and chaotic and spiralling deeper and deeper. it was truly exhausting to read, and there was no catharsis or a feeling of satisfaction once i was finished. so much of it was predictable that it made for a very boring and disappointing read. graceisolde Fandoms: Heartstopper (TV), Heartstopper (Webcomic), Heartstopper (TV) RPF, Solitaire - Alice Oseman, Radio Silence - Alice Oseman, I Was Born for This - Alice Oseman, Loveless - Alice Oseman The portrayal of fandoms, fandom culture, toxic and marvelous aspects of being part of the fandom is very accurate. I'm sure the book will be a fun read for both fandom and non-fandom readers.

Most adults see teenagers as confused kids who don't understand much, while they're the pillars of knowledge and experience and know exactly what is right at all times. This book owns my heart, pretty much like every book Alice Oseman has ever written. And I’m okay with that. Most adults see teenagers as confused kids who don’t understand much, while they’re the pillars of knowledge and experience and know exactly what is right at all times.” The Ark with me – my school friends, my parents, my older brother – but no one really cared. They usually just found me annoying, because once I start talking about The Ark, or anything really, I find it kind of hard to stop."

I love that Angel doesn't know her sexuality, she says she doesn't get crushes but she might be willing to go out with the girl. Angel is 18 and she doesn't pay too much attention to figuring out her sexuality, and it's fine, I haven't met any characters like her in fiction before. I also have to admit that hearing the story for the first time I was surprised to feel a sense of annoyance. I was annoyed with how often the fans, the Ark, Angel and Juliet used the word love, making it almost meaningless. I was annoyed by how often Angel needed to mentioned that not every fan was a crazy, mindless fangirl. I thought yes, I get it now, I can only hear it so often. Nevertheless, I still loved the story, the characters and the message. I can't wait for Alice's next novel, which will have an aro/ace main character! Now let’s talk about the pic of Rowan and Jimmy sleeping together in their bed. *lol* OR let’s just talk about how close they are as friends! I mean it’s so obvious that they love each other a lot, just not in the way the fandom wants them to. There’s no Jowan, but I really adored their interactions and how much they seemed to care about each other. You can see that they are really close and that they are super comfortable around each other. I’m like that with my besties too and a very cuddly person. (Do whatever you want with that random info. *lol*) So for me to see their strong bond was really nice and even though they argued quite a lot in the ending it was only because they cared so much about each other. =)She is my wife you hear me yes she is my wife like she is so funny and savage , literally I can marry her . With no real understanding of the wider social/societal/systemic causes and implications of media addiction, the book falls completely flat, and the reader is constantly grappling with glaringly obvious, very banal questions. Since having "no life" is just a figure of speech, surely she must do SOMETHING besides being on the internet? If she's so deeply into fandom, does she have a favorite TV show, game, anime, celebrity or book? Does she even read? Does she have feelings of any kind that are not related to The Ark? If yes, what are they? If not, why? How does that impact her lived experience? (I am truly grateful, however, that this protagonist doesn't have a love interest. No absurd romance subplot in YA, who woulda thunk it?) We are told she hasn't been in love before. How does that make her feel, besides "lol"? Is she asexual/-romantic? How does that impact her life? In the same way, Jimmy is trans and gay, but the only thing we know about his experience is him feeling kind of weird about being outed to an international audience at 16, and little things like injecting testosterone. I imagine being trans and having transitioned to be a huge, huge deal. My being gay is already a big deal to me, but it is far less stigmatised than transgenderism, and at no point did it involve altering my body, so I am fairly confident in saying that this must play a bigger part in his life than we are told. We get it, she really likes that band, but when she says something along the lines of "They help me get out of bed when I feel miserable" or "They make my stupid boring life worth living", I would maybe... like to know why she feels that way? I want to see some personality besides "outsider, fangirl, muslim and nice person". That's not even a vague approximation of a character. There is also Jimmy, A gay trans guy who is like the main boy in the band, it was also good to read a representation of this kind that was well done! He also suffers from Anxiety and as someone who lives with anxiety, I could relate to that. My point is that there was so much diversity in the book but it never felt like it was forced and it rather fits perfectly into a real life mold. I think the characters were incredibly well-developed. Oseman clearly knows who she’s writing and who she’s writing for. The plot was enticing which made the book incredibly hard to put down. The writing style was real, and it felt like you really were inside a teenager’s head. The family relationships were beautifully crafted, as were the friendships. It's a cool, exciting take on fame and fandom, and the two protagonists had very distinctive voices that were easy to become invested in. I listened to this on audio, and the narrators were absolutely phenomenal. They made for a smooth, easy listening little treat on a Sunday afternoon while I sat in the lukewarm bathtub and worried about the water-damaged floor. Why does it creak so loudly?