Bubble World

I was only going to give "Bubble World", by Carol Snow, 4 stars, but when I tried to come up with a reason - think of something 'missing' - I couldn't, so I have to give it 5 stars!At first I was a little lost in the lingo of Bubble World, but the further I read, the more I enjoyed the story, and the lingo seemed to flow more naturally. A very enjoyable read, and I can't wait for my teenage daughter to read it, too. I held off giving "Switch" to my tween because I felt the relationships sometimes got a little 'old' for my daughter... I didn't have to worry about that at all with Bubble World (plus my daughter is now older and geez, the things they require her to read in high school.... not my choice for appropriate material!)I'm a big fan of Carol Snow's books, both YA and 'regular'.... This newest one did NOT disappoint! And I agree, Carol - the cover is great!(This is specifically for the Kindle version - in which there were little to no editing/spelling issues - which has not been the case in many of my Kindle purchases!)

Good

fabulous book by a brilliant, funny author!!!!

Granddaughter enjoyed the story.

Bubble World is utterly bizarre and I loved nearly every word of it! Imagine a world where it's always sunny, warm, and you can do just about anything you want. Where the names are ridiculous and the slang even ridiculouser. And where teachers praise you for admitting you went to a party rather than doing your homework. That is Bubble World aka the island of Agalinas. This is where sixteen year old Freesia lives with her peacocks for alarm clocks and where she studies things like "Foundations of Foundation" and "Lipgloss Technology." All is perfect until blackouts become frequent and her world appears to be glitching. Soon enough we learn that Agalinas isn't entirely real, but it takes a little long for Freesia to find this out.I loved Bubble World (the book and the place) from the beginning. It put a huge smile on my face from page one, and I was immediately engrossed in this bright and strange world. There is just so much that is not normal about the life Freesia is living, and I had to know more about it! I don't want to give too much away, but just a handful of chapters in, it's revealed that it's all just a simulation. It was suppose to be an educative environment, but clearly, it's not. I still want to go there though! But that's probably not a good thing...While Bubble World is all good fun and quite funny, it does deal with some serious issues. It appears to be saying a lot about the current state of our world, particularly when it comes to education and technology. More specifically that traditional education is not working for everyone. Every kid is different, and Freesia was one of them. And the alarming amount of time young people (and adults) spend plugged in to their computers and smartphones. It definitely made me more aware of how most of my life revolves around interacting through a screen rather than out in the real world. That said, I'd still like go to Bubble World.I was prepared to give Bubble World five stars, but it started to lose me toward the end. Of course, in typical Dystopian fashion someone has to go after the evil corporation and make things better for everyone. That's all fine and good, and I still liked that. But on top of this, there seemed to be a stronger focus on weight loss. This I didn't like so much. There is a lot of talk about appearances, but I felt like there was some fat shaming going on. Plus it felt thrown in as an afterthought just to make a point about the fatness of Americans. I'm fat. I'm American. And I love my internet. I don't need my books telling me to go outside and exercise.Despite that last complaint, Bubble World was amazing. It's entertaining and thought provoking. It was everything I love about reading and I think it needs more love than it's getting!

Once in a blue moon I run across one of those books that's really different. In this case it's a book that looks and sounds stupidly simple, but isn't half as simple as all outward appearances suggest.MINOR SPOILERS... MINOR SPOILERS...On the surface BUBBLE WORLD is about a girl who didn't match the 'normal' profile as a child. In the descriptions given in the book she sounds like she had some sensory issues, along with some other behavioral problems that I won't deign to denigrate with a 'tag'. Her parents, who are definitely a bit too self-absorbed, were at their wits end when they discovered a revolutionary education package. A package that takes kids out of this world completely and immerses them in another.And when the book begins, it's in Avalon that we find Freesia and her friends. Only problem is, that world is having some technical difficulties. Difficulties that eventually end with Freesia at home in the other world; the one we call real.END OF minor spoilers... END OF minor spoilers......BUBBLE WORLD reads like it's written for middle-graders. The language is very simple and if you don't stick with it for awhile your not going to get to the point where you can see how Carol Snow is playing with your head.As far as likes, I have to say that I liked that the author didn't paint issues as black or white.And if I can say that I had a dislike, it would be that the serious character development didn't occur until after the half-way point. I realize that part of this was due to the fact that Snow wanted to keep everything light and fizzy, but it hurt the story telling. I care about the characters now, but at page 169 I could have foolishly put the book down and entirely missed the good stuff.So hang in there..Principal character:: FreesiaTime Frame:: slightly futureLanguage:: some invented phrasesCursing: NoHumor:: definitelyDisbelief O'meter:: just the basics for meSexual content: kissingPacing:: a bit slowSatisfying ending: Yes!Book for everyone?I think the fact that this is not an action book, but a book about character and relationships is going to limit it's appeal. Especially when all the 'heavy' stuff takes place in the last quarter of the book. It's also not going to appeal to people who don't like made up terms, like de-vicious. Personally I thought the new-speak was fine, but I know other people that it rubs the wrong way.I'd recommend BUBBLE WORLD to someone who is in the mood to sit back and wait for the story to slowly unfold. Someone who would like to consider the effects that alternate cyber worlds might have on those in them, and outside of them.

This book kind of melted my brain, and not in an awesome way. More like in the way your brain gets fried if you watch a thousand episodes of The Only Way Is Essex back-to-back. I imagine.So the premise of the book is that our MC, Freesia, lives on a beautiful island called Agalinas, where she is beautiful and slim, where peacocks wake her up every morning by singing her pop songs, where her wardrobe is so big she wouldn’t have to repeat an outfit for a year and where she takes classes like Advanced Eye Make Up at her high school.Sadly for Freesia, Agalinas isn’t real. In reality, she is an ordinary-looking girl living in a town in Arizona, immersed in a 24-7 virtual reality world.The author has an engaging way of writing that made this a quick, easy read but largely this book didn’t work out well for me and because I hate trashing books, I’m going to explain exactly why. Because, hey, what didn’t work for me might be perfectly good reading for someone else. Warning: spoilers ahead.The plot of this book started off interestingly, with this shallow, superficial virtual world, and it had me wondering where it was going to go. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. Freesia starts off in Bubble World, commits an infraction, gets kicked out, re-adjusts to the real world, gets re-admitted to Bubble World and then decides to go home. And that’s pretty much it.I just felt like this book could have been so much more than it was. Bubble World is so saccharine-sweet, so flaky and shallow, so totally devoted to instant gratification, that I think her real-world home should have been a lot more raw and gritty in comparison to add a better contrast. Instead, her home in Arizona was comfortably middle-class, her high school was okay (although not as beautiful as Agalinas) and she made friends within about thirty seconds of arriving back.There was no real tension in Freesia’s situation. It would have been better if there was some nefarious reason for all these children to be in Bubble World, like their life energy was being harvested, or their brain waves were being used to design new super-weapons without their knowing. Something.I didn’t understand why the creator of the Bubble World programme made everything so superficial. The reason he gave was that children don’t flourish in traditional educational environments, but he wasn’t exactly churning our future Einsteins with Bubble World. And did he not think he’d get found out when the kids returned to the real world and could add two and two without using their fingers?I also couldn’t work out why any parent would sign their child up for Bubble World. At all. To completely immerse your child in a virtual world - night and day - without having any access to what your child is doing, or any idea what they’re learning (in this case, nothing whatsoever) just doesn’t sound like something parents would do. I know parents send their children to boarding schools, but they’re still in the real world, with real experiences and real people.This issue came to a head for me towards the end of the book, when Freesia is described as having ‘drool on [her] chin, matted and flat hair and dead eyes’. What parent would be happy viewing their child through a plexiglass bubble, looking like that?Freesia’s parents tell her that their reason for sending her to Bubble World was that she had no friends. Well, boo hoo. That’s life, love. You get knocked back and you get up and try again. It’s called emotional development. Any parent who’d deprive their children of that are dumb and deserve to have their kids taken into care.The worldbuilding was good and I got a real sense of what Bubble World looks and feels like, but the world was so Barbie-like that I was surprised how anyone could have stood it for more than a day. Just reading about it was like eating a whole jar of marshmallow fluff in one go. Even the slang words they use were too twee for me: sips and nibbles for drink and food, squiggy for crazy, wiggy for angry, de-vicious for attractive, fizz for flirt. Didn’t work for me.And Freesia. Oh my word. I’ve read a lot of books in my life, but she is a contender for Most Shallow Character Ever. All she cares about is having enough pretty clothes and she judges people solely based on their appearance. She doesn’t grow as a character. Even at the end of the book, when she decides to stay in the real world, she gives this as her reason:‘It was hard for her to explain exactly what she was feeling. “I don’t want to live in a world without Pop-Tarts.”’Gah!

The book does start a little slow and it can be a little tedious when you're inside bubble world but the further you get into the book the more worth it, it becomes. Freesia has a perfect life, perfect friends, perfect family, perfect everything. But then things start glitching.Freesia wakes up to discover she's been enrolled into a virtual academy where her parents think she's getting a top education only she's getting lessons in eye makeup and hairstyling, the program creator allowing the kids to have fun whilst getting all the cash.There's a lot of character progression within this story as Freesia discovers her real self and what it's like to live in the real world again