Wednesday, March 31, 2010

I'm a Sarah Dessen expert now

That Summer
Hey, pals. So I just finished this book by Sarah Dessen. It was the only one of hers I had yet to read, and now I have read her entire collection, which is a little nerdy, but also makes me really happy. For a more general review of Sarah Dessen books, read my review of "Along for the Ride" here. In this book, 15-year-old Haven longs for summers past, specifically the summer when her sister Ashley was dating the fun, charming Sumner. Now, Ashley's getting married to a boring guy named Lewis, her family's falling apart after her parents divorce and her father's marriage to his mistress, and Haven has just about had it. That's when Sumner shows up again, making Haven long for the past even more. This definitely wasn't my favorite Sarah Dessen book (you can see how her writing matures in her later books), but it was still a really nice short spring break read, and I liked that the ending wasn't picture perfect. I give it 7.5 pretzel bites.
KAY

Monday, March 29, 2010

I don't want to be a freshman all over again

Please Don't Kill the Freshman
This book is a memoir by Zoe Trope about her freshman and sophomore years in high school, about falling in love, about being gay, about getting a book deal, about feeling misunderstood. I first picked it up because someone told me that something I wrote reminded them of this book. It was meant as in, "The writing and characters are really good, but the public won't like it because there's no plot." So, of course, I had to be self-centered and go read the book that was supposedly like mine. The first thing I discovered, before I even started reading, was that on the cover there are comments from DAVE EGGERS and JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER saying how genius it is. If Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer loved something I'd written, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't care if the public did or not.

So yes. There's not really a plot. That didn't really bother me. It took me a little while to get into it, because a lot of times it's written kind of like poetry. It can be very cryptic. At first, I found the author irritating. Then, however, I hit a point where I couldn't put it down. I just wanted to keep reading. I still found it irritating in places, but it was just so beautifully written. There were several lines I had to reread multiple times because they were just phrased so perfectly. This book is definitely not for everyone, but overall it is a truly lovely piece of work. 7.5 pretzel bites.
KAY

Monday, March 15, 2010

Guess who's behind the times again?

The Time Traveler's Wife
So, by this point, practically everyone's heard of this book by Audrey Niffenegger. However, for a really long time I had the impression that it was about women being abused in ancient China, and that was never something I was in the mood to read. I know. I have no idea why I thought that. Then I saw the trailer for the movie (which apparently is horrible and I have no intention of seeing) and thought the concept seemed kind of interesting. For those of you who have been living under a rock like me and don't know what it's about, there's this guy named Henry who every now and then just disappears and travels through time involuntarily. Not like, oh wow, let's revisit Germany and try to stop Hitler, but like, to parts of his own past and whatnot. He's been visiting his wife Clare (who does not travel through time) ever since she was a child, so they've always known that they were meant to be together, and the book is the tale of their lives together. A lot of it takes place in Chicago, which was nice because I was familiar with a lot of the settings.

In the beginning, this book was really intriguing. The whole concept and logistics of time travel really interested me, and it was strange to think about because, when it really comes down to it, they only met because future Henry told past Clare they were supposed to, and then Clare grew up and met Henry in the present and told him, "Hey, we're supposed to be together." Interesting, right? It must have taken a lot of planning on the part of the author, too, to get all the chronology to match up. After a while, though, it got into all this drama where they were trying to have a kid, which was more boring for me, maybe because I can't relate. Then at the end, it got really intense out of nowhere. I didn't find the ending all that satisfying. I think I lost interest a little bit in the middle. Anyway, I give this book 7 pretzel bites.
KAY