Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: The Last Exit to Normal
Author: Michael Harmon
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 2.5/5
Why I Read It: This book was part of the Nerds Heart YA tournament in 2009, and both judges who read it enjoyed it.

Summary: After 17-year-old Ben’s dad announces that he’s gay, Ben rebels by skipping school and doing drugs. Then his dad decides they’re moving from the city to a small town in Montana. Trying to fit in while sporting a mohawk turns out to be the least of Ben’s problems.

Review: I wanted to love this book. I did love several aspects of it, and I am glad I read it. But it wasn’t one of my favorites.

What I loved:

• The grit—The tough conversations between Ben and his dad were so real they were almost painful to read at times. In a good way.
• The issues—Homophobia, child abuse, abandonment. The book takes on big-ticket issues with a capital I, but it didn’t feel like a thinly veiled morality play.
• The funny—Here, Ben is about to go on a date with a country girl, and he’s asking his dad’s boyfriend Edward for advice. Edward starts off with what he knows about the girl’s dad:

“If I remember correctly, he’s a very harsh man, and one not to cross.” He thought for a moment. “Yes sir, no sir, thank you, please, nice to meet you, Mr. Johan, firm handshake, look him in the eye, and for God’s sake don’t eye her boobs, even accidentally, unless you’re at least a mile from the house. Men have shotguns for a reason around here.”

I nodded, soaking it all in. Fear gripped me, but love would climb any mountain. “One more thing.”

“What?”

“What is baling hay, anyway?”

He laughed. “And you thought you worked hard yesterday. Poor child.”

“Crap.”

But here are the things that got in the way of me loving this book through-and-through:

• Backstory frontloading—The first chapter was s-l-o-w. I almost put the book down. I once read a tip in a writing book that you should cut your first chapter, start with the second, and sprinkle the first chapter backstory in later only if necessary. This book might have benefited from that trick.
• Internal monologue—Not everywhere, but in certain spots I felt like I was getting Ben’s entire thought process.
• Melodramatic tendencies—As the story started to wrap up, a few scenes came off as a bit cheesy for my taste.
• Kiss offscreen—Maybe this is just because I’m a girl that this bugged me, but the first kiss between Ben and the girl he’s interested in happened…offscreen! It’s this offhand comment in the narration. Bummer!

None of these issues were huge, but they all pulled me out of the story and got in the way of me connecting on a deeper level to the book.

Your Turn: What’s the last book you wanted to love but didn’t?

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Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Debbie Harry Sings in French
• Down to the Bone
• Black Box
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Audience Pick!

Title: 13 Little Blue Envelopes
Author: Maureen Johnson
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 2.5/5
Why I Read It: Because you told me to!

Summary: Ginny’s aunt is gone, but she left Ginny 13 mysterious letters. She is to do exactly as they say, and she can open the next one only when given permission. The first letter gets her on a plane to London, the second takes her to a complete stranger’s house, and the rest just get crazier from there.

Review: I had trouble connecting to Ginny in the first half of the book. She was just going through the motions and following the letters to the uh, letter. I know that was the crux of the plot, but her passive nature kept her flat in my mind. However, by the second half, what finally made her come alive was her grief. The ending even choked me up a bit.

This was an enjoyable read with a nice little romance. If you typically enjoy MJ’s books and especially if you’ve ever wanted to tour Europe, this one’s worth the time. (By the way, my fave-iest fave by MJ is still The Key to the Golden Firebird.)

From the Land of Writerly Musings: I liked the aunt’s letters spread throughout the book, but I wasn’t a fan of the few letters Ginny wrote to her best friend back home. They weren’t frequent, so they jarred my reading. Also unsettling was going from third-person point of view where Ginny’s emotions aren’t all that clear to a letter where she lays her heart out. I found myself wanting the emotions to be more woven into the text instead of stuck in those letters.

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Did you like this book? Try:

• Looking for Alaska
• An Abundance of Katherines—My rating: 4/5
• Girl at Sea—My rating: 2.5/5
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Audience Pick!

Title: Love You Hate You Miss You
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 2.5/5
Why I Read It: Because you told me to!

Summary: After a tragic car crash, Amy goes to a rehab facility to get a handle on her drinking. But when she’s released, life just isn’t the same. Her best friend Julia is gone, her parents are faking a happy family routine, and her therapist wants her to start a diary.

Review: This is a heavier story than others I’ve read by Scott with not as much in the way of romance, although it does have a bit in that department.

But as with her other novels, this one didn’t speak to me. Putting on my YAnnabe hat, the internal dialogue was too much for me. I would love to see Scott write a novel in third person because I think that might be more to my taste.

Here’s an example of the internal dialogue I’m talking about. Amy has just told a potential new friend about her time in rehab:

…and then I ended up telling her about Pinewood.

I don’t know why I did. I just felt like it, I guess. I didn’t even feel weird. Well, maybe a little. But she wasn’t—she didn’t react like I thought she would. She didn’t say anything stupid, and she didn’t try to be all positive or sympathetic or anything.

The frequent hesitations in the narration (like “But she wasn’t—she didn’t”) called extra attention to the internal dialogue, and I like that technique better in actual dialogue.

Still, this was an enjoyable and quick read. If you like Scott’s other novels, I think you’ll like this one too.

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Did you like this book? Try:

• Touch
• Something, Maybe—My rating: 2.5/5
• Gorgeous
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Audience Pick!

Title: Perfect You
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 2.5/5
Why I Read It: Because you told me to!

Summary: Kate lost her best friend to popularity. Any chance Kate had at being popular herself is about to evaporate when everyone finds out she’s working for her vitamin-selling dad at the mall. Unfortunately for Kate, gorgeous, popular Will is working at the mall too.

Review: The romantic scenes are what makes Scott’s books, in my opinion. Because dang, they’re good. The tension between Kate and Will was positively yummy.

This was my third Scott book, but it was still just okay for me. As with Bloom, this one had too much internal dialogue for my taste.

But I did get into the story, and the fact that I finished it says something nowadays!

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Stealing Heaven
• Bloom—My rating: 2.5/5
• Lock and Key
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

Audience Pick!

Title: Girl at Sea
Author: Maureen Johnson
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 2.5/5
Why I Read It: Because you told me to! And I wanted to get in the mood for my upcoming vacation to the beach.

Summary: 17-year-old Clio just finagled a job where her crush works. But when her mom gets an out-of-town work assignment, Clio has to put her plans on hold and hang out with her dad on a boat in the Mediterranean. Sound fun? You haven’t met Clio’s dad.

Review: Maureen Johnson cracks me up. I read her blog religiously.

That said, this wasn’t the MJ book for me. I much preferred Suite Scarlett.

I loved the romance, and the humor cracked me up as always. But the middle felt too slow. Sometimes, it felt like details were included not because they were important to the story but because they set up a good joke.

A little taste of what I’m talking about, where Clio is getting a feel for the kitchen on the boat:

There was a lot more food in the galley now than there had been the night before. The yacht was packed like a UN provision ship. Eight loaves of bread were piled in the corner. Three cardboard boxes stuffed full of vegetables sat on the floor. Another two of fruit. A paper bag revealed meat. Just meat. The refrigerator had been filled with fresh fish—heads and all—trapped in clear plastic bags. There was something murderous about it. Like the Mafia had taken these fish out. These fish slept with the fishes.

I’m not sorry I finished this book because it was entertaining. But if this is the only MJ book you’ve read and it didn’t wow you, you have to give Suite Scarlett a chance.

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