Title: My Life in Pink & Green
Author: Lisa Greenwald
Category: Fiction, Middle Grade
Why I Read It: It released in 2009, and I was in the mood for something new.

Summary: 12-year-old Lucy’s mom inherited the family pharmacy, which is in danger of being foreclosed on.

Stopped on Page: 75
Why I Stopped: The main thing that bugged me is that Lucy is oddly gushing about her mom.

Old Mill Pharmacy doesn’t just carry the usual magazines like People and Glamour and Time. We have those, but we also carry magazines that are hard to find on the average drugstore news rack, like the Nation and the Progressive.

My mom’s a huge reader. She’ll read anything she can get her hands on, and especially stuff about people making a difference or taking a stand on complicated issues. She doesn’t just accept situations as they are—she’s always questioning things, so she likes to read magazines and newspapers that reflect that state of mind.

She’s one of those people who truly believe one person can change the world.

Ugh. Does that make anyone else feel a little green around the gills?

This is also one example from the first 75 pages where I felt like I was getting a moral lesson. Not in my fiction, thankyouverymuch.

Should I have kept going? Or was I right to stop?

Note: As an aspiring author, I respect the extraordinary amount of effort that goes into writing a book. I did not write this review in order to be unfair or negative about the book. My goal is simply to articulate why the book wasn’t for me.

Title: Brothers, Boyfriends & Other Criminal Minds
Author: April Lurie
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Why I Read It: I saw it on the shelf at the library, and it looked interesting.

Summary: In the 1970s, 14-year-old April Lundquist lives in a Brooklyn neighborhood alongside famous mobsters.

Stopped on Page: 94
Why I Stopped: I never really got into this book because it didn’t make me care about the main character. It took about 50 pages before I even got a hint of what the real problem affecting her was.

I also had trouble getting into scenes because they were chopped up by the characters doing things in between every line or by the main character explaining what was going on.

Here, the main character is eavesdropping on a conversation between her older brother Matt and his friend Little Joe. I highlighted the parts that chopped it up—in my opinion—in bold.

“Come on, Matt,” Little Joe said, “I already told you, this is not a good idea. You don’t get it, they treat those girls like nuns. Lock ‘em up and throw away the key.”

Matt stood up. There was a strange expression on his face—a mixture of defiance and desperation. It was the way he looked when his basketball team was down by ten points, with only one minute left in the game. “Listen, Joe,” he said. “I don’t care. I just need to see her.”

Little Joe raised his arms in surrender. “All right, all right. I’m pretty sure she’ll be there, okay? Happy?”

Matt exhaled loudly. “Thanks Joe, I owe you one.”

Little Joe shook his head. “Nah, you don’t owe me nothin’. But I’m telling you, Matt, you better be careful.”

Should I have kept going? Or was I right to stop?

Note: As an aspiring author, I respect the extraordinary amount of effort that goes into writing a book. I did not write this review in order to be unfair or negative about the book. My goal is simply to articulate why the book wasn’t for me.

Title: Going Going
Author: Naomi Shihab Nye
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Why I Read It: I read the plot summary online and liked the sound of it.

Summary: 16-year-old Florrie works at her family’s restaurant and gets outraged at the chain stores stomping all over the small businesses like hers.

Stopped on Page: 46
Why I Stopped: This book shoves the “issue” down your throat, making it no fun at all to read. I always try to support independent businesses over chains, and even I was annoyed by do-gooder Florrie and her self-righteous rants.

Here, it’s her birthday and she’s announcing her wish:

“Okay, guys, this year my wish is…hey familia, everyone listening? My wish is that none of you will visit or patronize any franchise establishment for the rest of this calendar year, starting today! That equals sixteen weeks, one week for each year of my life. This will be a serious project. We will support independent businesses for all our needs, as much as possible. Okay? Agreed?”

She goes on to quote Ralph Nader to her family. I’m not kidding. Nothing against Ralph Nader, but c’mon. This character is nowhere near realistic.

And on the completely trivial side, this book has too many exclamation points and too much italics for emphasis.

Should I have kept going? Or was I right to stop?

Note: As an aspiring author, I respect the extraordinary amount of effort that goes into writing a book. I did not write this review in order to be unfair or negative about the book. My goal is simply to articulate why the book wasn’t for me.

Title: ghostgirl
Author: Tonya Hurley
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Summary: Charlotte Usher feels invisible at school. Then one day, she becomes invisible—or rather, dead. Unfortunately for her, dying doesn’t mean she’s done with high school.

Stopped on Page: 85
Why I Stopped: I found myself skimming just to get the plot points, so I figured I should call it a day with this one. I didn’t really care about the main character, and the style of writing was getting on my nerves a little. I’m having trouble pinpointing exactly why that is, although I have a couple ideas. No better way to learn how to write than to study what you do and don’t like, so here goes…

Here’s an example from when Charlotte is trying to sign up for cheerleader tryouts. Adverbs are in bold.

As she started writing the “C,” she was tapped harshly on the shoulder. Charlotte stopped writing and turned to see who was interrupting her first task of the day—no, of her new life—and then saw a line of girls who had been “camped out” all night waiting to sign up. The gathering resembled less of a tryout than a casting call.

The obnoxious candidate looked her over from head to toe, grabbed the pen, and simultaneously wrote her name in and Charlotte off. She then opened her hand and let the pen mercilessly drop the length of the string.

Charlotte watched the pen sway against the wall like a hanged man.

None of those adverbs are necessary. And since I’m trying to learn how to tighten up my own writing, they screamed at me to notice their total lack of value. (Also, why the quotation marks around “camped out”? Does that mean they didn’t actually camp out? Is this a euphemism for something?)

I think it was also the metaphors and similes throughout that got to me. From the above excerpt, we have: a casting call, a hanged man. The first doesn’t really add anything to the description that we don’t already get from knowing that they camped out. The second seems a bit much, and I don’t actually get it. Why is the pen the doomed one? It seems odd to describe the pen in such detail when we should be hearing about how Charlotte’s feeling. Maybe it was little things like this that made it hard for me to connect to her as a character.

Then here’s an example from later, when the characters are picking science lab partners:

The classmates turned toward each other, pointing to friends across the room, some were screaming and jumping up and down as if they’d “made it through to Hollywood” on American Idol.

Really? This reaction for picking lab partners? (And again with the quotation marks! Ack!)

Should I have kept going? Or was I right to stop?

Note: As an aspiring author, I respect the extraordinary amount of effort that goes into writing a book. I did not write this review in order to be unfair or negative about the book. My goal is simply to articulate why the book wasn’t for me.