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jennifermreads's review against another edition
1.0
Maybe I’m being influenced because I had just read an article in the local paper about being SICK of shows starting with an action scene that lasts three minutes then cutting to a screen that says “Four Days Earlier.” Flashbacks are getting old as narration vehicles. And this book started that way: a description of a car accident then flashback to the start of Jude’s summer working at the boardwalk in New York. The flashback shows Jude trying to move on with his life even as he is still having difficulty dealing with his little sister’s drowning six years earlier. The accident is briefly reprised on a single page 141 and then the remaining 58 pages are about Jude trying to move on from his best friend’s death. He never really recovers from either death – and there isn’t really any resolution or concrete clues on how someone also going through such an experience could deal with it themselves.
I was hoping this would be a reluctant-reader read but, given the topics, I cannot see recommending it to someone who is not eager to read! Even recommending it to a voracious reader would be difficult. The book is incredibly dark, choppy in its writing style, and lacks any sense of resolution or hope. I’m not sure what the author’s point was. Kirkus called the book “solid”??? Whatever … not sure that it is solid in anything. Booklist referred to its “moving drama of grief and guilt” and, again, I’m not sure that it movED much less was moving.
I was hoping this would be a reluctant-reader read but, given the topics, I cannot see recommending it to someone who is not eager to read! Even recommending it to a voracious reader would be difficult. The book is incredibly dark, choppy in its writing style, and lacks any sense of resolution or hope. I’m not sure what the author’s point was. Kirkus called the book “solid”??? Whatever … not sure that it is solid in anything. Booklist referred to its “moving drama of grief and guilt” and, again, I’m not sure that it movED much less was moving.
emilyrbedwell's review against another edition
4.0
First Impressions: This wasn't a book I knew much about, but the little description on Netgalley sounded good, so I thought I would check it out. There are not enough books out there written from a strong teen male point of view, so I wanted to see if this book stood up and apart from other contemporary YA novels dealing with life and death. From the beginning, the lyrical writing style set the introspective tone of the book. Even the first few pages made good use of color. Right away, you know something bad is going to happen, before you even know who the characters really are. The first few pages set up a change you know is coming, even if you're not sure what it will take to get to that moment in time.
First 50 Pages: BEFORE YOU GO feels like a coming of age story, much in the vein of Gayle Foreman's IF I STAY. With Jude, we experience the monotony of Jude's first job, and experience his first experience with teen love. I spent the first few chapters of this book trying to figure out who the players in the prologue really were. You know there is something dark coming, and it affects the tone of the book, regardless of how "normal" the events unfolding appear. BEFORE YOU GO is well written, and begs to be read slowly. For Jude, this is summer as usual; nothing extraordinary, just a rite of passage that must be endured.
Characters and Plot: The main character, Jude, is well fleshed out and seems to have a purpose. He has had some rough patches in life, and feels like his family is just going through the motions. The other characters are there, almost superficially. Jude's friends, especially Corey, all serve purposes, but still feel like stereotypes right out of teen movies. Becka, the love interest, is a little more developed, but even she feels like the typical teenage girl love interest. Beautiful, sassy and friendly like the girl next door. Even the adults don't really understand the teenagers, and Jude's fast food bosses take their jobs a little too seriously.
The plot is pretty straight forward. You know there is going to be a car accident involving four friends from the first page. You know that someone lives, but you don't know their names. The first half of the book leads up to that moment, building suspense in the normal moments of life. You learn about the sadness Jude and his family carry quickly. The plot is there, but carefully woven into everyday life.
Final Thoughts: BEFORE YOU GO is a quick read, and that was almost a little disappointing. At just 200 pages, this book felt short. Once the accident happens, the wrap-up almost feels..incomplete. I felt like the meat of the story was just getting started when it got to the end. I actually double checked to see if there was more to the book that I didn't get with my original download, but there wasn't. If there is anything disappointing about this story, it is that the resolution almost feels cheap, like the author didn't really know what to do when one of his characters encountered the death of one of their own.
Overall, this is a good book, worthy of being read. There is something a important about reading a strong male teen character written from a male author. While the story is not overly unique, it is told well and thought through.
First 50 Pages: BEFORE YOU GO feels like a coming of age story, much in the vein of Gayle Foreman's IF I STAY. With Jude, we experience the monotony of Jude's first job, and experience his first experience with teen love. I spent the first few chapters of this book trying to figure out who the players in the prologue really were. You know there is something dark coming, and it affects the tone of the book, regardless of how "normal" the events unfolding appear. BEFORE YOU GO is well written, and begs to be read slowly. For Jude, this is summer as usual; nothing extraordinary, just a rite of passage that must be endured.
Characters and Plot: The main character, Jude, is well fleshed out and seems to have a purpose. He has had some rough patches in life, and feels like his family is just going through the motions. The other characters are there, almost superficially. Jude's friends, especially Corey, all serve purposes, but still feel like stereotypes right out of teen movies. Becka, the love interest, is a little more developed, but even she feels like the typical teenage girl love interest. Beautiful, sassy and friendly like the girl next door. Even the adults don't really understand the teenagers, and Jude's fast food bosses take their jobs a little too seriously.
The plot is pretty straight forward. You know there is going to be a car accident involving four friends from the first page. You know that someone lives, but you don't know their names. The first half of the book leads up to that moment, building suspense in the normal moments of life. You learn about the sadness Jude and his family carry quickly. The plot is there, but carefully woven into everyday life.
Final Thoughts: BEFORE YOU GO is a quick read, and that was almost a little disappointing. At just 200 pages, this book felt short. Once the accident happens, the wrap-up almost feels..incomplete. I felt like the meat of the story was just getting started when it got to the end. I actually double checked to see if there was more to the book that I didn't get with my original download, but there wasn't. If there is anything disappointing about this story, it is that the resolution almost feels cheap, like the author didn't really know what to do when one of his characters encountered the death of one of their own.
Overall, this is a good book, worthy of being read. There is something a important about reading a strong male teen character written from a male author. While the story is not overly unique, it is told well and thought through.
nematome's review against another edition
1.0
This is one of the worst books I’ve ever read, but I say that with a bit of affection. I finished this in one evening, because it was just…riveting. I couldn’t look away! It was like this crazy mixture of horrible writing, cardboard characters, dialogue from another planet, consistency problems, and semi-poetic gibberish that all somehow combined into a slurry of pure magic. I think this phenomenon is best described by the source material itself:
“For Jude, it was like watching and enjoying a terrible movie. He loved seeing those movies with Corey, and together they spent giddy hours snorting over the best-worst movies of all time. Classics such as Roadhouse, Anaconda, The Beastmaster, and the all-time best worst, Plan 9 From Outer Space. The thing was, you absolutely had to know it was bad – that’s what put the fun in the funny. But if someone like liked it without irony: Yikes, that was plain scary.”
Scary indeed. (Also, seriously Jude? Beastmaster? That’s just a classic!) Thankfully I do not “like like” this book, so I think I’m okay.
I did, however, learn a great deal here. Or I would have if I were an alien pod person just visiting Earth for the first time. In fact I would say that this book reads quite a lot like an instruction manual on teenagers and pop-culture, as written by an alien pod person. And it really is every bit as awesome as that sounds. There’s this sort of adorable need to explain each and every pop culture reference throughout the book. For example, I learned all about the various rules and procedures of this thing that boys do called “calling shotgun” in the two page description the author so helpfully provides. And, did you know that the word “frak” actually comes from a show called Battlestar Galactica? And that there was once a popular SNL sketch featuring Christopher Walken and a cow bell? Did you know that Donnie Darko is a “first rate cult classic”? Did you know about the popularity of Chuck Norris jokes? The Big Lebowski? Austin Powers? Did you know that there was a highly “underrated” band in the 80’s and 90’s called The Cure?
Get right outta town!
This book also has some hilariously just-wrong-enough-to-sound-incredibly-weird “modern” teenage slang (unless I’ve just been out of the loop for too long):
“You getting your bronze on?”
“Go friend her…. Go click on the like button.” (about talking to a person in real life)
“he’s power-trippin’”
“carny tang”
“I’m starverated”
“about as scary as a cucumber sandwich”
“it never went viral” (about a nickname’s popularity in his high school)
“Almost two thousand balloons,” Becka said. “My parents are willing to go halfsies.”
“…greeted each other like long-lost Ping-Pong partners.”
“so tacky it rocked the house”
“wearing shorts and some kind of spaghetti-string top”
“…cute as all get-go.”
“Jude was sure that half the crowd was buzzed on something, tripping the light fantastic.”
“freak-tarded”
So okay, this book is pretty informative, but what is it about (I hear you say)? Well, the short answer is: I have no idea. And the long answer is that it’s about Jude, who is having a pretty rough time. His sister died in a tragic drowning accident, and his life has never been the same. His dad neglects him by asking him to go out running but then insisting that he wear shoes and time himself. His mom neglects him by keeping their home dark, killing their plants (they have to get a plastic Christmas tree!!), and leaving him to cook his own meals from their well-stocked refrigerator. He’s passing all of his classes, hates the taste of beer, is mildly afraid of girls, and dislikes the “leering, crude, funny, sex-obsessed” talk of his peers. He’s a master guitar player who almost never plays or practices. And he’s just gotten his first job at a beach concession stand. Can he learn to throw off all of his obvious ennui and live, damn it, live?
Yes, as it turns out – he can. And the instrument of this change is of course, a girl. A quirky, “singular” girl with possibly a few “exotic…Mediterranean roots in her family tree.” A girl who blows his mind with her unique views on life and her profound words:
“Becka shifted and lay on her back, resting her head in Jude’s lap. Looking skyward, she observed, ‘It’s a tie-dye sky.’ Jude laughed. Only Becka could see the world that way.”
Oh, you.
“I always think of the earth as a round ball, just spinning in space,’ Becka said. ‘Close your eyes. Can you feel it?”
Gosh, this is such a coincidence, because I always think of it that way too. Huh.
“’It’s a miracle we don’t fly away,’ Becka said, her voice a whisper. ‘The earth spinning around and around – you’d think we’d all just fall off.’”
A miracle!!
“They say each star is a soul looking down on us.”
I know they say some other things about stars…like that they’re giant masses of…something or other, but eh this sounds better.
“’When you cry,’ she said, ‘I taste salt.’”
Dude, are you licking my face right now? Or have my tears somehow… vaporized and floated over to your… mouth? Either way it’s super weird.
“My mother says that people don’t have souls; we are souls.”
I think your mom’s been plagiarizing C.S. Lewis.
But wait – that’s not all! This book also has an amaaaaazing sense of humor. Observe:
“’He was up all night, calling Ralph on the big white telephone!’ That got a laugh from everyone.”
Barf humor really is pure gold.
“’Anyone need anything?’
‘Curly Fries,’ Jude said.
‘I’ll take the redhead on lane six’, Corey ordered.
'To go!’”
Ha…
“After a poor shot from Jude that left pins at each end, Roberto announced, ‘Hey, split happens.’”
Who doesn’t love a little wordplay?
“Daphne was next, a pale small blonde with bee-stung lips and dark bags under her eyes. She was either sick, undernourished, or a future runway model. Roberto had already joked that he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to bang Daphne or rush her to the emergency room. Which was pretty funny if you asked Jude.”
Gosh, thin girls are so funny!!! Should we seduce them or force them to seek medical help? It’s a laugh riot of confusion!
But wait (seriously) – there’s more. If this were an infomercial, we’d be past the 50% discount and onto the free knife set. Only in this case, it would be a free thesaurus because this book is like a synonym gold-mine. For a single word. Because these characters are super fancy and they don’t like to just “say” things (how boring!). Instead we get: explained, agreed, asked, argued, joked, enthused, announced, lamented, instructed, urged, advised, exclaimed, replied, yelled, opined, corrected, complained, cracked, and solemnly intoned.
And not only that, there is some seriously fancy writing in here. Witness:
“Gladness flickered on Becka’s face, like wind in the trees.”
I’m picturing her face flashing from glad to blank…glad-blank…glad-blankglad-blankgladblank.
“The idea was not to think or feel, just go dull and dim like a mushroom in the rain.”
Like a…mushroom…in the rain. I think that one speaks for itself. (Seriously, is that a thing that I just don't know about? Do mushrooms go dull in the rain?)
“Lily was dead and that was that, no other way to skin the cat, yet she came to his mind every day. A visitor, a neighbor ringing the bell. Here to borrow a cup of sugar? Or with some other intent?”
I hate it when my dead sister stops by my head to borrow a cup of sugar.
“The cage that protected his inner organs – kidney, liver, heart – had failed to protect him. The music stirred something in his plum heart, some desolate place the words could not reach, and the bird had flown. He thought how one day he might write a song and use that same organ sound, figured on the spot how to transcribe the notes to guitar. The heart too was an organ. A pumping mass of muscle. It would be a song without words, emotion in each note’s fuzz and intonation, the struck chord glimmering like a sun-blazoned ocean, like explosions in the sky, and he’d call the tune ‘My Sweet Zombie Boy.’”
I honestly have no idea what this means. It’s a mystery…and therein lies its brilliance.
There were even a few moments at the end when I was 90% convinced that this was going to suddenly, out of the blue become a Christian novel but sadly it never quite made it there. That really would have been the icing on the cake.
Perfect Musical Pairing
Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting - All For Love
I know that I just snarked all over this book, but it was actually an unintentionally (?) fun read. It reminds me so much of this song (and its amazing video). No doubt that this is one of the worst songs in the entire history of time, and yet it never fails to get stuck right in my head. I love the whole opening – where Sting, Rod Stewart, and Bryan Adams are just hangin’ out…just joking around in their carefully constructed outfits and hair…justa coupla guys. And the lyrics are just so perfect – nonsensical and cliché (I’m looking right at you, Mr. Adams). I love the ridiculously dramatic poses that they all throw out while singing – like they just can’t contain these feelings. (And I wonder if Rod Stewart managed to throw out his back as well with one of those – you aren’t exactly in a boy band, guys. Take it down a notch.) This song is the epitome of “so bad it’s good.”
Also seen on The Readventurer.
“For Jude, it was like watching and enjoying a terrible movie. He loved seeing those movies with Corey, and together they spent giddy hours snorting over the best-worst movies of all time. Classics such as Roadhouse, Anaconda, The Beastmaster, and the all-time best worst, Plan 9 From Outer Space. The thing was, you absolutely had to know it was bad – that’s what put the fun in the funny. But if someone like liked it without irony: Yikes, that was plain scary.”
Scary indeed. (Also, seriously Jude? Beastmaster? That’s just a classic!) Thankfully I do not “like like” this book, so I think I’m okay.
I did, however, learn a great deal here. Or I would have if I were an alien pod person just visiting Earth for the first time. In fact I would say that this book reads quite a lot like an instruction manual on teenagers and pop-culture, as written by an alien pod person. And it really is every bit as awesome as that sounds. There’s this sort of adorable need to explain each and every pop culture reference throughout the book. For example, I learned all about the various rules and procedures of this thing that boys do called “calling shotgun” in the two page description the author so helpfully provides. And, did you know that the word “frak” actually comes from a show called Battlestar Galactica? And that there was once a popular SNL sketch featuring Christopher Walken and a cow bell? Did you know that Donnie Darko is a “first rate cult classic”? Did you know about the popularity of Chuck Norris jokes? The Big Lebowski? Austin Powers? Did you know that there was a highly “underrated” band in the 80’s and 90’s called The Cure?
Get right outta town!
This book also has some hilariously just-wrong-enough-to-sound-incredibly-weird “modern” teenage slang (unless I’ve just been out of the loop for too long):
“You getting your bronze on?”
“Go friend her…. Go click on the like button.” (about talking to a person in real life)
“he’s power-trippin’”
“carny tang”
“I’m starverated”
“about as scary as a cucumber sandwich”
“it never went viral” (about a nickname’s popularity in his high school)
“Almost two thousand balloons,” Becka said. “My parents are willing to go halfsies.”
“…greeted each other like long-lost Ping-Pong partners.”
“so tacky it rocked the house”
“wearing shorts and some kind of spaghetti-string top”
“…cute as all get-go.”
“Jude was sure that half the crowd was buzzed on something, tripping the light fantastic.”
“freak-tarded”
So okay, this book is pretty informative, but what is it about (I hear you say)? Well, the short answer is: I have no idea. And the long answer is that it’s about Jude, who is having a pretty rough time. His sister died in a tragic drowning accident, and his life has never been the same. His dad neglects him by asking him to go out running but then insisting that he wear shoes and time himself. His mom neglects him by keeping their home dark, killing their plants (they have to get a plastic Christmas tree!!), and leaving him to cook his own meals from their well-stocked refrigerator. He’s passing all of his classes, hates the taste of beer, is mildly afraid of girls, and dislikes the “leering, crude, funny, sex-obsessed” talk of his peers. He’s a master guitar player who almost never plays or practices. And he’s just gotten his first job at a beach concession stand. Can he learn to throw off all of his obvious ennui and live, damn it, live?
Yes, as it turns out – he can. And the instrument of this change is of course, a girl. A quirky, “singular” girl with possibly a few “exotic…Mediterranean roots in her family tree.” A girl who blows his mind with her unique views on life and her profound words:
“Becka shifted and lay on her back, resting her head in Jude’s lap. Looking skyward, she observed, ‘It’s a tie-dye sky.’ Jude laughed. Only Becka could see the world that way.”
Oh, you.
“I always think of the earth as a round ball, just spinning in space,’ Becka said. ‘Close your eyes. Can you feel it?”
Gosh, this is such a coincidence, because I always think of it that way too. Huh.
“’It’s a miracle we don’t fly away,’ Becka said, her voice a whisper. ‘The earth spinning around and around – you’d think we’d all just fall off.’”
A miracle!!
“They say each star is a soul looking down on us.”
I know they say some other things about stars…like that they’re giant masses of…something or other, but eh this sounds better.
“’When you cry,’ she said, ‘I taste salt.’”
Dude, are you licking my face right now? Or have my tears somehow… vaporized and floated over to your… mouth? Either way it’s super weird.
“My mother says that people don’t have souls; we are souls.”
I think your mom’s been plagiarizing C.S. Lewis.
But wait – that’s not all! This book also has an amaaaaazing sense of humor. Observe:
“’He was up all night, calling Ralph on the big white telephone!’ That got a laugh from everyone.”
Barf humor really is pure gold.
“’Anyone need anything?’
‘Curly Fries,’ Jude said.
‘I’ll take the redhead on lane six’, Corey ordered.
'To go!’”
Ha…
“After a poor shot from Jude that left pins at each end, Roberto announced, ‘Hey, split happens.’”
Who doesn’t love a little wordplay?
“Daphne was next, a pale small blonde with bee-stung lips and dark bags under her eyes. She was either sick, undernourished, or a future runway model. Roberto had already joked that he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to bang Daphne or rush her to the emergency room. Which was pretty funny if you asked Jude.”
Gosh, thin girls are so funny!!! Should we seduce them or force them to seek medical help? It’s a laugh riot of confusion!
But wait (seriously) – there’s more. If this were an infomercial, we’d be past the 50% discount and onto the free knife set. Only in this case, it would be a free thesaurus because this book is like a synonym gold-mine. For a single word. Because these characters are super fancy and they don’t like to just “say” things (how boring!). Instead we get: explained, agreed, asked, argued, joked, enthused, announced, lamented, instructed, urged, advised, exclaimed, replied, yelled, opined, corrected, complained, cracked, and solemnly intoned.
And not only that, there is some seriously fancy writing in here. Witness:
“Gladness flickered on Becka’s face, like wind in the trees.”
I’m picturing her face flashing from glad to blank…glad-blank…glad-blankglad-blankgladblank.
“The idea was not to think or feel, just go dull and dim like a mushroom in the rain.”
Like a…mushroom…in the rain. I think that one speaks for itself. (Seriously, is that a thing that I just don't know about? Do mushrooms go dull in the rain?)
“Lily was dead and that was that, no other way to skin the cat, yet she came to his mind every day. A visitor, a neighbor ringing the bell. Here to borrow a cup of sugar? Or with some other intent?”
I hate it when my dead sister stops by my head to borrow a cup of sugar.
“The cage that protected his inner organs – kidney, liver, heart – had failed to protect him. The music stirred something in his plum heart, some desolate place the words could not reach, and the bird had flown. He thought how one day he might write a song and use that same organ sound, figured on the spot how to transcribe the notes to guitar. The heart too was an organ. A pumping mass of muscle. It would be a song without words, emotion in each note’s fuzz and intonation, the struck chord glimmering like a sun-blazoned ocean, like explosions in the sky, and he’d call the tune ‘My Sweet Zombie Boy.’”
I honestly have no idea what this means. It’s a mystery…and therein lies its brilliance.
There were even a few moments at the end when I was 90% convinced that this was going to suddenly, out of the blue become a Christian novel but sadly it never quite made it there. That really would have been the icing on the cake.
Perfect Musical Pairing
Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting - All For Love
I know that I just snarked all over this book, but it was actually an unintentionally (?) fun read. It reminds me so much of this song (and its amazing video). No doubt that this is one of the worst songs in the entire history of time, and yet it never fails to get stuck right in my head. I love the whole opening – where Sting, Rod Stewart, and Bryan Adams are just hangin’ out…just joking around in their carefully constructed outfits and hair…justa coupla guys. And the lyrics are just so perfect – nonsensical and cliché (I’m looking right at you, Mr. Adams). I love the ridiculously dramatic poses that they all throw out while singing – like they just can’t contain these feelings. (And I wonder if Rod Stewart managed to throw out his back as well with one of those – you aren’t exactly in a boy band, guys. Take it down a notch.) This song is the epitome of “so bad it’s good.”
Also seen on The Readventurer.
tlikestoread's review against another edition
emotional
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Child death
aprilbooksandwine's review against another edition
3.0
Life can change in an instant. There are some people who have dealt with more than their fair share of trauma and so it seems they are shaped by their reaction to the trauma. Before You Go by James Preller opens with a prologue that is real life terrifying and could happen to anyone — the scene of a car accident.
Read the rest of my review here link goes live 7/2/12
Read the rest of my review here link goes live 7/2/12
foreveryoungadult's review against another edition
Graded By: Meghan
Cover Story: Not Bad
BFF Charm: Yay
Swoonworthy Scale: 4
Talky Talk: Straight Up BOY
Bonus Factors: Summer Job, Sassy Best Friends (Guy Version)
Relationship Status: Teenaged Work Buddy
Read the full book report here.
Cover Story: Not Bad
BFF Charm: Yay
Swoonworthy Scale: 4
Talky Talk: Straight Up BOY
Bonus Factors: Summer Job, Sassy Best Friends (Guy Version)
Relationship Status: Teenaged Work Buddy
Read the full book report here.
keirasweet02's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
This book was pretty good. The first thing you learn is that there’s a car crash and someone dies. Then the first half of the book is set before the crash. These chapters were decent I liked the characters and judes relationship with Becka. The main character Jude was well written you love him very quickly and he has a lot of depth despite the book only being 200 pages. However, some of the fast food bits went a bit slow and I got slightly bored and there was quite a few pop culture references I didn’t understand as well as a bit of men writing women type content. The actual car crash shocked me, I spent the whole first half thinking it was going to be becka who dies in the crash not judes best friend Corey so when I found out it was Corey I was shook. The second half of the book had me sobbing, you feel what Jude is going through and how he makes stupid decisions and pushes everyone away in his grief and how he felt. Like the scene of him with coreys mam in the shop made me cry so hard. It had a very open ending but it was still good. Overall this book was pretty good.