You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
mrs_a_is_a_book_nerd's reviews
456 reviews
I loved this book!
Benway creates three different yet equally endearing teens who "find" each other after being given up for adoption when they were young and never knowing the others existed. Grace is a "good girl." Adopted as a baby, she is an only child and the center of her parents' world. Maya is the only brunette in a family of redheads--adopted as a baby right before her adoptive family discovered they were pregnant themselves. She and her "sister" Lauren are close, but she still feels like the odd one out in a family that's coming apart at the seams as her parents fight themselves further and further apart. Joaquin, the oldest, was taken into foster care as a young boy and stayed in the system his whole life. Approaching 18, he has taught himself it's dangerous to let people get too close. Essentially strangers, yet inexplicably instantly connected, the siblings begin to discover the ways they are connected and navigate what it means to be family. Ultimately, they must decide whether they'll try to find the woman who gave them all up. Each of them has his or her own reasons for wanting or not wanting to. What they decide helps each of them heal broken pieces within them and in their relationships with others.
It's no wonder this book won a National Book Award--Beautiful.
Benway creates three different yet equally endearing teens who "find" each other after being given up for adoption when they were young and never knowing the others existed. Grace is a "good girl." Adopted as a baby, she is an only child and the center of her parents' world. Maya is the only brunette in a family of redheads--adopted as a baby right before her adoptive family discovered they were pregnant themselves. She and her "sister" Lauren are close, but she still feels like the odd one out in a family that's coming apart at the seams as her parents fight themselves further and further apart. Joaquin, the oldest, was taken into foster care as a young boy and stayed in the system his whole life. Approaching 18, he has taught himself it's dangerous to let people get too close. Essentially strangers, yet inexplicably instantly connected, the siblings begin to discover the ways they are connected and navigate what it means to be family. Ultimately, they must decide whether they'll try to find the woman who gave them all up. Each of them has his or her own reasons for wanting or not wanting to. What they decide helps each of them heal broken pieces within them and in their relationships with others.
It's no wonder this book won a National Book Award--Beautiful.
Clearly, I missed what thousands of other readers thought was so amazing about this memoir. My biggest issue with it was the tone. Jenkins jumps fairly quickly into the misery and shame her addiction put her in, but as I read, I kept asking myself, "Why is she being so flip about things?" And while I can appreciate the occasional levity to alleviate the heaviness of the tension, in this case I felt like the narrative almost had a split personality: describing the grungy bottom that addiction drops one to while also building to a pat punchline. The effect for most of the book then, for me, was to not trust the authenticity of the story. It felt, at times, like what I'd expect from a fiction writer crafting a narrative the arc of which was outside his or her reach. And yet, I kept looking at the back of the book, re-reading the blurb and studying Jenkins' picture, and thinking, "No, this is nonfiction. It's her memoir..." There were also spots in the story that felt downright contrived. As she narrates her time in rehab by telling about the two years before her arrest in therapy-session flashbacks, she has to manipulate the telling to move between narrating memory of the past, back into present-tense dialogue with the therapist (that's a little too saccharine) and back again. The effect, again, feels artificial: (paraphrasing) "As tears streamed down my face, I realized telling my story was like setting down a weight I'd been carrying. 'I'm so proud of you, Tiffany', my therapist said. Feeling is healing. 'I know you're supposed to be in group right now, but I want you to tell me about the rest of this day. What happened after you got home?'"
At the end of the book, I read the author's bio, and THEN things made more sense: she blogs and writes comedy. Her writing style for those genres was what had come through to me in the book, I think.
I applaud Tiffany Jenkins for getting and staying clean, and for trying to use her story to show it can be done. Unfortunately, I walked away feeling less-than-inspired.
At the end of the book, I read the author's bio, and THEN things made more sense: she blogs and writes comedy. Her writing style for those genres was what had come through to me in the book, I think.
I applaud Tiffany Jenkins for getting and staying clean, and for trying to use her story to show it can be done. Unfortunately, I walked away feeling less-than-inspired.
As usual, this book is clever and peppered with astute insights about life and human nature. I loved recognizing elements of my community in the "fictional" towns of Swivel and Boomler (although any similarities are coincidental, I'm told). I wasn't a huge fan of the ending--elements seemed to come out of nowhere, but on the whole, I enjoyed reading another book by Mr. Perry!
Meh.
Scarlett is amusing in many places, as are some of the characters she interacts with, but I kind of had to make myself finish this one.
Scarlett is amusing in many places, as are some of the characters she interacts with, but I kind of had to make myself finish this one.
American Street was interesting, original, and often beautiful in its prose. Still, it only struck me as "decent." I appreciated the introduction to creole and voodu as a Haitian spiritual practice. I think it was the base of the story that bothered me, somehow. I'm glad I read it. It just didn't fully resonate with me.
I kept reading, expecting a major plot twist. Caroline's story had one, I guess, but the rest... This book just didn't do it for me. Enough interesting moments to keep me reading, but I just wasn't compelled.
Karen McManus did not disappoint! It's been a while since I read the first book, so keeping track of characters was a bit of a challenge for me, but this page-turner strung me along until the very last plot twist! An extremely satisfying read for lovers of twisty YA suspense, with a bit of romance and drama thrown in as a bonus!
4.5 stars (I didn't like the ending). This book was FANTASTIC! It had a non-sports-fan like me flipping pages like a madwoman! Loved, loved, LOVED the storyline and characters!!!
This really isn't my genre, but I'm still rating it 4* because it's so we'll written. I didn't like the "comment feed" device...I thought it added little to nothing. People who like suspense/horror might really dig this book, with the balance of plotting/mystery, murder/gore, and humor.