Author: Ann Redisch StamplerYear: 2012
Genre: Coming of Age/Angst
Reading Level: Young Adult
Plot Summary: Gabby Gardiner wakes up in the hospital with no recollection of the car accident that put her there. The legal fallout of her drunken accident is just the tip of the iceberg in the many complications of her recovery. As she tries to heal and get back to her life before, she begins to realize her life--and her dreamboat boyfriend, Billy Nash--maybe weren't as great as she thought. Much angsty introspection ensues.
Red Flags: Some swears, teenage partying and some teenage canoodling. General youthly recklessness and incompetent/uncaring adults.
My Rating: C-
There are some good books about teenagers "discovering" themselves, but this is not one of those. The characters were so flat, I had no sympathy for their problems and the eventual epiphanies were shallow and vague. Maybe I'm too old and curmudgeonly to feel sorry for teenagers, but the writing didn't do much for me either. It kept bouncing back and forth between ridiculously long sentences and ridiculously short ones, and neither type were particularly good anyway. It felt like an inferior version of If I Stay...also, you could use that cover for about a million different books...just sayin'.
Yay for the return of book reviews! I think I made a happy sighing sound when I saw the phrase "Red Flags." Is that weird? I look forward to consulting you on which books I should read this year.
ReplyDelete