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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
One of the best books I've read in years. This is a beautiful, unexpected story that is filled with so much loneliness and sadness, but then has these incredible moments of pure, honest hope. It took me a long time and half a box of Kleenex to finish it, but it is so worth it in the end.
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Moving and beautifully written. I loved how the author defied my expectations by avoiding the easy answer in human relationships and writing a story that is so not "network tv." An uncle dying of AIDS, the fraught relationships of 2 teen sisters, a lover left behind in the devastation of the 1980s AIDS crisis. Keep a hanky nearby
I did not like this at all. The details got super boring. I don't think the story was bad it just dragged on for an annoying amount.
Such a great book. Emotive and raw, June's voice is clear and pure. I enjoyed this book cover to cover and I would highly recommend it.
Nothing prepared me for this book. I fell in love with the main character in the first chapter. The beauty of this book took my breath away. Not enough adjectives to describe it. The ending had me ugly crying.
This is a charming book in a very young adult novel kind of way. It’s a very easy and quick read, character driven, and a nice balance of angst and growth.
This novel is a story told by fifteen-year-old June in the 1980s, where the death of a beloved uncle from AIDS sends her on a life-changing, soul-searching journey.
There are so many reasons why this should have been classified as young adult. The narrator is only fifteen, with distinctly youthful language and adolescent thought processes. She finds herself grappling with tough life issues without parental help (so typical in YA novels) because her accountant parents are in the middle of tax season, and her life has led her to be estranged from her older sister as well. She struggles with self-esteem and other typical coming-of-age problems like boys, self-identification, and fitting in. Plus, like most YA books, there’s this certainty while reading that everything is going to work out in the end, that the narrator will lose some innocence but gain some wisdom. This let’s us feel safe in following the main characters twists and turns. It’s all just so typical of every other young adult novel, I don’t understand why it isn’t classified as such.
The language and themes are good. Not great, but good. Rarely was I ever taken out of the book, but rarely did I re-read a passage for its beauty either. There’s a nice level of complexity to the characters, but it has its fair share of coincidences, along with a feel that the characters make choices that no one would actually make but which turn out all right in the end. The ending was rather hard to swallow but fit well with the rest of the book.
One of my favorite quotes from the book: “If you think a story can be like a kind of cement, the sloppy kind that you put between bricks, the kind that looks like cake frosting before it dries hard, then maybe I thought it would be possible to use what Toby had to hold Finn together, to keep him here with me a little bit longer” (pg. 78).
Young adult literature can still be excellent reading, and this book is like that. If you looking for a light read, do grab this.
While I have included discussion questions on my website, I found that my questions felt rather simple. Unless you have a book club geared to young readers or you attend a book club that likes to drink a lot of wine, I would pass on this book for most discussion groups.
This novel is a story told by fifteen-year-old June in the 1980s, where the death of a beloved uncle from AIDS sends her on a life-changing, soul-searching journey.
There are so many reasons why this should have been classified as young adult. The narrator is only fifteen, with distinctly youthful language and adolescent thought processes. She finds herself grappling with tough life issues without parental help (so typical in YA novels) because her accountant parents are in the middle of tax season, and her life has led her to be estranged from her older sister as well. She struggles with self-esteem and other typical coming-of-age problems like boys, self-identification, and fitting in. Plus, like most YA books, there’s this certainty while reading that everything is going to work out in the end, that the narrator will lose some innocence but gain some wisdom. This let’s us feel safe in following the main characters twists and turns. It’s all just so typical of every other young adult novel, I don’t understand why it isn’t classified as such.
The language and themes are good. Not great, but good. Rarely was I ever taken out of the book, but rarely did I re-read a passage for its beauty either. There’s a nice level of complexity to the characters, but it has its fair share of coincidences, along with a feel that the characters make choices that no one would actually make but which turn out all right in the end. The ending was rather hard to swallow but fit well with the rest of the book.
One of my favorite quotes from the book: “If you think a story can be like a kind of cement, the sloppy kind that you put between bricks, the kind that looks like cake frosting before it dries hard, then maybe I thought it would be possible to use what Toby had to hold Finn together, to keep him here with me a little bit longer” (pg. 78).
Young adult literature can still be excellent reading, and this book is like that. If you looking for a light read, do grab this.
While I have included discussion questions on my website, I found that my questions felt rather simple. Unless you have a book club geared to young readers or you attend a book club that likes to drink a lot of wine, I would pass on this book for most discussion groups.