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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
This book was about what I expected, which is good and bad. I can see this appealing to a lot of teen readers.
Cool concept well designed and pulled off successfully. I am too old and grumpy to suspend disbelief about this young lady's many art achievements, so I didn't read the whole thing. But it's inspired by the oral history of Edie Sedgewick that I devoured as a teenager, so points for style. Kids, once you are done with this one, read that one for actual art star misbehavior.
I enjoyed this novel way more than I thought I would. It was told in a really cool way, with the author piecing together "interviews" with the different characters who knew Addison, letting the reader get a view not only of the different sides of Addison, but the people in her life as well. (Having just completed a class on Modern Art really added to the experience of reading this too, I think.) Anyways, would strongly recommend, especially to art-lovers. This is a very well-written book.
One of the better young adult novels I've read this year - largely because it is current and very different. Addison Stone is a very promising young artist whose life is cut short by a fall from a bridge. Was it suicide? Was it murder? The reader begins to learn about Addison from a variety of sources - her family, her friends, teachers, business associates, magazine articles, and boyfriends. While learning about Addison, it becomes painfully apparent that with her artistic genius comes a debilitating mental illness. In the end, you can make up your mind based on the evidence. Adele Griffin does a fantastic job blending the story with photos, artwork, and quotes. When I first started reading it, I really got the feeling that Addison was a "real" person.
fast-paced
I liked it because the concept was interesting, but for some reason the writing seemed wooden. Like if I had heard this acted out loud, the actors wouldn't sound natural because their voices weren't genuine enough. And while I really like the idea of posed photos in a book telling the story, it rarely works well because the photos look too posed, which is why I like books that use "found" photos. However, this book did it better than others I have read.
Originally posted on: The Quirky Book Nerd
This novel is structured in a way that makes it sort of like the literary equivalent of “found footage”. It is a work of fiction, but it is written as if it were an actual biography about an up-and-coming young artist named Addison Stone, whose life ends very suddenly when she mysteriously falls from a bridge during an art installation. Adele Griffin writes as herself and functions as a journalist who is compiling this biography; she adds in short pieces written from her point of view throughout the novel. The book is comprised of interviews with a number of Addison’s family and friends, and pictures of Addison and her artwork are interspersed within the text. All of these elements are meant to work together to make the reader feel as if this might be a real account of a person’s life.
When I first discovered this book, the concept and the format it is told in piqued my interest right away. The inclusion of the photographs of and artwork by the subject of the “biography” itself further sold me on it, and I was eager to pick it up. However, while the idea was incredibly creative and the layout of the novel quite artistic, unfortunately, the story ended up falling rather flat for me. Now, this is not at all because I started out believing this was not a work of fiction; that was clear to me from the start, and did not affect the reading experience in any way. I simply felt that, while the concept was clever, it was not executed quite as well as it could have been.
It is clear that this novel is trying to address celebrity culture in today’s society, and the idealistic views that people tend to have about those in the public eye. To construct a plot that did just that, Griffin creates the tale of a person that embodies the type of celebrity that might encounter something akin to worship from their fans. And while this is a fascinating and relevant topic, everything was far too exaggerated. Instead of presenting the reader with a subtle commentary that inspires thought, the story forms characters, situations, and relationships that are far too stereotypical to be taken seriously.
Addison is too special, too perfect to be believable, thereby making it difficult to become invested in her story. Every single person who she crossed paths with throughout her short life became instantly enamored with her; they all found some reason to utterly worship her and everything she did. It was as if she could do no wrong in anyone’s eyes no matter how poorly and immaturely she acted, and this became tiring quickly.
Addison has some problems, some struggles and issues to deal with, but it’s hard to connect with and feel for her despite that. In fact, mental illness appeared to be her only “flaw” which, quite frankly, really bothered me. Overall, I was not thrilled with the way mental illness was addressed. It was not taken as seriously as it should have been, and was many times passed off as something that simply made her life into that of an alluring, tortured artist. The strange discover at the conclusion of the novel regarding one major aspect of her mental troubles also seemed to further diminish the true severity of her illness, and was very unsatisfying and nonsensical.
As a whole, many aspects of this story were very formulaic, using far too many common literary tropes. The excessive use of clichés made this story and each of the characters feel far too much like caricatures. Many aspects of the plot were too over-the-top, and I found it challenging to bring myself to care about any of the storylines.
In terms of the format of the text, the main issue I had was that it was nearly entirely told in the transcripts of the interviews that had been conducted by the narrator after Addison’s passing. This took away from the experience for me, and slowed down the plot massively. While all the writing is the work of the real-life Griffin, the fictional author is writing next to nothing, which is very unrealistic. We see a short paragraph from her a handful of times throughout the text and that is all; mainly, we are reading the exact words of the interviewees. Overall, that ended up counteracting any attempt to give this the feeling of a real biography, and made it feel more like reading paperwork rather than an intriguing account of someone’s life.
Artistically, I loved the layout of the book. My favorite part of this reading experience was seeing the way the pictures connected to various points in the plot as it unfolded. I thought this concept was incredibly inventive and unique; this is the first time I have ever come across a book like this. I had no issues with the visual format. From a design perspective, this book completely nailed it.
Overall, this had a lot of potential. Adele Griffin had a number of good thoughts and intentions in her creation of this novel, and I would definitely be interested to read one of her other novels to experience more of her writing. She had a clear and interesting point that she was trying to make, and if she had employed more subtlety in the creation of her characters and their relationships, it would have come across in a more convincing way. The book lacked depth, and ended up feeling more like a caricature than anything. Using common stereotypes, while effective when it comes to conveying the themes clearly, ends up taking away a lot of the integrity and sincerity, making it less thought provoking and believable.
This novel is structured in a way that makes it sort of like the literary equivalent of “found footage”. It is a work of fiction, but it is written as if it were an actual biography about an up-and-coming young artist named Addison Stone, whose life ends very suddenly when she mysteriously falls from a bridge during an art installation. Adele Griffin writes as herself and functions as a journalist who is compiling this biography; she adds in short pieces written from her point of view throughout the novel. The book is comprised of interviews with a number of Addison’s family and friends, and pictures of Addison and her artwork are interspersed within the text. All of these elements are meant to work together to make the reader feel as if this might be a real account of a person’s life.
When I first discovered this book, the concept and the format it is told in piqued my interest right away. The inclusion of the photographs of and artwork by the subject of the “biography” itself further sold me on it, and I was eager to pick it up. However, while the idea was incredibly creative and the layout of the novel quite artistic, unfortunately, the story ended up falling rather flat for me. Now, this is not at all because I started out believing this was not a work of fiction; that was clear to me from the start, and did not affect the reading experience in any way. I simply felt that, while the concept was clever, it was not executed quite as well as it could have been.
It is clear that this novel is trying to address celebrity culture in today’s society, and the idealistic views that people tend to have about those in the public eye. To construct a plot that did just that, Griffin creates the tale of a person that embodies the type of celebrity that might encounter something akin to worship from their fans. And while this is a fascinating and relevant topic, everything was far too exaggerated. Instead of presenting the reader with a subtle commentary that inspires thought, the story forms characters, situations, and relationships that are far too stereotypical to be taken seriously.
Addison is too special, too perfect to be believable, thereby making it difficult to become invested in her story. Every single person who she crossed paths with throughout her short life became instantly enamored with her; they all found some reason to utterly worship her and everything she did. It was as if she could do no wrong in anyone’s eyes no matter how poorly and immaturely she acted, and this became tiring quickly.
Addison has some problems, some struggles and issues to deal with, but it’s hard to connect with and feel for her despite that. In fact, mental illness appeared to be her only “flaw” which, quite frankly, really bothered me. Overall, I was not thrilled with the way mental illness was addressed. It was not taken as seriously as it should have been, and was many times passed off as something that simply made her life into that of an alluring, tortured artist. The strange discover at the conclusion of the novel regarding one major aspect of her mental troubles also seemed to further diminish the true severity of her illness, and was very unsatisfying and nonsensical.
As a whole, many aspects of this story were very formulaic, using far too many common literary tropes. The excessive use of clichés made this story and each of the characters feel far too much like caricatures. Many aspects of the plot were too over-the-top, and I found it challenging to bring myself to care about any of the storylines.
In terms of the format of the text, the main issue I had was that it was nearly entirely told in the transcripts of the interviews that had been conducted by the narrator after Addison’s passing. This took away from the experience for me, and slowed down the plot massively. While all the writing is the work of the real-life Griffin, the fictional author is writing next to nothing, which is very unrealistic. We see a short paragraph from her a handful of times throughout the text and that is all; mainly, we are reading the exact words of the interviewees. Overall, that ended up counteracting any attempt to give this the feeling of a real biography, and made it feel more like reading paperwork rather than an intriguing account of someone’s life.
Artistically, I loved the layout of the book. My favorite part of this reading experience was seeing the way the pictures connected to various points in the plot as it unfolded. I thought this concept was incredibly inventive and unique; this is the first time I have ever come across a book like this. I had no issues with the visual format. From a design perspective, this book completely nailed it.
Overall, this had a lot of potential. Adele Griffin had a number of good thoughts and intentions in her creation of this novel, and I would definitely be interested to read one of her other novels to experience more of her writing. She had a clear and interesting point that she was trying to make, and if she had employed more subtlety in the creation of her characters and their relationships, it would have come across in a more convincing way. The book lacked depth, and ended up feeling more like a caricature than anything. Using common stereotypes, while effective when it comes to conveying the themes clearly, ends up taking away a lot of the integrity and sincerity, making it less thought provoking and believable.
Wow. This is an electrifying fake biography, surprisingly gripping even though it was composed of memories to explain the artist that was Addison Stone. At the very first you learn about Addison Stone, a beloved daring teenage artist living in New York, is dead. Her funeral brings in so many people, inspired people that chalk the sidewalk in Addison's shade of violet and toilet paper nearby trees in her honor. This and other things all make her seem like a badass rebel to be admired.
But then you dig deeper into who Addison Stone really was. Was she a self centered bitch that only knew how to tangle others into her life? Was she an astounding artist that created beauty in her art, twisted with pieces of morbidity? Was she using her potential or wasting it? Was she as filled with life as everyone said she was? Was Addison capable of really loving anyone? Did the dark parts of Addison outweigh her beauty?
Did Addison Stone, hot topic of the art world purposefully fall off the bridge she was measuring for her painting, or was it an accident?
Maybe a little bit of everything.
But then you dig deeper into who Addison Stone really was. Was she a self centered bitch that only knew how to tangle others into her life? Was she an astounding artist that created beauty in her art, twisted with pieces of morbidity? Was she using her potential or wasting it? Was she as filled with life as everyone said she was? Was Addison capable of really loving anyone? Did the dark parts of Addison outweigh her beauty?
Did Addison Stone, hot topic of the art world purposefully fall off the bridge she was measuring for her painting, or was it an accident?
Maybe a little bit of everything.
This was just all right. If I hadn't read "Night Film" or other books like this, I would have liked it better, but it seemed like every other kitschy book with photos and emails, etc. I also think that we really don't develop any conclusions about Addison Stone that we didn't have when we started reading. I guess that's the point, but I wanted a different ending.
