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stephxsu's review against another edition
5.0
BALLADS OF SUBURBIA left me reeling, thinking hard for hours afterwards. I share zero experience with Kara, and yet Stephanie Kuehnert masterfully pulls us into this dangerous, deceptive, yet enticing world of drugs. Only a talented writer can pull you into a world you know nothing about and make you feel as if you simultaneously understand and yet can never understand that world.
I know that I won’t be able to find the words significant to describe this novel, because what it covers is beyond my words. From family and sibling relationships to the ebb and flow of friendships and loves being made and broken, this book follows Kara through her high school years in the untalked about part of the suburbs. All of the characters seem to jump out of the page and walk around you like they are real, problems and all. Nothing is black-and-white: the characters have different and sometimes troubling attitudes, but it’s their (or, rather, Stephanie’s) ability to convince us of their justification for their beliefs that is truly great.
Overall, BALLADS OF SUBURBIA is a remarkable achievement that hits you right where it counts (your heart) and lingers where it matters (the brain). I’m truly looking forward to seeing what Stephanie Kuehnert will do next.
I know that I won’t be able to find the words significant to describe this novel, because what it covers is beyond my words. From family and sibling relationships to the ebb and flow of friendships and loves being made and broken, this book follows Kara through her high school years in the untalked about part of the suburbs. All of the characters seem to jump out of the page and walk around you like they are real, problems and all. Nothing is black-and-white: the characters have different and sometimes troubling attitudes, but it’s their (or, rather, Stephanie’s) ability to convince us of their justification for their beliefs that is truly great.
Overall, BALLADS OF SUBURBIA is a remarkable achievement that hits you right where it counts (your heart) and lingers where it matters (the brain). I’m truly looking forward to seeing what Stephanie Kuehnert will do next.
aeralston's review against another edition
Stilted dialogue. Serious situations become funny when they are overdramatized. Does not feel connected to reality and how people really act and behave. Took me out of the story and only read on to underline parts that made me chuckle.
A fascination with death and misery. I’m talking about those crappy exploitation film scripts. They’re not deep.
The “not like other girls” mindset is upheld. Self-absorption and victim complex. Trauma loses impact when every character (besides MC Kara) has gone through extreme situations. Not disconnected from reality but trauma is ham-handed, resulting in caricature.
However, I will say that this is how many teens act. They can be very self-absorbed. They lack control and can’t escape their small bubble. They’re confronted with the reality that even parents are flawed. I think the execution just failed for me.
In short, it felt like a teenage emo soap opera that failed to ring true and failed to move me.
A fascination with death and misery. I’m talking about those crappy exploitation film scripts. They’re not deep.
The “not like other girls” mindset is upheld. Self-absorption and victim complex. Trauma loses impact when every character (besides MC Kara) has gone through extreme situations. Not disconnected from reality but trauma is ham-handed, resulting in caricature.
However, I will say that this is how many teens act. They can be very self-absorbed. They lack control and can’t escape their small bubble. They’re confronted with the reality that even parents are flawed. I think the execution just failed for me.
In short, it felt like a teenage emo soap opera that failed to ring true and failed to move me.
dynamicdylan's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. This book is one of the best and darkest realistic YA books I've ever read. Real, raw, and beautiful.
banrions's review against another edition
3.0
This book was okay. It wasn't amazing, it wasn't bad by any means, but it was a little to angsty for my taste I suppose. I guess I just get annoyed with books about teens and drugs sometimes. I want to just say get the fuck over it, you are fine, your life is not that dramatic. Maybe I just got really lucky with my childhood/teenage years, but I never did drugs, I was never exposed to them, and (as far as I know) most of my friends didn't either. Sure, there was drinking, but no one I know OD on heroin in a park. I really liked the ballads, each kid had a sort of story of there own. A lyric, and then a couple of pages kinda in their head explaining who they were. Those were really interesting. The main character Kara, I didn't dislike her, and while the stuff she was going through was angsty and dramatic, she didn't narrate that way. She simply told it like it was, it could have very easily become melodramatic, but it didn't. I never really connected with her though. I remained mostly indifferent. I'm not sure what it was. I liked the book. I'm glad I read it, but its one of those that I'll probably forget about.
kristid's review against another edition
5.0
This book is powerful. It's been haunting me for days, yes haunting me. After I finished, I couldn't help but sit there in a daze. The first thing that popped into my head was "WOW." Granted my emotions were in complete chaos. This isn't a novel for the faint hearted. This novel is moving, it's upsetting, it's heartbreaking, it's real.
Had I read this before I met Stephanie at ALA, I would have most likely hugged her and cried. She has an amazing talent. AMAZING. Even though I haven't experienced anything like Kara went through, even though I was so blissfully unaware of the world she lived in. I felt like I did. Like I said amazing talent.
And it wasn't just Kara, all of the characters felt like they could walk right off the pages. And I never judged them and that totally surprised me. I never once thought druggie loser, and I should have. Which again, comes back to Stephanie's amazing talent as a writer. To take something that I always thought was black and white and turn it into something gray.
I'm still in awe days later. Thank you Stephanie for telling this story. I can't wait to see what you have in store for us next.
Had I read this before I met Stephanie at ALA, I would have most likely hugged her and cried. She has an amazing talent. AMAZING. Even though I haven't experienced anything like Kara went through, even though I was so blissfully unaware of the world she lived in. I felt like I did. Like I said amazing talent.
And it wasn't just Kara, all of the characters felt like they could walk right off the pages. And I never judged them and that totally surprised me. I never once thought druggie loser, and I should have. Which again, comes back to Stephanie's amazing talent as a writer. To take something that I always thought was black and white and turn it into something gray.
I'm still in awe days later. Thank you Stephanie for telling this story. I can't wait to see what you have in store for us next.
snarkywench's review against another edition
4.0
Reading a Stephanie Kuehnert novel is like seeing the world through a fog of cigarette smoke - it smells a little funky, grit is accumulated on every surface but you are truly inhabiting the experience. Kuehnert's books also have a lot in common with nicotine addiction - you'll get choked up a lot and they are hard to quit. I could also make some snarky allusion to the high death toll but in the author's case it is solely her characters (unless she is a serial killer on the side.)
I grew up in the era depicted in this story. Nirvana were huge, guys had badly dyed, shaggy hair and ambivalence was wide spread. There were characters in Ballads that are almost exact replicas of kids that I grew up with which made it difficult to read in some ways. Issues of disillusionment, cutting, the fragments of family, sibling dysfunction, death, suicide, drug use and addiction are all interwoven in an effortless manner that allow the reader to focus on Kara's journey (rather than the evolution of the "issues"). Journal entries of a personal nature by many of the supporting character help flesh out the story and add a distanced perspective of our protagonist. The writing is unique with sharpened prose - it cuts, making you suffer along with Kara until you are as raw as she is. It's not a book that will thwack you over the head but instead, one that slowly envelops you unsuspectingly.
Ballads comes across much more personal to the author that her debut effort, the fantastic I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone. Perhaps this was due to my awareness of her own teen struggles that undoubtedly influences the novel but I think not. The exploration of cutting and controlling relationships were vividly (if not disturbingly) portrayed. The sibling relationship is one that worked exceedingly well - Kara and Liam transition from distant, sober individuals to close but inordinately messed up junkies is frightening but understandable.
An original voice and a gritty, soul crushing story worth reading.
I grew up in the era depicted in this story. Nirvana were huge, guys had badly dyed, shaggy hair and ambivalence was wide spread. There were characters in Ballads that are almost exact replicas of kids that I grew up with which made it difficult to read in some ways. Issues of disillusionment, cutting, the fragments of family, sibling dysfunction, death, suicide, drug use and addiction are all interwoven in an effortless manner that allow the reader to focus on Kara's journey (rather than the evolution of the "issues"). Journal entries of a personal nature by many of the supporting character help flesh out the story and add a distanced perspective of our protagonist. The writing is unique with sharpened prose - it cuts, making you suffer along with Kara until you are as raw as she is. It's not a book that will thwack you over the head but instead, one that slowly envelops you unsuspectingly.
Ballads comes across much more personal to the author that her debut effort, the fantastic I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone. Perhaps this was due to my awareness of her own teen struggles that undoubtedly influences the novel but I think not. The exploration of cutting and controlling relationships were vividly (if not disturbingly) portrayed. The sibling relationship is one that worked exceedingly well - Kara and Liam transition from distant, sober individuals to close but inordinately messed up junkies is frightening but understandable.
An original voice and a gritty, soul crushing story worth reading.
michreadsmanybooks's review against another edition
4.0
Ballads Of Suburbia is a novel that left me in complete awe. It is filled with multiple ups and downs much like real life and is filled with a large cast of fantastically developed characters all who have their own story to tell and whose lives you as the reader cannot help but be drawn into.
Honesty is a word that I use in a lot of my reviews when describing how the author portrays certain scenarios, particular characters and so on. I don't think I have ever read a novel more honest than Ballads Of Suburbia. Stephanie Kuehnert lays it all out there on the table, never sugarcoating or downplaying. These characters feel real and I'm sure many teens who read this novel will be taken aback by how much they can relate to the stories of the individual characters contained within this novel.
Kara is your protagonist and main storyteller in this book but what I really enjoyed and thought to be a great idea was how Kuehnert also had chapters in Ballads Of Suburbia that were dedicated to the supporting characters having an outlet to tell their story. In the book, these characters have an actual notebook that they write their ballads in and it was a cool idea to actually include these for the reader to see. It really made each character an individual with their own set of problems and conflicts.
Not only does this book have vivid and great characters but it also has a fantastic plot. There is so much that goes on mainly because you are following Kara and those around her from freshman year all the way until they're seniors. So many things happen, most of which I could not have predicted even if I'd tried. I'll be honest in saying that the beginning was a little slow just because the author had so much to set up but once Kara finds herself among a new circle of friends, you simply cannot turn the pages fast enough.
Overall: Ballads Of Suburbia is the kind of novel that will stick with you long after you've read it. Filled with angst and wonderful characters, it is a novel very much worth reading.
Honesty is a word that I use in a lot of my reviews when describing how the author portrays certain scenarios, particular characters and so on. I don't think I have ever read a novel more honest than Ballads Of Suburbia. Stephanie Kuehnert lays it all out there on the table, never sugarcoating or downplaying. These characters feel real and I'm sure many teens who read this novel will be taken aback by how much they can relate to the stories of the individual characters contained within this novel.
Kara is your protagonist and main storyteller in this book but what I really enjoyed and thought to be a great idea was how Kuehnert also had chapters in Ballads Of Suburbia that were dedicated to the supporting characters having an outlet to tell their story. In the book, these characters have an actual notebook that they write their ballads in and it was a cool idea to actually include these for the reader to see. It really made each character an individual with their own set of problems and conflicts.
Not only does this book have vivid and great characters but it also has a fantastic plot. There is so much that goes on mainly because you are following Kara and those around her from freshman year all the way until they're seniors. So many things happen, most of which I could not have predicted even if I'd tried. I'll be honest in saying that the beginning was a little slow just because the author had so much to set up but once Kara finds herself among a new circle of friends, you simply cannot turn the pages fast enough.
Overall: Ballads Of Suburbia is the kind of novel that will stick with you long after you've read it. Filled with angst and wonderful characters, it is a novel very much worth reading.
jacquelinec's review against another edition
4.0
Ballads of Suburbia caught me quite off-guard - I was not expecting something so raw. The cover copy mentions Kara's struggles with drugs, family, and friends, but what's on those pages is so much more than that. The book is creatively formatted, with the epilogue both beginning and ending the novel and several chapter groupings, called "Verses", than span specific periods of time. Interspersed between all of this are the "Ballads": introspective confessionals supposedly written by various members of Kara's circle. These vignettes go a long way in adding to the story and developing the secondary characters.
The jaded youth in this story use drugs, parties, and sex increasingly as a means of escape from the realities of their home lives behind the white picket fence facade. Lonely Kara, and later her brother Liam, fall into this pattern to find friends, understanding, and her own means of escape. It's a hard tale, often with harsh outcomes. It's an honest look at the difficulties of adolescence. It's a cautionary story of parents who set bad examples and focus too much on themselves and the children who become irrevocably damaged because of it...
...To continue reading this review, head over to my blog, The Eclectic Book Lover.
The jaded youth in this story use drugs, parties, and sex increasingly as a means of escape from the realities of their home lives behind the white picket fence facade. Lonely Kara, and later her brother Liam, fall into this pattern to find friends, understanding, and her own means of escape. It's a hard tale, often with harsh outcomes. It's an honest look at the difficulties of adolescence. It's a cautionary story of parents who set bad examples and focus too much on themselves and the children who become irrevocably damaged because of it...
...To continue reading this review, head over to my blog, The Eclectic Book Lover.
pandabehr's review against another edition
5.0
This book is like nothing I’ve read before. I recently read it again and I could just picture everything as it occurred and felt the emotions deeply. It’s an incredibly powerful book that I would recommend to anyone.