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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
It is a bit difficult to actually rate because it is such a quick read. I did like the format and thought it was a very interesting and moving way to tell the story. I was also really engaged in the story and wanted to keep reading because you flew through the story so quickly. I also adored the depiction of a mother-teenage daughter relationship. But for me it also was maybe a little too quick. I wanted to delve more into the story.
It was an interesting enough book, and a unique take on the epistolary novel form. I thought it was somewhat light on substance, however, but given the medium she chooses (fridge notes), that may have been intended (or unintended but unavoidable??). It was a reasonably good presentation of a sad event, but I was not moved to tears the way (perhaps) the author intended (and certainly other readers were).
My biggest complaint about the book is that I thought both the mother and daughter, though they obviously loved each other, were incredibly selfish individuals. Both put their work, school, friends, etc. before each other for the greater part of the novel, and when it finally REALLY WAS too late (the mother was dying), all of a sudden it becomes important to make each other a priority. Granted, the girl was 15, but still... She had a poor role model (in my opinion) for learning how to put loved ones before herself...mom certainly didn't.
My biggest complaint about the book is that I thought both the mother and daughter, though they obviously loved each other, were incredibly selfish individuals. Both put their work, school, friends, etc. before each other for the greater part of the novel, and when it finally REALLY WAS too late (the mother was dying), all of a sudden it becomes important to make each other a priority. Granted, the girl was 15, but still... She had a poor role model (in my opinion) for learning how to put loved ones before herself...mom certainly didn't.
Cheap but strangely affecting, I read it in an hour. Kuipers's haunting debut unfolds like a flip book of half-drawn images too swiftly ended, a compilation of tantalizing notes posted on a refrigerator by a single working mom and Claire-bear, her wistful teen daughter. Bittersweet, funny and achingly real, I had tears in my eyes.
This was a quick read. While unique the style, it left out a lot of details that I would have preferred to know. Subject matter aside, this is more suited for a junior high school kid than for an adult.
A very quick read, but to me it seemed almost too formulaic, too predictable. I must admit I still got involved in the story and I loved the idea of little notes telling more than we intended them to, especially after looking at a series of them. It reads more like a short story. A different idea, but I'm not entirely sure it "worked."
sad
fast-paced
