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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
This book should be more well known. It is beautiful and heartbreaking and the writing is brilliant. If you want a tragic novel that is not about romance and just about familial love then this is the book for you. It is poetic and beautiful in every way. I could read it over and over again.
Dear Zoe is a very pretty book. I don't believe this review will be humorous at all, because of the subject-matter, so bear with me.
Tess is a 15 year-old girl trying to deal with seeing her 2 year-old little sister be hit by a car and later die of internal bleeding and this story is composed as a sort of journal directed towards Zoe. Where Beard excels is at expressing the details of a teenaged girl's day-to-day life that she would find important and meaningful to keep Zoe somehow involved with the family. Tess edits her life down to brief vignettes about her sister, mother, father, and step-father. Each character is developed well, and it's easy to understand why Tess would think these interactions would help keep Zoe involved in their family life.
The journal progresses as Tess goes through the grieving period, and Tess begins to use it as a sounding-board for the stress she's going through in her own life. She finds out that even her "good" parent can do something stupid, and her "bad" parent isn't so bad, after all. I know that was a simple sentence, but it makes sense with the novel. Dear Zoe has a simplistic writing style, but isn't simple in its themes or emotions. Tess is young, with a self-professed limited vocabulary, and Beard does well to keep the language within that scope. I don't know if all teenage girls say this, or just Pittsburgh ones, but I got very nostalgic reading Tess say "all of a sudden" every third paragraph. I still say this in my stories to progress my stories or explain a sudden turn of events.
The whole novel was nostalgic for me, as Beard described Tess working at Thelma's Lemonade Stand near the Logjammer in Kennywood -- and how Disney World wasn't all that much better than Pittsburgh's beloved amusement park. I'd have to agree. I can remember going to the park during the summer months, when the sidewalks were burning with the heat of the sun, and how my friends and I would ride the Logjammer, Pittsburgh Plunge, and Raging Rapids repetitively to cool off.
I even remember that the skanky girls would wear khaki shorts and bright underwear, so when they got wet, the boys could see their underwear clearly.
Ahhh, Pittsburgh.
Tess is a 15 year-old girl trying to deal with seeing her 2 year-old little sister be hit by a car and later die of internal bleeding and this story is composed as a sort of journal directed towards Zoe. Where Beard excels is at expressing the details of a teenaged girl's day-to-day life that she would find important and meaningful to keep Zoe somehow involved with the family. Tess edits her life down to brief vignettes about her sister, mother, father, and step-father. Each character is developed well, and it's easy to understand why Tess would think these interactions would help keep Zoe involved in their family life.
The journal progresses as Tess goes through the grieving period, and Tess begins to use it as a sounding-board for the stress she's going through in her own life. She finds out that even her "good" parent can do something stupid, and her "bad" parent isn't so bad, after all. I know that was a simple sentence, but it makes sense with the novel. Dear Zoe has a simplistic writing style, but isn't simple in its themes or emotions. Tess is young, with a self-professed limited vocabulary, and Beard does well to keep the language within that scope. I don't know if all teenage girls say this, or just Pittsburgh ones, but I got very nostalgic reading Tess say "all of a sudden" every third paragraph. I still say this in my stories to progress my stories or explain a sudden turn of events.
The whole novel was nostalgic for me, as Beard described Tess working at Thelma's Lemonade Stand near the Logjammer in Kennywood -- and how Disney World wasn't all that much better than Pittsburgh's beloved amusement park. I'd have to agree. I can remember going to the park during the summer months, when the sidewalks were burning with the heat of the sun, and how my friends and I would ride the Logjammer, Pittsburgh Plunge, and Raging Rapids repetitively to cool off.
I even remember that the skanky girls would wear khaki shorts and bright underwear, so when they got wet, the boys could see their underwear clearly.
Ahhh, Pittsburgh.
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Lektura “Drogiej Zoe” dość pozytywnie mnie zaskoczyła. Trochę obawiałam się, że ta książka mogła się źle zestarzeć (oryginalnie została wydana w 2005 roku), jednak mimo kilku zgrzytów czytało się ją naprawdę dobrze. Nie wątpiłam w prawdziwość uczuć przeżywanych przez bohaterów, ich perypetie wydały mi się po prostu realistyczne. Nie jest to mój książkowy ulubieniec tego roku, niemniej - dobrze spędziłam przy niej czas.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
this book so simply and beautifully depicts grief of losing a family member you love. going through waves of thinking about them everyday to trying to have a “normal” life afterwards when nothing feels normal.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Car accident
It's pretty good, moving & realistic grief. An intriguing plot; how to deal with personal grief while mass grieving is occuring.
Unfortunately, it doesn't age well re: overtly sexualitizing the protagonist and random secondary characters. A level of sex makes sense, but its strange knowing it all comes from the POV of an adult male writer trying to capture the pre-teen female experience
Unfortunately, it doesn't age well re: overtly sexualitizing the protagonist and random secondary characters. A level of sex makes sense, but its strange knowing it all comes from the POV of an adult male writer trying to capture the pre-teen female experience