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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
I was really annoyed by Sara throughout the book because she was so weak, pathetic, and self involved. She blamed Emma for kissing her boyfriend and slept with Dylan as a way to get him back. She even kissed Dylan and still wanted him after Emma killed herself, even after Dylan made it clear he hated her. But I do love the message of the book, I'm glad that Sara FINALLY got it at the end. It seemed to take her up until 98% of the book to understand that she was wrong. She didn't blame her behavior on Brielle like everyone else tried to do though.
What was so good about this book was all the secondary characters. I want to know more about Brielle, Dylan, Emma, Caramichael, and the rest of them. I want to know how they felt and their thoughts, Sara seems to be so observant and self centered at the same time so you get to know the characters enough to make you want more.
When reading this book, you really have to separate yourself from the MC's POV- I'm used to rooting for the MC, relating to her, wanting her to win. But for the majority of the book the MC acts like a total psychopath. She obviously has deep emotional issues and she's very insecure, so you find yourself wanting to reach into the book and shake the MC so she can wake up and see how bad of a person she's being.
What was so good about this book was all the secondary characters. I want to know more about Brielle, Dylan, Emma, Caramichael, and the rest of them. I want to know how they felt and their thoughts, Sara seems to be so observant and self centered at the same time so you get to know the characters enough to make you want more.
When reading this book, you really have to separate yourself from the MC's POV- I'm used to rooting for the MC, relating to her, wanting her to win. But for the majority of the book the MC acts like a total psychopath. She obviously has deep emotional issues and she's very insecure, so you find yourself wanting to reach into the book and shake the MC so she can wake up and see how bad of a person she's being.
This review has some pretty mild spoilers (I don't think they reveal much about the story, but read at your own risk)
This is a book that gave me pretty mixed feelings, although overall I liked it a lot, as you can guess from the rating I gave it. The fact that it made me so conflicted is not necessarily a bad thing, though, because in the best of cases it can mean that the story was really compelling. I think that was the case here, because even though I didn’t love the writing style and it had some weak points, I felt like it took a difficult topic and did a good job on conveying to the reader just how complex it is. Bullying is a theme that encompasses a multitude of factors, situations and people, and as the author says on her epilogue, it’s necessary to understand that there are a lot of versions of the same story. I felt like in that regard, the author did a good job of portraying how all these things can mix and relate when it comes to bullying, and I really enjoyed how the feelings at the base of this phenomenon are incorporated into the story, like when Sara says she feels a surge of power and control, and all the times she recognizes her own jealousy and insecurities in relation to Emma. This makes you see Sara as really unapologetic at first, which you slowly realize has to do with the fact that she doesn’t seem to think anything she did was really what pushed Emma over the edge. But what I think the author does really well is that it makes you really think about this, and it makes you start considering how different Sara would probably feel if you, for example, removed her best friend Brielle from the equation. She seems to fuel all the anger Sara feels towards Emma, and empowers her to do things she considers to be kind of ruthless, but that she can come to justify when Brielle goes on talking about how much of a “skank” Emma is.
Even though things like this can be difficult to read when they come from characters as cruel and unapologetic as these ones could be, they offer a perspective on these situations that we have to consider when we want to think critically about them and be able to discuss them having taken different aspects into consideration. That’s why the fact that I was always on the limit between seriously disliking Sara and starting to have more positive feelings towards her was something that I actually enjoyed very much.
This brings up another thing I really liked about this book, and it’s how realistically different types of relationships are portrayed. One of them are dysfunctional or toxic friendships, which is something that you don’t get to see so clearly that often. The author does a really good job in showing how you can get sucked into these relationships where you suddenly feel like part of something important and great, and how difficult it is to see that maybe it’s not so amazing as you thought it was, and more importantly, that it has turned you into someone far worse than you thought you were or very different from how you perceive yourself to be. Through various people’s comments on her friendship with Brielle, Sara starts to question the way she treats her, and how comfortable she really is when she’s around her. What I found was particularly well done was how many mixed feelings you get when you finally get out of these relationships, and how hard it is to finally choose what’s best for you, even if that means leaving behind a person that was so essential to some of the most defining years of your life.
Another relationship was the one between Sara and Dylan, which was actually very much related to Sara’s relationship with Brielle. When Sara loses her virginity, which later she realizes was done in a way to get closer to her friend, she says something along the lines of “I’m just glad I won’t have to worry about it anymore”, which is, I think, what happens in a lot of cases. I hadn’t read a young adult book where this was shown so plainly, and I really appreciated how realistic it was.
With some exceptions, this book had very layered characters, which I think is something that really makes it stand out between others dealing with a similar topic, and helps appreciate the way these relationships are constructed. It was great to see a crack on this bully-victim relationship that seemed to be going on between Sara-Brielle-Emma. Sometimes Emma stood up to them or defied them and did some things that you can say were sort of questionable, and that, in contrast with this whole romanticization of her character that seems to be going on since her passing, makes for a really interesting way of approaching the subject of bullying and for multi-dimensional people. This last thing was what initially kept me reading the book, actually. I really liked how you got to see different aspects of Sara’s personality, and I think the way the story is written, with one chapter set in the present and the other in the past, truly helped that.
Now, onto the things I didn’t really like. I’m gonna start with something related to what I just talked about, and that is the characters that weren’t really that well developed, in my opinion. I’m mainly gonna talk about Brielle, because I think she’s the other character, apart from Sara, that’s most important to the story. I have to say that I really hated how Brielle seemed to fit with this really cliché “mean girl” image. For a minute there I thought we were gonna get to see another side of her and it just ever happened, which is a shame, because I think she had the potential to be a really interesting character. This takes me to something I absolutely hate on any book/show/movie/story, and that I sadly felt was used here, which is rape-or-some-sort-of-sexual-assault-for-character-development trope. This is something that I had anticipated since pretty much the beginning of the book, and when it is finally known that Brielle had suffered through some form of sexual assault, I really hoped that it was gonna be mentioned again or serve some other purpose than to show she was actually vulnerable and not as sure or confident about sex as she seemed. But this was never mentioned again, didn’t relate in any way to the rest of the story or its characters. I had truly hoped this wasn’t going to happen and I was sad to see it did, because for me it takes from the story a lot and makes me not like it as much as I could had it been handled in a better way.
Another character that I felt was portrayed very very badly was the therapist, but I’m not gonna explain this right now, because it’s one of my biggest pet peeves ever and the reasons for this are pretty personal, so it would make this review endless if I attempted to write them down.
Another thing I didn’t appreciate was all the slut-shaming that went on, but then again I had to remind myself that this was from the point of view of a teenager. Not that this excuses it in any way, but it helps put the whole thing in perspective a little bit when I think of the way I myself thought of some things as a teenager and the way I think about the same stuff now as an adult. But I have to say, the whole thing about Emma being beautiful and boys liking her, and that playing such a big part on her being bullied, is something that made me very conflicted, because even though in a lot of cases that really is what fuels these type of situations, at times I felt like here it came across as kind of cartoonish. This, I guess, is related to the writing, which overall wasn’t as good as it could’ve been, and at the beginning pulled me away from the story a little bit. As I got farther into the book this seemed to bother me less and less, though, and I think the story was good enough to make you not really care about this that much.
The last thing I’m gonna talk about and that I didn’t really like was how Sara was constantly having these… epiphanies, I guess you could call them. Even though I got that the author was trying to convey that she was actually a nice enough girl, or a product of her environment and circumstances or social constructs, I felt it was pretty unrealistic, the way she seemed to have these really mature revelations all of a sudden. This was especially weird for me during the chapter where the trial happens, because her statement, even though I felt it showed pretty much what a person that can see how badly they acted would end up feeling about the whole situation, was a little too ideal and said all the right things. I felt like it ended up being kind of sloppy and I would’ve liked to see a little more subtlety on her character growth throughout the book.
All in all this was a book that I really enjoyed, and it made me think and feel enough to prompt me to write about it, so I’d say it does its job. I’d definitely recommend it and be interested in discussing it with someone else, because I feel like the topic it features is dealt with in a good way and really adds to other works with a similar subject. Props to the author for including some really good resources related to bullying at the end of the book, and for taking on a topic that is always difficult to approach in a sensible way.
This is a book that gave me pretty mixed feelings, although overall I liked it a lot, as you can guess from the rating I gave it. The fact that it made me so conflicted is not necessarily a bad thing, though, because in the best of cases it can mean that the story was really compelling. I think that was the case here, because even though I didn’t love the writing style and it had some weak points, I felt like it took a difficult topic and did a good job on conveying to the reader just how complex it is. Bullying is a theme that encompasses a multitude of factors, situations and people, and as the author says on her epilogue, it’s necessary to understand that there are a lot of versions of the same story. I felt like in that regard, the author did a good job of portraying how all these things can mix and relate when it comes to bullying, and I really enjoyed how the feelings at the base of this phenomenon are incorporated into the story, like when Sara says she feels a surge of power and control, and all the times she recognizes her own jealousy and insecurities in relation to Emma. This makes you see Sara as really unapologetic at first, which you slowly realize has to do with the fact that she doesn’t seem to think anything she did was really what pushed Emma over the edge. But what I think the author does really well is that it makes you really think about this, and it makes you start considering how different Sara would probably feel if you, for example, removed her best friend Brielle from the equation. She seems to fuel all the anger Sara feels towards Emma, and empowers her to do things she considers to be kind of ruthless, but that she can come to justify when Brielle goes on talking about how much of a “skank” Emma is.
Even though things like this can be difficult to read when they come from characters as cruel and unapologetic as these ones could be, they offer a perspective on these situations that we have to consider when we want to think critically about them and be able to discuss them having taken different aspects into consideration. That’s why the fact that I was always on the limit between seriously disliking Sara and starting to have more positive feelings towards her was something that I actually enjoyed very much.
This brings up another thing I really liked about this book, and it’s how realistically different types of relationships are portrayed. One of them are dysfunctional or toxic friendships, which is something that you don’t get to see so clearly that often. The author does a really good job in showing how you can get sucked into these relationships where you suddenly feel like part of something important and great, and how difficult it is to see that maybe it’s not so amazing as you thought it was, and more importantly, that it has turned you into someone far worse than you thought you were or very different from how you perceive yourself to be. Through various people’s comments on her friendship with Brielle, Sara starts to question the way she treats her, and how comfortable she really is when she’s around her. What I found was particularly well done was how many mixed feelings you get when you finally get out of these relationships, and how hard it is to finally choose what’s best for you, even if that means leaving behind a person that was so essential to some of the most defining years of your life.
Another relationship was the one between Sara and Dylan, which was actually very much related to Sara’s relationship with Brielle. When Sara loses her virginity, which later she realizes was done in a way to get closer to her friend, she says something along the lines of “I’m just glad I won’t have to worry about it anymore”, which is, I think, what happens in a lot of cases. I hadn’t read a young adult book where this was shown so plainly, and I really appreciated how realistic it was.
With some exceptions, this book had very layered characters, which I think is something that really makes it stand out between others dealing with a similar topic, and helps appreciate the way these relationships are constructed. It was great to see a crack on this bully-victim relationship that seemed to be going on between Sara-Brielle-Emma. Sometimes Emma stood up to them or defied them and did some things that you can say were sort of questionable, and that, in contrast with this whole romanticization of her character that seems to be going on since her passing, makes for a really interesting way of approaching the subject of bullying and for multi-dimensional people. This last thing was what initially kept me reading the book, actually. I really liked how you got to see different aspects of Sara’s personality, and I think the way the story is written, with one chapter set in the present and the other in the past, truly helped that.
Now, onto the things I didn’t really like. I’m gonna start with something related to what I just talked about, and that is the characters that weren’t really that well developed, in my opinion. I’m mainly gonna talk about Brielle, because I think she’s the other character, apart from Sara, that’s most important to the story. I have to say that I really hated how Brielle seemed to fit with this really cliché “mean girl” image. For a minute there I thought we were gonna get to see another side of her and it just ever happened, which is a shame, because I think she had the potential to be a really interesting character. This takes me to something I absolutely hate on any book/show/movie/story, and that I sadly felt was used here, which is rape-or-some-sort-of-sexual-assault-for-character-development trope. This is something that I had anticipated since pretty much the beginning of the book, and when it is finally known that Brielle had suffered through some form of sexual assault, I really hoped that it was gonna be mentioned again or serve some other purpose than to show she was actually vulnerable and not as sure or confident about sex as she seemed. But this was never mentioned again, didn’t relate in any way to the rest of the story or its characters. I had truly hoped this wasn’t going to happen and I was sad to see it did, because for me it takes from the story a lot and makes me not like it as much as I could had it been handled in a better way.
Another character that I felt was portrayed very very badly was the therapist, but I’m not gonna explain this right now, because it’s one of my biggest pet peeves ever and the reasons for this are pretty personal, so it would make this review endless if I attempted to write them down.
Another thing I didn’t appreciate was all the slut-shaming that went on, but then again I had to remind myself that this was from the point of view of a teenager. Not that this excuses it in any way, but it helps put the whole thing in perspective a little bit when I think of the way I myself thought of some things as a teenager and the way I think about the same stuff now as an adult. But I have to say, the whole thing about Emma being beautiful and boys liking her, and that playing such a big part on her being bullied, is something that made me very conflicted, because even though in a lot of cases that really is what fuels these type of situations, at times I felt like here it came across as kind of cartoonish. This, I guess, is related to the writing, which overall wasn’t as good as it could’ve been, and at the beginning pulled me away from the story a little bit. As I got farther into the book this seemed to bother me less and less, though, and I think the story was good enough to make you not really care about this that much.
The last thing I’m gonna talk about and that I didn’t really like was how Sara was constantly having these… epiphanies, I guess you could call them. Even though I got that the author was trying to convey that she was actually a nice enough girl, or a product of her environment and circumstances or social constructs, I felt it was pretty unrealistic, the way she seemed to have these really mature revelations all of a sudden. This was especially weird for me during the chapter where the trial happens, because her statement, even though I felt it showed pretty much what a person that can see how badly they acted would end up feeling about the whole situation, was a little too ideal and said all the right things. I felt like it ended up being kind of sloppy and I would’ve liked to see a little more subtlety on her character growth throughout the book.
All in all this was a book that I really enjoyed, and it made me think and feel enough to prompt me to write about it, so I’d say it does its job. I’d definitely recommend it and be interested in discussing it with someone else, because I feel like the topic it features is dealt with in a good way and really adds to other works with a similar subject. Props to the author for including some really good resources related to bullying at the end of the book, and for taking on a topic that is always difficult to approach in a sensible way.
I was worried I would end up hating myself for feeling any sympathy for the bully but it worked out well. I enjoyed reading it and I enjoyed a protagonist who took a long time to grow. The story was more complex because of the girl who committed suicide not being quite the perfectly "innocent" victim. I didn't like that at first but it made for a more compelling story.
Well, damn. The thing about this book is that you absolutely hate the narrator of this story. You just hate Sara - and you should. Because even after all her senseless bullying that led to a young girl taking her life, Sara doesn't think she has any part in this. But isn't that realistic? That you get angry at her? That you don't understand her? That makes you a good person. Keep reading though because the author knows what she's doing.
Bullies don't realise what they're doing to their victims. They don't even realise they are victims. Bullying is horrible and there's no excuse for it but I think no one actually wants someone to kill themselves. Sara definitely didn't.
But she keeps denying that she did anything wrong. And it makes you so angry. Why can't she just admit that what she was doing was really horrible? That it was wrong? Obvious. Because it would be admiting that she was the cause of so much pain that a girl killed herself.
Just keep reading until the end.
(My only reason for not giving a full five stars is because I wanted to know more about Emma - her thoughts, her reasons etc. I guess it was the point to not know but damn, a chapter or two from her POV would have been amazing.)
Bullies don't realise what they're doing to their victims. They don't even realise they are victims. Bullying is horrible and there's no excuse for it but I think no one actually wants someone to kill themselves. Sara definitely didn't.
But she keeps denying that she did anything wrong. And it makes you so angry. Why can't she just admit that what she was doing was really horrible? That it was wrong? Obvious. Because it would be admiting that she was the cause of so much pain that a girl killed herself.
Just keep reading until the end.
(My only reason for not giving a full five stars is because I wanted to know more about Emma - her thoughts, her reasons etc. I guess it was the point to not know but damn, a chapter or two from her POV would have been amazing.)
One of those books where you just want to smack the main character. But at the same time you can understand what she may have been going through. Oh and high school sucks!
Fast easy read, but left me thinking as I finished the last page. We all say and do things that we regret throughout our lives, but what if we something we said or did caused someone to kill themselves? This was a powerful story that many young adults and adults should read. Highly recommend.
You can find this and many other reviews on my blog:
http://reading-is-dreaming-with-open-eyes.blogspot.hu/
If you've heard about Tease you must have seen that many people weren't happy with this book at all. I read some pretty bad reviews about this novel and got more and more disappointed after each of them. I might have skipped reading it if not for my friend who suggested that we should read Tease as our first buddy read. Well, I said yes because I thought if it's bad than at least I'll have someone who I can talk it out with but to my surprise it wasn't bad at all, actually I loved this book way more than I ever thought I would.
The Storyline and the Characters:
As I said, I absolutely loved Tease, it completely blew my mind, but I can see that this book is not for everyone. Amanda Maciel chose a very hard subject as her first novel but as far as I can see she did a great job and wrote an amazing debut novel.
Bullying is a very sensitive subject more so if it ends with suicide and I don't think there's anything you can say about it which will make everyone nod in agreement. That's the thing with Tease, I think that if you like it or not mainly depends on which character will you identify yourself with.
That takes us to my favorite part of the novel: the characters. All of them, especially the main ones were well-made and very real. The character development was so well-written, it didn't happen from one moment to the next, it was a slow process you had to pay attention closely to see it slowly happening.
Let me tell you that you'll have problems accepting our main character Sara because she does not feel sorry. At all. She blames Emma for taking away her life and ending theirs with this step. She's angry at the world, angry because they make an angel out of a girl who was billed slut by the whole school, angry because everyone was bullying Emma not just them and still they can live their life like nothing happened. Sara lives in a state of denial, she will not admit that she was responsible for what happened because she just can't see that she did anything wrong.
Maybe what made this novel enjoyable for me was that I did not hate Sara, oh believe me when I say that there were times when I wanted to slap her with a brick but all considered I was able to connect to her character. Many of her feelings I could get completely, mostly the ones after the suicide because before that she was kind of crazy.
She lost many things and like most teenagers /hell many adults would do the same/ she had to find someone who she could blame. So she did. Emma. Emma who was the slut of the school. Emma who stole Sara's boyfriend. Emma who hang herself and ruined Sara's life. Sara believes these things because this is what she wants to believe and not because she's stupid or such a bitch.
I think the only reason why after the mass amount of bullying I could still like Sara was because I could see where she came from. She had the perfect boyfriend, perfect relationship until some girl ruined it. Sara would not, could not see her ex as the villain so she took her rage out on the girl who hit on him. Unfortunately, this wasn't all, she had a best friend, Brielle who was a complete bitch and who didn't just make her hate Emma but made her question herself. For my taste Sara depended on others opinion way too much and believed everything what Brielle said. This still not make what she did okay and if that had been all I wouldn't have liked the story but it wasn't.
After the suicide Sara's life completely changed, she rarely leaves the house and has no idea about what her future will hold. It was the most wonderful thing to see how she slowly realized how many mistakes did she make and how her so called best friend wasn't the best for her by far. She still made mistakes and the change in her was slow but it was there and it was real and that's what counts in the end.
Sometimes I felt really sorry for her, not that she wasn't drowning in self-pity already because how other people treated her was horrible. I'm not sure which was worse, how they whispered behind her back in school or how random people from the street sent her hateful glances. I mean at school no one protected Emma, no one but still they had big ass mouth like they didn't do anything.
"I never really understood irony when Mrs. Thale tried to teach us about it in English, but I sure get it now. Now that I get bullied for being a bully. I haven’t tried explaining it to the people at the grocery store, though. Mom says that they’re morons and I should ignore them, and for once I agree with her."
Another thing I really liked was how some things that Sara thought were completely true, some of these things criticized society like what she said above that others bullied her because she was a bully. Or this:
"And anyway, if what we all did was so horrible, why didn’t we get sued when Emma was still alive? "
The school had this huge anti-bullying policy but they didn't do anything at all when Emma was still alive, sorry to say that but asking two girls into the principal's office and talking to them isn't a serious action.
Remorse will not make Emma alive again, nothing will but by the end Sara realized that even if Emma would have been the evilest creature, she still hadn't deserved to be treated like trash.
There's always two sides of the story and I'm sad because we never get to see Emma's side who was apparently not an angel but not evil either. I'd love to read some parts of her life, see who she was because hearing that her parents weren't the best is simply not enough for me.
Carmichael was an important character for many reasons but unfortunately I couldn't love him because besides that he helped Sara I never felt like he did anything else.
“You going in? I mean, of course you are, I just—should we go?”
“Well, we’ve already come this far,” he (Carmichael) says. “Why not just enter the mouth of hell?”
Sara's little brothers were sooo adorable, I always like books in which there are little brothers.
All considered Tease was an incredible read about a girl's struggle to accept others and move on even if it seems impossible. I'm a bit sad though, I think Sara still needed to learn so much about real friendship and about love and actually we never got the chance to see her in a healthier relationship than what she had with Dylan. Anyway, I'd still recommend Tease to everyone who's interested and whose I didn't scare off with my review.
The story idea: 5/5
The realization of the story: 4/5
The characters: 5/5
The cover: 5/5
Final Rating: 5/5
http://reading-is-dreaming-with-open-eyes.blogspot.hu/
If you've heard about Tease you must have seen that many people weren't happy with this book at all. I read some pretty bad reviews about this novel and got more and more disappointed after each of them. I might have skipped reading it if not for my friend who suggested that we should read Tease as our first buddy read. Well, I said yes because I thought if it's bad than at least I'll have someone who I can talk it out with but to my surprise it wasn't bad at all, actually I loved this book way more than I ever thought I would.
The Storyline and the Characters:
As I said, I absolutely loved Tease, it completely blew my mind, but I can see that this book is not for everyone. Amanda Maciel chose a very hard subject as her first novel but as far as I can see she did a great job and wrote an amazing debut novel.
Bullying is a very sensitive subject more so if it ends with suicide and I don't think there's anything you can say about it which will make everyone nod in agreement. That's the thing with Tease, I think that if you like it or not mainly depends on which character will you identify yourself with.
That takes us to my favorite part of the novel: the characters. All of them, especially the main ones were well-made and very real. The character development was so well-written, it didn't happen from one moment to the next, it was a slow process you had to pay attention closely to see it slowly happening.
Let me tell you that you'll have problems accepting our main character Sara because she does not feel sorry. At all. She blames Emma for taking away her life and ending theirs with this step. She's angry at the world, angry because they make an angel out of a girl who was billed slut by the whole school, angry because everyone was bullying Emma not just them and still they can live their life like nothing happened. Sara lives in a state of denial, she will not admit that she was responsible for what happened because she just can't see that she did anything wrong.
Maybe what made this novel enjoyable for me was that I did not hate Sara, oh believe me when I say that there were times when I wanted to slap her with a brick but all considered I was able to connect to her character. Many of her feelings I could get completely, mostly the ones after the suicide because before that she was kind of crazy.
She lost many things and like most teenagers /hell many adults would do the same/ she had to find someone who she could blame. So she did. Emma. Emma who was the slut of the school. Emma who stole Sara's boyfriend. Emma who hang herself and ruined Sara's life. Sara believes these things because this is what she wants to believe and not because she's stupid or such a bitch.
I think the only reason why after the mass amount of bullying I could still like Sara was because I could see where she came from. She had the perfect boyfriend, perfect relationship until some girl ruined it. Sara would not, could not see her ex as the villain so she took her rage out on the girl who hit on him. Unfortunately, this wasn't all, she had a best friend, Brielle who was a complete bitch and who didn't just make her hate Emma but made her question herself. For my taste Sara depended on others opinion way too much and believed everything what Brielle said. This still not make what she did okay and if that had been all I wouldn't have liked the story but it wasn't.
After the suicide Sara's life completely changed, she rarely leaves the house and has no idea about what her future will hold. It was the most wonderful thing to see how she slowly realized how many mistakes did she make and how her so called best friend wasn't the best for her by far. She still made mistakes and the change in her was slow but it was there and it was real and that's what counts in the end.
Sometimes I felt really sorry for her, not that she wasn't drowning in self-pity already because how other people treated her was horrible. I'm not sure which was worse, how they whispered behind her back in school or how random people from the street sent her hateful glances. I mean at school no one protected Emma, no one but still they had big ass mouth like they didn't do anything.
"I never really understood irony when Mrs. Thale tried to teach us about it in English, but I sure get it now. Now that I get bullied for being a bully. I haven’t tried explaining it to the people at the grocery store, though. Mom says that they’re morons and I should ignore them, and for once I agree with her."
Another thing I really liked was how some things that Sara thought were completely true, some of these things criticized society like what she said above that others bullied her because she was a bully. Or this:
"And anyway, if what we all did was so horrible, why didn’t we get sued when Emma was still alive? "
The school had this huge anti-bullying policy but they didn't do anything at all when Emma was still alive, sorry to say that but asking two girls into the principal's office and talking to them isn't a serious action.
Remorse will not make Emma alive again, nothing will but by the end Sara realized that even if Emma would have been the evilest creature, she still hadn't deserved to be treated like trash.
There's always two sides of the story and I'm sad because we never get to see Emma's side who was apparently not an angel but not evil either. I'd love to read some parts of her life, see who she was because hearing that her parents weren't the best is simply not enough for me.
Carmichael was an important character for many reasons but unfortunately I couldn't love him because besides that he helped Sara I never felt like he did anything else.
“You going in? I mean, of course you are, I just—should we go?”
“Well, we’ve already come this far,” he (Carmichael) says. “Why not just enter the mouth of hell?”
Sara's little brothers were sooo adorable, I always like books in which there are little brothers.
All considered Tease was an incredible read about a girl's struggle to accept others and move on even if it seems impossible. I'm a bit sad though, I think Sara still needed to learn so much about real friendship and about love and actually we never got the chance to see her in a healthier relationship than what she had with Dylan. Anyway, I'd still recommend Tease to everyone who's interested and whose I didn't scare off with my review.
The story idea: 5/5
The realization of the story: 4/5
The characters: 5/5
The cover: 5/5
Final Rating: 5/5
A good book to read if you want to hate 95% of the characters. I don't know, I wasn't impressed. I've read books about the same issue that were much better done.
This is an intriguing and somewhat provocative book about the hot topic of bullying. The story is about a teenage girl, Sara Wharton, facing criminal charges after another teen, Emma Putnam, commits suicide. The narrative is told from Sara’s point of view and switches from present tense and past tense so we get to see both Sara’s feelings about her consequences of her actions and her feelings about her actions as they happen which is really interesting to see.
When Emma moves to town most of the girls immediately dislike her and label her a “slut” for talking to the guys they like or just for doing things they disapprove of. We see through Sara’s eyes the judgement and general hatred the girls in the school had for Emma pretty quickly.
I give this book 3 stars from MY point of view and what I can take from it, which is what I do with all of my reviews. However, I can see how this book could potentially have a greater impact on someone who is a teenager or in middle school.
It’s a strong book for making the point that not everything is so black and white. Not everyone is perfect. The bullies in this book weren’t exactly aware of everything that is going on, even with their own actions. So while their bullying essentially leads to Emma’s suicide there are also other issues happening simultaneously.
I also know that while reading the book I could see myself if both the bullies and the victim and I don’t know that most people will like that uncomfortable feeling. Yet it’s an important feeling because in this world the book creates it shows that no one is really blameless.
So 3 stars from me but I would recommend for a younger crowd for better results. Entertaining yet educational.
ARC provided by Edelweiss in return for an honest review.
When Emma moves to town most of the girls immediately dislike her and label her a “slut” for talking to the guys they like or just for doing things they disapprove of. We see through Sara’s eyes the judgement and general hatred the girls in the school had for Emma pretty quickly.
I give this book 3 stars from MY point of view and what I can take from it, which is what I do with all of my reviews. However, I can see how this book could potentially have a greater impact on someone who is a teenager or in middle school.
It’s a strong book for making the point that not everything is so black and white. Not everyone is perfect. The bullies in this book weren’t exactly aware of everything that is going on, even with their own actions. So while their bullying essentially leads to Emma’s suicide there are also other issues happening simultaneously.
I also know that while reading the book I could see myself if both the bullies and the victim and I don’t know that most people will like that uncomfortable feeling. Yet it’s an important feeling because in this world the book creates it shows that no one is really blameless.
So 3 stars from me but I would recommend for a younger crowd for better results. Entertaining yet educational.
ARC provided by Edelweiss in return for an honest review.