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gmb_1000's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Looking to the future is great, but living in the moment is sometimes better
x_librarian's review
2.0
My problem with this book was it seemed like so many other plots I'd read before. Nothing was surprising. 14 Little Blue Envelopes follows a very similar idea. Neither one really captured my imagination.
lookatjimmy's review against another edition
4.0
This was SO fun. A quick, easy read with tons of hilarity.
embereye's review
3.0
I read this for silly reasons - main character was named after my alma mater. It was a pretty silly book. Fun idea, entertaining situations, excessively bratty main character, but in a lot of ways it strangely made me think of [b:eat pray love|19501|Eat, Pray, Love|Elizabeth Gilbert|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1269870432s/19501.jpg|3352398] meets Bridget jones's diary on a trek through se Asia but from an early teen viewpoint. Had potential but didn't really live up to it.
debs4jc's review
4.0
This enjoyable story goes from moments of hilarity to moments of terror as it follows a young women on her journey of self-discovery through Southeast Asia. Vassar Spoor is just as preppy as her name sounds--encouraged by her parents to set goals and aim for the top she has a life plan that includes becoming valedictorian of her prep school, attending Vassar, and marrying a doctor. But she doesn't count on her Grandma Gerd sending her a plane ticket so that she can spend the summer trekking through Southeast Asia with her. Mysteriously Vassar's parents decide she should go--after it appears Grandma Gerd has blackmailed them with a family secret. Suddenly Vassar is thrust into a world of high humidity, strange bathroom habits, Malaysian cowboys, un-trustworthy relatives, and 'the big secret'. She manages to survive it all, learns to 'LIM'--live in the moment, and learns a lot about herself--including "the big secret", which concerns her very identity.[return]I highly enjoyed this romp of a story, Vassar's adventures are truly over the top in hilarity and danger. Having traveled to Southeast Asia I also delighted in the many aspects of the setting and culture that I recognized--the author did a wonderful job of describing the unique locale. At least I never found myself mooning a bunch of Asians after a bathroom mishap on a boat, but I can see it happening! Some of the antics of the grandmother and the danger she put Vassar in made me really angry, and while she miraculously survives the lightheartedness trivializes some of the very real dangers of travelling in this part of the world--or with a grandmother who will steal and cheat to get her way. Vassar's courage and ability to overcome lost contact lenses, hostile natives, and the terrors of the jungle were amazing. I would highly recommend this book to anyone! The audio version is wonderful, by the way, the narrator captured each characters voice with the right nuance and kept up with the fast pace of this adventurous story well.
rampaginglibrarian's review
4.0
Vassar (her mother always wanted to go to Vassar, and has now transferred that goal onto her daughter~figuring with the proper planning and that name, how could they possibly reject her???) Spore, sixteen, has her life plan set up through graduate school (as well as few life goals beyond that: (marrying a 6’5” blond surgeon {she’d settle for a judge} by age 25 {for love}; having three children by age 35 {two girls one boy}; publish the definitive book {subject as yet undecided} by age 37; and winning the Pulitzer prize). Her mother is not sure that is quite ambitious enough.
She has her life and schedule planned down to the minute, a trait she gets from her rather over-organized parents~her father the efficiency expert, and her mother the life planner (who gave up planning other people’s lives when Vassar came along to plan her daughter’s.
Vassar’s summer plans (to take AP English as well as a Sub-Molecular Theory course, and attend Advanced Latin Camp) are thrown into complete disarray when her Bohemian artist Grandma Gerd offers to take her on a summer trip through Southeast Asia. The thought is a completely outrageous and would throw her 5.3 GPA down the drain as well as kill any hope of her getting valedictorian (as opposed to the oh-so-evil Wendy Stupacker). To Vassar’s surprise, after some whispered conversation between her parents and the grandmother she has never met, they insist that she goes. It makes her “feel out of context.”
Of course the trip manages to awaken a few new dimensions in Vassar (else where would the story be found?) (And the only memories this novel brought up for me was when i was sixteen and stuck on the wrong Mexican side of the Tijuana border with nothing but the tee shirt on my back and the shorts on my ass~thongs on my feet~the paint from an earlier paint fight {we'd been painting a Tijuana orphanage} drying in the 100 plus degree heat~my brain so fried i couldn't remember my name when the border guards asked and fearing i'd never be let across~an experience which eerily almost repeated itself in Toronto when i was somewhat trying to flee Canada on a canceled plane ticket when the company i was working for decided i needed to stay longer than i thought i needed to and the border guards there wanted a passport i hadn't needed to enter the country... Oddly enough the Tijuanan trip was the same one where i lost a contact and had to keep switching the remaining one back and forth between my eyes from day to day to see~so there's another parallel...
Some plot elements i found a little predictable (i figured out the “Big Secret” quite early on) but what do you expect (did i find everything quite as predictable when i was actually a “young adult”~or do they make these “Big Secrets” not so “secret” to make us all feel so-very-clever and smug?)
The sentence and phrase “Poor Dad. Not only was he adopted, . . .” had me more than a little annoyed with Ms. Cornwell when i encountered it at the beginning of the novel (as if to say: not only was he adopted…as if that wasn’t bad enough…) but i tried to attribute it to the general smugness of the narrator, and the fact that Cornwell had was otherwise quite a witty and comedic storyteller (besides which she almost redeemed herself by the end of the novel.) Good for a check out.
"Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never without end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so."
~Pascal’s Pensées
"Live In The Moment!" (as they say)
She has her life and schedule planned down to the minute, a trait she gets from her rather over-organized parents~her father the efficiency expert, and her mother the life planner (who gave up planning other people’s lives when Vassar came along to plan her daughter’s.
Vassar’s summer plans (to take AP English as well as a Sub-Molecular Theory course, and attend Advanced Latin Camp) are thrown into complete disarray when her Bohemian artist Grandma Gerd offers to take her on a summer trip through Southeast Asia. The thought is a completely outrageous and would throw her 5.3 GPA down the drain as well as kill any hope of her getting valedictorian (as opposed to the oh-so-evil Wendy Stupacker). To Vassar’s surprise, after some whispered conversation between her parents and the grandmother she has never met, they insist that she goes. It makes her “feel out of context.”
Of course the trip manages to awaken a few new dimensions in Vassar (else where would the story be found?) (And the only memories this novel brought up for me was when i was sixteen and stuck on the wrong Mexican side of the Tijuana border with nothing but the tee shirt on my back and the shorts on my ass~thongs on my feet~the paint from an earlier paint fight {we'd been painting a Tijuana orphanage} drying in the 100 plus degree heat~my brain so fried i couldn't remember my name when the border guards asked and fearing i'd never be let across~an experience which eerily almost repeated itself in Toronto when i was somewhat trying to flee Canada on a canceled plane ticket when the company i was working for decided i needed to stay longer than i thought i needed to and the border guards there wanted a passport i hadn't needed to enter the country... Oddly enough the Tijuanan trip was the same one where i lost a contact and had to keep switching the remaining one back and forth between my eyes from day to day to see~so there's another parallel...
Some plot elements i found a little predictable (i figured out the “Big Secret” quite early on) but what do you expect (did i find everything quite as predictable when i was actually a “young adult”~or do they make these “Big Secrets” not so “secret” to make us all feel so-very-clever and smug?)
The sentence and phrase “Poor Dad. Not only was he adopted, . . .” had me more than a little annoyed with Ms. Cornwell when i encountered it at the beginning of the novel (as if to say: not only was he adopted…as if that wasn’t bad enough…) but i tried to attribute it to the general smugness of the narrator, and the fact that Cornwell had was otherwise quite a witty and comedic storyteller (besides which she almost redeemed herself by the end of the novel.) Good for a check out.
"Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never without end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so."
~Pascal’s Pensées
"Live In The Moment!" (as they say)
roseannmvp's review
5.0
Probably one of the best Young Adult novels I have read, and clearly quality writing. Characters are well-developed albeit a bit absurd, and the travel scenery is clearly described. An accessible fast-paced romp through an absurd first love, family secret and family relationship.
gretarutt's review
5.0
I picked this book up at the library last summer when there was nothing to do. I fell in love. I LOVE this book. I love Vassar and I love her experiences and I lover her "chops wearing cowboy". I just really love this book.
cjyu's review
4.0
I feel like there should be an epilogue, the ending, wasn't quite as satisfying... But I enjoyed this overall, really funny and SO EMBARRASSING at times. Nice to see Vassar (Frangipani!) lossen up as the novel went along. And Grandma Gerd was such a fun character! This was pretty unique story overall, really fun. :)