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shewwimonster 's review for:
Last Seen Leaving
by Caleb Roehrig
I don't really know how I want to rate this.
Let's start with what I liked:
+ I really enjoyed the writing. Style in general and Flynn as a narrator in particular.
+ I don't feel like I read a lot of mystery thriller YA, so that was exciting. It was well-plotted.
+ Going back to Flynn as a narrator, he felt very real to me overall. And this definitely read like a character and a book that didn't lose sight of the fact that its main audience is teens.
What bothered me and where I'm getting hung up with rating is all spoilers, but I'm not using the tag so be warned.
+ I tried to roll with it, but the fact that Flynn is 15 and the love interest is a freshman in college skeezed me out and continues to skeeze me out. I wanted to be able to root for them, but I just couldn't get behind it. Here's where me being an adult reading YA is a problem because I know when I was a teenager it wouldn't have phased me, but here we are.
+ With the acknowledgment that I'm not in the right place at the moment for this, the abrupt inclusion of sexual assault as a major plot point did not sit right with me. I don't know why we need to keep saying this, but rape is not a plot point. And while Flynn at least reacts appropriately, that's what it was reduced to in this novel.
Let's start with what I liked:
+ I really enjoyed the writing. Style in general and Flynn as a narrator in particular.
+ I don't feel like I read a lot of mystery thriller YA, so that was exciting. It was well-plotted.
+ Going back to Flynn as a narrator, he felt very real to me overall. And this definitely read like a character and a book that didn't lose sight of the fact that its main audience is teens.
What bothered me and where I'm getting hung up with rating is all spoilers, but I'm not using the tag so be warned.
+ I tried to roll with it, but the fact that Flynn is 15 and the love interest is a freshman in college skeezed me out and continues to skeeze me out. I wanted to be able to root for them, but I just couldn't get behind it. Here's where me being an adult reading YA is a problem because I know when I was a teenager it wouldn't have phased me, but here we are.
+ With the acknowledgment that I'm not in the right place at the moment for this, the abrupt inclusion of sexual assault as a major plot point did not sit right with me. I don't know why we need to keep saying this, but rape is not a plot point. And while Flynn at least reacts appropriately, that's what it was reduced to in this novel.