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A review by debi_g
Legacy by Jessica Blank
On the one hand, I was fully invested and living this story as I read it. This is likely because it involves a path I could easily have taken: environmental activism and alternative colleges magnetized the teen me.
Elements of the writing style did pull me out of the story from time to time. For instance, the narrator sometimes refers to characters as "kids," and the late teen characters certainly would not have thought of each other in that way. There are also a few anachronisms, like the slang "cool cool." Likewise, there are places when the narration slips from first to second person: "I know what to say: I don't have to think about it every time. You just tell the truth, over and over, until it doesn't scare you anymore...Nobody taught me this. I taught myself."
As far as the language and behavior, none of it seemed out of the realm of realism. People act out. People seek comfort. If anything, the main character is surprisingly straight and narrow among those who revere deviance as a substitute for strength.
Elements of the writing style did pull me out of the story from time to time. For instance, the narrator sometimes refers to characters as "kids," and the late teen characters certainly would not have thought of each other in that way. There are also a few anachronisms, like the slang "cool cool." Likewise, there are places when the narration slips from first to second person: "I know what to say: I don't have to think about it every time. You just tell the truth, over and over, until it doesn't scare you anymore...Nobody taught me this. I taught myself."
As far as the language and behavior, none of it seemed out of the realm of realism. People act out. People seek comfort. If anything, the main character is surprisingly straight and narrow among those who revere deviance as a substitute for strength.