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dsignerm 's review for:
V is for Virgin
by Kelly Oram
I give this book - 1 and a half stars.
Firstly I greatly admire anyone who is able to write a book and get it published. Just for that alone, I have awarded this book one star. And half a star because I guess it was nice the main character didn’t jump into bed with everyone, but then a teen protagonist doesn’t need to do this to make a story interesting. Unfortunately, my review takes a downturn from here on in. I really didn’t like it and I’m honestly kinda confused by all the rave reviews - did we read the same book? Maybe this book does better with younger audiences, (I'm over 30 but normally enjoy a good YHA novel).
Anyway, the below is my personal opinion (from someone who has read a lot of books about teens and who has been a teacher who deals with teens) and it aims to be constructive criticism.
The Writing: I don’t know who edited this novel but seriously there were so many grammatical errors, it was bordering on the ridiculous. There were at least one to five grammatical errors in every chapter, and I’m not even an expert. For example, how could anyone miss “It’ll get people off YOU’RE back” and "He disentangled himself FORM me"??? And these are just a couple of mistakes I found within 2 mins of searching! The book is littered with them, it was like spellcheck was the only edit done before publishing.
There is a huge lack of description. What does the band/Kyle sound like? What kind of cars are people driving? What are people wearing - besides the Gucci skirt, which is only described as being short and flattering? I mean what colour is it??? I only found out at the end of a long scene Kyle was wearing a cap, which he lovingly puts on Val's head to keep her warm! It seemed like the author’s afterthought to make him more charming. I’m not really sure what anyone looked like, except for devastatingly gorgeous, blonde, tall or short or old (in the case of her boss).
This lack of description and adjectives doesn’t help with the diversity of the novel. Besides a couple of Moron church-going kids, it’s completely lacking in any variety and diversity of personality types! Where are the people with the unpronounceable ethnic names, where are the gays, the blacks, the Hispanic students? She’s in LA for heaven’s sake!!!
Plot: There isn’t a great deal that happens. There is no great mystery (unless you include why I bothered to read to the end!) no huge drama (a boy breaks up with a girl for not sleeping with him - not exactly earth-shattering, he’s a jerk, move on!), the conflict that happens is mostly verbal arguments and there is absolutely no personal growth or change for the characters… well maybe only for Isaac, who wises up and realizes he’s not really in love with Val and Zach who apologies for dumping her. Besides them everyone else stays unwaveringly the same and it’s all fairly predictable, with an ending that seems rushed and not very exciting - Val is doing brilliantly in her political studies at Stanford (because of cause she’s a genius and might run for P is for President *gag*). Everyone, besides Val, is married and having kids and of course, Kyle is currently single and still mooning over Val after all these years.
Settings: Very little description, very little show or tell. In one part the only reason I worked out the characters were meeting for lunch in a restaurant was because a waiter interrupted them halfway through.
The Characters:
The main protagonist Val. OMG, where do I start? Basically, I found her annoyingly preachy and judgmental. She publicly shames a girl by calling her a skank in front of the whole school, she belittles Kyle for his choice of lifestyle (right or wrong) and tells Cara off for not confessing she had sex with her boyfriend Shane. Shouldn’t she be more about not labelling people and just excepting everyone as they are?
Also, Val cries constantly, she’s happy, she’s sad, she’s overwhelmed… she tears up at the drop of a hat. I mean for heaven's sake she’s 18 not a 3yr old. Which brings me to another point she is sooo indecisive - one minute she’s "no way am I going to the concert" then suddenly she’s coming up with excuses why she wants to go, then of course she goes and then complains about having gone… I mean make a choice and stick with it! She’s like this for everything, especially her feelings for Kyle - she hates him, she’s madly attracted to him and then she never wants to see him again... argh!!!
Besides all this, she is such an unrealistic, unrelatable character. Everyone wants her. Everyone loves her. And I have no clue why!!! She has no personality - she’s constantly too busy for her friends, she’s preachy, whiney and crying all the time. Her ex-boyfriend wants her back, the most popular boy in school dates her (sort of, no real details on what they do besides eat lunches together and drive across town and have a kinda dinner date), the lead singer of a famous rock group is obsessed with her (even after she constantly disses him and his music), the guy making her smoothies adores her, her boss loves her like family, the cool kids instantly except her, the reporters think she’s wonderful, the jewellery manufacturers think her designs are brilliant (and of course they sell out immediately). And there are paparazzi chasing her and tv execs who want to make a movie of her life… Is there no other news, no other celebrities? It's all eye rollingly unbelievable.
Kyle: Whom I actually kind of liked, even though he was very two dimensional and made out to be the bad boy. Again not a lot of description (besides being the hottest, sexiest guy on Earth), not a lot of backstory and he has this instant unexplainable attraction to Val - I mean come on just because a girl hates you and treats you like crap every chance she gets doesn’t make her adorably challenging. It makes her an annoying cow (to put it nicely)! He spends, what feels like a couple of hours with her, where she is mostly telling him off, lecturing and belittling him, and then he writes a whole album of hit songs for/about her???
Cara: Not sure why she would be best friends with Val. Val is always arguing with her and too busy to do anything with her… unless of course Val deliberates for 10 pages, then changes her mind, ends up going to whatever Cara has begged her to go to and then argues about Cara’s behaviour. The whole lack of adjectives again left me asking how, when and why did she and Shane get together. There’s a lot of instant, unexplainable, attraction happening in this book.
Isaac: The gorgeous, cool Mormon boy from school. Who, of course, falls for Val and dates her… apparently, because she is so brave and inspirational? Really? Again Val spends most of the time ditching him to spend time on her own projects and to be with Kyle.
Okay, so I did get a two for one deal with this book where I received the next novel in the series "A for abstinence”. So big question is will I read the next one? My answer is - I’m not in a huge rush, I need to take a break and read some brilliant writing again, but maybe, if I’m desperate and can’t find anything better to read. I’m all for giving authors second chances and I do usually enjoy stories about famous people interacting with regular people... however the character of Val has got to have become more realistic otherwise I’m putting these books in 'R is for Recycling'.
Firstly I greatly admire anyone who is able to write a book and get it published. Just for that alone, I have awarded this book one star. And half a star because I guess it was nice the main character didn’t jump into bed with everyone, but then a teen protagonist doesn’t need to do this to make a story interesting. Unfortunately, my review takes a downturn from here on in. I really didn’t like it and I’m honestly kinda confused by all the rave reviews - did we read the same book? Maybe this book does better with younger audiences, (I'm over 30 but normally enjoy a good YHA novel).
Anyway, the below is my personal opinion (from someone who has read a lot of books about teens and who has been a teacher who deals with teens) and it aims to be constructive criticism.
The Writing: I don’t know who edited this novel but seriously there were so many grammatical errors, it was bordering on the ridiculous. There were at least one to five grammatical errors in every chapter, and I’m not even an expert. For example, how could anyone miss “It’ll get people off YOU’RE back” and "He disentangled himself FORM me"??? And these are just a couple of mistakes I found within 2 mins of searching! The book is littered with them, it was like spellcheck was the only edit done before publishing.
There is a huge lack of description. What does the band/Kyle sound like? What kind of cars are people driving? What are people wearing - besides the Gucci skirt, which is only described as being short and flattering? I mean what colour is it??? I only found out at the end of a long scene Kyle was wearing a cap, which he lovingly puts on Val's head to keep her warm! It seemed like the author’s afterthought to make him more charming. I’m not really sure what anyone looked like, except for devastatingly gorgeous, blonde, tall or short or old (in the case of her boss).
This lack of description and adjectives doesn’t help with the diversity of the novel. Besides a couple of Moron church-going kids, it’s completely lacking in any variety and diversity of personality types! Where are the people with the unpronounceable ethnic names, where are the gays, the blacks, the Hispanic students? She’s in LA for heaven’s sake!!!
Plot: There isn’t a great deal that happens. There is no great mystery (unless you include why I bothered to read to the end!) no huge drama (a boy breaks up with a girl for not sleeping with him - not exactly earth-shattering, he’s a jerk, move on!), the conflict that happens is mostly verbal arguments and there is absolutely no personal growth or change for the characters… well maybe only for Isaac, who wises up and realizes he’s not really in love with Val and Zach who apologies for dumping her. Besides them everyone else stays unwaveringly the same and it’s all fairly predictable, with an ending that seems rushed and not very exciting - Val is doing brilliantly in her political studies at Stanford (because of cause she’s a genius and might run for P is for President *gag*). Everyone, besides Val, is married and having kids and of course, Kyle is currently single and still mooning over Val after all these years.
Settings: Very little description, very little show or tell. In one part the only reason I worked out the characters were meeting for lunch in a restaurant was because a waiter interrupted them halfway through.
The Characters:
The main protagonist Val. OMG, where do I start? Basically, I found her annoyingly preachy and judgmental. She publicly shames a girl by calling her a skank in front of the whole school, she belittles Kyle for his choice of lifestyle (right or wrong) and tells Cara off for not confessing she had sex with her boyfriend Shane. Shouldn’t she be more about not labelling people and just excepting everyone as they are?
Also, Val cries constantly, she’s happy, she’s sad, she’s overwhelmed… she tears up at the drop of a hat. I mean for heaven's sake she’s 18 not a 3yr old. Which brings me to another point she is sooo indecisive - one minute she’s "no way am I going to the concert" then suddenly she’s coming up with excuses why she wants to go, then of course she goes and then complains about having gone… I mean make a choice and stick with it! She’s like this for everything, especially her feelings for Kyle - she hates him, she’s madly attracted to him and then she never wants to see him again... argh!!!
Besides all this, she is such an unrealistic, unrelatable character. Everyone wants her. Everyone loves her. And I have no clue why!!! She has no personality - she’s constantly too busy for her friends, she’s preachy, whiney and crying all the time. Her ex-boyfriend wants her back, the most popular boy in school dates her (sort of, no real details on what they do besides eat lunches together and drive across town and have a kinda dinner date), the lead singer of a famous rock group is obsessed with her (even after she constantly disses him and his music), the guy making her smoothies adores her, her boss loves her like family, the cool kids instantly except her, the reporters think she’s wonderful, the jewellery manufacturers think her designs are brilliant (and of course they sell out immediately). And there are paparazzi chasing her and tv execs who want to make a movie of her life… Is there no other news, no other celebrities? It's all eye rollingly unbelievable.
Kyle: Whom I actually kind of liked, even though he was very two dimensional and made out to be the bad boy. Again not a lot of description (besides being the hottest, sexiest guy on Earth), not a lot of backstory and he has this instant unexplainable attraction to Val - I mean come on just because a girl hates you and treats you like crap every chance she gets doesn’t make her adorably challenging. It makes her an annoying cow (to put it nicely)! He spends, what feels like a couple of hours with her, where she is mostly telling him off, lecturing and belittling him, and then he writes a whole album of hit songs for/about her???
Cara: Not sure why she would be best friends with Val. Val is always arguing with her and too busy to do anything with her… unless of course Val deliberates for 10 pages, then changes her mind, ends up going to whatever Cara has begged her to go to and then argues about Cara’s behaviour. The whole lack of adjectives again left me asking how, when and why did she and Shane get together. There’s a lot of instant, unexplainable, attraction happening in this book.
Isaac: The gorgeous, cool Mormon boy from school. Who, of course, falls for Val and dates her… apparently, because she is so brave and inspirational? Really? Again Val spends most of the time ditching him to spend time on her own projects and to be with Kyle.
Okay, so I did get a two for one deal with this book where I received the next novel in the series "A for abstinence”. So big question is will I read the next one? My answer is - I’m not in a huge rush, I need to take a break and read some brilliant writing again, but maybe, if I’m desperate and can’t find anything better to read. I’m all for giving authors second chances and I do usually enjoy stories about famous people interacting with regular people... however the character of Val has got to have become more realistic otherwise I’m putting these books in 'R is for Recycling'.