Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by pikasqueaks
Stay by Deb Caletti
4.0
If you’re like me, there are times where you’ve read a book and nodded along with a good line once or twice. Those lines were so satisfactory that you had to acknowledge it – even if it wasn’t to anyone in specific, your pillow had to know. There are other times where you’ve read a book, but it wasn’t until the very end that you nodded. Not because it didn’t feel the same, but it took until you got to the very end for it to sink in completely and leave you with that satisfaction.
The only times I stopped nodding while reading Stay were times when Finn and Clara got a little too love-at-first-sight for me. Time after time, I could feel Clara’s statements about Christian resonating too deeply with me. This is because I have been there – and I think that this gives me a sad understanding of this book that you might not have if you have not also been there (and I truly hope that you have not). I have, as she puts it so wonderfully, felt like I was being trapped under a fallen building.
The initial story of Christian and Clara is introduced and moved through so quickly that some people might feel cheated. If this is the first contact they’ve made with emotional abuse, it might feel more like a list of events than anything else. But if you’re familiar, you see it all, and you don’t really need every detail – you don’t need to see Christian’s “honeymoon” phase, you don’t need to know exactly what he says to her when they’re happy and together. You know, because Clara tells you, that it’s good enough. You know that he’s messed up, and you know that you want Clara to succeed in pulling away. That’s all you really need for this to work.
The little lies, and how Clara needed to tell them, are what drove this home for me before it even picked up speed. We see that Clara lied from the start, and then we see the increasing measures she uses to keep herself guarded from the person she’s fallen in love with (even who she has had pizza with). More than that, we understand why – and that is something good, that more people need to understand. The reader can understand the disconnect between Clara and Christian, and why even that made Clara hesitant to completely pull away.
Fathers and daughters are an easy way to get to me. There is no other bonding relationship that will get me hooked on a book – particularly if they are close. We all know the absent parent business in YA books is strong, so when I get to read a book that goes the other way, I’m stoked. The way that Clara and her father spoke – the long-winded, often times florid and obviously writerly phrases – could get on my nerves. The choice of footnotes was sometimes peculiar. Together, it made sense – how Clara thought and felt mirrored what she saw in her father. I could have done without her father’s B-plot secret.
The other thing I could have done without was the relationship with Finn. I’m split on this, though. On the one hand, it is fantastic that we see Clara have the change to move on. So much of this book is about trying to move on, and then succeeding. But I don’t think it was necessary for them to have a romantic relationship right of the bat. It gave me the impression of “honey, you just need another man to come along and fix you,” and I don’t think that’s what Caletti was aiming for. At least, I hope not.
I won’t pretend that how I feel about this book isn’t in part because of what happened in my own life. But don’t take that to mean that you wouldn’t get something out of it, too. We all need the chance to get away from some of the people in our lives. I first read Deb Caletti’s The Queen of Everything a month ago, and then followed suit with the rest of her books. They were missing something that Stay had, and that authentic, honest voice was the biggest part.
The only times I stopped nodding while reading Stay were times when Finn and Clara got a little too love-at-first-sight for me. Time after time, I could feel Clara’s statements about Christian resonating too deeply with me. This is because I have been there – and I think that this gives me a sad understanding of this book that you might not have if you have not also been there (and I truly hope that you have not). I have, as she puts it so wonderfully, felt like I was being trapped under a fallen building.
The initial story of Christian and Clara is introduced and moved through so quickly that some people might feel cheated. If this is the first contact they’ve made with emotional abuse, it might feel more like a list of events than anything else. But if you’re familiar, you see it all, and you don’t really need every detail – you don’t need to see Christian’s “honeymoon” phase, you don’t need to know exactly what he says to her when they’re happy and together. You know, because Clara tells you, that it’s good enough. You know that he’s messed up, and you know that you want Clara to succeed in pulling away. That’s all you really need for this to work.
The little lies, and how Clara needed to tell them, are what drove this home for me before it even picked up speed. We see that Clara lied from the start, and then we see the increasing measures she uses to keep herself guarded from the person she’s fallen in love with (even who she has had pizza with). More than that, we understand why – and that is something good, that more people need to understand. The reader can understand the disconnect between Clara and Christian, and why even that made Clara hesitant to completely pull away.
Fathers and daughters are an easy way to get to me. There is no other bonding relationship that will get me hooked on a book – particularly if they are close. We all know the absent parent business in YA books is strong, so when I get to read a book that goes the other way, I’m stoked. The way that Clara and her father spoke – the long-winded, often times florid and obviously writerly phrases – could get on my nerves. The choice of footnotes was sometimes peculiar. Together, it made sense – how Clara thought and felt mirrored what she saw in her father. I could have done without her father’s B-plot secret.
The other thing I could have done without was the relationship with Finn. I’m split on this, though. On the one hand, it is fantastic that we see Clara have the change to move on. So much of this book is about trying to move on, and then succeeding. But I don’t think it was necessary for them to have a romantic relationship right of the bat. It gave me the impression of “honey, you just need another man to come along and fix you,” and I don’t think that’s what Caletti was aiming for. At least, I hope not.
I won’t pretend that how I feel about this book isn’t in part because of what happened in my own life. But don’t take that to mean that you wouldn’t get something out of it, too. We all need the chance to get away from some of the people in our lives. I first read Deb Caletti’s The Queen of Everything a month ago, and then followed suit with the rest of her books. They were missing something that Stay had, and that authentic, honest voice was the biggest part.