chriskoppenhaver 's review for:

My Life as a Book by Janet Tashjian

3.0

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So, so close. There was much I could identify with. Attitudes, behaviors, and dialogue that worked for me. That entertained me and made me laugh. I kind of felt like I knew Derek, the hyper, active, sarcastic, artistic, reading-hating, comic-loving, twelve-year-old boy who tells this story of his attempt to spend a summer not learning anything. But, ultimately, he never quite felt authentic to me. I could tell the author was never this boy herself, because she didn't get him quite right. I could tell it was an adult pretending to be a kid, a woman pretending to be a boy. It was still a pretty good book, but not quite what it should have been because Derek just didn't quite feel real.