Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King

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Rating: 3/5 stars.

On the surface level, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is about the death of a girl’s best friend. But, because that would be too easy, it’s much deeper. Vera Dietz, the girl in question, has spent a solid portion of her life in love with Charlie Khan – the same boy she hung out with when she was a kid. Then high school happens, and their relationship takes a turn for the worse. Vera comes to hate Charlie; however, when Charlie dies in a devastating way, will she be willing to clear his name?

Please Ignore Vera Dietz isn’t an easy read.

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

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Rating: 5 stars.

Damn.

I don’t curse. When I finished The Storyteller, I couldn’t craft a coherent sentence. I just sat and thought to myself: damn.

Sage Singer bakes bread. It’s therapy for her, in addition to the grief support group she attends after losing her mother in a car crash. One day she befriends Josef Weber, a fellow support group goer and an elderly man who is a cherished member of their small town community. Sage soon realizes that Josef doesn’t just want her bread: he wants her to kill him. She learns that Josef has committed a terrible crime against humanity and that someone in her own family has suffered at the hands of the Nazis. With this connection in mind Sage struggles to make the right choice. Is it her to duty to deliver him from his wicked past, or would she bringing herself down to his level by doing so? Why is it so hard to find out what’s right, when faced with someone who’s done so much wrong?

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer Smith

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Rating: 3/5 stars.

Cute. That’s the word I kept coming back to when I read this book. Not pulchritudinous. Not horrendous. Cute.

I guess I expected more from a title and a book jacket that promised an intense and zany romance.  Seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan meets British Yale student Oliver on a plane ride to attend her divorced father’s second wedding. She’s not happy about it, but something about Oliver makes her open up. Within 24 hours they form a close bond and Hadley comes to terms with the dysfunction of her family, as well as the boy who she’s known for less than a day – even when it’s felt like forever.

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

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Rating: 4/5 stars.

Astrid Jones sends her love to strangers. She gives it away to passengers in the sky, because that’s the only way she’ll be free. Her demanding, over-controlling mother talks at her, her dad does crack, and her sister worries too much about her reputation to be of any help. Living in a small town has its downsides, and Astrid realizes just how damaging those downsides are when she finds herself falling in love – with a girl.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

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5/5 stars.

A lot of the literature I’ve read for school this year has disappointed me. It’s great that we got to read and watch The Glass Menagerie as part of my AP Lit class, because I reclaimed my title as extremely obsessive fanboy extraordinaire.

There’s just so much to love in this play.

Slammed by Colleen Hoover

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Rating: 2/5 stars.

I cannot count on my fingers and toes how many times I wanted to throw this book across the room. Or better yet, slam it down on the floor. (get it? “slam”?)

I kid. I didn’t have such an intense reaction to Slammed. I barely had any reaction at all; I sat through the book like one sits through a cheesy, melodramatic romance movie. Bored and waiting for the next feature, or in this case, the next typo…

Slammed had such a fascinating premise. My favorite part of the book was Hoover’s inclusion of slam poetry, because I had only heard about it a couple of times before reading the book. Hoover incorporated love at first sight, forbidden romance, death, tragedy, and a multitude of other themes/motifs in the story. It should’ve been fantastic.

But it wasn’t.

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

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Rating: 4/5 stars.

As a senior in high school, it scares me that I didn’t know how to properly pronounce “Khmer Rogue” before reading this book. Even worse was my ignorance of Cambodia’s history in the late 1970′s – the genocide that took place serves as a lesser-known Holocaust, the horrors these people endured similar to that of the Jews.

In the Shadow of the Banyan follows seven-year-old Raami as she witnesses the communist regime take everything away from her.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

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Rating: 4/5 stars.

Things I need to find out about my future partner before I marry him: 1) If he can get rid of bugs for me, 2) If he’s a super crazy psychopath who will kill me in my sleep.

Gone Girl starts out as a simple story about Nick and Amy Dunne, the average married couple gearing up for their fifth anniversary. Conflict arises when Amy goes missing and the media accuses Nick of kidnapping and murdering her. The investigation takes a turn for the worse when clues are found that implicate certain individuals and reveal ugly truths about others. As the story progresses it turns out that our average husband and wife may be more twisted than we imagined…

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

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Rating: 4/5 stars.

How ironic that I would read The Poisonwood Bible immediately after publishing a blog post defending the merits of YA books. One individual commented about how literary fiction takes themes/motifs/messages and pushes them to the edge. I can see that with Barbara Kingsolver’s work.

Yes, the book preaches about anti-Westernization and the plights of religion.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

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Rating: 5/5 stars.

Are you looking for a whimsical romance filled with love songs and fiery kisses? Are you searching for a story with constant adventure, brimming with beauty and overflowing with passion?

If so, stop. Just One Day is not one of those books. It is not shallow. It is not like Anna and the French Kiss. It is beautiful, but in a bittersweet, lyrical, and oftentimes melancholy way. This is a book for people who have ever felt lost, for those who know what it feels like to be unsure of who they are, or of who they want to be.

After her senior year of high school, good girl Allyson Healey embarks on a journey to Europe. Except it’s not really a journey at all, or even a trip – just a boring tour with her blond best friend Melanie. That is until she sees a magical performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and one of the actors flips her coin. By chance she encounters this actor – Willem – again on a train, but their relationship turns an entirely different direction when she decides to spend a day with him in Paris. There she becomes Lulu, an adventurous soul with no reservations, and she discovers a side of herself with Willem she comes to love in less than 24 hours. But the next day she wakes up and Willem is gone. Allyson spends the next year struggling to find herself, who she thought she was, and who she’s turning out to be.