I picked this up solely because I adored the title. The cover seemed calm and mysterious as it stood there on the library shelf. I wasn’t in the market for new books to read, but I thought “eh why not?” Unfortunately I never came to love we were liars. It was a pleasant enough read, short and light. I, however, was expecting a beautiful slow read about families and secrets and the special bonds formed when people grow up together. It wasn’t. Instead it was […]
A Different YA Novel
I guess it is only fitting that I complete my Cannonball on a book that I first learned of from a Cannonball review. Yea! I can’t remember who now, but someone’s review convinced me that I should add The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008) by E. Lockhart to my queue. Frankie is starting her Sophomore year at Alabaster Preparatory Academy, an elite boarding school. The summer has changed her from a scrawny girl with frizzy hair to someone the boys are suddenly noticing. It doesn’t […]
This book gave ME a head injury
Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD. What a stupid book. Seriously. At the end, you find out all that most of the main characters died in a fire, and my only thought was “good”. I did feel bad for the doggies, though. Backing up. In her 15th summer, something happened to Cadence on her family’s private island (get ready to meet some really rich people, by the way). Some kind of head injury that wiped out her memories of that summer, and has left her with terrible migraines. […]
YMMV on this very well-written, hard-to-put-down book with a been-there-done-that ‘surprise’ ending that I nevertheless didn’t like all that much.
Oyyyyyyyyyyy. This book. This well-written, stylistically self-assured, engaging book. This frustrating, sorta smug, but ultimately cliched, little book. This is one of those times where things are complicated. First, the book was good, but that doesn’t mean I like it. Second, the ending ruined everything. I try not to deliver spoilers in my reviews anyway, but in this case the enjoyment of the book is almost entirely based on knowing absolutely nothing going in, so I will say absolutely nothing about it. At least, not […]