Something Blue

I'm going to give a brief explanation as to why I chose to read this. I'd been warned about Miss Giffin...her vulgarity in particular. But I felt compelled to try out one of her books, anyway. Why? Because I feel something of a kinship to her. She was an attorney who was very unhappy with her career choice. I once saw her in an interview (while I was in law school), and she said something akin to the following: "People who go to law school are people who are afraid to follow their real dreams." It hit a little too close to home, not just because I was afraid that what she said was true for me, but because I wanted to be doing what she does. Writing novels. Well, I I'm working on that...writing a novel that is. I think I was meant to see that interview. And even if I didn't love this book, I do appreciate Miss Giffin's honesty. I needed to hear that. So thank you Miss Giffin.

Something Blue by Emily Giffin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Actually, at times I'd give this one star...and at times I'd give it three or even four. In the end, I'd give it 2.5 stars because it had its redeeming moments and I liked it some of the time. The truth is, I'd been warned* about Emily Giffin's books. However, for other reasons (long story about an interview with Giffin I once saw), I really wanted to try at least one of her novels.

So if you've read the first book (Something Borrowed...and I have not) or if you've seen the movie (and I have), you know that Darcy, the main character here, has just been "betrayed" by her best friend and fiance. Darcy has been doing some betraying of her own yet lacks any ability to recognize her own fault in what happened with both her best friend and her fiance.

In the beginning I really disliked Darcy. She was insufferable. Total self-absorption is not a likable characteristic. In fact, it is infuriating. And she's so over the top that I would call her a sociopath...almost. I'm pretty sure that was Giffin's intent. After setting the reader up with an awful heroine, you know what's coming. Darcy is going to hit upon some rough times. And then she'll be forced to examine her circumstances and her life and take some responsibility for what happened.

And that is where the story fell short. I felt that, in the end when she starts to change, it wasn't believable. I didn't fully buy it that someone who was so so so selfish could pull an actual 180.

I did, however, find her reactions to her pregnancy and motherhood believable and redemptive and touching, even. The truth is that I believe people in real life can and do change. I think that even Darcy was redeemable, but I would have liked to see a little more effort in the process. Someone as selfish as Darcy had a long way to go, and maybe she got there a little too easily for my taste.

*I'd been warned about sex and language, and I'll warn you all who read this. It might be a bit much for conservative readers. I won't read any more of her novels because of it.

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Thirteen Reasons Why

Overall, not a bad book...but not sure if I recommend it.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Have you ever read a book and thought, hmmm??? Did I like that? I honestly can't tell if I did or not. I'm giving it three stars because it gave me much to ponder, and that is always good. But it could have easily been a two star read or a four star read...I'm very confused!

I knew the premise of the book before I started reading, of course, but I was skeptical nonetheless. Hannah Baker, a girl who has just committed suicide (and no that is not a spoiler) sends out a set of tapes, all seven of which are to be passed on to the various people who played a role in her depression/suicide/teen angst.

Maybe I've read a little too much about teen suicide (I just read The Pact), but the minute the tapes started and I realized that this was going to be a blame game...and like I said, I just read The Pact...I was on my guard. Suicide is tragic, and it isn't something to take lightly, but I'm not so sure that I feel right about the way fingers were pointed in this book.

Really, I'm not sure if I believed that someone who had the level headed sense to talk her way through seven tapes and thirteen reasons for her suicide was really suicidal. Of course, I'm not a seventeen-year-old girl anymore, and I'm not sure that even with all my long since passed teenage angst that I ever felt as close to as hurt as Hannah quite obviously did. Still, it seems like she was completely capable of logic when it came to detailing the horrible behavior of her classmates, which would indicate to me an ability to see it for what it was. But maybe that is the adult in me, expecting someone who is still emotionally immature to understand that when other people act like jerks, it has nothing to do with me.

And then I guess I thought some of the reasons were not enough, or at least the connections between the people that she is "blaming" really mattered. Again, though, I don't know how I would have reacted to her reasons when I was a teenager. Maybe I would have totally felt her pain and thought about how awful those things were.

HOWEVER, living means that bad things will happen to you. It means that people will treat your poorly sometimes. It means that sometimes you will have to live with pain. And sometimes downright awful, horrible, terrible things will come into your life even if you did nothing to invite them in. And the other reality is this. Sometimes I have caused others pain. I hope I'm never one of the awful, horrible, terrible people, but I do know that I have done and said stupid, thoughtless, cruel things. I hope that they were never said or done on purpose.

Another awful reality: some people are going to commit suicide. Some people are going to get to a point where they are that hopeless. And it is important to think about the way that you treat others. But I guess what bothered me about this is that Hannah had to take responsibility at some point, but she didn't (at least not really, in my opinion). Instead, when Clay (the narrator here) or Mr. Porter (who apparently should "rot in hell") tried to talk through things with her, she walked away, not them. People were reaching out to her.

Okay, so a few people on this list of thirteen did some bad things, but some of those bad things weren't even done to Hannah. Rather, she seems to feel some guilt I guess for their bad behavior because she was around when it happened, and so I suppose that's why she decided in the end it was best to take her own life. I sort of felt like this was Asher's way of putting some of the blame for Hannah's suicide on her own shoulders, as if to say that Hannah wasn't entirely blaming others. I'm not sure, but I felt like in the end that all she was doing was "getting even" with some mean kids at school.

Again, I couldn't help but think about the times that I've been not so nice to people. I'm not proud of it, but would I want to get a message from beyond the grave from some poor soul who'd done this to himself, telling me that I might have played a role in his suicide? Certainly not. When someone commits suicide, it is about her depression. I don't think the people left behind should be forced to take the blame for that. The people who knew Hannah were going to feel guilty as it was; ironically, the tapes were just as cruel, in the end, as the things Hannah had done to her.

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Rearview Mirror

Light and easy...especially for listening purposes.

Rearview Mirror by Stephanie Black

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Since I've been giving LDS lit a new look, I thought I would try out an LDS author's take on the mystery-thriller genre. I was pleasantly surprised.

It wasn't all that different from any other story in the genre, really. It follows a certain formula, and that was fine. I actually think I read these books for the formula. What made me happy about it was the clean language. The crimes weren't described graphically, either. Because I love mysteries and sort of hate the language/graphic depictions of violence, I was very happy with this.

There was some cheeser stuff, a little bit related to being Mormon, but really if I'm going to be honest, all such novels have elements of cheesiness, usually related to two things: the romantic interest and the dramatic confessions of really horrible behavior, given by the villain, at the end when the conflict is being resolved. But this is sort of to be expected. How else will we all know what happened?

And it really did have me guessing, so I give Ms. Black bonus points. I would be convinced that I knew who "done it" and then she would throw something new at me, and I could not be sure. It wasn't until the final few paragraphs that I finally knew who was up to no good, and even then she threw me off a little bit. Overall, not too shabby. I'll be trying more of her books in the future.

P.S. And may I say that I really liked the reader, and she was female. Usually female readers drive me nuts, but she didn't overdo the men. Generally, my beef with the women readers? They cannot do a convincing male voice. But this reader didn't try so hard to sound masculine, so it worked for me.

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