Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
Goodread's summary:
Perfect Parker Fadley isn’t so perfect anymore. She’s quit the cheerleading squad, she’s dumped her perfect boyfriend, and she’s failing school. Her parents are on a constant suicide watch and her counselors think she’s playing games…but what they don’t know, the real reason for this whole mess, isn’t something she can say out loud. It isn’t even something she can say to herself. A horrible thing has happened and it just might be her fault. If she can just remove herself from everybody--be totally alone--then everything will be okay...The problem is, nobody will let her.
My 30-Word Review:
LOVED being inside Parker's head--sad, angry, painful, scary.
3-dimensional characters with seamlessly interwoven subplots.
Character's reactions to MC, questionable at times.
Slightly bummed with rushed-felt ending.
Overall? AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This sounds good. I <3 your short versions. I really prefer short reviews for some reason :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Kelley! I'm having fun writing them and it takes away the stress of trying to figure out how to write an eloquent review. Ha. Plus, it's always good exercise to try and tighten anything you have to say in the writing world, right?
ReplyDeleteThis is such an awesome blog. Great design!
ReplyDeleteThat book sounds interesting. I'll have to look into it.
Thanks for stopping by David! Best of luck to you on your journey to publication with that awesome sounding story of a ghost, a princess, and a needle!
ReplyDeleteI love Cracked Up to Be! Parker is one of my favorite YA characters and Courtney Summers is a master at voice. Great review :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Linda! Funny you say that cause in my original version of this 30-word review the first line was:
ReplyDelete"I love being inside Parker's head. Summers=Master of Voice."
But alas, I had to take it out 'cause giving a thorough review in 30 words is tough. Fun, but definitely a bit tricky. I go through several versions before I post :-)
love these 30 word reviews.
ReplyDeletethis is my fave summers *even though i knwo it is prob her weakest* i just feel sentimental about it for some reason. just that pitch perfect voice O.o
Hey Nomes!
ReplyDeleteI've heard a lot of people say that about it being her weakest, I'm just not sure why they thought that? It couldn't have been in the writing itself, because I find her writing style to be awesome. It's one of the things I love about her as an author. And honestly, I liked this a lot more than Fall For Anything. I mean, the plot in FFA was probably better overall, but the voice in this book was what kept this as addictive reading for me. I'm guessing it might have been in the things that gave me problems: suspension of disbelief in how characters continued to react to her even though she was an utter and total bitch and the slightly abrupt ending?
Anywhoo...Thanks for stopping by!!! :D
xoxo
We never discussed this!! CUTB was my big reading mistake last year. Not that it was a mistake to read it, but that I read the ending before I was done. Big Mistake!! I spent the last half of the book thinking to myself why the hell is she doing this? Why didn't she just say something? And i really kind of hated her then because I didn't "get" her state of mind about having to be perfect all the time. I ruined it for myself. So, lesson learned. Don't read the ending before you're done! I think that the ending was rushed though, and I think that it wasn't CS's strongest book. To me her best is Some Girls Are. I just loved the tension in that book, which makes me think I should re-read it...
ReplyDeleteAngie!!! Why did you read the ending before you finished??? And I agree about SGA. Still my fave of hers too.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of 30 word reviews! I haven't read this book, but I just bought Some Girls Are, so I'm excited about that one. Looking forward to your review for Invincible Summer. I just read and reviewed that one last week.
ReplyDeleteOh, Rachel, you will LOVE SGA. Def the best of her works.
ReplyDelete