The Long Vacation

...Very, *very* long vacation.

So I thought I'd come back and make up for lost time. Between a school, theatre, and work schedule things like this get put on hold, unfortunately.

Most recently I've been going for the not so classic novels. They are a guilty pleasure, these darn fast-reads, and I do find some enjoyable ones. Ann Brashares' The Last Summer (of You & Me) is indeed such a book. Over all, I really enjoyed it. It's gotten a lot of bad reviews simply because it's not The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but having not read any of those books this was my first experience with Ms. Brashares.

The opening chapter was a little rough. I had to re-read a few sections as she switched narrative and provoked a few flashbacks with little warning. However, once I settled in to her writing style I was able to dive in really well.

A warning: don't read it when you're looking for something lighthearted. It's not really dark, but it does start putting a cloud over your head, at least that was my experience. Also, I hope you don't mind the word "perverse" because it seems to be her favorite in this book.

A complaint: one of the main characters, Riley, seems rather underdeveloped in a way. It's not a huge complaint because it lends a certain angelic quality to Riley that ends up being purposeful, but I did feel like there was a lot of potential to a character that just came off as a person with layers of godliness and no real humanity.

Over all, The Last Summer was not the best book I've ever read, but it was definitely worth a shot and a good afternoon read.

I'll include another book here because I read it again for the third time and I am still impressed by it. Sleeping Freshman Never Lie by David Lubar is not strictly literature, but it does reference to some good stuff. The book itself is about an out-of-place reader in his first year of high school. It's the basic "finding who you are" story, but it's at least done with a degree of entertainment.

Look for my next post! I'm currently reading about the history, practices, and cultural differences of obituaries and I can't wait to talk about it!