Sweethearts by Sara Zarr (Book Review)
My Rating: 2/5 Stars
Here are ten things you might want to know before you read this novel...
1. This is not a love story.
2. This is not a story that involves a lot of depth.
3. It does however involve death (kind of...)
4. Jennifer and Jenna are the same person (just to clear that up).
5. You will probably spend a couple of minutes scratching your head when you're done with this one.
6. And then spend a couple more minutes flipping back through to make sure you didn't miss the last chapter or something.
7. There isn't an epilogue so don't even bother looking for that.
8. It's a pretty short read, so unless you're super busy or something, even if you don't like it, you won't be wasting too much time.
9. We all have that one friend that is basically Steph, or basically Katy.
10. Okay, so I can't really think of a number 10, but I didn't want to make this a list of 9 things you should know before you read this book. It doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?
I'm going to keep this short because I just accidentally deleted my favourite book review I've ever written and I'm incredibly upset.
And now I'm over it. Ironically that's also how I felt after reading this book. I started it wholeheartedly wishing that this book would be as good as the sugar cookie (is that what it is?) on the front cover looks, but I'm sorry to say I was utterly disappointed. Sara Zarr is a good writer, don't get me wrong, but everything about this book just made me want to scream.
There was so much potential here, and I was waiting for Sara to start developing everything. I was upset that she chose to go down the melodramatic broken up sub-plot (that actually basically turns out to the main plot) that needs to be pieced together by the reader route, with the whole story about her ninth birthday and Cameron and his dad and running away from him, etc. To be honest I'm still a little confused about exactly what happened. I have an inkling but if anyone would like to help me out on that one, I would be pleased to accept your help.
I also thought this novel would've been much more brilliant written from Cameron's point of view. We never really got past the surface of Cameron's life. He was mysterious, always leaving and coming back and never saying good-bye and always having a good reason for it too. There was just too much going on. One second Jenna is talking about her failing relationship with Ethan, the next second she's talking about failing trigonometry and then Cameron randomly shows up, and starts living in her house.
I seriously appreciate Sara's effort and I think Jenna's whole story, you know going from overweight and lonely to skinny and "popular" before finally finding a good medium was actually quite touching and was probably my favourite part of the whole novel.
Overall, this book was okay. I can't say it was terrible because it wasn't but it wasn't good either. I feel kind of indifferent towards it. I wanted to read it and I did, and now I'm done and well, that's all really.
1. This is not a love story.
2. This is not a story that involves a lot of depth.
3. It does however involve death (kind of...)
4. Jennifer and Jenna are the same person (just to clear that up).
5. You will probably spend a couple of minutes scratching your head when you're done with this one.
6. And then spend a couple more minutes flipping back through to make sure you didn't miss the last chapter or something.
7. There isn't an epilogue so don't even bother looking for that.
8. It's a pretty short read, so unless you're super busy or something, even if you don't like it, you won't be wasting too much time.
9. We all have that one friend that is basically Steph, or basically Katy.
10. Okay, so I can't really think of a number 10, but I didn't want to make this a list of 9 things you should know before you read this book. It doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?
I'm going to keep this short because I just accidentally deleted my favourite book review I've ever written and I'm incredibly upset.
And now I'm over it. Ironically that's also how I felt after reading this book. I started it wholeheartedly wishing that this book would be as good as the sugar cookie (is that what it is?) on the front cover looks, but I'm sorry to say I was utterly disappointed. Sara Zarr is a good writer, don't get me wrong, but everything about this book just made me want to scream.
There was so much potential here, and I was waiting for Sara to start developing everything. I was upset that she chose to go down the melodramatic broken up sub-plot (that actually basically turns out to the main plot) that needs to be pieced together by the reader route, with the whole story about her ninth birthday and Cameron and his dad and running away from him, etc. To be honest I'm still a little confused about exactly what happened. I have an inkling but if anyone would like to help me out on that one, I would be pleased to accept your help.
I also thought this novel would've been much more brilliant written from Cameron's point of view. We never really got past the surface of Cameron's life. He was mysterious, always leaving and coming back and never saying good-bye and always having a good reason for it too. There was just too much going on. One second Jenna is talking about her failing relationship with Ethan, the next second she's talking about failing trigonometry and then Cameron randomly shows up, and starts living in her house.
I seriously appreciate Sara's effort and I think Jenna's whole story, you know going from overweight and lonely to skinny and "popular" before finally finding a good medium was actually quite touching and was probably my favourite part of the whole novel.
Overall, this book was okay. I can't say it was terrible because it wasn't but it wasn't good either. I feel kind of indifferent towards it. I wanted to read it and I did, and now I'm done and well, that's all really.
