Cracked Up to Be: Review

Title: Cracked Up to Be

Author: Courtney Summers

Release Date: December 2008

Published By: St. Martin's Griffin

Pages: 214

Goodreads Rating: 3.82 stars

Review: Perfect Parker Fadley is anything but perfect these days. She's lost all her perfect friends, dumped her perfect boyfriend, and is far out of reach of her perfect grades. Her parents and guidance counselors are on constant suicide watch with her and think she's playing games, but they don't know what happened - what she did. All she wants to do is get away from everyone, forget everything, and be alone. The problem is, no one will let her.

I adored the other two novels I've read by this author, so I was really looking forward to CRACKED UP TO BE. Unfortunately, it, well, wasn't all it cracked up to be. (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) It was technically well-written, as all her books are, but the story just didn't really do it for me. I don't mean to say that it was a bad book, because I still liked reading it, but I found myself continually disappointed.

First of all, it was near impossible to sympathize with Parker. I realize she's going through an incredible amount of difficult times, but this often was not enough to excuse her cruel and bratty behavior. She was insanely rude to her former friends, her parents, her teachers, her counselor, everyone, and to such an extent that I just couldn't look past it. Most of the time the time, I found myself intensely disliking her because she acted so hatefully.

The pacing also bothered me. The whole time, the book was building up to a big reveal, but when the great moment was finally unleashed, it was at the very end of the book. There wasn't enough time for Parker to fully react in light of this, nor enough for it all to truly sink in with the reader. The details to this part weren't even fully fleshed out, and this really bothered me. I had hoped that such a big part of the book would, well, occupy a relatively big part of the pages.

That's not to say that I didn't like every aspect of the novel, however. As has been proved in her other books, Courtney Summers is a master at spinning emotion through her words, and this one wasn't an exception. It's the mark of a great writer that even as I came close to hate for the protagonist, I still felt more than a modicum of sympathy for her. The emotions intertwined with the story reached through the characters to me.

Overall, CRACKED UP TO BE was ultimately disappointing, partially due to my high expectations. The protagonist bothered me to no end and the pacing was off. However, Summers' trademark emotional twists were seamlessly woven with the story despite these flaws, and I did still enjoy the book. Although this one was not for me, I loved her other two books enough to be eagerly awaiting her next novel.

Some Girls Are: Review

Title: Some Girls Are

Author: Courtney Summers

Release Date: January 2010

Published By: St. Martin's Griffin

Pages: 246

Goodreads Rating: 4.07 stars

Review: Regina used to be part of the all-girl clique that ruled the school until rumors about her and the queen bee's boyfriend started spreading around. Now she's fallen to the bottom of the social ladder with only fellow misfit Michael Hayden as a friend - except he doesn't think of her as even that while she feels something more for him. But can anything even happen between them before her ex-best friends break them both?

Be honest: that summary doesn't sound really appealing, does it? It seems like a regurgitated plot formula spat out of every chick lit book ever and almost overflowing with cliches and unoriginality. A clique? The "Fearsome Fivesome"? Fallen queen bee? Romance with an outcast? Check, check, check, and check. And yet, even though this sounds like it's shaping up to be a stale book with a terrible plot and boring characters, we're forgetting one thing: SOME GIRLS ARE was written by Courtney Summers.

And everything she writes is a masterpiece. This book is no exception. I don't know how she does it, but each word that comes from her fingers is beautiful and lovely and sad. I found myself fully empathizing with Regina's situation, and Summers' words weaved a net around me that kept me completely entranced in the story. Every time I put the book down, I still felt a hollow ache in my chest for the characters and couldn't wait to pick the book back up again.

The plot sounds almost superficial, yet this book was anything but. The bullying going on was horrifying and raw, because while everything going on was so bad as to almost be unbelievable, there was an air of reality about it. You know as you read it that things like this can and do happen in real life.

SOME GIRLS ARE is a paragon of raw, painful, and beautiful contemporary YA. It's pretty much impossible to pick up this book without getting completely sucked in for as long as it takes to finish, because even though it hurts to read, you just can't put it down. The ending was a bit on the weak side, but the strength of the rest of the book more than makes up for it. If you're a fan of Courtney Summers or just never got started on  her books, this is for you.

Fall for Anything: Review

Title: Fall for Anything
Author: Courtney Summers
Release Date: December 2010
Published By: St. Martin's Griffin
Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 230 pages
Goodreads Rating: 4.28 stars

Review: Eddie's father was a legendary photographer. Though he had long since faded out of the public eye, he was well-known in certain circles and found inspiration everywhere. He had a wife and daughter who loved him and his art to sustain him. And yet one day, he committed suicide. Eddie wants to know the answer to the most complex yet simple question: why? Culler Evans seems to know - he found messages left in abandoned places frequented by her father, and the two of them embark on a trip to discover the meaning behind them. Except her search for answers only seems to raise more questions.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of FALL FOR ANYTHING is the prose. Dark and beautiful, the words catch hold of you and refuse to let go. It's easy to sink into a dream-like state when reading the pure poetry of Summers' writing, until the gritty, honest truths she exposes slap you in the face. This is not the kind of book you flip through, but rather the kind you sit down and get lost in, savoring each sentence and letting the wonderfully confusing, beautifully ugly emotions flood through you.

The book is small, but don't be misled by its thin spine. The pages pack a heavy punch and wreak havoc with your feelings, making you as depressed, as grieving, as angry as Eddie. You become her on her quest for truth, searching for answers to the hardest question, even as you know it can only ever be impossible. You have her vulnerabilities, her strengths, and just like her, you fall in the dizzying spiral of dangerous love with Culler.

Eddie, Culler, Milo - these are all real characters, painfully so. They're not the shallow archetypes of grieving people so often shown in "issue" books, nor are they shrouds of gloom that float helplessly through their lives. Each one is fully developed and three-dimensional, dealing with their very different and very similar hurts in their own ways.

FALL FOR ANYTHING is a raw book. It's not pretty, nor is it the sort of thing you read when in need of a pick-me-up. This is the most honest kind of book in that it grabs harsh reality and slaps it on the page, undiluted. The writing is lyrical with gritty emotions that seep through every word. This was the first book by Courtney Summers I've read, but it won't be the last.