Review: In Paris with You by Clémentine Beauvais

In Paris With You by Clémentine Beauvais
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I didn't like this story much at all. It's written in verse, which is not something I've ever read - except maybe in school. That didn't bother me all that much. It made for a quick read and I thought it flowed well.

What I didn't like were the characters. I didn't think it was much of a love story at all. Eugene's a horrible jerk. He and Tatiana first met when they were teenagers, after being friends for a while, Tatiana told him she had feelings for him. He rejected her, then did something fairly awful, involving her sister and her sister's boyfriend - who was also his best friend - and it's ten years before they see each other again. They run into each other one morning, and Eugene becomes obsessed with Tatiana. Most of the story is all in his head, what he wants, what he assumes. Tatiana seems a little more sensible about the situation, but then the story took a dive when she mentions being interested in someone to her sister. Her sister then goes on about how she must do anything for love. It doesn't make sense at all because ten years earlier, this same sister completely ridiculed her then boyfriend because he was too in love - which is exactly what she's encouraging with Tatiana.

After reading this book, I learned it was a modern take of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin - which in not something with which I am at all familiar, but it's classic Russian literature. That explains why the characters behave the way they do - they follow the original story, even having the same names, but I still didn't enjoy the story. The characters just seemed like jerks. It doesn't work in a modern setting, at least not for me.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley.


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Review: Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this at first. The format is a little weird - it's like one big interview, so it's all just quotes for example:

Daisy: I liked doing drugs and hated people telling me what to wear.
Jon: Daisy had big eyes and little skirts, and very long legs. Everyone looked at her when she entered the room. They couldn't help it.
Daisy: I didn't care it people looked at me.
Karen: I wished Daisy didn't put so much focus on her body.

(None of those are actual quotes, just an example of the format. Other than a few italicized paragraphs at the beginning of some chapters, the entire book is like this.)

I nearly gave up on this book early into it. Not only did the format bother me, but I got so tired of reading about how beautiful, and wonderful, and gifted Daisy was. She tells you how great she is and then everyone being interviewed talked about how great she was. And all she did was lots and lots of drugs.

But I got used to the format and eventually the story included people other than Daisy. Daisy was by far my least favorite character in this story. At no point in this story did I like her. But I liked the other people in the band. Karen was my favorite. I really liked the relationship between Billy and his wife Camilla. That felt real. The story won me over, by about the 30 or 40% mark, I couldn't put the book down.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in stories about rock bands, especially those during the 70s and 80s. It's fiction, but I felt it could describe what a lot of bands went through.



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Review: Speak by Leslie Halse Anderson

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book a lot. It's the story of a high school student who is dealing with a traumatic event, and feels unable to talk about what happened. The story is about how she copes, or at times, doesn't cope, and eventually finds the strength to speak up.

My students and I were moved out of our classroom a couple of week ago as a result of a competition our school was hosting. I took my things to the library, planning to do some work, but finding myself in a room surrounded by books, not much work is going to get done.

I've been hearing a lot about this book because the author recently wrote a follow up called Shout. Speak was written twenty or so years ago, but that was a time when I wasn't reading young adult. I was in my twenties, and didn't become a teacher until my 30s. Even now, I don't read a lot of young adult because I spend all day with young adults, my reading time is my escape from them. But on that particular morning, I noticed the book prominently displayed as part of the library's March Madness competition, so I picked it up to look at it. Started reading and kept reading. (This was during my planning period, no worries, I wasn't neglecting my students.) When my students arrived, I asked the librarian if I could check out the book - I really wasn't sure if teachers were allowed to check out books, but I learned that we can.

My biggest concern as a teacher, was the way the student perceived school and her teachers. I started asking my students if they'd read the book, and if they had, do they view school the way the student in the book does? "Do students really think teachers don't care?" - I kept asking my students, even if they hadn't read the book. One student said, "Yeah, we think that about most teachers, but not you." (Well, I am the art teacher - the one teacher in the book that shows some compassion and understanding.) "What about cliques? Does that exist at our school? Is this something that's here that I'm not seeing because I never leave the art hall?" and I got a resounding "No, our school isn't like that. That school was bad, we don't have that here." And that made me feel a little better.

I didn't finish the book that day, and it remained in my classroom for the next week. Students kept noticing the book on my desk, and asking about it. So I would tell them what had happened so far - and then they started telling me things: "Oh, that happened to my friend at a party," one student said. A boy asked, "Did they arrest the guy?" "No, she won't tell anybody." Boy: "Why not?" And then it was explained to him that no one believes girls when they tell, and the girls are often told they wanted it or was in some way their fault. And these boys seemed so confused.

I'm glad I read this book, because while I think I understand my students and I believe they know they can talk to me, it made me realize that there are always things happening in their lives that we don't understand, that they can't talk about. This book is powerful in that it shows students they aren't alone, that bad things do happen, but that a person can survive and overcome those things.


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