Review- Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King

This is another book that I reviewed for Eve's Fan Garden. It's a phenomenal book and I wanted to cross-post here so that I can get the word out. If you haven't spent time with Vera yet, get on it, you won't be dissapointed.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz
By: A.S. King
Publisher: Knopf books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 12, 2010
Author Website

Summary:
Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.

So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to? (from goodreads.com)

Review:
I love this book. I got it out from the library, but you can bet it will be in my bag the next time I'm at the bookstore. It's ownable. It gets under your skin and makes you uncomfortable and yet, you connect with the characters and you really want all of them to be okay in the end. Even if one of those people is already dead.

King is sneaky with her writing, she doesn't come at you from one point of view or even one point in time. She circles around you and before you know it you've reached the end. She's able to take serious situations and make you laugh, even when it might be more appropriate to cry. In this book we see events unfold through the eyes of Vera, a pizza delivery technician who is dealing with the loss of her best friend and what to do with the information she knows about that night, Charlie, her very much dead but still around best friend, Vera's Dad, who is struggling to be a good parent and deal with a wife who has been gone for years, and the Pagoda, local icon/hangout. I think the back cover of the book sums it up pretty nicely...

Vera: Clear Charlie's name, get over his death & help Dad with all his Mom stuff.

Charlie: Haunt Vera until she talks, then rest in peace.

Ken Dietz: Get Vera through high school & get on with my life, or what's left of it.

Pagoda: Sit here for another hundred years watching people do stupid crap.

In those four sentences we see the path that they are on, what the end goal is, what they want. Through the story we see how they got there. It's a tangled story that deals with some hefty issues. Child abuse, alcoholism, pedophilia, mental disorders, ptsd, what it means to be a good parent and what it means to be a good person. We see Vera try to deal with the death of her best friend Charlie and the loss that occured months earlier when he betrayed her. Both Charlie and Vera were trying to break the chain, to make a new destiny for themselves. Throughout the story, which includes memories from Charlie and Vera's life together as best friends, we see them stumble, sometimes spectacularly. What we hope is that Vera will come out of it better and smarter and most importantly, healed. Luckily King writes with a sense of humor that doesn't make light of the issues at hand, but does make them easier to read.

I don't want to give anything away- so I will leave it at that. It's about pain and loss, hope and healing. I guarentee you will be thinking about it days after you finish reading.

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine- head to her site to see what everyone else is eagerly awaiting.

This week I'm waiting on A.S. King's Please Ignore Vera Dietz

18-year-old Vera's spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie. And over the years she's kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone. Will she emerge and clear his name? Does she even want to? (from as-king.com)

Rochester Teen Book Fest

So my poor blog has been suffering this week. It's not that I'm neglecting it, it's just that I've been really busy doing some awesome book stuff on another site I work on Eve's Fan Garden. So rather then post in both places- I'm going to take the lazy man's route and do a bunch of links- if something catches your eye, please click away and check out some great stuff that I did in for the Greater Rochester Teen Book Fest. The festival brought together 26 authors and over 4000 attendee's for a day of panels and presentations, as well as a great autograph session. My inner fan girl was in heaven!

Recap of the fest and interview with the fabulous Lisa McMann (Wake trilogy): click here

Interviews with A.S. King (The Dust of 100 Dogs) and Ben Mikaelsen (Touching Spirit Bear): click here

Interview with Lisa Schroeder (I Heart You, You Haunt Me): click away!

I still have one more interview to post. Simone Elkeles (How to Ruin series, Perfect Chemistry) was nice enough to sit down for a quick interview, which turned into a great 1/2 hour conversation. I'm still transcribing my notes- hopefully this interview will be up on Sunday at the very latest, so stay tuned!

The Dust of 100 Dogs

The Dust of 100 Dogs
by A.S. King
http://www.as-king.com/

In the late seventeenth century, famed teenage pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping the pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with the dust of one hundred dogs, dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body -- with her memories intact.

Now she's a contemporary American teenager and all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica. (from goodreads.com)

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This was a great book. This was another one that I grabbed for the book fest and to be honest I chose it on title alone, well that and the fact it had pirates. It just seemed like a completely original concept and that is always fun to see. King handles what could be a really complicated structure in a way that kept it all flowing and organized and it made for an exciting read.

The book follows two stories about the same person- first is Emer, living in Ireland during the time Cromwell invaded, she is pushed out, her family killed and she is sold as a slave/wife by relatives. She escapes to the Caribbean where she becomes a pirate and weilds increadible power on the sea. She finds her lost love and then loses him again. Right about that time she is also cursed with the "dust of 100 dogs" and has to live 100 lives as a dog before she can return as a human. Which is where Saffron comes in. Emer is reborn with all her memories in tact as a contemporary teen in a poor area of Pennsylvania, who just wants to escape back to the Caribbean and find her lost treasure.

Both stories are great and contain a little bit of something for everyone. Neither Emer or Saffron are terribly well off, but both are survivors and increadibly strong characters. There is action and buried treasure, and of course a little romance. I also really appreciated that a ton of research was done on this book and the history of both Ireland and the Caribbean was spot on. Good books tell a phenomenal story, but really great books teach you something as well, and I think this book accomplished that feat. Not only did you get an adventure, but you also learned a bit about Ireland, what life was like for those who were poor and pushed out, as well as what pirateering was like at that time.

I also really enjoyed the idea that not only was Emer hit with the dust of 100 dogs, but so was everyone else in her immediate vacinity at the time. So there were some great interconnecting storylines and plots that tied it all together in the end.

I'd say that this is one book to grab and read. It's exciting and fun and is genuinely a really great read.

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On another side note- I also had the pleasure of meeting A.S. King at the book fest this past weekend and she is amazing. She is increadibly nice and funny and gave a great presentation with Lisa McMann and Robin Brande about High School Humiliation and how all those terrible moments can make for wonderful and realistic books. She also graciously agreed to an interview, which will be psoted on Eve's Fan Garden in the next few days!