Review: Me, Him, Them, and It

Me, Him, Them, and It

by Caela Carter

Book Description:  

When Evelyn decided to piss off her parents with a bad reputation, she wasn't planning to ruin her valedictorian status. She also wasn't planning to fall for Todd-the guy she was just using for sex. And she definitely wasn't planning on getting pregnant. When Todd turns his back on her, Evelyn's not sure where to go. Can a distant mother, a cheating father, an angry best friend, and a (thankfully) loving aunt with adopted daughters of her own help Evelyn make the heart-wrenching decisions that follow?

 

Review:

This book was just what I needed to get me out of my mini reading funk. I think I'd read too many fantasy based book recently, so I knew I needed some good realistic fiction. Me, Him, Them, and It fit the bill perfectly!

 

Carter depicts a teenage girl who makes a mistake and then must pay the consequences for it. I really liked how Evelyn was not just some "bad" girl who accidentally winds up pregnant...she is a future valedictorian rebelling against her parents in the worst possible way. She felt like a hugely well-rounded character to me. In fact, I loved most of the characters. They were flawed and realistic and even if some might not have been fully developed, they at least represented a really varied cast of characters.

 

Seeing the confused and scared way that Evie reacts over the nine months felt "real." I couldn't imagine what I would have done in that situation and I thought Carter did an excellent job conveying all the emotional turmoil that erupted in Evie's life. This is a book that pulls no punches emotionally. I cried my way through the ending. Heartbroken, awed, and then optimistically, yet cautiously joyous.

 

I found myself comparing this book to Holly Cupala's Tell Me a Secret. They both cover an unexpected teen pregnancy in a very realistic and emotionally evocative way. If you liked that one, check this one out...and if you like this one, check out that one next!

Review: The Future of Us

The Future of Us
by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Book Description:
Josh and Emma are about to discover themselves--fifteen years in the future

It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long--at least, up until last November, when everything changed. Things have been awkward ever since, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD-ROM in the mail, his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto Facebook . . . but Facebook hasn't been invented yet. Josh and Emma are looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.

Their spouses, careers, homes, and status updates--it's all there. And every time they refresh their pages, their futures change. As they grapple with the ups and downs of what their lives hold, they're forced to confront what they're doing right--and wrong--in the present.

Review:
To be totally honest, I did not really like this book. I had expected to love it, but it just never really worked for me. In the first couple of chapters I was totally into the whole nostalgia thing...I loved flashing back to my high school self...but as the story moved on, it just never grabbed me.

I thought the concept was really cool, but I didn't really connect to either character. The plot didn't seem to move enough for me. I liked the ending, but knew exactly where it was going almost from the start.

I just felt, eh, about most of this book. :/
Did any of you love it?