Archive for the ‘elizabeth scott’ Tag
Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott
Comments (9)
Love You Hate You Miss You
Elizabeth Scott
May 26, 2009
HarperTeen
288 pages
Young Adult Fiction
It’s been seventy-five days. Amy’s sick of her parents suddenly taking an interest in her.
And she’s really sick of people asking her about Julia. Julia’s gone now, and she doesn’t want to talk about it. They wouldn’t get it, anyway. They wouldn’t understand what it feels like to have your best friend ripped away from you.
They wouldn’t understand what it feels like to know it’s your fault.
Amy’s shrink thinks it would help to start a diary. Instead, Amy starts writing letters to Julia.
But as she writes letter after letter, she begins to realize that the past wasn’t as perfect as she thought it was—and the present deserves a chance too.
These are my least favorite kinds of reviews to write because I honestly have nothing particularly exciting or intelligent to say about this book. Love You Hate You Miss You was good. It was believable. I was sympathetic towards Amy and continuously hoped for her to feel like she deserved to have her own life in the aftermath of Julia’s death. Elizabeth Scott wrote the novel very well, in a way that teens will really understand and relate to.
But that’s about all I got. The book was good, it wasn’t great. I liked it, I did not love it. I will probably not remember much about this novel a few months from now. I think my issue with this one is that I assumed that it would be a very emotional read – it sure sounds like it would be, right? But I personally just didn’t connect with the story like I wanted to. I empathized with Amy and I rooted for her, definitely, but I just didn’t FEEL it. So that leads me to conclude that it’s something to do with me specifically, a connection that I personally missed with the novel. Which leads me to believe that you, dear reader, may have a totally different experience with this book.
So my conclusion is that Love You Hate You Miss You is a good book by an excellent author that I personally did not connect with in the way in which I was expecting to. So I’m recommending the book to YA fans with the caveat that I still need to figure out what about the book did not work for me….
More reviews -
Review: Living Dead Girl
Comments (23)
Title: Living Dead Girl
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Published: September 2, 2008
# of Pages: 176
ISBN: 978-1416960591
Rating: 5/5
“Alice” was abducted by Ray when she was ten years old. She is now fifteen, and he has held her captive ever since. He starves her so that she’ll remain small, skinny, and child-like, he rapes her on at least a daily basis, he physically abuses her any time she doesn’t do exactly as he wants – to the point of unconsciousness, and he promises to kill her entire family if she tells anyone or leaves him. “Alice” lives her entire life in a state of utter misery – put simply, she has no hope of getting out and is just waiting for death.
Living Dead Girl is a very short novel, written in sparse prose, that will absolutely haunt you long after completing it. I could not put this book down, but I badly wanted to because the content was so upsetting. The book made me feel so many different things – shock, anger, sadness, disappointment, nausea – yet I could not turn away, I read it in one sitting. Elizabeth Scott did such a terrific job making such a horrific subject into a compelling and interesting novel, and the writing was fantastic. It was raw, gritty, and graphic but not overly or unnecessarily so. I especially liked the style of writing – I really felt like I was in Alice’s head, understanding her, feeling what she was feeling, etc. It was so hard to read but truly amazing at the same time.
SO, I have two questions. First, for those of you who’ve read Living Dead Girl – I am DYING to discuss the ending. So please, comment away, what did you think of the ending? For everyone else – how do you feel about reading a book that causes extreme discomfort? Would you bother reading something that you know will be disturbing – even if you are pretty curious and/or interested in the subject matter?
More reviews -
Review: Perfect You
Comments (5)Perfect You – Elizabeth Scott
Kate Brown’s life is going downhill fast. Her father has quit his job to sell vitamins at the mall, and Kate is forced to work with him. Her best friend has become popular, and now she acts like Kate’s invisible.
And then there’s Will. Gorgeous, unattainable Will, whom Kate acts like she can’t stand even though she can’t stop thinking about him. When Will starts acting interested, Kate hates herself for wanting him when she’s sure she’s just his latest conquest.
Kate figures that the only way things will ever stop hurting so much is if she keeps to herself and stops caring about anyone or anything. What she doesn’t realize is that while life may not always be perfect, good things can happen — but only if she lets them….
Elizabeth Scott has once again given me a book that I couldn’t put down. As in Bloom, the characters in Perfect You are such relatable teenagers – they think, talk, and behave in ways that makes them feel so real to the reader. In this story in particular, I truly “got” Kate and I really felt for her throughout the book, as all this crap kept happening to her family, her friendships, and her relationships with guys (well, one guy). I have to admit, I did get a little tired of Kate feeling sorry for herself all the time – it started to get annoying about halfway through the book – but with her situation, I did feel sympathy for her.
I enjoyed Perfect You and definitely look forward to reading more from Elizabeth Scott in the future.
Review: Bloom
#2. Bloom – Elizabeth Scott
Lauren has a good life: decent grades, great friends, and a boyfriend every girl lusts after. So why is she so unhappy?
It takes the arrival of Evan Kirkland for Lauren to figure out the answer: She’s been holding back. She’s been denying herself a bunch of things because staying with her loyal and gorgeous boyfriend, Dave, is the “right” thing to do. After all, who would give up the perfect guy?
But as Dave starts talking more and more about their life together, planning a future Lauren simply can’t see herself in – and as Lauren’s craving for Evan and, moreover, who she is with Evan becomes all the more fierce – Lauren realizes she needs to make a choice… before one is made for her.
I really enjoyed reading this fantastic YA novel. It’s a short book and I finished it in one sitting because there’s so much that I liked about the book, I was simply not interested in putting it down. This is the first novel that I’ve read by Elizabeth Scott, and I can definitely see why she is such a popular author – she has great insight to teens’ lives, behaviors, and thoughts, and creates characters that are very relatable. Reminds me a bit of another popular YA author that I recently discovered, Sarah Dessen. If you’re a fan of Dessen, Scott is another great choice.
I loved the characters in Bloom. Lauren, of course, was very well-written, and as the main character and the focus of the book I really liked her. I also found myself feeling very sympathetic to Katie, Lauren’s best friend, and she was most definitely my second favorite character. I felt like the characters were absolutely three-dimensional and all added different elements to the book, all interesting and necessary to the progression of the story – and I liked that other characters besides Lauren were well-developed. This isn’t the “best” story for teens because Lauren basically cheats on her boyfriend Dave with Evan for about a third of the book… but I think that, in high school life, the story is somewhat realistic. Teens don’t always do the right things, and especially when you’re so young and falling in love for the first time, you’re usually not thinking too clearly. So although the story wasn’t at all a lesson in morals, I think a lot of teens will relate to Lauren’s situation and root for her… no matter what choice she makes in the long run.
I highly recommend Bloom by Elizabeth Scott and I look forward to reading more by her in the future!
Other reviews -
RSS - Posts
