“I very much enjoyed main character Elizabeth and her pen-pal friendship with Christina. Despite the fact that Elizabeth believes herself to be failing at being a teenager, her self-doubt, uncertainty, and awkwardness are in fact very typical for this stage of life, and Ms. Moriarty did a great job conveying that. I was also impressed with her ability to draw me into the world of Elizabeth and her heart-wrenching discoveries about her friendship with Celia, who's not exactly the model best friend. Most of all, I like that both Elizabeth and Christina can realize through their friendship that people do grow and change, and that it isn't the end of the world to grow apart from someone you love--nor is it betrayal to realize what's important to you (and embrace it!). Though of course it is this author's "thing" to tell her stories entirely in letters, memos, and other written documents, I actually found that aspect of this book to be the least realistic. Being that every letter (written by teenagers, mostly) was flawless in spelling and also there were letters conveying Elizabeth's thoughts in diary-type format WHILE she was running a marathon, I had to wonder if these written documents actually would exist and HOW. Regardless, I related to Elizabeth quite a bit despite not being very much like her myself, and that's one sign of good writing.”
swankivy wrote this review Sunday, October 18 2009.
(
reply |
permalink )
