I normally don’t write reviews but I just felt that I had to explain my huge disappointment with this book.First, I have to say that I LOVED Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. Perhaps that’s partly why I found the third installment in the series so disappointing. But there is more to it, I assure you! Indeed, when I began reading Charmed Thirds I had huge expectations but I as went through the first 50 pages I resigned myself to the fact that this wouldn’t be a 5-star book for me. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. As the story evolved, though, I was really hooked and when Jessica and Marcus broke it off I was on the verge of tears. I was mad at Jessica, of course, for doing what she did but I kind of understood her as well. She was young, scared and confused with her feelings so she made a mistake. I admired Marcus for not being ready to throw away their relationship just yet. But, unfortunately, it is all downhill from here. Jessica returns to school and has to face everything she’s done while she still doesn’t know where she and Marcus stand. She is even more confused by his one-word postcards that just leave here hanging. She almost sleeps with a married man!!! Then comes the message from Marcus, who meanwhile has gone to some weird “gay cowboy camp” in total isolation, that their relationship is wrong and loses it. She stops writing to Hope, doesn't contact her other friends and eventually finds a rebound guy. And she sleeps with him and then with someone else. In the end, she and Marcus are reunited but I wasn’t as happy for them as I thought I would be.I have some major problems with this book. First, it's the expanse of time that passes throughout the whole book. After Marcus ends it with Jessica we are thrown into her last TWO years in college. How can you summarize two years of somebody’s life in what? 200 pages. We are introduced to a couple events and here Jessica goes into her last semester. It just ruins the college experience for me as finishing high school this year. And another thing, even though this is a diary we don’t get to see Jessica’s emotions so much it’s like she can write about others but not about herself. I expected her to be heartbroken after everything with Marcus but after a couple of pages she stops mentioning him at all. She doesn’t move on she just shuts herself away.Secondly, I am a little disappointed in Marcus. Surely, he had gone through some pretty bad things in life and needed some time alone to think it all over and find who he really was. But two years? Two years without contacting Jessica, that’s too much for me. Thirdly, I am really annoyed with Jessica. She had always dreamed of escaping Pineville to go and live here life free of morons and people who don’t understand her and when she does she doesn’t appreciate it. She waits for everything to be handed to her like some spoiled brat. She doesn’t go out of her way to try to understand others and always thinks she knows best. She doesn’t appreciate her friends and her sister, she takes them for granted. Honestly, most of the times I liked secondary characters such as Brittany, Bridget and Pepe more than I liked her.Last, I am disappointed with the Jessica-Marcus reunion. Yes, time has passed and wounds have healed but it’s just too easy. If I were Jessica, I wouldn’t have let Marcus back into my life so easily. For a person who talks so much, Jessica doesn’t question him for his absence or silence for TWO years. It’s like good you’re back, let’s f**k. Marcus also doesn’t put too much effort in trying to apologize either. It was like we are soul mates and we belong together but we didn't make up earlier because the book would have ended.All in all, this book was a Notso engaging installment but I am not ready to give up on the series just yet.
Against all expectations, I am smitten with the Jessica Darling series. The series is probably considered “chick-lit” by most (a term I detest due to the gendered notions of literature it evokes but that I’m using due to its popularity). But while it’s ostensibly chick-lit, there are no treatises on shopping or one-night stands. It is not brainless and vapid. Instead, it flips the chick-lit tropes. It’s actually about a girl trying to find herself in a world that wants nothing more than for her to be a vapid chick.In Charmed Thirds Jessica goes to college. But her college experience is not the “wooo hoooo let’s get drunk and have the best four years of our lives” experience. In fact, most of her time at college is uncovered. McCafferty has chosen to record these four years only during Jessica’s winter and summer breaks, thankfully leaving the drudge work of college to our imaginations. What I love about Charmed Thirds is that it does not sugarcoat college. Instead it captures the uncertainty of the American college experience. It is full of malaise and the endless worries of millenials such as “What will I do?” And “Will I be good enough?” It sounds depressing, and it very occasionally is, but Jessica’s charming voice carried me through the story. Jessica is straight-up hilarious. I laughed at loud at some of her predicaments and groaned at some of the others. Her hyperaware, overdescriptive style will be appreciated by any young neurotic. I also sympathized with her relationship with Marcus. Their relationship is a cornerstone of the series, and my oh my, in this book, it becomes even more deliciously complex. Marcus is a delectable creature in the sphere of YA boys, though his entire appeal is the fact that he resembles his fellow YA love interests in no way. Sometimes I wanted to reach into the pages and shake Marcus because he’s so frustrating. But while Marcus is difficult to understand sometimes, he really loves Jessica and his witticisms keep the relationship interesting. Often authors who torture their characters before finally uniting them in love struggle to keep the relationship interesting after all the angst dies. Luckily, Megan McCafferty is not all authors. She shows how college breaks relationships. She shows how even two well-matched individuals can treat each other poorly. With Marcus and Jessica she’s created a messy, imperfect relationship that is brutally honest. I also like the irony of Jessica’s situation in this book. Jessica, who spends so much time judging people for their seemingly incomprehensible relationships, finds herself in a relationship that is occasionally incomprehensible to her and largely incomprehensible to everyone else. But she loves Marcus and the relationship works for her. And that’s all that matters.Honestly the audience for these books might be small. There’s not much escapism here. Jessica’s life kinda sucks. Others might dislike Jessica for being overanalytical and cynical and thus incapable of happiness. But there is a small sliver of young women, including me of course, who will see themselves in Jessica. And in a time when it seems like you don’t know anything—about your career, friends, love life, who you are—her plights will be a source of comfort.
Do You like book Charmed Thirds (2007)?
The first question that came to my mind after I finished this was: Is that it?Where the hell is the humour of the first two books? Why the hell is Jessica having more hot and cold moments than that guy in Katy Perry's Hot and Cold video? I don't get it.The first book was amazing, the second was...not so amazing, but it was hilarious, so I'm okay. But what the hell do I say about this one? Jessica did so many anti-Jessica things (I won't reveal them, because almost all are spoilers).But ya know, that's Jessica for you. I've been in her brain for more than thousand pages now, and I still don't get her, and one time during this book, even she admitted to not understanding herself at times.
—Bookaholic (reads every mortal thing)
Original post at One More PageOne of my favorite books back in college was Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty, so when I heard that there will be a next book for Jessica Darling (even if I was really content with how the second book ended), I was thrilled. Of course, being the paperback lover and not having my own income back when it was released, I didn't get it until I just quit my last job. You'd think I'd read it immediately, too, but no. I ended up reading, stopping, reading, and finally just stopping, until I lost my copy in the 2009 Ondoy/Ketsana flood that almost engulfed our house. Before I knew it, there was the fourth and fifth book, but I never got to read the third so my Jessica Darling world only existed until she graduated high school.Well, I finally got around to it shortly before I left for Europe, thanks to that complete collection ebook that I bought a few months back. Jessica Darling is now in college, and you'd think things would be easier for her, right? After all, she's out of Pineville! But of course it's not. Charmed Thirds brings us through Jessica's college years as she gets into the dream internship that turns into a not-so-dream, finds new "best" friends who may or may not be like Hope, and falls into other scrapes that go in the way of her relationship with the sometimes no-contact boyfriend, Marcus.Just as when I tried to read this the first time, I actually stopped right in the middle of Charmed Thirds before picking it up again. I was in Europe then so I didn't feel like reading Jessica's adventures. I have to admit that somewhere along the way, I just got...disinterested. Jessica still is witty and hilarious, and there were some heartwarming moments in the book, but I felt the same way as when I reread Sloppy Firsts. Jessica is so angsty! She thinks a little too much and sometimes, I can't help but think that she makes her own life miserable with all that thinking. Not that the other people around her aren't as strange or dysfunctional, and that I'm discounting the truly sucky things that happened around and to her...but I can't relate. I guess it's because I had a pretty okay college life, and I'm normally a happy person? Or maybe because I'm past all that already? Jessica is such an overthinker that I couldn't really keep up with her. I also had a hard time with reading Marcus and Jessica's seemingly non-relationship. It's hard to decide who was at fault here because they both equally had strange ways of dealing and working with their relationship. And honestly, it's not really something that I want. No matter how Marcus made up for it in the end, and no matter how sweet and sensitive he may seem. Even if that's the part of the book that made me go aww and like this book (But not as much as I liked Second Helpings).Not that Charmed Thirds isn't fun to read, because like I said, Jessica is still witty and hilarious and her encounters with her Pineville people were also fun and cringe-worthy at times. Even her parents started becoming more interesting (especially when Jessica walked in on them -- oh the horror!). I thought Jessica was still brave for facing the things she did and sticking it out until the end. Her decisions aren't always wise, but she's definitely tough even if she doesn't know it.Maybe this is how growing up really is. It's never clean-cut or organized thing, right? It's always messy, and even the smartest ones don't go unscathed.Oh, and of course I'll still read Fourth Comings. I'm in this until the end -- I want to see where Jessica Darling ends up. :)
—Tina
Finally free of dull Pineville, Jessica makes her way to prestigious Columbia University full of wide-eyed enthusiasm. Well as much enthusiasm Jessica is capable of when her boyfriend Marcus is also heading off to college, just all the way across the country in California. And once again, Jessica, who over-thinks everything, begins to over-think their odd relationship. Especially after Marcus begins sending cryptic one-word postcards does she feel like losing her sanity. But financial and family troubles quickly send Jessica into college-overdrive mode and there isn't much room left in her life for anything else.If I was mildly annoyed with Second Helpings, then Charmed Thirds frustrated me to no end. For the first half of the novel Jessica spends all her time complaining to Marcus that she doesn't want to be 'that girl' who doesn't have a life without her boyfriend (BUT SHE IS). And then the second half is spent complaining about their lack of communication - but doesn't really do anything about it - and that she's too poor. I had truly been looking forward to Jessica's descriptions of college life and the people she meets, yet Megan McCafferty completely blanks out that entire period of Jessica's life. Charmed Thirds covers her entire three years at Columbia yet never once do we hear about it. The narrative simply stops and starts around each school holiday break or return to Pineville. Not exactly what I was hoping for. Maybe it was the almost complete lack of Marcus in this installment but I also became seriously disillusioned with the Game Master. Perhaps it was Jessica's narrative influencing me, but I was so annoyed with his vow of silence and his choice to go to 'cowboy camp' that allowed him no outside contact for two years -- yet never having the decency to break up with Jessica. Grrr. I'm sorry, but little to no communication over an almost three year period does not a relationship make.
—Michelle
