This was a super quick read, and I think a lot of it had to do with Emmy's voice. I liked it, but it tended to come off quite a bit younger than she was supposed to be. 15 is always like that for me in YA, either the author writes the character as much older or much younger than my personal idea of a 15-year-old, but that's also just a personal opinion.Overall this was a good concept, if the execution was somewhat lacking. However, for a total of two nights of time it took to read it, it earned its 4 stars. In spite of the poignancy of this novel’s theme, there is a curious flatness to the protagonist’s recital of her efforts to deal with her best friend’s death. The dialogue takes place mainly in her head, as the reader gets to see all her thoughts unspooling in her mind. That means a lot of repetition to get the point across ( e.g., “I am a horrible person. A horrible horrible person.”) and not nearly enough input from other people. There’s simply not enough in this book to avoid the insularity and dullness that can occur from being forced on the treadmill of the thoughts of a self-involved adolescent. The inclusion of deceased spirits interacting with Emmy only points out the grayness of her life since her contact with them is a lot more meaningful than that she shares with the living. With the former, she actually has conversations, while the latter only get to hear her drone on and on about how she’s “fine” or “okay” after Kim dies. This is not a book to return to and I felt a profound relief to set it aside when I was done with it.
Do You like book The End Or Something Like That (2014)?
I just can't. This reads like a MG novel and is not even slightly comparable to Zarr or Chbosky.
—Lala
