Apologies to Judith Viorst.

Have you ever gotten an Advanced Reading Copy of a book you were really excited for, only to have it fall flat? You open it up, eager with anticipation, only to find it somewhat uneven. As you continue reading, you notice that the flashback sections are much s..l..o..w..e..r than the present day sections. No worries, you think – maybe you have issues with flashbacks. Surely it will pick up! But it doesn’t. Then it starts to stray into an area of character development that feels too adult (not that kind of adult, just the kind that you think will be either incomprehensible or boring to the stated intended audience.) And then something super graphic and upsetting happens. Not that kind of graphic. In fact, the kind of graphic that may not actually bother a good number of the readers in the intended audience, but the kind that will really upset some of them, with little or no warning that it’s about to happen.

So you put the book down and go to read the reviews. Maybe it’s not just you? But it seems to be. Words like ‘gripping’ and ‘nuanced’ are being bandied about. It even has a star from one review periodical. Look, it’s not that there haven’t been books that I’ve read and hated that I thought were amazingly well written. This just isn’t one of them.

I’ve tried to pick it up twice since I stopped. I think I’m going to have to add it to my DNF pile. On to the next one.

P.S. – Don’t ask, I won’t tell you which one it was.