20 Followers
66 Following
thefictionconniption

The Fiction Conniption

Proud book geek and YA enthusiast. Can also find me at my other book blog home www.tyngasreviews.com

 

 

 

Currently reading

Insomnia
J.R. Johansson
Requiem
Lauren Oliver
The Dead-Tossed Waves
Carrie Ryan
Unravel Me

Death and the Girl Next Door

Death and the Girl Next Door - Darynda Jones Review can also be found on my blog: www.thefictionconniption.com---I had truly high hopes for this book. When I was told by the publisher that they would send me a copy for review, I literally told just about everyone I knew - I was so very excited to be able to read Darynda Jones' take on a young adult novel. What makes me so sad to say, is that I was incredibly disappointed. Let me explain. There were a few things wrong here. Firstly, I could tell it was the author's first venture into young adult. It was too formulaic. The slightly socially outcast heroine, the small group of rag-tag friends, the lack of any realistic feeling of a teenage life - etc. It felt a lot like someone trying to write a young adult voice. And it just came off really skin deep to me. I didn't connect at all to the characters. Another issue I had was that nothing really happened. And then when something finally DID happen, the main character was just too busy being an "average teenager" or whatever was trying to be portrayed, that she just got on my nerves for being so clueless. Like - it's pretty obvious what's happening here, and I just felt myself wanting to smack her up the back of her head and tell her to stop acting so clueless. In true Darynda Jones fashion, there were some seriously funny one-liners in there. It wasn't an awful book. But for me, it just didn't measure up to the platform that recent books have taken this 'young adult' genre to. It felt like what was expected from a young adult book 5 years ago. Not what you expect today in a young adult book - which is a breathless story, something that makes you think, something that pulls you in, etc. At least that's what I expect from my young adult fiction these days. And I've read enough books recently to know that there are plenty out there that are willing to live up to this expectation. Unfortunately, Death and the Girl Next Door just didn't happen to be one of these.