---Is it okay to hate a dead kid?
---Even if I loved him once?
---Even if he was my best friend?
---Is it okay to hate him for being dead?
Eighteen-year-old Vera's spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she's kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.
So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, or even the police. But will she emerge and clear his name? Does she even want to?
An edgy, gripping story, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising
This is the story of more than Vera Dietz. This is the story of Vera and Charlie – their friendship, his death, and the death of their friendship. This is the story of Vera and her father, Ken, and Vera’s mother. This is a story of past mistakes driving future actions, children fearing to follow in their parents’ footsteps, trying to be invisible and trying to live.
Oh, and this is a story about a Pagoda, inanimate though it may be, that watches over Vera, Charlie, Ken and the town.
Vera Dietz is a high school senior and full time Pizza Delivery Technician who’s desperately trying to not wind up a pregnant teenage stripper (her mother’s early path). She’s trying to drink through the grief and forget her best friend Charlie’s death and all the pain and confusion that came before and after.
Of course, this would be easier if he would just stop haunting her, but then so would a lot of things.
A.S. King has the amazing ability to create amazingly three-dimensional characters that capture the beauty of living even as they suffer the pain and the loneliness of being left behind. Vera’s wry humor in the face of her sorrow and the mystery and destruction that was Charlie is matched by her father’s journey to grow from his past, recover from his divorce, and raise the best daughter possible.
I knew that A.S. King could write wonderful prose and interesting characters thanks to her previous novel The Dust of 100 Dogs, but with Vera she captured the grieving process and my heart.
Recommended for adults and teens alike, this book definitely deserved to be a Michael L. Printz Honor Book for 2011.
You can purchase Please Ignore Vera Dietz from these fine retailers: Powells, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Your Local Indie, or you can pick it up at your local library.
Book Source: I picked this up at the fantastic branch of my local library. My library rocks!
1 comment:
Well, I'm sold!
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