I'm not much of a Young Adult reader. I have been known to enjoy YA novels with interesting, mature (yeah, I know that's not necessarily the No rating
I'm not much of a Young Adult reader. I have been known to enjoy YA novels with interesting, mature (yeah, I know that's not necessarily the point) characters who pull me into the story. And while Sydney Ciara was a typical college freshman, I found her to be a little too immature for my taste. But it is my taste so I'm not going to rate the book low. That wouldn't be fair to the author.
Even though it's been a long time since I was a college freshman, Sydney's experiences brought back quite a few memories. She is a pretty typical college freshman. Her bff is going to a different school, so she knows no one on campus, except for some Twitter exchanges with her roommate. And she spends quite a lot of time in the beginning trying to connect with other students and form friendships. I admired her ability to get past a bit of shyness to put herself out there. She loves fashion and thinks a lot about what she'll wear the next day. And she's somewhat adrift in terms of academic direction. Her mother wants her to be a lawyer, but she's not sure that's the right thing for her.
We go on like this for the first 60% of the book or so. It's mildly interesting, but not at all engaging. Things pick up somewhat in the last 30ish%, but by that time I had a hard time caring much about her. And honestly, I wasn't a fan of how she treated her bff.
And now I need to take a break from YA for a book or two...
This poetic Young Adult novel is both bleak and immersive. It's a speculative coming-of-age story set against a modern Dust Bowl. After a flo4.5 stars
This poetic Young Adult novel is both bleak and immersive. It's a speculative coming-of-age story set against a modern Dust Bowl. After a flood, Thea's family moves from their rental home in Ohio to a farmstead in the Colorado desert. Her dad has a dream of owning their own property and land there is cheap. But there's a good reason for that - there hasn't been any rain for ages and their world is made up of dust. The dust is everywhere, every day they attempt to clean it away and never really succed.
In addition to the desolate landscape, Thea's home life is desolate as well. Her father has become extremely restrictive to the point of keeping them away from the rest of the world. She is forced to leave her job at the local cafe when he finds out that she's reaching out to some of the people in the town and is using the library. At 16-years-old she's in need of stimulation, but his smothering leaves her bored, unhappy, and frustrated. She is deaf in one ear and he won't allow her to talk about it much less do anything about it.
Stine does an excellent job of setting the scene. The dust essentially becomes a character within the novel. When I was reading it the weather was cool and rainy at my house, but I could almost feel the heat and extreme conditions Thea was experiencing.
I thoroughly enjoyed this and stayed up late to finish it. But as much as I completely agree with the author regarding climate change, her treatment of it felt a bit heavy handed. My only other criticism was that I would've liked to have seen Thea's parents as more fully formed characters. They (especially her dad) were almost villains and somewhat 2-dimensional. I think the novel would've been richer if they were better rounded characters....more