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Thursday, August 8, 2013

Book Review: Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr

Story of a Girl - Sara Zarr
Release Date: February 1, 2009
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genre: Young Adult
Source: Paperbook, PaperbackSwap
Buy the Book: Amazon

My rating:  4 out of 5 stars

Goodreads.com:  When she is caught in the backseat of a car with her older brother's best friend--Deanna Lambert's teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of "school slut," she longs to escape a life defined by her past. With subtle grace, complicated wisdom and striking emotion, Story of a Girl reminds us of our human capacity for resilience, epiphany and redemption.


My Review:  

I don't really remember when I added this book to my TBR list, but every so often, I'll attempt to match my TBR list up with PaperBackSwap to see if I can get any of these books for free!  :-)  

Have you ever done something that you immediately regret?  Something you aren't exactly proud of?  There are time when we do things that no one else knows about, and we can kind of keep them to ourselves, dealing with the emotions internally.  I think that so many times people do things they aren't exactly proud of in order to fit in, in order to be liked.    

For Deanna, her "mistake" was caught by her father, who caught her and Tommy, her brother's drug addict friend, having sex.  She was 13 and he was 17.  Not only did her dad catch them, but Tommy spread the story all over school.  While there was only ever this boy, everyone she encountered at school believed her to be a "slut."   Deanna has an older brother who lives in the house with her with his girlfriend and baby.  Her best friends, Jason and Lee, are dating.  And to get away from it all, she gets a job at a local pizza place, where Tommy happens to work.  

I loved this book.  I really did.  This book broke my heart on so many levels.  It wasn't one of those books that instantly destroy your emotions, but my heart broke every single time that Deanna struggled with her relationship with her father, her friends Jason and Lee, and her own feelings towards the situation at hand.  I pulled for Deanna.  I wanted her to get past her own self image issues, her own feelings of disgust within herself, and rebuild the relationships she felt were destroyed by her choices.  

In the end, I think Sara Zarr did an amazing job of writing and developing Deanna as a character.  Personally, I wanted to see a bit of the relationships developed at the end with Jason and Lee, because I wanted to know what was said and how that one was repaired. But, I read this book in about 2 hours because I simply couldn't put it down.  This was the first book I had ever read by Sara Zarr, and I have already added Sweethearts, How to Save a Life, and Once Was Lost to my TBR list.  


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

15 Book Blogging Challenge: Day 14

April at Good Books and Good Wine is hosting the 15 day challenge.  Make sure to check out her blog, and see what others are saying.


Deal breakers?  In terms of what I won't read?

I'm not big on thrillers.  I don't like scary movies, and I won't read scary books.  You can thank the movie IT for that one.

I don't like books that deal with infertility.  In fact, if I know ahead of time that struggles with infertility are in the book, chances are I won't read them.  They hit way too close to home for me.

I don't mind romance books, but I don't like the over the top, annoying, nothing but sex scenes in them books either.


15 Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day 13

April at Good Books and Good Wine is hosting the 15 day challenge.  Make sure to check out her blog, and see what others are saying.



I really think this book for me is Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick.  I mentioned this book as one of my favorite blog posts on Day 11.  But really - this book didn't get much exposure in terms of the blogging world (that I saw, at least) but it's really an eye opening, touching, emotional book.  You should all read it!  Just sayin'


15 Day Book Blogger Challenge: Day 12

April at Good Books and Good Wine is hosting the 15 day challenge.  Make sure to check out her blog, and see what others are saying.


Ha!  In all honesty, I don't.  If I don't want to blog or read for that matter, I just don't.  I think all of my readers understand that life exists outside of this blog, for all of us.  If I had an established review policy, or people counting on me to post reviews, I'd probably be more streamlined in my process and would make time to keep up.


But for me, for right now, this is a hobby.  Hobbies aren't supposed to be work.  The minute this blog becomes one more chore for me, I'll probably stop writing it.

15 Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day 11

April at Good Books and Good Wine is hosting the 15 day challenge.  Make sure to check out her blog, and see what others are saying.



Ahhhh!  This one is tough since I just started blogging...


Armchair BEA Introduction - I only highlight this entry because it's the one that really got me started back to blogging.

My very first entry - It's not much of an introduction.  

Purple Heart - One of my favorite books!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - The start of an amazing series!

New Layout - Just because I still really love new layout of TBD. 


Friday, July 19, 2013

Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day 10

April at Good Books and Good Wine is hosting the 15 day challenge.  Make sure to check out her blog, and see what others are saying.


I'm very much a pick up whatever I can get my hands on kind of girl.  I will say that I tend to pick up a hard back/paper back that is hanging out on my shelf at home before I'll give into the iPad style of reading.  I don't know what it is.  I have a ton of books saved on my Kindle/Nook apps - but I still really enjoy the comfort of an actual book.

For me - I will browse the covers and pick the one that fits my mood at the time.  There's really no rhyme or reason to it, at all.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

15 Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day 9

April at Good Books and Good Wine is hosting the 15 day challenge.  Make sure to check out her blog, and see what others are saying.



Why, oh why, do I blog about books?  That's an easy question, right?  Well, not exactly.  For me, blogging became my outlet.  Well - reading was my outlet.  But then I'd completely forget about the number of books I read, what they were about, whether or not I liked them.   I had noticed several book bloggers out on the web, and I thought, I read a lot, I should start one too. 

Many of my friends come to me for book recommendations as it is, so I thought this might be a central place for everyone.   So TBR was born.  In 2011.  And very little was done about it.  I got wrapped up in finishing up a second Masters, and then a rocky relationship, a divorce, and learning how to start over.  I once again found myself wrapped up in a book.  


I don't remember what blog it was (and I should) but someone posted about the BEA event that was being held for bloggers, and I thought here's my chance to really get into this.  So I did.  

I love to read.  I love to talk about books.  But more importantly, I love to write about books. It's my outlet.