Yesterday I read the young adult novel An Off Year by Claire Zulkey. I know Claire a little bit, through facebook, because she knows my cousins and because we're dog twins (we both own greyhounds and have parents with shelties). An Off Year is about Cecily, a teenage girl who abruptly decides, upon arriving at her dorm, not to start college that year after all. I read it all evening, and loved it.
Cecily has an actual sense of humor, something I feel like is missing way too often in female characters. Also, something else I liked, there are no tidy resolutions, no perfect tying together of threads. It felt like real life, like a real girl trying to sort out what she was doing with herself. It dodges a romantic subplot, which I adored. I hate that books (and TV and movies and everything) seem practically required to have a romantic subplot.
The romantic subplot thing reminds me (though it's not really the same) of how in action movie trailers, towards the end there will be a bunch of quick shots of the (male) characters doing exciting things: blowing things up, leaping from cars, punching someone, whatever. And one of the exciting things is always kissing some hot woman. Watch for it. It's annoyingly predictable.
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Sounds like a good book - I want to read it. Liz, admit it = it's not just packing you don't want to do. You would rather read than just about anything else in life!
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