Road Trip Wednesday: Best Book of July

Linking up with YA Highway for Road Trip Wednesday! My favorite book that I read in July, hands down, was Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King. Vera has been in love with her best friend, Charlie, for years, even after he ditched her for the school’s slacker crowd. She knows all his secrets, so when he mysteriously dies, Vera is faced with the choice of telling the authorities what she knows about that night and clearing Charlie’s name or keeping that knowledge to herself.

The story focuses mainly on Vera’s life, post-Charlie’s death. It’s a pretty honest portrayal of grief and denial, with Vera hiding a vodka bottle under the seat of her car and swigging from it while on her pizza delivery runs (she’s a “Pizza Delivery Technician”). She’s such an honest character. She does stupid things and hangs out with the wrong people and reacts badly to certain situations. She’s real. And I love that.

Another aspect to the story is the point of view change. While the majority of the story is told by Vera, there are shifts to her father’s POV. He is a recovering alcoholic struggling to raise Vera without his wife, who abandoned the family years ago. Charlie even gets some snippets, aptly titled A Word from the Dead Kid. And the Pagoda, the town’s slightly tacky landmark, makes a few statements about the state of life.

This book was emotional, surprisingly funny, and oddly beautiful. I definitely recommend it to anyone who loves real characters. You will feel for Vera, I promise.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz is a 2011 Michael L. Printz Honor Book.

Road Trip Wednesday: Reincarnated as a Fictional Character

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week’s topic: If you could be reincarnated as any fictional character, which would it be?

This is hard. All my favorite characters have, well, kind of miserable lives. People around them usually die, or they get their hearts broken over and over, or they have to lead some epic battle against evil. And I’m not sure I’d want to put myself through that in my next life. So Harry and Katniss are out.

Part of me gravitates towards characters similar to myself (Macy Queen from The Truth About Forever and basically every other Sarah Dessen protagonist). But maybe in my next life I’ll be someone impulsive and wild. I’m not sure.

So I narrowed it down to three choices. This was DIFFICULT.

Bria Sandoval – Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

Bria is new to traveling, like me, but she learns to embrace the quirky backpacker lifestyle with the help of a superhot and mysterious backpacker guy named Rowan (and his sister, Starling). I’d love to spend my next life traveling the world, and I wouldn’t mind chilling in a hammock with Rowan, that’s for sure!

Luna Lovegood – Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Luna always has a positive attitude. Even when Voldemort is destroying the Wizarding world, she always finds the good in every situation. Harry brings her to Professor Slughorn’s Christmas party because her unintentionally funny comments make him laugh. She definitely has some of the best lines in the books!


Taylor Markham – Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

This is the one I’m not sure about. When you list everything out, Taylor’s life is pretty miserable. Her mom abandoned her at a 7-11 when she was eleven, she has asthma/anxiety/touches of depression, and she’s not very friendly to others. She’s forced into leading her boarding school in the territory wars with the Cadets and the Townies. But for some reason, I like her. Tough on the outside, real on the inside. Plus, the territory wars sound ridiculously cool and intense and it’d be awesome to be in charge.

What about you? What character(s) would you like to be reincarnated as? This is harder than it sounds, trust me!