heatherjodavis's reviews
145 reviews

This is probably one of my favorite books and I cannot tell you enough times: If you haven't read it - DO THAT!

Traci is touching and funny and makes me appreciate the little things that make my daughter tick that much more. I loved reading her stories and getting a better feel for her life and kinda, sorta understand a little bit better what drives my own kid (who has OCD tendencies). It took a lot of courage to bare this story, and I'm glad Traci found that kind of courage.

Most other reviews that I read said that this book was not as great as the others, but I disagree. I liked this one much better. For starters, James (author) has written this one a little bit better. I think what threw me the most in Fifty Shades of Grey was that is was not written well. She wasn't a good writer. The story was really intriging, but the telling of that story was not great. This book was written better. Still not great but better. I liked the story line in this one as well. Both Christian and Ana developed a spine and their emo personalities went mostly underground by the middle of the book. There was also a clear climax. Well, there were several clear climaxes, but I'm talking in literary terms. I'm cheap, though, and I'm not going to buy them. I'm number 5 for Fifty Shades Free, so I'll just have to wait to see how Ana and Christian come out in this story.

Why oh why couldn't I have thought of something like this? Linda is hysterical in her suburgatory tales and news and blurbs. What's even funnier is that I often found myself thinking, "Oh yeah... that happened here, too." Then I'd remember that it probably actually DIDN'T happen here and that she had totally made it up. That's how biting and true-to-life this book is. You need to read it if you are a suburbanite or if you are all metro (metro?) because either way, you're going to laugh until your sides hurt.

I kept reading because everyone raved on and on that this was a great book. I loved the story and was intrigued by the characters and where they were going. However, it was so danged difficult to read! I wanted to like this book - really I did. I just felt no love for it.

Really? It was all just a Garth Brooks song? And not a good one either. (Youtube: Garth Brook's That Summer) Again, it was such an intriguing, compelling story line and had so much redeeming potential, but the characters never changed. Fine. Not never, but not significantly either. And the explanation of how Christian and Mrs. Robinson came to be was just a Garth Brooks song. One could argue that the never ending epilogues were also country songs as well. I'll try to keep the bitterness from dripping into the computer when I say this: How did she get an agent with her writing?

I listened to the audio version of this and initially, I didn't think I could stand 4 hours of Mindy's voice, but after the first couple of essays, I loved her and her little 8-year-old voice. I really think I want to be her friend. Too weird? I've already checked facebook and can't find her personal page... I'll have to twitter-stalk her, I guess! Great book with lots of great essays. Sometimes her "lists" were a bit tedious to listen to; I'll bet they would read much, much better.

This book is great in theory. I wish the biographies had been with the letters because I flipped back and forth to see who was writing that specific letter. Some letters were really insightful. Some were quick and obligatory. I loved JK Rowling's and Jodi Piccolt's letters. They were thoughtful, humorous, and I could see a 16 year old understanding them. Jim Belushi's was heartfelt as well and gave us insight to his 16 year old self. Others were just meh. That was very disappointing ot me.