Reviewing... [43] Cruel Summer

Reviewing... [43] Source: Recieved for review, thanks Indigo! Author: James Dawson  Recommended for: *sobs and wishes for some machine to duplicate it so she can have unlimited copies to shove at people*

Words are supposed to be powerful, aren't they? Wow. They bloody are. As James correctly said, it's all about the feels. There's nicer feelings, obviously, but certain feelings aren't really going to leave such a... mark. I've never read anything that could be compared to Cruel Summer. There's obviously books which may share a smidgen with Cruel Summer but really... there aren't books like this published frequently. This book will make your jaw drop; it will then precede to hang there for a few minutes & just when your jaw has returned to its normal position, it's going to drop again. Literally. The pace... it's... like it must have been so much fun, even though it's kinda serious. Thrillers, a kick for authors too. My suspicions danced around like crazy fireflies or something, who killed who? I did guess the circumstances around Janey's death but was so confused by other factors I literally considered so many possibilities. None of them had it all cracked. You may guess the killer but... you won't have cracked the mystery entirely. There is no way anyone could get within even a mile of predicting the ending. Admittedly, I didn't expect the characters to be quite as old as they were- all around 19- but it did help that in "TV & movie land" I'm fairly used to those ages being surrounded by a suitable story for people not at that age yet. In fiction, there's that whole NA palaver and I'm so glad this was YA. It might be enjoyed by NA's but anyway... The characters were just so, so fantastic. You have jock with bad girl twin and new girl, good girls buddying up with a character and a half and of course... my personal favourite, the hot geek (forget coke, I'll take you up on that lukewarm Dr Pepper)- literally categorized like that by Ryan, one of the characters taking centre stage. If I'm honest, I preferred Alisha's excerpts as they were much more down to earth. The book still had its 'pretend it's TV' theme but she wasn't comparing her life to anything else- she was just realizing that it was happening around her. Ryan, on the other hand, converted everything to TV and early on, he even made everything sounded scripted (Scene 1 especially!). I didn't really like that- a book is a different medium. It can have similarities but it's annoying. In books, characters don't convert their lives to books- nobody converts their life to a book :P So, movies? It's slightly annoying, but maybe not for everyone, at the end of the day. It's more the concept than how it was done. The writing is just amazing!

If they burst into song, Kurt would probably think it was a musical...

You'd think it would be more cliched than it was, though. The concepts should be unoriginal at some points but someone they managed to seem refreshing & new. Obviously, these things you will know are so NOT going to happen to you, but you will be left thinking. It was more realistic than I thought it could be- I cried at one point. Real tears.