Jennifer
E. Smith
Poppy,
2013
$17.99,
Hardcover
978-0316212823
Genre:
Realistic, Romance
Age:
12+
Description:
Ellie O’Neill is a small town girl trying to ignore her past. Her
mother was a young waitress when she got involved with Ellie’s
father—a married politician. She ended up caught in the media
spotlight and ran with Ellie to a small town in Maine where they
changed their names and are still trying to hide from the press
finding out who they really are, especially since Ellie’s father is
now a presidential candidate. Ellie enjoys her small town—she’s
got a best friend, a part-time job at an ice cream shop, she helps
out at her mother’s knick-knack shop, and she even has the chance
to go to a prestigious university for a poetry workshop over the
summer. The only problem? She’s about $1,000 too short of funds to
afford the entrance fee. One night she receives an email from a boy
she doesn’t know asking her to make sure his pet pig is feed while
he is gone. Being a lover of animals, she doesn’t want the pig to
be ignored so she replies letting the boy now he has the wrong email
address. What follows from there are very honest conversations
between Ellie and the mystery boy from California. When the hottest
of the hot Hollywood actors comes to her small town to film a movie
the last thing she suspects to find is that the Graham Larkin is the
boy she’s been writing too and he is interested in taking their
relationship offline to in person. Will Ellie allow herself to fall
for a celebrity? Will their relationship even survive considering the
fact that her mother is dead set on them remaining out of the
spotlight?
Opinion:
Like my teen reader, Katie, I went into this story with higher
expectations. I don’t normally read romance realistic fiction (what
I do read comes from the library and I certainly don’t find myself
buying a lot for my own collection) but I have to say the biggest
drawback for this book was that it was entirely too long. I struggled
to finish it as the plot seemed to drag through 400+ pages. Ellie is
a sweet girl and a character a lot of people can relate too. However,
the story was rather clichéd and unrealistic in that the movie star
would come and find her and that he would be a sweet, down to Earth
boy that Ellie could find herself loving. Her best friend was an
infuriating character as she basically shuns Ellie for not telling
her that Graham Larkin was her mysterious email corresponder and when
she pushes Ellie to talk about what she is hiding from her past and
Ellie doesn’t want to budge she decides to drop their friendship
instead of respecting her privacy. There is entirely too much back
and forth (Ellie and Graham will be together; no they won’t) which
drags the book on and on. I was happy to see that Ellie gets to kind
of meet her father (a handshake on the campaign trail) but it is so
convenient that his summer home is close by where Ellie’s mother
moved them but, at least, it wasn’t so clichéd that the author had
Ellie tearfully reunite with her father (instead it is just another
face he sees out there talking to the people). While this book was
not my personal cup of tea, readers who enjoy the romantic stories
will eat it up and love it.
Here’s
what one of my teens had to say:
Katie,
14, says, “I really liked the cover of this book. It kind of made
me feel happy which is appropriate for the title. I also like how it
was formatted (picture, text) like Smith’s The Statistical
Probability of Love at First Sight—while the books aren’t
related it kind of creates a brand-loyalty image for readers. They
automatically look at it and think, “Jennifer E. Smith!” Did it
reflect the contents? I think it did and didn’t at the same time.
It did kind of reflect Ellie’s happy list but didn’t really
capture the tone of the whole book. I was really looking forward to
reading this but, sadly, I don’t think there was any truly
compelling part. I found the story was very hard to get into and to
understand what was happening, especially the flashbacks.”
Thanks
to Victoria Stapleton at Little, Brown for the ARC for the YA Galley
Group!
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