Ashley Mar Reads

(I actually have a different edition of this book, though I haven't seen it anywhere else with the cover that I have.  I have the Scholastic edition of the novel.)

            This was a reread for me.  I read this in middle school at around this time of the year, and I remembered absolutely loving it.  I had never read anything like this, and I still haven’t.

            Usually when I try to reread a book I get bored with it because I know what’s going to happen, and I just can’t feel the same strong emotions that I had felt the first time.  Rereading this I was just as surprised by it as I was the first time, and I didn’t remember the details of about half the book.  Obviously I remembered the ending, but some of the details and events still shocked me.

            I remember being so invested in this book, and I was this time around too.  I read this in a day, maybe a little bit more because of school, but it didn’t take me long at all.

            I think what I loved about this book was the relationships.  I just had this vivid image of the way she felt towards her mother, and Kaylie, and Josh, and her neighbour Mrs. Raj, and every other character in this novel.  And I’m glad that the author wrote it this way, so that in a situation that isn’t relatable to most people, there is some little thing that they can relate to.  Characters are a good way to have a connection with your readers, and the author does this very well.

            As well, I appreciated the amount of detail in the novel.  I have this image of her house, and it has kept so well in my mind over the years.  I can still see it the way I did back in middle school.

            I’m glad that I reread this novel.  It brought back a lot of memories with it of how I was feeling at the time I was reading it, where I was, what I was doing.  I was able to fall in love with it even though it was a reread.  I think it still hold a spot on my favorites list.