Audiobook Review – Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Ember
Release Date: April 10, 2012
ISBN-13: 978-0375865640
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.

So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?”

I have read and enjoyed a lot of AS King books; I thought this was the weakest AS King book I had read. I just felt that it was missing the special magical realism of King’s other books and thought the story was a bit boring and typical YA.

In this book Vera is trying to recover after the death of her lifelong friend Charlie. As part of this she is trying to uncover the secret as to why Charlie’s behavior became so self destructive towards the end of his life.

This book is full of lots of high school drama and kids acting out. It also makes a strong commentary on people ignoring the misfortune or troubles of those around them in order to not “make waves”.

It’s fine for what it is; which is mainly a coming of age story in which Vera struggles with the tough life Charlie has faced and the fact that Vera and her family didn’t do anything to help or stop it. It just didn’t grab me like other AS King books have and didn’t make me feel wonder or intrigue…it just made me feel tired.

Overall this was an okay book. However, I felt like I had read many similar stories before in many contemporary YA novels. It was okay but not great and I could have taken or left it.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Goodreads Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge