Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This was the third book in my Book Riot Quarterly box, themed “try new genres” or something similar. I read it quickly, but I think I just don’t enjoy reading books about kids who are stuck in awful, uncomfortable situations with no agency to change it. (see: first half of The Goldfinch)
And honestly, how much more could the author toss at Vera? Mom ran away, dad’s kind of an ass, best friend is dead (but he was an ass too), the neighbor beats his wife, and Vera drives around in a borderline-dangerous pizza delivery job while self-medicating with swigs of vodka. Oh and a pet store is set on fire. The only thing it was missing was a slowly-dying group of Cancer Kids.
The ending wasn’t enough to counter all of the negative crap Vera put up with, so I ended up feeling blah when I was finished.
