Customer Reviews

Better Than Yesterday

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Four friends together again in summer session at boarding school. Can you even imagine the adventures?

Skylar, Marissa, Charley, and Blake are seventeen. It's the summer before their senior year. They are moving into Hilliard Preparatory School for the summer session. They spent summer session their freshman year together and are hoping to relive those great times.

However, things have changed. Skylar regrets her freshman experience learning about "love" from Blake's older brother, Kyle. It wasn't really a boost for her reputation. Charley's always had a crush on Skylar, but figured it was hands-off because of Blake. Blake's parents have recently shocked him by announcing the news that they've lost their fortune. Marissa, as Skylar's conservative roommate, is about to risk it all to save another.

It's a learning experience for everyone. There's learning about real love and the bonds of friendship. There's discovering the courage to stand up for what one believes, even if that means defying the wishes and dreams of parents. All four characters live life to the fullest during this last summer together. Despite their crazy and often unwise adventures, their story is filled with positive life lessons many teen readers will relate to and many adult readers will remember.

Robyn Schneider has written a winner. Her characters are believable even if you didn't attend boarding school. She entertains with typical high-risk teen behavior, but she adds the important lessons we all want to communicate to our children. Readers should definitely give Schneider a try and be on the lookout for what she serves up next.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

I think Robyn has done herself a tremendous disservice with her website and her unabashed display of general immature conceitedness. However I gave her the benefit of the doubt and bought the book. It is literally like something, someone in High School would write, in other words save your pennies and read something more wothwhile......like a telephone directory.

I read a lot, and this was just another cliche book about overprivileged teenagers. It was entertaining and amusing, but not extremely well written and has a very simple plot. It's about four teenagers who were best friends when they were freshmen, and reunite as seniors, only to discover that one of them has changed an awful lot. When this friend, who has become a sort of "bad boy" runs away, the other unite on an adventure in New York City to find him. This book was just okay. I think that if you are a fan of Gossip Girl and Private, then you will like it, however it is not nearly as good, and the plot is not nearly as well thought out.

I had high hopes for this book, as I thought it would be a more intelligent read than it was. The dialog is badly written and the characters are simply unbelievable. There is also something of a conceited tone to the author's voice that sullies the entire reading experience. While the concept was a good one, the execution of it was a failure. Two thumbs down.

Robyn Schneider's BETTER THAN YESTERDAY provides a fun coming-of-age story, telling of a competitive elite preparatory school where Blake has arrived back after an unexplained two-year absence. Skylar thinks Blake's in trouble and Charley doesn't have time for anyone's problems - but Blake's friends become involved anyway when she takes off for New York City and they decide to follow and help her. Humor and insights lend to a fine and moving story of friendship against all odds.

"What if we can't stop? What if we've been studying so long we've become like machines? And that's why we have summer session. It's like sleep mode, because if we shut down, for even one summer, we'd come back to school lazy and slow?"

That's how Charley, Skyler, Blake, and Marissa feel about all things academic and Hilliard Preparatory School. In BETTER THAN YESTERDAY, Robyn Schneider takes us into the world of the Helliard Hell Raisers, reunited two years later as juniors at boarding school. With witty chapter titles parodying well-known books and famed literary quotes, this dual first-person narrative told through the eyes of Charley and Skyler is half boarding school, half road trip, and well worth the cost of admission. Don't let the pink on the cover fool you, this is Charley's story all the way.

For Charley, showing up to boarding school means knowing your dad's picture is waiting to mock you from the hallway wall. It means packing your SAT prep book because your parents will only let you bring your beloved guitar if you promise to perfect your subpar 730 in math. And it means being shocked to see Blake Dorsey, your roommate from freshman year, strut into your room and plop onto the bed.

For Skyler, Hilliard means unrequested glory. No matter how hard she doesn't try, everything ends up Prada and polynomials for her. As the front-runner for Valedictorian who's just been nominated Senior Honoree, she'd love nothing more than to smoke cloves behind the boathouse with her closest of friends. Anything to get rid of the lingering rumors and reputation that won't let her forget her freshmen year mistake with Kyle Dorsey, Blake's brother.

But when Blake surprises everyone by showing up at school, the Helliard Hell Raisers reunite for a life-changing summer. Charley's starting to dig on Skyler, Skyler might be digging him back, and Marissa's beginning to come out of her shell. Mr. McCabe hands out their new creative writing assignment and tells them to "Be the master of their fate." That would feel like the Grammys for Charley, if he could only stand up to his parents. Secretly, he envies the way Blake is in charge of his own universe, the master of his fate, and the captain of his soul, because Charley wants so badly to tear up the road map his parents have drawn out for him.

Things probably would've ended up just like yesterday if Blake hadn't run away to New York City and left the three of them with the choice that would ruin their futures if they get caught. It's their loyalty to Blake that takes them from the halls of Hilliard to the buzz of the Big Apple, where they'll find the strength to confront those people closest to them, the courage to choose their own identities, and the kind of love that will change their futures in ways that only friendship can. With turns of phrase that'll wow and woo you and characters you might not ever forget, BETTER THAN YESTERDAY is a gem of a first novel and a strong start to a promising writing career.

-- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

The prose is self-indulgent. The characters are whiny. It shows that she wrote it when she was in high school.