Customer Reviews

Cathy's Book: If Found Call (650) 266-8233

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

 

 

This book was.... Wow. I've read a lot of books since I read this one, but this is still my favorite. The ending is definitely impossible to predict.

Also, calling the phone numbers and such was pretty interesting. It made the story feel more believable.

When hotheaded artist Cathy wakes to find a mysterious mark on the inside of her arm she doesn't worry all that much. She just, as anyone would, assumes its (at worse) a spider bite. But when she starts feeling as if time literally stands still around her and life is moving at a slow motion pace, she knows this isn't a spider bite. As much as she tries to deny it, Cathy faces reality that her now ex-boyfriend, Victor, may have something to do with it. Did he drug her so he could take advantage of her? Did he inject her with a strange, wildly infectious disease? What is Victor up to, and why did he involve her?

In a desperate attempt to, not only find the answer to all of her burning questions, but to also weasel herself back into his arms and life, Cathy morphs from art girl to undercover girl as she, without realizing it, becomes stereotypical crazed ex-girl. With her new hats in place Cathy launches a full-fledged investigation in spite of best friend Emma's warning. Stopping short at nothing Cathy not only finds herself trailing Victor even though he told her she'd end up dead like Carla, she's broken into his house and stole valuable papers and pictures even though she figured out someone more dangerous that she is after Victor as well, and she's even been in talks with a shifty stranger who claims he's Victor's long-lost uncle.

Cathy soon finds herself in hot water: she's been kidnapped and taken to an undisclosed house where all of Victor's secrets are finally exposed and she's battle to save a life - but whose?

Cathy's Book If Found Call (650)266-8233 by Sean Stewart is a quick read that will keep readers entertained. Fast - and edge gripping, readers will be patiently waiting for some catastrophically big event to happen. But when it doesn't pan out, what they're left with is a glimpse into who Cathy is, her life, and her past relationship with Victor.*

Reading like one giant puzzle. Cathy's Book is written in a journalistic style with doodles, scribbles, and artistic renderings that allow reader to easily relate to the characters and to the situations they are placed in. But only when those doodles don't interfere with the text.

More often than not the doodling covered bits and pieces of valuable text making it difficult to understand and easier to skip over. ** The only set back to this is the artwork more often than not, Cathy's doodling covered valuable pieces of the text, making it difficult to read and easy to skip over. Even though the doodles may distract some readers, Stewart's writing is what really fuels this book. It's simple, precise, and best of all infused with a generous amount of emotion - perfect for a journal styled book.

Ultimately, Cathy's Book If Found Call (650)266-8233 isn't a book for everyone, but there are likable qualities that will definitely draw in readers.

...and I won't be returning it!

This novel is about the adventure and intrigue of a seventeen-year-old artist and high school student named Cathy, who tries to solve the mysterious puzzle with help her best friend Emma. The mystery surrounds Cathy's older ex-boyfriend Victor, whom Cathy initially allows to believe she is in college rather than high school. The book starts off with Victor already having very abruptly broken up with Cathy, and Cathy has no idea why. But Cathy can't just walk away, partly because she really had thought that she and Victor were hitting it off when he dumped her, and because of some other very strange circumstances surrounding their break-up. Cathy's search for answers leads her on an amazing adventure where she does everything from breaking and entering to posing as an intern to get into a top security Pharmaceutical research facility (Victor's old employer).

Let me just stop here and say that this book was a breath of fresh air because the type of heroine. Instead of angsty moral delimmas always over-crowding her thoughts (which is WAY overdone in YA literature these days), you have a heroine who is a woman of action rather than fretting. And she has a "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" edge to her character, which is another reason why she can't just let things lie.

But I don't want to mislead you with all the romance stuff. It IS the driving force in this book, but the MYSTERY and ADVENTURE elements of this one shine much brighter (another reason why this book is a great change for me since I've been reading Twilight and all the other YA fiction done in the wake of Twilight).

One reviewer said it was a fantasy. Don't get me wrong, there is a fantastical element, but you don't know about it until the end of the book. For the most part, it's just a really good adventure story, free of supernatural elements, so I don't really call this a fantasy. Most of the story is grounded in the real world, and the "supernatural" element is caused by a gene that very few people have. Also, the same reviewer said that she didn't know that the paperback version was edited. The thing is, the hardback version had all the evidence so you could take it out and look at it. The pb version only has photocopies of the evidence, but I thought it was good enough. The evidence is printed in color and is mostly in an appendix in the middle of the book, so it's not like you don't get to see the same stuff.

I highly recommend this book, and will definitely pick up the sequels soon!

The way the book was written is really the best thing about it. The story and the characters are interesting (although the fantasy twist did throw me off a little), but the doodles and interactive opportunities were what got me reading in the first place.

Cathy Vickers has had a tough year. Her dad passed away unexpectedly and her mom is always working weird shifts at the hospital. She's not doing great in school, but she did meet a nice guy, Victor, a Chinese-American man who, okay, might be a little too old for Cathy. But things were fine until Victor dumped her, and she woke up with a weird mark on her arm. Since he won't talk to her, Cathy has launched an investigation. Suddenly she's in over her head in the part of Chinatown you don't visit as a tourist. Just in case, Cathy is putting together a book of her her thoughts and some (stolen) evidence. It's for Emma, her best friend, and if Cathy goes missing, she can only hope what she's found can lead to the parties responsible. This is a well-planned novel, complete with interactive web components, phone numbers to call, and evidence to inspect. While at times far-fetched, the characters are sympathetic and intriguing enough to keep the reader hooked through to the twist ending. Definitely a series worth continuing.

I am extremely interested in this type of novel mixing text with other 'media.' I am looking forward to reading the next book.

CATHY'S BOOK is being marketed as a new kind of young adult novel. It's interactive, with a pocket of 'evidence', real phone numbers and websites, and other extras to help you learn more about the case. To be honest, though, that wasn't what made me love this book. Sure, the extras are cool and all, but I don't think they are necessary (and that's a compliment to the book, really!). CATHY'S BOOK could have stood on its own as a wonderful young adult novel.

It's the story of, as the title suggests, a girl named Cathy. I suppose she's fairly normal at first (though she is a better artist than most of us--I love the drawings in this book!), but she quickly finds herself mixed up in some shady business, due to her involvement with Victor, her older possible-boyfriend. I can't say too much without giving away the awesome plot twists, but nothing turns out the way you think it will! It all comes together quite nicely in the end, though. The startling revelations that finish this story, however, could set up a great sequel, and I hope that one is at least being considered!

CATHY'S BOOK is fantastic for a number of reasons. There are great pictures (and usually I'm not a fan of pictures in novels--I think it distracts from the writing), it's well-written, the characters (especially Cathy) are realistic, and the plot is quite suspenseful! It's not all action and suspense, though--there's a bit of romance thrown in (that is, after all, the reason for Cathy's involvement in the first place), which makes it fun. The only thing that might subtract from the awesomeness of this book, I think, is the fact that the publishers or whoever made this decision seemed to think the great story needed 'extras' to make it worth reading. None of the press I've read on this book mentions the great novel; instead, it talks about the 'extras.' That is not what makes this book worth it, not at all!

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

This is one of my favorite books. There are two that follow and they are just as great. It's written like a journal and has doodles throughout the pages of the book. The evidence is a neet adition, too.

When I got this in the mail, I was so excited. I'd heard a lot about these books and couldn't wait to read it. From the first page, I was hooked. But, unfortunately, as the book continued, it slowly began losing its appeal.

For one thing, I was confused half of the time. This is probably partly my fault but I just didn't understand half of what was going on. That's always a bad sign. Second of all, the characters and the plot were extremely underdeveloped. Nobody really had their own distinct personality. We got the inside peek at Cathy because it's her diary but even some of her actions seemed random.

The plot had so much potential. It was new, it was original, and it was extremely underdeveloped. There was a lot of jumping around and it just seemed unrealistic. I guess this goes partly with the characters because a good plot would give the characters more sense.

The one part I did like was the interactive-ness of it. I loved how when you called the numbers, they actually SAID stuff. (Yeah, I tried it!) If you typed a website in, it would tie in with the book. That was the really cool part!

All in all, I think the authors spent a little too much time on the interactive stuff and not enough time developing their characters and the plot. Not too sure I'd recommend this one.

I like this book. I like the story line, albeit the twist was... twisty and not what I signed up for. I was told the book was like Veronica Mars... it was more like Buffy meets Veronica. I wasn't in the mood for a fantasy book, but that's what I got.

I had two disappointments with this, to me it was advertised as being interactive... not really. If I couldn't have made those calls, life would have gone on. Making the phone calls and visiting the websites wasn't necessary to understanding the plot of the book. I also found out via online that bits of it were edited out for the PB version, I don't know if the edits were big, but I wasn't told in advance that the book had been edited. I'm not okay with that.