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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too, January 3, 2008
This review is from: Leftovers (Paperback)
Have you ever felt alienated from the rest of the world? Have you spoken and known that nobody was listening? Have you ever screamed "No" and been ignored at every turn? Ardith and Blair have experienced all that and more. And now they have committed a despicable act of vengeance in an effort to make everything "right" again. Blair and Ardith are best friends. They are fifteen, in the ninth grade, and have miserable, though very different, home lives. Ardith lives in a party house. Her parents are nightly hosts to a group of drunken teenage boys. Without limits, the boys control the house and any female that dares to enter it. Not even Ardith is safe from their advances. Blair comes from an affluent family. Her parents are successful in their careers, have a new home, and are poised to rise through the local social and political ranks. Now her mother is making decisions to shape the family image; decisions that are wrenching Blair away from the those she loves most. In addition to their family problems, Blair and Ardith are now becoming victims of the school rumor mill and some very cruel classmates. How much can they be expected to tolerate? LEFTOVERS is a dramatic and disturbing story of two girls who have been pushed to great lengths. It is written in alternating points of view, as each girl describes the events that led them to a final, desperate act. LEFTOVERS is a captivating book that will keep you turning the pages. Reviewed by: JodiG.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Too Fabricated to be Believable, August 4, 2008
This review is from: Leftovers (Paperback)
Leftovers had a nice format, and I'll be honest, I picked it up a couple of times at the bookstore before I decided to buy it and bring it home. I read a lot. I read about three books per week and fall in love with most of them. I have a (some say) weird tendency to have to OWN every book I read and keep it on my shelf- in case I ever feel the need to read it again. Leftovers had the idea correct- to write a narrative story in a journal format- like you're reading these teenagers' diaries. However, the entries in these journals were a bit too fabricated for me to believe them. I was frustrated with how much could possibly happen to these troubled teenagers in such a short period of time. And the way the entries were formatted was frustrating because it felt as if Ms. Laura Weiss was trying TOO HARD to have a hit, disturbed MTV book. It was like watching a Lifetime movie- where everything bad that could possibly happen to woman does, and it seems to fake- too much- too annoyingly depressing. In the middle of Leftovers, I found myself needing a commercial break. I was disappointed in the storyline and felt it needed much follow-through and editting.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Wiess tried too hard to make Leftovers as good as her debut novel, August 7, 2008
This review is from: Leftovers (Paperback)
I loved Wiess's debut, Such a Pretty Girl. But her second novel, Leftovers, tries too hard to be good. Leftovers tells the story of two best friends, Blair and Ardith. Blair is a rich girl whose parents don't care (her mother has Blair's dog put to sleep b/c she wants her carpets to stay clean) and Ardith's parents are trying too hard to be younger, having wild drinking parties whenever they can. Blair doesn'r listen to Ardith and gets raped by Ardith's older brother; when Ardith's brother hurts a police officer in a car accident- a police officer that Ardith and Blair thought of as a friend- they decide to get revenge. They do this by not warning their friend, Della, about him. Ardith's brother attempts to rape Della and a newscrew, hired by Ardith and Blair, catches him in an act. The story was utterly unbelievable, and the relationship between Blair and Ardith and the police officer doesn't seem that strong. I was disapointed by this one. I know Wiess can do better.
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