Customer Reviews

Love, Meg

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Teenager Meg Shanley and her thrity-year-old sister, Lucie, are moving from town to town, looking for a better life. Their parents are gone and Lucie has taken over the role as mother to Meg, although she has not done a very good job of it. Lucie tends to think more along the lines of what's best for herself instead of what's best for Meg. Meg must travel with Lucie because she has no other family to go to.

When Lucie abandons her motherly role, Meg finds a new "mother," Jennifer Aniston. Meg writes all of her worries and woes in a letter - and Jennifer Aniston actually replies! The replies are motherly, filled with caring and solutions to her problems. Jen is more of a mother to Meg than Lucie is of a sister.

One day, a strange man arrives at Meg and Lucie's Los Angeles house bringing a horrifying truth: Lucie is not exactly who she has been pretending to be. The man, Lonnie, explains that Meg has a grandmother and even a father back in New York. No one knows anything about Meg's father, though, except that he doesn't even know that Meg exists.

With Lucie's words of "If you go, don't come back" imprinted on her mind, Meg hops on a plane to New York to find a family she never knew existed - and what she finds is much more than she expected...

If I could give LOVE, MEG a higher rating I would! This book totally captivated me and made me look forward to continuing my reading. LOVE, MEG is a book I will lend and recommend to other readers proudly. I cannot explain how amazing I thought this book was.

Reviewed by: Jeremey

A wonderful heartfelt story. I'm 40 years old and yet I was pulled right in to this world through the straighforward yet poetic text. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward Leigh Purtill's next work which I hope is published soon.

This book was totally heartfelt with wonderful storytelling that it was hard to break away. The characters were so great and had real depth to all of them even the most seemingly minor little characters. There were some moments when you want to just yell at some characters and other moments when you wish you could just give Meg a big hug and comfort her. She is truly a very real teenager filled with the typical social anxieties that teens go through but always optimistic that everything will turn out with the way they should. In the end, it wasn't about everything having a happy ending with this book, it's all about going through Meg's journey through some of the hardest secrets and truths and experiences that any person, teen or adult could ever go through... with a little help from Jen! Wonderful wonderful!!

Meg Shanley has forever longed for a "normal" family. Big sister Lucie is the closest thing she's got - and Meg's life with Lucie is anything but normal. Flakey and irresponsible, Lucie flits around from job to job and town to town, dragging a hapless Meg with her. The only thing Meg has ever really been able to count on is her correspondence with the affable Jennifer Anniston. Because Jenn, unlike Lucie, is always there with the just-right advice, and has never let Meg down. Love, MEG is a stellar debut novel. C Leigh Purtill hits just the right notes, striking the perfect combination of love- and coming-of-age story. Every family has secrets, and every kid dreams of living a normal life. And as readers follow Meg Shanley through her journey, they will not only identify with her struggles, they will come love her warmth and authenticity.

In "Love, Meg" Leigh Purtill has created living, breathing characters that, by the end of the novel, seem so real that I could hardly wait to find out what happened, and I can easily imagine their lives continuing past the concluding pages. There is also a great sense of place - a different, street-level view of both Los Angeles and New York City that is not often described. A great first effort - I look forward to many more books by this author.

Okay, I admit. When I first read this book I didn't expect anything much, either because the story sounded familiar or the cover looked so boring (I know I'm bad, but I do judge a book by its cover). Guess what? I was surprised after I finished it. C. Leigh Purtill did a good job at making simple things beautiful and touching.

The first thing I recognized the book was Meg's huge obsession over Jennifer Aniston. It wasn't just a celebrity crush, it was like Jen was someone really important to the teenager, the only person she could confide in and ask for advice. Meg was not happy with her life. She hated moving all over the places, was afraid of making friends because she knew the bond wouldn't survive the distance once she was told to pack and leave (again). Her sister Lucie appeared to be so selfish and tired all the time, which Meg wish she could tell her, but never did. That was why she turned to Jen. Meg's letters to Jen were nice to read. It showed a lot of love and respect for the actress, as if she was Meg's real sister, but the tone also contained craziness of a loyal fan.

I loved how Leigh worked on the characters' emotions in this book. Anger, madness, sorrow, joy, ect were portrayed at a decent extent so that you could still feel them but they were never to become overwhelming. My favorite part were when Juny gave Meg her very first kiss at New Year's Eve and when she finally came back to Hollywood to settle her life after the long adventure. There were also twists in Love, Meg. Seriously, who aren't into twists? I don't want to give it away so find out yourself ; ) All I can say is that one was extremely shocking and one was way too cute and touching.

The only thing that didn't satisfy me was the ending. I thought Meg deserved more than that. I so wish that she had been accepted by her father. After all, he was the reason why she came to New York.

If you want to read this book, you should read it with a family member.

When I first started this one, I was just thinking "Oh gosh, another nomadic kid book." You know the ones I'm talking about: kid has no real parents and never stays in one place. They don't have many friends because they always move around, and they have one thing they cling to. In this case, Meg clings to Jennifer Aniston. (Good golly that sounds weird.) Or rather, the letters she sends to Jennifer Aniston. That being said, I was kind of hesitant to continue reading because sometimes nomadic kid books aren't good or are really cliche. But thankfully, once Big Twist That Really Kind Of Came Out Of Nowhere happened, the book stopped being cliche and started being really good

The book is good mostly because of the characters. The plot isn't too exciting- there are some exciting parts though, that have to do with a few relatives- but the characters emanated realisticness. They each had their quirks and flaws, which made their interactions and decisions real. Meg especially was realistic and for once, was actually not an annoying protagonist. She thought things through as best she could and was determined to figure out who she truly is without being all "the world! It hates me! Things are so hard! Pity me!"

And I loved the ending. Not overly happy and full of rainbows or overly depressing and full of like, dementors or something.

Definitely recommended, especially if you want something that flies by quickly.

Meg believes she knows everything about her life. Her parents are dead and her older sister, Lucy, has cared for her ever since she was a baby. They travel from town to town in California, following Lucy's jobs and boyfriends. Meg has learned to be self-sufficient since she was very young, because Lucy is overwhelmed providing for the two of them on her own.

For years she has turned to Jennifer Aniston--the actress from friends--for emotional support, writing her letters detailing the difficulties she faces in school and at home. Jen has always written back with great advice and sometimes even gifts to help Meg through rough situations. When Meg starts another new school to go with a new apartment that follows Lucy's new boyfriend, she thinks her life will continue to follow this pattern for years to come.

Then a man shows up at the apartment Meg shares with Lucy claiming to be her uncle from New York. He talks about a family back east that she knows nothing about, and tries to convince Lucy to go there. Suddenly, everything Meg thinks she knows about her life changes, and when Lucy refuses to reconnect with her family, Meg sets off without her. Moving to New York becomes a journey of self-discovery as well as a way to get to know the family she never had.

What she finds is not what she expects, but she discovers a lot about herself and the true meaning of family along the way.

Love, Meg looks at what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a grandmother, and all the ways that family can support us as well as tear us down. I recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls in 7th grade and up.

I read this all in one day because I could not put it down! I wanted to find out what happened to Meg and her sister Lucie and everyone else in the book. The characters are well drawn and very realistic. Their conversations, their quirks, their anger and shame and love - it all comes across in a way that is very fulfilling to the reader. I loved the idea of Jennifer Aniston offering advice to Meg. I loved the people she meets in Astoria - those who love and accept her and those who hurt her. I particularly liked how strong the locations are: Hollywood and Astoria. I've been to both and I know they are accurate descriptions. There is such a strong sense of place in this book which helps with how thoroughly grounded and real this story is. I am looking forward to reading more by Leigh Purtill, and I will be donating this one to our middle/high school library and encouraging my students to check it out.

My 11-year-old daughter was so entranced by this book that I couldn't get her to pay attention to anything I said while she was reading it. Finally, when she was nearing the end, she begged me to let her stay up late to finish it--she insisted she couldn't go to sleep without knowing what happened to the characters. I've never seen her so passionate about a book. She absolutely loved it, and we're going to be looking for more books by this author!