Customer Reviews

The Queen of Everything

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Someone told me this book was for young adults, but it had enough adult themes and wisdom to keep me satisfied. It's one of those novels you can read on two levels, and if parents want to get into the minds of their teenagers, they should check this one out. Deb Caletti is a talented, savvy writer.

What a fantastic tale Deb Caletti writes about Jordan and her family and friends. Jordan is a remarkable young woman with sass and self-confidence. The characters are convincing and likeable. This extremely well written book is very sensitive, humorous, endearing and entertaining! It holds your interest throughout. It was not a book that I could put down once I started it and I read it into the night. When I completed it, I read it again as I didn't want it to end! I could vividly picture the characters and places through Caletti's amazingly compassionate and descriptive words. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to read a quality piece of writing. Also, I loved the cover of the book! Very artistic and unusual.

Jordan is a refreshing and gutsy heroine in Deb Caletti's first young adult book. Jordan has a smart mout h, a "roll your eyes" attitude with most adults (except her beloved grandfather) and enough energy and smarts to give most adults pause. Her mother has gone off and married an artist on some windy hillside, had his baby and opened a B & B. Her father has become totally distracted by an attractive neighbor who just happens to also be married and Jordan is beside herself with all these "adult" shannigans. As she tries to work out her problems, eventually confiding in her grandparents, she begins falling in love with her best friends' mysterious bag-pipe playing brother--at the same time exploring some sexual/emotional curoisities like Kyle Kramer. No one is really prepared for the course her father's relationship gradually takes, nor the grief or anger that comes when the truth is out. Jordan is a wonderful character who speaks in the frustrated language of any adolescent who is swept into a world of adults where there is no longer any control. She handles it all with more maturity than expected--she's definitly the queen of it all.

My daughter picked this up from the school library and could not put it down. I read it next and liked it so much I bought copies for my adult friends.

The rich development of Jordan and the hard lessons she learns at a critical time of her life were very real. I would recommend it for anyonoe with teenager.

i started reading this book and i found it very....SLOW!!! it doesn't really get to the point but talks about all this other nonsense. I feel this book was not good and I feel teenagers would not enjoy it. I agree with other reviews i have read it and it doesn't grab you at all.

A Review by Janelle

Jordan Mackenzie is trying to get through a complex summer. Her whole life is turned upside down in the worst summer of her life. At first her summer is typical, her family is odd, but it always has been. As the school year winds down, though, everything changes. First her father gets involved with a married woman, and becomes distant and childish. A close relative dies, and as if that weren't hard enough on her, a murder is committed in her quiet town. When the murderer comes forward, Jordan knows she's in way over her head.

I really enjoyed the story. The plot kept getting more exciting, and had so many unexpected twists. The ending surprised me more than I could've expected. The idea the plot is so new and different. Although I really enjoyed this book, I think it had some problems with how it was written. It was directed at teen girls, but the way things were described, it became confusing. The descriptions were excessive at some points. It should help you understand what's going on better, instead of confusing you. I also felt that the way it jumped around between past and present was confusing. At some points the way it was written, became hard to differentiate between the past and the present.

I recommend this book to anyone, who likes surprise endings. This book was directed at teen girls. If you can't get through a ton of description, then you probably won't enjoy this book.

Deb Caletti's debut introduces protagonist Jordan MacKenzie, a typical high school junior girl with a seemingly typical high school junior's life. Through wonderful teenage narration sparkling with authentic voice, we come to know Jordan and come to see how the man she once knew as her father turned crazy, all in the name of so-called love.

Yes, crazy. All over Gayle D'Angelo, a married woman.

The narration and voice make up for a semi-slow moving story, though it mostly builds up plot and suspense-wise, keeping you on the edge of your seat. All characters are easy to like, with the exception of Jordan's new boyfriend, Kale, who just wants to get in Jordan's pants and kills bunnies with a shotgun for fun. We at first see her as rather self-confident and witty but as the story progresses, her confidence rises and plummets according to the situations she faces. I found her revenge on her "boyfriend," Kale, to be quite amusing. Kale is hell-bent on getting Jordan's attention and she instantly regrets sleeping with him, especially when he's got his tongue down some other girl's throat 10 minutes later. After crazy Mr. MacKenzie is taken to the sheriff's, Jordan uses Kale for a ride. She needs to get away from her home and her family. Come morning at a skeezy motel, Kale and Jordan genuinely have become the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde. Kale has stolen some poor soul's car and Jordan isn't about to let him get away with it, especially after what he's put her through. So she alerts a gas station man and takes off running, saying to him she refuses to ride in the stolen car any longer. That's just one of the humorous incidents - the characters are amusing as well.

Take Claire, Jordan's hippie mother who unabashedly breast feeds Jordan's baby half-brother in public. And Melissa, Jordan's very best friend, who at first thinks Kale, neighborhoodwide-known as a thug, is good for Jordan. Prior, Jordan's experience had been limited to two unmemorable boyfriends.

Mr. MacKenzie's craziness over his affair with beautiful southerner Gayle takes a turn for the absolute worst, and I never even saw it coming! We slowly see Jordan and Mr. MacKenzie's father-daughter relationship deteroriating all thanks to the toll of lust, love, or infatuation - whatever has caused Mr. MacKenzie to switch gears and become a total stranger who Jordan really doesn't even know anymore. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her, especially since she seemed as real as my heroine, Jessica Lynn Darling. And Jordan isn't terribly close with her mother, who remarried and now runs a bed and breakfast with her artsy-fartsy husband, Nathan. Caletti's striking first effort, despite a few slow downhillers, is worthwhile. I'm looking forward to her follow-up, HONEY, BABY, SWEETHEART.

I loved this novel! I don't understand why it's listed as a YA. Adults should be reading it too. It's vivid, poignant and wise beyond the years of its heroine. Caletti's prose flows so smoothly that it's tempting to call her book just a quick read, but there's a lot about our crazy culture inside those easy words. She's a good writer, and I'll be looking for her next book.

This book took me back to my teenage years with all its angst and wonder. Deb Caletti has such an easy way with words that I sat down and read the novel in one evening (by a battery-powered booklight when our electricity went out).Although I sat in front of a cozy fire, I could feel the mist in my face and the wind in my hair. She put me on that San Juan island she writes about.

What a fabulous, taut, and throughout, joyful read through a story at times told with the stark, stripped down style of Hemmingway, then at a turn filled with incisive lines of coy humor. This one is as fine an outting one could have hoped for on a freshman outting from a first time writer. I would recommend to teachers, students, moms and dads....just about covers the gamut....two thumbs up!