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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too, December 4, 2007
This review is from: Saving Zoe: A Novel (Paperback)
Fifteen-year-old Echo has had to deal with more tragedy than anyone, regardless of age, should have to bear. Her parents' relationship is made up of alternating periods of arguments and silence. Her two best friends, Abby and Jenay, seem to be drifting apart -- from her, and from each other. She has a boyfriend named Parker, a great guy that she can't seem to work up any emotion towards. And her older sister, Zoe, is still dead and gone.
Echo and Zoe could not have been more different. Echo is diligent in her studies, quite happy to take the quiet path of least resistance. Zoe, on the other hand, had the sunny, naive disposition that led her to live life however the mood struck her. In fact, it was that same sweet and fun personality that may have led to her death.
Zoe's boyfriend, Marc, is still struggling to deal with the death of the girl he loved. However, he has something that has helped him a great deal; something that he decides to give to Echo, to help her know the sister who no longer is. Zoe left her diary with Marc the last time they were together, and he's held onto it ever since. Now it's Echo's, and, at first, she resists reading it. After all, she already knew everything there was to know about Zoe, right? Turns out, not so much.
As Echo becomes immersed in the last few months of Zoe's life, she learns that she really didn't know her sister at all. The struggles, the insecurities, the traumas that her sister faced and never spoke about -- these aren't things that Echo would have ever associated with her bright, popular sister. As she delves deeper, into both the diary and the need to be like Zoe, Echo learns that although her sister will never return, she will always live in Echo's memory -- and in the justice that Echo is determined to get in her sister's name.
Although Alyson Noel is best known for her lighter, contemporary stories, she has taken a serious, heartbreaking plot line and turned it into a winner that you'll never forget. I found myself as immersed into Zoe's life as Echo did, and found it hard to put the book down the entire time I was reading. Ms. Noel has done an awesome job with this weightier subject matter, and I hope to read more stories in this vein from her in the future.
Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Some pretty adult themes for a teen book, July 18, 2010
This review is from: Saving Zoe: A Novel (Paperback)
Saving Zoe: A Novel
Synopsis
In the last year, Echo's life has transformed into a nightmare. Her older sister was brutally murdered, as no one in town will let her forget. She is trying to continue living a life that no longer makes any sense to her. Then, on her birthday, she is given her sister's diary, the chronicle of her last days on earth. Reading the diary shows Echo just how much she didn't know about Zoe and the unfinished business she left behind.
Review
While Saving Zoe: A Novel was relatively short, I found it to be very engaging. After I finished reading it, I simply sat there and sorted through the feelings that the story left me with. It approached very mature topics, like sex, drugs, predators, and relationships through the medium of the diary, which I found to be very insightful. After the half way point of the book, I found it hard to put down as I wanted to know what was in that diary.
My Recommendation
I really enjoyed this book, though I wasn't a huge fan of the multitudes of emotions that it brought up. This book should be read by teens ~14+ as some of the themes are too mature for younger children.
4 - Wait for a sale/coupon
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not amazing, not terrible, January 27, 2009
This review is from: Saving Zoe: A Novel (Paperback)
I'm surprised to come here and find that most reviewers loved this book. I read "Saving Zoe" and found it to be simply written (a pro in this case), kind of bland, and not quite much of anything. I really liked some parts, while at the same time some parts bothered me immensely.
The storyline is simple. Echo's spirited older sister Zoe is gone, and Echo tries to piece her life together through her final diary entires. As she enters Zoe's world bit by bit, she finds herself in similar situations, meeting the same people, and facing similar dilemmas. She strikes up a strange relationship with Zoe's boyfriend and begins to distance herself from her former good friends.
"Saving Zoe" read realistically at times, but there were moments where plot and writing felt cheap and out of place. Zoe's diary entries often felt supremely fake (like most diary entry books), with whole quoted conversations and a writing style remarkably similar to that of Alyson Noel. What a curious coincidence.
But the story never really lifts off. I read it quickly enough but without feeling like I'd gotten close to any characters. The plot is one that's fairly common and the writing isn't special enough to warrant a read (though it's most certainly quite nice). The cover is also bewildering: how anyone can call this book "hysterical" is beyond me. It's a girl's book, no doubt, and while it's not amazing, it does have a certain charm to it. In the end, I didn't come away from it feeling like I'd enjoyed the hours spent on it. I didn't actively dislike it, but there was nothing in it for me to particularly like.
Not amazing, not terrible, and nothing out of the ordinary. "Saving Zoe" is good for teen girls looking for more substantive drama (dealing with loss, boyfriend drama, friend drama, etc.), but too flat for avid readers in search of a meaningful book to tug on heartstrings and take you to a whole new world. Take your pick.
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