Jessica Brody

Okay, two things right off the bat:

1) This is the first book I've ever purchased based on the book trailer. Normally, I abhor book trailers, but the one for 52 Reasons to Hate My Father was like watching a preview for a really cute teen chick flick and I was all, "OMG, I so want to see this movie," and then "Wait, it's a book! I can buy it right now and read it while I wait for some Hollywood producers to snap it up."

2) This book was absolutely freaking adorable

In the beginning, Lexi can show more seem almost unbearably obnoxious, but if you avoid judging her and think about the fact that she was raised differently than most people, I think you'll love her as much as I do. She's spoiled, but funny, and even though I'm nowhere near as wealthy as she is, I could totally sympathize with her situation. She's being forced to work for the first time in her life. And not just work, but work menial jobs that until that point she'd just overlooked. I think everyone can remember their first job. I do. I was a teenager working in a McDonald's restaurant. I can remember the first time I was told to clean the bathroom. It was my first and last day on the job. I knew immediately that that kind of work just wasn't for me. Lexi knows it too, but she has little choice. She has to perform each of 52 jobs (1 for each week of the year) to her father's satisfaction or she loses her trust fund. A twenty-five million dollar trust fund.

On the surface, 52 Reasons looks like a fairytale in reverse. A fluff-filled riches to rags story ala Material Girls starring Hilary Duff (did anyone but me actually watch that movie?). But at its heart, it is so much more. It's a story about a daughter and her relationship with her absent father. It's about the pain of loneliness. For all her faults, Lexi has a reason to be angry. A reason to be hurt. Her mother is dead. Her father is never home. Their entire relationship is manufactured by his PR people and played out in front of the press. I'd be angry too. I might even crave attention. Even bad attention if that's all I could get, because at least he'd be forced to notice me.

Lexi's growth is heart-warming and often humorous. As is her relationship with Luke, the liaison hired by her father to make sure she sticks to the agreement. I adored Luke. He is the opposite of Lexi in every way. He grew up poor, worked hard to get into college on a scholarship. But he's also very analytical and controlling and doesn't know how to let loose. And while it may be easy to assume that Luke will be the one teaching Lexi about real life, Lexi helps Luke to grow as well.

Her reactions to the occupations she is forced to endure are so accurate and relatable. And while I know how to use a vacuum and Lexi has to Google it, for the most part I found myself OMGing along with her. The monthly status video reports had me laughing until there were tears in my eyes.

In the end, I think readers will be pulling for Lexi. She's a strong, resilient character. She's likable despite the circumstances. She's funny. She's smart. And she will remind you that while the life of the rich and famous may appear glamorous from afar, the grass isn't necessarily greener just because you can afford to pay a landscaper. show less

I've been working my way through this book for months, but finally got some time and space to properly work through it over the holidays.

The original Save the Cat! book is a screenwriting 'bible', and Jessica Brody has taken up the mantle and applied it for aspiring novel writers.

I've read a few books on writing now, and this is one of the most useful I've read in terms of really clarifying how the beats in a novel work. It's not a book teaching about form rather than style, distilling show more novels down to 10 basic genres and explaining through analysis of a book from each genre how the same 'beat sheet' can be applied to most novels. The novel analyses definitely require a spoiler alert (which Brody gives), as for this breakdown to work she has to work through the plot of each book from beginning to end, but I was OK with that as I found it incredibly useful to be firstly taught the theory and then work through ten examples of that theory applied to very different novels. It really opened my eyes to the rhythm of what makes a good novel, and whilst the ten genres have key differences in form, they still all broadly follow a similar structure.

5 stars - definitely a book which I will return to again and again. Now if only I could find that killer idea... show less

Yes, Sky Without Stars is a retelling of Les Misérables set in space. Yes, it has your Jean Valjean, your Javert, your Marius, your Cosette, and your Eponine characters. Yes, it has an infamous criminal hiding from the police, a clueless adopted daughter, a member of the upper class questioning everything he knows about class, and a female street urchin caught up among all their stories. But what starts as a retelling becomes so much more.

What it becomes is a reminder of the power of the show more printed word. It is a call to remember history as accurately as possible because when you forget the past, you allow those who have not to gain control over you. It is the ease with which the monied exploit the poor and the many ways those in the middle ignore the exploitation. It is another example of how often history repeats itself without proper education and diligence.

It is a story about resources – people, money, food, and natural – and the dangers of having too much or too little. It is the lengths people will go to survive when desperate. It is the relationships that bind us to one another, whether we want them to do so or not. It is about secrets and political machinations that run deeper than anyone knows and the dangers of uncovering such plots.

Lastly, it is a space opera. Set in a different universe, on a plant that never sees the light of a sun, the permanent darkness plays a significant role in the mood of the people and the tone of the novel. Survival on a planet with limited resources is an aspect of the story that did not exist in the original. Nor did space travel, computer systems, embedded technology, androids, and other space elements. These add their own twist to the novel that makes it even larger and more spectacular than Hugo’s masterpiece.

Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell do an excellent job taking Hugo’s story and making it their own. I like that they focus on the three younger characters rather than on the dynamic between hunter and hunted. I particularly like how they flesh out each of those characters, making them less insipid, more complex, more morally ambiguous, more human. I also enjoy how they downplayed the love story to focus on the political interplay. Best of all, by the time the novel ends, the story is heading in directions Hugo never went, making it original and providing enough unanswered questions to make anyone anticipate the sequel. show less

I was seriously doubting my sanity when I picked this up from the library. I have VERY strong feelings on roadtrip YA, and how overdone it is, and I couldn't fathom why I would think that past-Ema-who-put-this-book-on-hold would want to read another roadtrip YA. BUT this was actually super lovely. A main character with trust issues that actually felt valid, an extremely cool fictionalised band, one missing parent that felt real (and one who didn't, these YA roadtrip novels need to really show more consider the parents), very many other things that made this well worth reading.

I'm just angry that there was NO JUSTICE re those Seahawks tickets!!! I mean, come on. ALSO hello, does she end up going to school? This is a YA novel, it's supposed to have a nice ending where they call the school and explain and she gets her scholarship (and I can then complain about it.) show less