Fourth Comings

So. What do you do when you've graduated from college at a prestigious university (that put you in debt for thousands of dollars) and you've discovered that you did not major in something useful and employable, but instead majored in psychology and can't find a job? And what do you do when you live in a city you can't afford and that your boyfriend hates? And what do you do when your sister suspects that your mom might leave your dad and it's making you question the entire institute of marriage, which is inconvenient considering that your boyfriend has just proposed to you?

If you're Jessica Darling, you write about it. And not only do you write about it, but you write about it with your signature snark and pop-culture-bashing pizzazz. show more And it's laugh-out-loud funny and angsty without being annoying and it's totally un-put-down-able.

The fourth book in the Jessica Darling series takes a slightly different format from her previous books. Instead of taking place over a year (or years), it takes place over one week in September. This is a very significant week for Jessica because at the beginning on the week, she went to Princeton intending to break up with her long-time boyfriend Marcus. Instead of breaking up, Marcus proposed to her and now Jessica has one week to mull it over and come to a decision. It's a decision that she never really thought she'd have to make, especially when she's 22 years old, essentially unemployed, and sharing a small basement apartment with her best friend and a lesbian couple.

McCafferty is at the top of her game with this novel that perfectly captures the problem of a recent college grad that has way too many options. It's so hard to decide what to do because making a choice to do something means choosing NOT to do so many other things...

I highly recommend this series for 20-somethings everywhere (and also everyone else... because it is awesome). show less

After inadvertently rereading the entire Jessica Darling series every year like clockwork without fail since Books 3-4 were published, I think I can safely say that FOURTH COMINGS is my favorite of the five books.

Are you surprised? Is this an unconventional choice? Sloppy Firsts had that sparkling magic of the first in a series you know will be good; Second Helpings was the fulfillment of a happy ending; Charmed Thirds allowed Jessica to develop more insight and maturity than before, plus did even more wonderful things with all the secondary characters; and Perfect Fifths—well, just read the title. Compared to the other books (with the possible exception of Charmed Thirds), FOURTH COMINGS is the saddest. (With the possible exception show more of Perfect Fifths) It’s the installment where the narrative form gets most in the way of Jessica’s typically candid journals—because here she’s addressing Marcus Flutie and, like she says, the moment there’s an audience, the honesty of the writing is inevitably affected.

But…

Still…

Despite all that.

Full disclosure: I have been in a similar state of emotions and mind as 22-year-old Jessica Darling for what feels like the past several years. It’s the stomach-flipping, giddy-with-terror feeling of not knowing what the hell you want to do an hour from now, let alone in ten years, and yet feeling all the societal pressure to make decisions about your CAREER and your BABYDADDY/BABYMAMA and your CHILDBIRTHING METHODS right now, now, now. It’s the fear of letting go that which we were certain of in our past but are not sure how it fits into our present and future.

It is because of this similarity in our mindsets that I think makes me able to understand Jessica a lot at this stage in her life. There may be little in the way of plot, to speak nothing of the pacing (the whole book takes place over the course of less than a week), but what does that matter to me when I hang on to Jessica’s every word because I can see fragments of myself in all of her entries?

I think Jessica Darling represents the worst in us, and that’s why her post-Book 2 tales make people suuuuper uncomfortable. In choosing the journal as her format of choice, McCafferty commits unapologetically to illustrating the parts of (female) human nature that most of us don’t like to see reflected in literature—our insecurity in the face of other, more accomplished, more beautiful, nicer women; our preoccupation with sex, relationships, and love, and how they are tied to our identities; our borderline-desperate search for the meaning and purpose that society demands from our lives. This is realism at its realest, and damn if it doesn’t hurt like a wake-up punch in the face.

The Jessica Darling books are not just novels. They are what we would write to ourselves if we were articulate and introspective and talented enough to put our deepest, darkest, most shameful thoughts to paper.

That’s why FOURTH COMINGS is my favorite. show less

Blech. This was both shallow and very boring. Why do sequels almost always go so rapidly downhill? This series didn’t slump so much as free-fall. I found Jessica's diary to be tedious and overly detailed, and all the characters (especially the protagonist) shallow and annoying. At least the earlier books had some funny parts. Megan McCafferty, stop beating an eohippus and try something different!

Fresh out of Columbia and facing the "where-is-my-life-going" question so many 20-somethings must tackle, Jessica Darling is living in New York City after finally reuniting with her best friend, Hope Weaver. Though things are tangled, complicated and tricky as Jess navigates post-grad life and tries (mostly in vain) to find a job, the matter weighing most heavily on her heart is whether or not to accept a very unexpected proposal from -- who else? -- Marcus Flutie, her first love and on- and off-again boyfriend.

Jess's journal entries in the week immediately following the proposal make up Fourth Comings, the penultimate book in the Jessica Darling series. And while this installment lacked the action of the first three books, I think it show more was definitely an important "chapter" in the overall story of not only Marcus and Jess, but Jessica and Hope, Jessica and Marin, Jessica and her parents, etc.

To be honest, I'm a little bit in love with Marcus . . . and the fact that Jessica is so undecided about him -- regardless of the fact that I can see where she's coming from -- is frustrating. I just keep wondering how long she's going to wonder about him, holding him at arm's length as she overanalyzes every step that could take her closer or farther away from the man she so obviously adores. But the real question here is the same one many must face before they make "the leap": With far more differences than similarities between them, is love really enough?

But I adore her quote about falling in love -- how first we fall so completely and obsessively for another person before the inevitable cool down that brings us into an easy, comfortable give-and-take relationship. Jessica says her problem with Marcus is that she's always falling for him -- falling, and falling, and falling, without ever hitting the bottom. And while she's continuously sailing through this love affair, Marcus is reinventing himself time and time again, turning into someone completely different as he grapples with all of the changes life brings him.

I love McCafferty's books so much, it's hard for me to speak cohesively on what makes them so great. Jess is just such a complicated, annoying, flawed, beautiful and real character -- there's something about her that makes her more of a friend than a two-dimensional creation of Megan McCafferty! And while I would have liked more of the novel to take place in the here-and-now, I still really loved seeing Jessica grow, change and develop. And I loved getting the latest news on folks like Manda, Len, Scotty and Bethany.

Was I satisfied with the ending? No. Definitely not. But I guess that's what Perfect Fifths is for! show less

I'm having a hard time reading this one :( Jessica is really annoying in it. I don't like how she's writing to Marcus and even though I thought her character was refreshing in the first book, by this point she really comes off like she's better than everybody and I'm starting to hate her a little!

UPDATE:

I'm FINALLY finished!! Whew it was a hard one for me to get through! I have definitely hit the 'Jessica Darling' wall. The first two books were completely awesome, the third one was just ok, and this fourth one?? I would like nothing better than to line my trash bin with it (but its a library book, so I can't)... wait THANK GOD it's a library book and I didn't spend money on this!!!

Ok now that that's out, here's what I really thought show more about the book-
When Jessica was in high school, it made sense that she would look down on people.... I mean she was in High School surrounded by typical high school small-town types. Everyone thinks bad things about those kinds of people from time to time. When she was in Pineville, I thought she was cool because she had perspective that most high school kids don't have... that being "it's just high school, most of this crap doesn't matter". But Now? This girl is in her 20's, in the biggest city in America and yet she walks around thinking she's so much smarter than everyone. She has to go on and on and analyze every word a person says, every thread of clothing that they put on their bodies. It's SO ANNOYING. I know she's not real but Jessica if you're out there, I just want to tell you: You Suck! She is constantly eavesdropping on people and judging every word they say. And then analyzing what they said and how it reflects on society as a whole.... I know she's a psych major, but give me a break!

I didn't like the whole writing to Marcus thing... especially when it was perfectly clear from the beginning that she was going to say no. She took a week to "think about it" and not once did she think about Marcus and their relationship. Like the good times, the fights, etc. All she thought about was herself in the here and now... I have no idea what a guy would get out of a week long walk-through in her boring and pretentious life, but there it was. And at the end all she realized was that she didn't know who Marcus really was.

PS- If I have to hear the same effing recaps for every situation/person in the next book (yes I will probably push through and read the last book even though I don't really want to) I will break something. Example: "Paul Parlipiano, my high school crush-to-end-all-crushes, my former obsessive object of horniness and gay man of my dreams." (Do we need that every single freaking time he's brought up?!).

Sorry for the rant, but with the first 2 books being so good, I didn't feel it was fair to the audience to make Jessica so unlikable.

My Blog:
http://pinkpolkadotbookblog.blogspot.com/ show less

I have really been struggling with this review. I feel so indifferent that it’s actually hard for me to determine whether I even liked this novel. Everything I had loved about the first two novels has completely disappeared by the fourth. I’m beginning to realize that what I loved so much was that I felt as if I were a friend of Jessica. Crazy, I know but that is how it felt. The two of us we just going through our lives together and while she was sharing more of her issues, I could completely empathize. It had become something of substance and I felt cheated by the singular week provided. It was the first time that the friendship felt superficial to me. She claims that she is putting down all of her feelings on paper so that she show more can sort through her thoughts concerning the proposal but there really wasn’t a lot of that. She just seemed to brush everything she was really feeling under the rug and there it remained until someone else brought it up. Perhaps I’m so indifferent because she is. I felt like she had lost a lot of the passion and excitement that had led me to her in the first place. I’m glad to know what happened next but she has become a person I doubt I would like to be around. I feel as if it’s almost as if the author is sick of her too. Honestly, I’m not really looking forward to the final installment. show less

I started reading the Jessica Darling series when I was in high school. I found Sloppy Firsts in a bookstore that was going out of business and thought it would be good. It turned out to be amazing. Over the years I read the sequels. Fourth Comings couldn't have been released at a better time. I feel like I've grown up with Jessica. She's now the same age as me and going through a lot of the same stuff I've faced recently. I just hate that I'm already done with the book. I hope there will be more books in the series.