Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Notes from the Blender by Trish Cook and Brendan Halpin YP FIC COOK


Declan and Neilly have nothing in common.  He’s a social leper who loves Finnish death metal, violent as possible video games, and internet sites with a minimum of three ‘X’s.  Neilly is the mean girl, queen bee, ruler of the school.  Declan loves lusts Neilly from afar and wishes it were from aclose.  Now dreams come true for Declan and nightmares for Neilly as they find that they are brand new siblings with the surprise marriage of their parents.  Also (on the SAME DAY), Neilly is dumped by her boyfriend, betrayed by her BFF, and her social stock is plummeting faster than the actual stock market!  Can these total opposites ever coexist?  

I am a big, big fan of alternating viewpoints from different authors when done well and Notes from the Blender does it very well.  The narrators are so different that their POVs on the same events are wildly divergent.  Declan is hilarious, but hard to like as is Neilly.  They are pretty realistic and VERY honest, so there is some definite TMI.  Unfortunately, most the secondary characters were flat and never feel like real people.  Also, the ending feels a little too ‘Happy Ever After’.   These problems keep a fun and funny read from ever achieving greatness, but a fun and funny read is always great in its own way.  Fans of Rachel Cohn, Lauren Myracle, and other YA humor authors should definitely give this one a spin.

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