Citation:
King, A.S. Please Ignore Vera Dietz. Random House: New York. 2010.
Annotation:
Please Ignore Vera Dietz is a novel about a eighteen-year-old pizza delivery technician whose best friend has just died and she is trying to come to terms with his death, her mother's abandonment, and how to do the right thing.
Justification for Rejection:
Though this novel has everything a YA novel should have (a likeable/flawed narrator, independence for the teen, dealing with troubling situations, and a little romance) it falls short when it comes to plot and organization.
The novel was written mostly from the point of view of Vera, but the author included snipets of thoughts and points of view from her best friend, Charlie, from the grave and her father. I found this an intrusion into the strong voice of Vera. This style of writing seemed like an obvious device for the author to convey information that they didn't know how to do any other way.
Though the story was very real and relatable, I found that not knowing why Charlie died until the very end, but given minimal hints that really added up to nothing was very frustrating as a reader. The novel is full of flashbacks and suggestions that don't aid the reader in figuring anything out. There is no "aha!" moment when the reader figures out the mystery. I was left in the dark until the author explicitly wrote what exactly happened.
The author does do a wonderful job of creating a moral quest in Vera about whether she should tell what she knows about Charlie's death or whether she should stay the invisible soul that she wants to be. In the end, Vera shows a good example of realizing that she has to share her knowledge to clear Charlie's name and to move on from his death. But, Vera only does this, it seems, because the ghost of Charlie has been haunting her until she shares what she knows.
Please Ignore Vera Dietz tries its hardest to convey real problems and real characters, but in the end the feigned suspense leaves the reader glad to shut the book.
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