Famous Last Words, by Katie Alender

Willa has been seeing things (dead people, flashes, water on the floor, writing on the wall) that no one else sees.  It appears to be tied to her obsession with reaching out to the Afterlife to contact the spirit of her dead father.  But when she and her mother move into her new stepfather's mansion in Hollywood, these hallucinations take on more sinister tones.  And it takes the help of an obsessive-compulsive outcast at school to help her figure out that it all has to do with a serial killer who's stalking young actresses and forcing them to reenact famous death scenes from movies.

Yes, it doesn't make a terrible amount of sense (and it only gets worse in the end), but it's fun enough escapist stuff to read.  Not a lot of character stuff here either (a forgettable girlfriend seems particularly inconsequential), but it's a story with a breakneck pace.  If you like sociopathic killers and poor little rich girls, you'll probably enjoy this.


[Disclosure:  I received an ARC from the publisher in return for my critical consideration.  The book is scheduled for release on September 30th.]

Don't Look Back, by Jennifer L. Armentrout

The first thing that Samantha remembers is walking along a road in her bare feet.  She's badly injured.  She doesn't know it then, but once she is rescued, she discovers that she has been missing for days.  Worse, she was not alone when she disappeared and her companion (her best friend Cassie) is still missing.  Samantha doesn't know what happened to Cassie and, in fact, can't remember anything about herself or her life.

Much to the surprise of everyone around her, the amnesia causes her to change.  People with whom she was apparently friends before no longer appeal and she doesn't feel drawn to her rich and stuck-up boyfriend Del.  Instead, she bonds with hunky, but low-class Carson, the son of her family's groundskeeper (a choice that elicits strong disapproval from her peers and her family).  But the real issue is the mystery of what happened to her -- a matter which grows more urgent when Cassie turns up dead and suspicions are aroused that Alice's amnesia may simply be an act to cover up her guilt.

With the whole amnesia plot (and particularly the opening), I was reminded of the book Pretty Girl 13 (which I reviewed a few months ago), but this is a very different story.  Less creepy and far more suspenseful, it's a classic whodunnit.  I enjoyed turning the pages in search of the answer to the mystery.  The pacing is near perfect and played out well.  I had plenty of suspicions of the culprit but nothing definite until the reveal.  As for that ending, it was a bit too melodramatic, but had a good pay-off.

This is not, however, a great character read.  I liked Sam, but the other characters are less memorable.  The romance isn't very interesting and even the peer rivalries seem weak and contrived.  The characters are there to make their required appearance.  The plot itself is king.

Side Effects May Vary, by Julie Murphy

When Alice got sick with leukemia, life went on hold.  Alice's problems with her ex-, the knowledge that her mother was cheating on her Dad, and even her arms-length relationship with her friend Harvey changed.  She was dying and in the period of a year, as her condition grew worse and worse, she found new joy in her family and in Harvey.  She settled scores with old enemies with particularly poetic forms of revenge and came to peace with her fate.  Harvey meanwhile adored Alice and devoted himself to being whatever she wanted, completely losing her own sense of self.

Then a terrible miracle happened.  Her condition reversed and she went into remission.  Suddenly, the idea of living long enough to go to college didn't seem so crazy.  And that is when Alice realized that she's in trouble.   Those kids she settled scores with are still out there.  Her family's issues haven't gone away (they've just been on hold during her illness).  And now that she isn't dying soon, she knows that Harvey is no longer what she wants (despite the fact that he still wants her).  Facing death was easy -- now Alice must face life!

A strikingly original story about life and living in an imperfect world with flawed people.  If you want your characters to be likeable, this isn't a very good book for you.  Most of the kids (and some of the adults) are selfish and mean.  Harvey is weak and spineless.  But Alice takes the cake as a self-centered, cruel, and manipulative young woman.  And while she gets cut some slack for being sick, there's no denying that she's simply not a nice person!  Yet, these are recognizable people with real raw emotions and their struggles ring very true.  So, while this can be unpleasant to read, it is engrossing for its honesty.

My only complaint is the structure of the book -- which shifts between Alice and Harvey's narration and jumps around fairly liberally along the timeline.  Stylistically, I found the combination of regular flashbacks and multiple POVs to be a bit hard to follow (it took about a hundred pages for me to get into the swing of things).  However, it's still a great book!

The Summer of Letting Go, by Gae Polisner

It's a beach story (there's a boy who's off-limits and best friend to betray), but it's also not your typical summer romance.

Four years ago, Frankie's brother drowned in the ocean while she was supposed to be watching him.  In the intervening years, her mother's never quite recovered and seemingly never forgiven Frankie either.  Her father has drifted away from the family, leaving Frankie pretty much on her own, to wallow to self-pity.

Frankie lives in fear of the ocean, of taking care of others, or of opening up to (even to her best friend).  But this summer she decides to be brave and put one foot in front of the other and confront her fears.  In the course of finding out why her father is sneaking around with a next-door neighbor, Frankie stumbles into a job caring for a rambunctious little boy who bears a striking physical and personality resemblance to her dead brother.  As the coincidences and similarities pile up, Frankie becomes more and more convinced that this child is actually a reincarnation of her brother.  Somehow, in the midst of all this drama, there is still some time to squeeze in the love triangle.

Obviously, it's a book trying to do a bit too much.  In general, the romance gets sacrificed to the rest of the story, but by the end, almost every plot line suffers through a quick fix.  This is a shame as the originality of the potential reincarnation plot is interesting and needed a fuller resolution.  Still, I enjoyed a late summer beach novel that finds some novel territory in which to explore.  And, as usual, I want to give a shout out to another YA book that does a decent job of portraying grownups as being real people (and not clueless boobs!) -- parents and other random adults got to be human beings, much to the chagrin of the adolescents in the story.

Felix the Comet, by Cathy Coley

Felix is a first class geek with two geek parents (they are both teachers at a local college), but Felix can't help the fact that he's smart and knows stuff.  Thankfully, at his school, it's never been a problem.  He's been free to pretty much be himself.  Kids just know that's how he is. 

But when a new boy transfers in, trouble begins.  The kid takes an instant dislike to Felix and goes out of his way to tease and torment Felix.  The book's title however comes from a side plot: Felix and his dog Cosmo discover a comet.  This makes Felix instantly famous and all that attention further infuriates the bully.  Felix tries to cool things down by maintaining a low profile, but it does no good.  Felix's friends, meanwhile, try to convince Felix to tell an adult.  Felix, however, wants to figure out a solution on his own (and he's no tattle-tale!).  But, as the situation escalates, Felix discovers that he may be in over his head!

Coley is great with details, portraying in loving detail the dynamics of Felix's friendships and family life.  The parents, in particular, are well-rounded and authentic.  Dialogue is less of a strong suit and I found the kid's voices stiff and not as true.  That said, the story (and Felix's motivation to avoid making trouble in particular) made sense and build a satisfying dramatic arc.  I would have liked to have seen more development of his nemesis (we get a small bit of that in the end when Felix observes that the bully's family may be the source of his anger, but it is an underdeveloped idea and a lost opportunity.


[Disclaimer:  I'm friends with the author and she bravely asked me to review her book (even sending me a copy for the review).]

Can't Look Away, by Donna Cooner

Torrey has always liked being in the public eye.  Her popular fashion VLOG has been a dream come true, garnering plenty of attention.  But after her younger sister is killed by a drunk driver, Torrey finds that public attention isn't always kind.  As the comments turn from sympathetic to nasty, she shies away from posting to her site.  Conveniently, her family decides to move from Colorado to Texas, giving her a chance to start over (at least outside of cyberspace).  But once in Texas, she finds that the desire to re-establish her credentials as an It-Girl conflicts with her desire to escape her past.

Her attempts to ingratiate herself into the company of the popular clique also come into conflict with her romantic aspirations as she finds herself falling for brooding Luis -- an outcast.  Luis, however, understands her grief over the loss of her sister in a way that no one else does.  And he helps her to understand the futility of seeking fame and popularity.

It's a pleasing story with most of the tropes of YA fiction.  The girl doesn't quite fit the plain Jane standard for a heroine (she far too pretty and vain), but she has the right amount of insecurity to make her instantly worthy of empathy.  But Torrey didn't really grab me.  She's too narcissistic and her complaints are repetitive and whiny.  Her coming around at the end is entirely too neat.  The boy is, of course, too perfect as well as being conveniently unattached.
Not everything is standard and predictable.  There is a nice side story about Mexican death customs.  And I also liked the side story of Torrey's awkward cousin Raylene, who provides a not-so-subtle comparison with the dead sister.

The Milk of Birds, by Sylvia Whitman

Nawra (a refugee in Darfur) and K.C. (a high-schooler in Richmond VA) make an odd match.  Through a correspondence sponsored by an NGO, they spend a year trading letters.  Their differences are stark:  Nawra deals daily with starvation, disease, threats of physical harm, and privations that K.C. cannot even imagine.  But as the two girls learn about each other, they find the ability to inspire each other.

Of the two of them, Nawra's story is by far the most compelling.  Not only is she facing daily unimaginable challenges, but she does so with strength and optimism that nearly defies belief.  Her proverbs, which pepper the story, are wonderful.  In comparison, K.C. comes across as a terribly whiny and spoiled suburban brat.  While K.C. slowly redeems herself, the book's primary weakness is the handicap that K.C. presents from the start.  How many First World problems can we tolerate when the stakes are so dire for Nawra?  It's hard to read about genocide and then be expected to care about K.C.'s desire for a smart phone.  It seems a bit overkill:  Even a less spoiled American girl's life would have come across as a contrast with the world of Darfur.  Perhaps this book would have seemed less uneven with a milder opposite number?

Still, I think it is a remarkable achievement to tell this story and to do so with such authenticity and love.  Whitman excels in opening up the world of Darfur and making it accessible to Western readers.  It's the little moments where the characters misunderstand each other, but the reader realizes that they are in a privileged position to realize it that really make the reading of this book a joy.

The F*** It List, by Julie Halpern

Alex has a lot of trouble in her life.  Her father recently died in a car accident, her best friend has cancer, and there's a guy (Leo) who she isn't sure she wants to get close to (which doesn't stop her from tearing off her clothes, when given the opportunity).  She's a supportive friend to Becca and good older sister to her fatherless brothers, but it pulls her in way too many directions.  What she does have is a great love of horror films and Becca's bucket list, which they have renamed the "Fuck It" list.

The result is a story that meanders along through the year as Becca goes through treatment, Alex and Leo struggle to figure out what they want.  Surprisingly, the List itself doesn't play much of a role in the story.  There's a lot of death and also a lot of sex (the first masturbation scene is on page 57, if you're looking for it!).  Neither the death nor the sex really did much for me, as there isn't much emotion behind it.  Some of that flat emotionless delivery v is the cynical dark attitude that Alex carries with her, but mostly it is the lack of investment that the storyteller conveys.  A functional story, but it doesn't really add much to the genre.

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo

Flora is a natural-born cynic, while Ulysses is a might-be superhero squirrel.  After an unfortunate encounter with a powerful vacuum cleaner, Ulysses emerges as a rodent with a big fluffy tail (and no fur) who can lift heavy items, fly through the air, and write poetry.  And while Flora wants to help him conquer his arch-nemesis (her Mom), Ulysses would really just like to find something to eat (perhaps a giant donut?).

A clever and wacky fantasy that intermixes odd-ball characters, poetry, and comic-book styling (complete with storyboard interludes) together to tell a story about a girl and her amazing squirrel friend.  It's completely chaotic and absurd, but in a way that you can enjoy if you let your grown-up sensibilities go (whether children will even understand it is another matter altogether!).  DiCamillo won me over originally with Because of Winn Dixie, but she has since drifted fairly far into Absurdism and I'm not sure how many readers want to follow her there.  Some reviewers claim that the story has a deep theme (abandonment), but I consider it just so over-the-top that any message is largely lost.  I did enjoy it, but it was a bit of a close call.

Oh, yeah, it won the Newbery too, if that sort of thing matters to you.

Dear George Clooney: Please Marry My Mom, by Susin Nielsen

After Violet's father moved out on them, Mom went through a string of disastrous relationships.  Violet has had enough of these losers and decides that the only thing to do about it is to hook her Mom up with the perfect man: George Clooney.  It's not going to be easy, but Violet and her friends are resourceful.  They also have to be fast though because Mom is on the verge of getting hitched to the unfortunately-named Dudley Wiener!

Violet is the type of kid who's always getting into trouble.  The appeal of the book is supposed to center around her mishaps.  For me, that only works part of the time.  Violet is stubborn and a bit cruel, and her issues (which include a mild case of OCD that lies largely uncommented-upon throughout the story) can be a bit hard to take.  So, the humor (such as it is) has a dark side.  I'll give the book points for being lively and original, but the meanness of so much of the story detracted from my enjoyment.

Black Helicopters, by Blythe Woolston

Valley and her brother Bo have been raised by their Da to survive in a frightening world.  They've been living under the radar and in secret ever since the death of their mother.  Da says it's the black helicopters that Those People use and he has trained the kids to be alert and cautious.  Relentlessly, the children have been trained on how to hide and how to fight back against their enemy.

One day, Valley and Bo return home from a mission to find their home destroyed and their father presumably dead.  Following their training, they set out on their own, avoiding contact with their parents' murderers.  They reach out to their father's network of friends and prove their worth taking on missions against the enemy.  But Valley wants revenge, and with a jacket full of C4 she intends to get it.

A short but chilling portrait of the paranoid world of domestic terrorists.  The story is a nail-biter and definitely hooks you in.  However, it's an odd story, with a lot of loose ends and poorly developed supporting characters.  Details are confused and don't entirely match up.  Some of this is stylistic (Valley's own confusion permeates the narrative), but some of it is simply overly concise storytelling.  The brevity that gives this thriller urgency also sacrifices character development.

Dash, by Kirby Larson

Eleven year-old Mitsi loves her dog Dash, her family, school, and her drawing.  She understands that sometimes boys like to bully people, but she doesn't understand why people have gotten so mean to her and her family just because they are of Japanese descent.  Yes, the United States and Japan are at war, but she and her family are Americans!  Then, she learns that all the Japanese people in Seattle are being rounded up and relocated to a camp far away.  With just a week's notice, her family has to sell everything and pack up.  Worst of all, she's been told that she can't bring Dash with her - no pets are allowed!

A kind neighbor agrees to take care of Dash and sends her status reports during their separation.  That correspondence gives Mitsi a release and allows her to cope with the horrors of her family's incarceration.

A well-researched and well-told story of Japanese-American relocation during WWI through the heart-wrenching hook of a girl separated from her pooch.  What's not to like?  Mitsi and her family have hearts of gold and are sometimes too good to be true, but the detail is so rich and so interesting, that the story just moves you right along.  This is a lovely piece of historical fiction (based on a true story) that captures and personalizes a shocking moment in American history.


[Disclosure:  I solicited and received a copy of this book for review.  Having really enjoyed this book, I plan to keep the copy I received, but it did not affect my review.]

Doll Bones, by Holly Black

Zach is growing up.  His father thinks he's too old to be playing with action figures and dolls, or for his two best friends (Poppy and Alice) to be girls.  So, Dad throws away all of Zach's toys.  In anger and embarrassment, Zach tells his friends that he doesn't want to play with them anymore.  They are understandable hurt and angry, especially since Zach won't give them any reason for his actions.

A few days later, Zach gets an urgent message from the girls to join them.  They have been nagging him so much that he figures that it's a trick to recruit him back to playing their games.  However, this time, the adventure is actually real!  A haunted doll, a quest, and a life-changing journey awaits.

What is billed as creepy and scary turns out to actually be a decent road-trip story, with plenty of real-life adventure and some risky behavior (at least two cases of theft, an incident of breaking-and-entering, and a number of other bad decisions play a prominent role).  There are intimations of magic and the supernatural, but it is all easily explained if necessary.  Instead, Black focuses on the way that real-life journeys can be just as interesting as mythic ones.

Finding Ruby Starling, by Karen Rivers

A mixture of emails, letters, poetry, and other media form the structure of this story of two girls who meet online and determine that they are in fact twin sisters, separated at birth.  Ruth lives in America, while Ruby lives in England, so they have plenty of differences, but they find that they also have a great deal in common.  Subplots involving their friends (including a rather bizarre one about making a movie about shark-orca hybrids) also figure in.

Told almost entirely through correspondence, most of the decent dramatic moments happen off-stage and in re-telling.  That sucks much of the energy out of the story.  It's also a major chore keeping all of the characters straight in this busy narrative (many of the characters come from a previous book; one imagines that another installment is probably in works -- and these two facts help explain the plethora of dramatis personae).  By the end, I had pretty much caught up to the flow of the story, but for a story which is basically about two girls being reunited, the whole thing seems distracted and off-focus.


[Disclosure: I received a copy of the book in advance for the purpose of writing this review.  I received no other compensation and will be donating my copy to the public library.  This book is scheduled for release next week.]

Uses for Boys, by Erica Lorraine Scheidt

In "the tell-me-again times," when Anna was a little girl, she would crawl into her mother's bed and her Mom would tell her, "She had no mother, she had no father.  All she wanted was a little girl and that little girl is me." But by the time Anna turned eight, she found that wasn't really true.  There was a different story.  Her mother wanted a husband and a house and a life outside the house, and she had little time for Anna.  Instead, Anna was left alone for hours and hours (and eventually days and days) in a big empty house, without a mother and without love.  Her mother was always distracted by the latest man and by chasing after the next rainbow.

So, Anna discovered how to find her own happiness in the attention that boys gave her.  The physical sensations were nice, but most of all, it was the feeling of being needed and wanted that provided Anna a surrogate for love.  The few friends she had at school rejected her as a slut, but eventually she left school anyway and simply focused on boys.  They provided what she needed and were more useful than school.

An immensely powerful, touching, and ultimately disturbing story of longing and the way that sex is too often used as a substitute for affection and love.  It's not really a story for teens (or even most adults) - not because of the depictions of sex and drugs, but because of the narrative itself.  I've read a fair number of reviews that wring their hands at the cruelty of the mother in this story, but it is obvious to me that she's as much of a victim as Anna herself (and even more trapped in the conflation of sex with love).  And the ending, while quite sad, leaves an amazing seed of hope that Anna has the strength and the smarts to break the cycle.  Young readers (and most adults) won't understand how Anna got this way and will quickly condemn her as a lazy "slut" in the type of defense mechanism that people who have not been there use to protect themselves.  But this story is really quite universal and that makes it very powerful.

I love love love Scheidt's writing!  From the very first chapter, I was drawn in to this story.  The beautiful way she establishes the neediness that Anna feels, in its pure and most innocent sense, goes so far to make the rest of the story believable and full of pathos.  One could criticize the flatness and opaque nature of all the other characters.  But seen through Anna's damaged eyes, it's fully understandable that we will never understand the others fully (after all, Anna is incapable of doing so!).

A truly brave and moving story, about a painful and difficult topic.  Amazing!!

Odessa Again, by Dana Reinhardt

Odessa has lots of things that bother her.  She hates the fact that her father doesn't live with them anymore.  She hates that he's remarrying.  Her little brother drives her crazy because he is such a toad!  And she despises having to share a room with him.

So, she is pretty happy when she finally convinces her Mom to let her move in to the attic.  And it is there that she makes an amazing discovery:  by stomping her feet on the floor she can go back in time!  It's a very limited power:  the first time, she goes back 24 hours; the second time, 23 hours; and so on.  Very quickly, she figures out the powerful opportunity of the Do-Over.  At first, she uses it to benefit herself.  But, as time goes by, she comes to realize the value of (and limits to) improving the lives of others.

The story, in the end, is really about the importance of internal change, but the magical angle of time travel gives the story a bit of fun.  Odessa gets to grow up in fairly predictable ways (learning to appreciate her brother, reconciling with the changes going on in her family, etc.) but I really enjoyed its predictability.  I also really liked grownups in the story (always a big fan of adults who are people and not monoliths).  The drawings are cute too!

Zero Tolerance, by Claudia Mills

When seventh-grader Sierra accidentally brings her mother's lunch to school, she's in for a surprise when her mother's paring knife falls out of the bag.  She's also in big trouble!  Her school has a zero tolerance policy regarding weapons and drugs.  Her friends urge her to simply hide the knife, but Sierra's always been rule-abiding, so she turns it in immediately and tries to explain her mistake.  Her principal, however, makes a big deal about applying the rules fairly and feels obliged to carry out the mandatory punishment for such an offense:  expulsion.  Sierra, a perfect student and a class leader, has never been in trouble before, but over the next two weeks as she awaits her sentencing while in mandatory in-school suspension, her eyes are opened to the world of being on the other side of the law.

Mills remains one of my favorite writers of traditional middle readers.  The particular subject is topical and handled well, with little sensationalism.  Mills articulates the way that rigid and unimaginative authority undermines discipline in the long run, and avoids making out any one person as a good guy or a bad guy. This would make a nice book for a group discussion, but is equally enjoyable to read on one's own.

Faces of the Dead, by Suzanne Weyn

People have often noted the physical similarities between Marie-Therese, daughter of the King of France, and her chambermaid Ernestine.  And the two girls have taken advantage of their appearance from time to time to switch roles.  It's all been in fun until the Revolution comes and Marie-Therese finds herself on the outside, while Ernestine plays her role with the condemned royal family.

Out on the streets, Marie-Therese befriends a young man named Henri. He is helping the future Madame Tussaud, Anna Marie Grosholtz, collect dead bodies to make wax death masks.  Grosholtz, however, is really learning voodoo spells from Rose de Beauharnais (a.k.a. the future Josephine Bonaparte) to help reanimate the spirits of guillotined nobles in wax bodies.  Through all of this, Marie-Therese mostly alternates between swooning and trying to reunite with her family (and then eventually escaping again). 

The whole story is, in sum, quite ridiculous!  The body double business has been done often enough before and might have made a fine story on its own.  But combined with the voodoo stuff it just gets silly.  The writing style seems forced and the characters are quite annoying.  Marie-Therese is the proverbial house cat: unable to decide if she wants to be inside with her family or out free on the streets, she sneaks in and out several times.  The boyfriend is entirely too modern to be believable.  Every other character is disposable and forgotten.  What a silly mess!


[Disclaimer:  I received a copy of this book as an unsolicited ARC.  I received no compensation for my review and consideration.]

Bombay Blues, by Tanuja Desai Hidier

Dimple Lala (introduced to us in Born Confused) is now studying at NYU and has become well-integrated into New York's club scene.  Her boyfriend Karsh is a DJ who specializes in Banghra mash-ups.  As the story begins, Dimple and her parents are going back to Mumbai to see family, celebrate an anniversary and a wedding, and generally soak up some hometown vibe.  Karsh is also going to be there as he's landed a breakthrough gig.

Things don't quite work out as planned, but the entire point of the book is to show that, in a city as big and as diverse as Mumbai, closed doors are always paired with open ones.  And for every opportunity that doesn't quite pan out, others appear.  Karsh's job doesn't work out but he goes in search of godhead instead.  Dimple finds herself pursuing other interests as well.  And even the family plans get thrown asunder.

All of this is told in Hidier's breathless and evocative prose, mixing New York club slang with hybrid English-Hindi in an argot that is quite unique (and which begged a glossary for the clueless suburban reader!).  The style is lyrical and colorful, but maddening difficult to crack.  The jargon meant that I found the book pretty slow going in the beginning.  The end grew difficult for another reason as Didier's narrative starts to crumble (a dubious stylistic decision driven more by artistic coolness than a desire to tell a story).

Didier obviously enjoys the city of Mumbai and lavishes a huge amount of text on describing her observations (probably an outgrowth of journaling there for a year in preparing this book).  Sometimes this works (for example, when she draws out a nice mini-essay on the semiotics of the new Bandra-Worli Sea Link) but mostly it seems like so much digression.  The story frequently takes a backseat to Hidier's love affair with Mumbai.  I longed for more of a story, some pruning of her descriptions, and a shortened book (at 550 pages, someone should have been doing more editing!).


[Disclosure: I received a copy of this book by soliciting the publisher for an advance review copy, which I'll be donating to my local public library. This did not affect the opinion expressed here.  The book is scheduled for release on August 26th.]

Year of Mistaken Discoveries, by Eileen Cook

Avery and Nora had been friends since first grade, where they discovered that they were both adopted.  Over the years, however, they had drifted apart.  When Nora kills herself, Avery tries to find meaning in her grief by searching for her own birth mother.  To help with the search, she enlists the help of Nora's friend Brody.  In the process of the search, she gets more than she counted on.

Pleasant enough of a read, but lacking much of a spark.  The story wants to be many things:  a soul searcher, a romance, a coming-to-grips-with-grief novel, and a story about adoption.  However, it doesn't really pan out.  Avery is part of the problem.  She's supposed to be very popular, but she acts like an outsider.  She's supposed to have grown apart from Nora, but she talks about her dead former friend like they were still BFFs (while tuning out her alleged friends).  It doesn't help that Avery doesn't really know what she wants from life and hardly gloms on to anything by the end either.  Even the romance is without spark.