Crooked was the first book I read by Laura and Tom McNeal, and it's about a girl with a crooked nose and no mother. There's a bad guy and a good guy who sometimes seem to change roles, and a really bad guy. Reading it felt like moving to a new town and getting to know new people, only probably a bit more exciting. The characters were all "round" characters, as my English teacher calls them, and I liked it a lot. This one gets 4.5 outta 5 stars.
Zipped was mainly told from a guy's point of view. It was full of questions and matters of perspective and identity, covering everything from adultery to racism to Mormon culture. It had one of the best quotes-within-a-story I've ever come across when two characters discuss the lyrics of a showtune, and no one was completely bad or completely good. 4 stars.
I honestly didn't want to read Crushed, but I liked the other two books enough to try it, and it wasn't terrible. Everyone it it was dealing with loss, whether that involved money, friends, family, or some combination thereof, and it was honestly pretty interesting. The characters, though, all seemed either naive or distrustworthy, except a few nice ones, who's importance levels fell somewhere between benchwarmers and supporting actors. So everyone likable was basically a "flat character". I think I should have stopped after Zipped, but this book isn't a total waste of time. 3 stars.
Has anyone else read any of these? Would you want to? Does the label "Young Adult Literature" affect whether or not you want to?
