*Note, while I will try to avoid major spoilers, I sometimes won't be able to help it.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

"Tangled" by Carolyn Mackler

Carolyn Mackler's Tangled  is one of the most powerful books that  I read in 2011.  The book is broken into four sections, each narrated by a different teen.

Jena: She keeps and notebook full of inspiring quotes and has been known to read any note she comes across.  While at a resort with her mother, her mother's best friend, and the best friend's daughter Skye (who she can't stand), Jena finds two things- a possible summer fling and a suicide note.

 Dakota: Is learning how to live life after the death of his girlfriend and after learning something about her he never knew.  Dakota gets sent to stay with his grandparents and discovers that there is more to his character than he'd ever realized.

Skye: Dreams of stardom and his well on her way between auditions and indie film roles but she is still not happy.  Skye begins to question her past and seeks out to find out about the father she never had the opportunity to meet.

Owen: or The Loser with the Laptop, gets sent to a conference for teens that has difficulty interacting outside of the world of the internet.  But it is a girl he's met online that has the real impact on his life.

The lives of the characters intertwine in unexpected ways (note the fact that the book is titled Tangled) and the actions of one character inadvertently can affect the lives of the others.  The different sections flow well with each other though I usually wasn't ready for the transition from one to another (I would have been happy to spend a little more time with each character to find out where they ended up).  The book ends very open ended so it is very much up to the reader to decide what happens to each character.  However, I felt that this type of ending worked well for the book.

Visit Carolyn's WebsiteBlog, and Twitter!
And check out some of her other books: The Earth, My Butt, And Other Big Round Things and The Future of Us (with Jay Asher)

Happy Reading!
-Melly

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...