Melanie Sumner

So funny! But definitely quirky. The narrator and main protagonist is 12.5 year old Aristotle Thibodeau who is writing this novel as we are reading it. She received "How to Write a Novel" as a gift from her mother Diane and she diligently works through the various exercises and parts of a book. She has plenty of material! She does seem a little precocious for 12.5 - I would believe 14 better, but that is part of her charm. Her 8 yr. old brother Max is a bit of a spaz -- he has all sorts of issues, but really, all 3 of them do since they have continued to be a modified family after the death of Aris' father Joe when she was 4 and Max was a "bun in the oven." Now they live in Kanuga, GA where Diane's parents are with some close scrutiny from the small town, but a surprising amount of leeway to be the completely unconventional family they are. Both kids call their Mom Diane - she is an English adjunct at Kanuga College - until she loses her job for helping a student who has been arrested. Plus there is the faith pledge and the restrictions on swearing and other unChristian behavior. Penn is another unusual character -he is the kids' PMI (positive male influence) and Aris is intent on making her novel a romance between Penn and her mother. Aris' maturity and parent-figure role is hilarious, though a touch heart-breaking for how seriously she takes it and how easily Diane acquiesces to giving Aris way too much responsibility. Many of the events could only happen in a novel, they are so unbelievable, but Aris has a talent for capturing all of it, even the parts that are unflattering to her like her long-distance boyfriend Billy dumping her and her act of reading her mother's journals and then sending them out to random people who have purchased books from Diane when she did a recent purge. Funny stuff! It is a bit of a coming of age story too - despite Aris' maturity, she learns some of her own limitations and also some of the ugliness of the world and some eye-opening truth about her father. One of those well-written, light-feeling, but heavy-topic books that remind you how fun reading is.… (mehr)

Funny, crazy, sad, honest, abrupt . . . and a little confusing. I almost gave up on this book pretty early in, as it was a bit boring, but I stuck it out. I loved the mother, the shrink, and the main character, Louise. I loved the chaotic, stream-of-consciousness, crazy world they made up, and some of the writing was particularly delicious. But overall it lacked a cohesiveness and purpose; it needed something to tie it all together. The way it ended felt like the author just stopped writing one day, intending to come back, but then just said, nah, I'm tired of this and quit mid-chapter. I can ferret out her intention, I think, but it's disappointing.… (mehr)