So, it's happened again...another event that is requiring me to dive into reading a bunch of contemporary YA fiction. In the past, I've mentioned that my love of YA, which used to be so strong, and still is for the right book, has soured a bit over the years as YA becomes less and less about Literature and more and more about celebrating pop fiction. I'm find with that. I mean, pop fiction is popular, it's in the name. But what I'm not a fan of is how it's come to be celebrated as literature when it's not. So many of these books will be forgotten, not only by the world, but by the people who read them and "love" them, and that's sad. But anyway, I can always find something redeeming in a story.
(Greenwillow, 2017)
Eliza is famous, at least she would be if anyone knew her online identity. Though she's anonymously famous online for creating one of the most popular webcomics in the world, in real life she's like any other teenager with self-esteem issues just trying to survive her last year of high school. If she could finish the year, finish her comic, and escape to college, everything would be just fine. Unfortunately, things in real life tend to get more complicated than that.
I found this book to be very slow through the first half, and also quite formulaic, albeit with some quirky elements mixed in. However, those elements didn't feel genuine. They came off as add-ons, things to make it different from every other teen girl-meets-boy-and-her-world-comes-undone story, of which there are thousands. There were also more than a few non-plausible elements in the story that kind of turned me off. However, with all of that said, I did enjoy the story and I really liked Eliza. She was a great character whose problems felt real.
My favorite part of this story was one of the subplots, one which involved the crippling creative pressure that can come with success and the relationship between artist and fan. These aspects of the book were incredibly well done and redeemed the story in my eyes, allowing me to forgive some of the parts that I felt were weaker.
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