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Author: Jessica Brody
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Purchase: Amazon | B&N | TBD
PLEASE READ THIS! MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!
Okay, maybe that was a bit melodramatic, but I’m sorry, I’m feeling a bit melodramatic at the moment.
Here’s the deal. My name is Brooklyn Pierce, I’m fifteen years old, and I am decisionally challenged. Seriously, I can’t remember the last gooddecision I made. I can remember plenty of crappy ones though. Including that party I threw when my parents were out of town thataccidentally burned down a model home. Yeah, not my finest moment, for sure.
But see, that’s why I started a blog. To enlist readers to make my decisions for me. That’s right. I gave up. Threw in the towel. I let someone else decide which book I read for English. And whether or not I accepted an invitation to join the debate team from that cute-in-a-dorky-sort-of-way guy who gave me the Heimlich maneuver in the cafeteria. (Note to self: chew the melon before swallowing it.) I even let them decide who I dated!
Well, it turns out there are some things in life you simply can’t choose or have chosen for you—like who you fall in love with. And now everything’s more screwed up than ever.
But don’t take my word for it. Read the book and decide for yourself. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll scream in frustration. Or maybe that’s just me. After all, it’s my life.
Review:
“Sometimes the most obvious choices are the hardest to see.”
I enjoyed reading 52 Reasons to Hate My Father and I was really looking forward to read other books by Jessica Brody. Reading My Life Undecided during my reading slump was one of my best decisions this year. I forgot how good reading YA felt and it's really great to come back into its arms by reading this.
Here, we meet Brooklyn who’s probably the person with the worst decisions and bad lucks ever. Although she’s only 15 so making decisions isn’t really her forte yet. She’s your typical teenager—loves to be on the spotlight, treats her best friend as the most important person, competes with her sister and craves for the attention her parents gives to Izzie. You won’t easily love her but you’ll learn to.
Due to an incident, she’s kicked out of the co-captain seat in the popular circle by her best friend. And she spent her time on whining how her life sucks and wishing for it to go back to normal in the first part of the book. But as soon as she starts discovering things beyond the realm of her pre-incident circle, she began seeing things differently. She appreciates more and learns more. We’ll get to see a smarter version of Brooklyn that was hidden by being in Shayne’s bubble.
I had so much fun reading her blog entries! As a blogger and reader, I find witty and enthusiastic posts a major reason why I keep on reading a blog. I really had a great time imagining her facial expressions and body language through her blog. I can see her flailing as I read her posts and groaning with frustration on some of them.
The boys.. ooh, the boys. The boys actually reminded me of the movie, Pretty in Pink. While Duckie is not really nerdy, he’s still part of the not-so-cool crowd like Brian. Brian is Brooklyn’s classmate in English and debate partner. Why she joined the debate team? You’ll see. He’s smart, charming, dorky but never boring. The Blane in this story is Hunter—Hunter Wallace Hamilton (sexy, right?). He’s a transferee but it wasn’t hard for him to get into Shayne’s radar which makes him the cool guy in the story. He’s a cool, happy-go-lucky guy who obviously loves having fun and hanging out with friends, minus being a jerk. I was actually waiting for him to act like a jerk but he didn't. The moment you read the book, you’ll know who Brooklyn ends up with and I whole-heartedly agree with it. :D
I think the best thing about this book was Brooklyn’s character development. Jessica Brody showed us the immature and kinda selfish girl who eventually grew up to someone who stands for what she really wants, not what somebody wants. Another thing I love most is Mrs. Moody. The scenes spent in Brooklyn’s community service were one of what I looked forward to. Written in a very believable teenager voice, I’m sure you’ll love and maybe see your younger self in this book.
Jessica Brody knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. She started self "publishing" her own books when she was seven years old, binding the pages together with cardboard, wallpaper samples and electrical tape.
After graduating from Smith College in 2001 where she double majored in Economics and French and minored in Japanese, Jessica later went on to work for MGM Studios as a Manager of Acquisitions and Business Development. In May of 2005, Jessica quit her job to follow her dream of becoming a published author.
In four short years, Jessica has sold nine novels (two adult novels to St. Martin's Press and seven young adult novels to Farrar, Straus, Giroux.) THE FIDELITY FILES, her debut, released in stores (in real binding) in June of 2008 and the the follow-up, LOVE UNDER COVER in November 2009. THE KARMA CLUB, Jessica's debut young adult novel released in April of 2010 and her second YA release, MY LIFE UNDECIDED just recently hit bookstores in June 2011.
52 REASONS TO HATE MY FATHER (which was recently optioned for film) will be out in Summer 2012 and UNREMEMBERED, (also optioned for film), the first book in a new teen sci-fi series, will be released in early 2013.
Jessica's books are published and translated in over twelve foreign countries including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Russia, Brazil, China, Portugal, Israel, Indonesia and Taiwan.
Jessica now works full time as a writer and producer. She currently splits her time between Los Angeles and Colorado.
