Jessica Darling

I'm cranky about all those people who think Megan McCafferty's Charmed Thirds should have been just like the other two Jessica Darling books. It's bizarre, and I can only assume some of those people were young. Because of course McCafferty's first two books were for teens, and they end with Jessica seeming to understand everything. And that's appropriate for a book written for teens; you'd like to think that after all that soul-searching, Jessica would have found some clarity in the end. Charmed Thirds is brilliant because it is written from a adult perspective. Jessica doesn't know everything, and she realizes that in the end, we all die alone. Life is uncertain, and there's value to living in the moment.
Is Charmed Thirds a perfect book? Lord, no. But it isn't bad, just because it's more contemplative. If people can't realize that McCafferty was writing a different kind of book for a more mature audience, then...sigh.
Speaking personally for a moment, I liked the book because I like the characters, and I had the same "we all die alone" epiphany this spring, and because I had a few Jessica-and-Len Levy moments in my college career, too.
Aside from that, I haven't been blogging because I'm still reading Betty Neels. Not much to say.