• Fri. Oct 4th, 2024

Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters by Meredith Zeitlin

ByPam

“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Keith–well his eyes are sort of uneven.”

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Does that quote sound familiar? Its on the right sidebar of my blog. Over there —>

Isn’t it great when books contain quotes that make you giggle? The leave you laughing for no good reason long after you’ve left that page?  That’s how I feel about Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters! I read the book a few years ago and LOVED IT! Since I had a high school freshman at home, Zeitlin’s characters made me laugh when my own freshman made me want to scream!

Poor Kelsey Finkelstein is a piece of work.  She’s a good friend, but if anything strange or stupid is going to happen, it will happen to her.  And Kelsey takes it pretty good naturedly, which is rare, considering high school is so difficult. All the drama!

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when I won an audible.com download of Freshman Year in a contest! You might be a rereader like me and given the heavy book I’d just finished (review to come later) and I needed something light and fun.  The great thing about this download is that the author herself is the reader! I think it’s great when the author narrates the book because she wrote the book and knows where the inflections should be.  Neil Gaiman is a good example of this good phenomena.

Meredith Zeitlin is another.  Meredith wrote the book and she embodies the teenage angst of Kelsey.  I’m silently wondering if Kelsey might have been Zeitlin’s  teenage alter ego.  She’s great.

Freshman Year is a young adult book, but could be read by 13 yr olds.  The language is mild compared to other YA books I’ve read.  Because Kelsey is Jewish and someone comes out during the story this book qualifies for The Diversity Challenge!

Did I mention I’m so GLAD i’m not entering high school again?