CBR18 Book 25: "Change of Plans" by Sarah Dessen

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Thank you to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 5th, 2026.

Finley is graduating from high school, and is worried about several weeks away from her charismatic boyfriend, Colin, their friend group and her entire social circle. Most of all, she would have wanted to join Colin and his family on a Disney cruise, but her distant mother, Catherine (her father has custody and she only sees her Mum a few times a year), has declared that they are spending time together in New York City, and that the dates cannot be changed.

So imagine Finley's surprise when she is told on the morning of their departure that New York will have to wait. Instead, they are going to her mother's home town, Lakeview, to sell a house neither Finley nor her father knew existed. Catherine was estranged from her parents until they died, and has kept up the distance to her two sisters, but for reasons she refuses to go into, the old family home needs to be cleared out and sold as soon as possible. 

Once they arrive, Finley discovers that "Cat" has been in communication with her sisters but refused to make any decisions for months, and this sudden change is a surprise to absolutely everyone. 

Her aunts are very happy to see Finley again, though. She hasn't really seen anyone from her mother's family since her grandmother's funeral, and that is long enough ago that she barely remembers anyone, certainly not her cousins, who are all grown up now. 

Cell reception is pretty unreliable in the middle of the woods, and Finley worries that she can't get in touch with Colin. Although when she finally does, it's because he calls her, from the boat, to break up with her via video chat. Since Colin has been the centre of Finley's life for the past two years, and featured in all of her plans for the future (she deferred all her other college choices to go to the same place as him), she is absolutely devastated, and shortly after, throws her phone in the lake in a fit of drunken impulsiveness. 

One of Finley's aunts co-owns a diner, the Egg, where it seems most of the teens she's met during the last few days work. Heartbroken and without real purpose, Finley starts helping out during the breakfast rush, when most of the tourists come in to eat, and soon she's making money and has made new friends. There's Clark, who runs the grill, and whose now deceased father founded the Egg with Finley's aunt. There's Lana, who sneaks into the old house where Finlay and Cat are staying and sleeps on the couch, leaving before anyone else wakes up. She takes it upon herself to become Finley's BFF after Colin dumps her, since she has considerable experience with romantic disappointments in her past. And finally, there is Ben, the shy guitarist who helps Clark in the kitchen and claims that he's super awkward around new people, but seems to warm to Finley immediately. 

I've only read two Sarah Dessen books, The Truth About Forever and Just Listen, but as a many-year follower of Forever Young Adult, I am aware of how highly a lot of people rate her books. While it seems like she writes a lot of YA romances, the central plot of this story was more about family and estrangement, and long-buried truths that needed to come into the light. Catherine left Finley and her father when Finley was about four years old, and while she has seen her daughter a few times a year since, she has never been a stable part of Finley's life, and certainly not anyone she has felt able to properly talk to or confide in.

Rather shy and retiring, Finley was shocked when handsome and popular Colin noticed her on her first day in Junior year. They were teamed up for a school task, after which Finley acquired the nickname "Idaho", and not long after, was swept off her feet by Colin. His friends became her friends. His close-knit family, so very different from her own chaotic home life (distant mother, stressed father and stepmother, six-year-old twins and a toddler), became her safe haven. When he dumps her after a few days of no contact, her entire world implodes. She has no idea who she is without Colin, but thankfully, helping out at the Egg, making new friends in Lakeview and getting to know her mother's family are good distractions. Nevertheless, it takes her most of the summer to realise that Colin dumping her might have opened up opportunities she would otherwise not have had.

I liked this a lot, and having re-read my reviews for the other two Dessen books I read (many years ago now), it's clear that I should make an effort to read some more of the books of hers I have in my e-book collection. The world is a dark and scary place, and wholesome YA contemporaries are a slightly different brand of escapism from all the fantasy I tend to gravitate towards. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover feels extremely generic, and could be put on pretty much any YA book with a female protagonist. There is nothing to really distinguish it from so many other books out there. It's perfectly fine, but nothing more than that, either

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 46: "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" by Jesse Andrews

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 2 stars

#CBR12 Bingo: Adaptation (was turned into a movie in 2015 - the film is way better than the book)

Official book description:

Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.

Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.

Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—-cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—-but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives.

And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight.

Fair warning and a slight spoiler, just in case the title and book summary hadn't already tipped you off - Rachel suffers from leukemia, and she does NOT miraculously make it and beat the cancer at the end of this book. In many ways, a book with one of the three protagonists suffering from cancer seems like a very suitable reading choice for a Cannonball Reader. The book certainly shows what a sucky disease it is, and what an impact it can have both on patients and those around them.

Sadly, unlike The Fault in Our Stars, another YA book about teens with cancer, which was also released in 2012, this book isn't all that good. I watched the film adaptation on a plane a few years ago and found it diverting and quite funny and very sad in places (I really need to learn not to watch movie or read books that will make me ugly cry while flying). Having now read the source material, this is yet another example where the film is, in fact, better than the book, which doesn't happen all that often. 

The main problem is that our narrator and main protagonist, Greg, isn't a very likable person. All the way throughout the narrative he keeps telling the reader what a bad story this is, calling the reader stupid and generally putting you right off the story. I get that it's supposed to be a quirky narrative choice, showing what low self-esteem Greg has and so forth, but after the second or third time it happens (seriously, it's every few chapters, it gets old real fast), it did, truthfully, make me want to give up and stop reading the book. However, I needed to read it for a number of reading challenges, I had liked the movie, and so I persevered, hoping that perhaps Greg and the book would improve if I continued.

Sadly, not so much. Greg remained a whiny, fairly emotionally stunted, really not aware of his privilege twerp throughout. I would much rather have wanted to read the story through his friend Earl's eyes, or even Rachel's. I don't know what else Jesse Andrews has written (this is his debut novel), but based on this, I'm not very keen to find out. As I said, the movie adaptation of this is perfectly sweet and has managed to make all the three teen characters likable. Watch that instead of reading this book. 

Judging a book by its cover: Since this has now been filmed, there are editions with the inevitable movie tie-in cover, and there's also a fairly dull yellowy-green one with little white figures. I much prefer the one on my e-book which is colourful and fun and the three main characters are all shown as little paper dolls in what looks like some sort of puppet theatre. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 57: "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness

Page count: 215 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Pretty much every night, Conor wakes up screaming from the same nightmare. So when the monster shows up in his garden, just after midnight, he's not as scared as you may have thought that he'd be. After all, he deals with some pretty unpleasant things on a daily basis. The bullies who pick on him in school. The fact that he seems to be falling out with his only friend. The teachers either ignoring him or being overly understanding and solicitous. His father, who seems to have forgotten about him and his mother after he moved to America and got a new family. His strict and demanding grandmother. The worry about his mother's deteriorating health and the worry about why the treatments are taking so long to work this time. It's going to take more than some monster to scare Conor.

The monster, which seems to be a walking version of the yew tree over by the church yard, that Conor can see from his window, and which his mother always comments on when gazing at the view. The monster claims it will tell him three stories, and once it's done, it wants something Conor is not ready or willing to give. It wants the truth.

Siobhan Dowd, who came up with the initial idea for this book, died from cancer before she had a chance to tell the story she wanted. Patrick Ness took her initial idea and developed it and turned it into something new, while still honouring Ms. Dowd's memory. This is a dark book, full of sadness, rage and grief. I don't think I'm really spoiling anything for anyone when I say that you probably shouldn't expect a happy ending to this tale, where a woman is slowly wasting away despite countless medical treatments, and her only son is desperately trying to deal with it the best way he knows how.

The stories that the big tree monster tells are allegories, possibly meant to help Conor deal with his anger and grief in some way. The monster claims to have lived a long life, helping many people when they needed it the most. None of its stories turn out entirely the way Conor expects, making him more angry and frustrated, because he wants predictability and solace from his stories, not difficult life lessons.

So many others have already confessed to crying when reading this book, and I was no different. Was it a good idea to read the final quarter of this book in a coffee shop, in full view of a lot of people? Possibly not. Did I do it anyway, and ugly-cry, to the likely embarrassment of many around me? You bet I did. I've heard very many good things about the recent movie adaptation, but I suspect I'm going to wait to see it until I'm in a more stable place emotionally, or it's likely to completely destroy me all over again.

Judging a book by its cover: My edition of this book is an illustrated paperback I was given for Christmas by my husband. The cover, and all the inside illustrations are done by Jim Kay in black and white and are wonderfully atmospheric and adds a lot to the tone and feel of the book. I really like the cover and the other illustrations and don't think the book would work as well without them.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR 4 Book 20: "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green

Page count: 336 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Date begun: February 23rd, 2012
Date finished: February 24th, 2012

Hazel is 16. She has incurable cancer, so knows that it's only a matter of time before she dies, but thanks to some miracle drug, she's currently doing fairly ok, as long as she drags a tank of oxygen around with her at all times. Her mother spends all her time taking care of her, and worrying, and making sure she goes to Cancer Support Group to battle her quite-natural depression about having cancer and knowing she's going to die young. Hazel thinks Support Group is a big waste of time, until one day, she meets Augustus Waters there. Augustus is 17 and lost his leg to osteosarcoma. As Hazel says: "Osteosarcoma sometimes takes a limb to check you out. Then if it likes you, it takes the rest".

Augustus is handsome and charming and witty and instantly taken with Hazel, comparing her to a mid-2000s Natalie Portman (and even with this description, I adored her). He agrees that Support Group is dreadful, and they quickly spark up a friendship that starts turning into something more, even though Hazel wants to distance herself from everyone, afraid of becoming a "grenade", blowing the lives of those around her to pieces when she inevitably dies, yet Augustus tenaciously refuses to keep his distance. They discuss films, games, life, poetry, art, and especially bond over Hazel's favourite book, An Imperial Affliction by Peter van Houten. The book, also about a teenage girl with cancer, ends mid-sentence, and both Hazel and Augustus become obsessed with finding out what happened to the other characters in the book after it ended. They correspond with the author by e-mail, but he refuses to tell them unless they talk to him in person. He lives in Amsterdam.

Now, Hazel used her dying Wish (from the Make a Wish Foundation) on Disney World before the miracle drug made her somewhat better, but Augustus still has his. This is their chance to go to Amsterdam and talk to the author of their favourite book, getting some kind of closure before Hazel's life takes an inevitable downturn.

I'm convinced The Fault in Our Stars will be among the best books I read this year, even though it's only February, mainly because it's one of the best books I've read in years. I bookmarked a dozen pages or so just for the amazingly quotable lines. The book made me laugh out loud on public transport, getting me puzzled looks from fellow commuters. It made me sob uncontrollably on the couch, freaking out my cats. If you make it to the end of this book without both laughing and at least getting teary eyed, you are some sort of unfeeling machine. It's an amazing book, and while the protagonists are kids with cancer (or recovering from cancer), the horrible, deadly disease is not the focal point of the book at all.

This is one of those young adult books that I desperately wish had been around when I was actually a teenager, because I would have killed to get my hands on it. Hazel and Augustus are amazing kids to read about, and it breaks your heart that their love is so star-crossed. She's dying, he's recovering. You know it's all going to end in tears, but you keep turning the pages because you can't not. You have to find out what happens next. This is going to be one of those books I gift to people in years to come, just to make sure I can talk to them about it. Now I just have to track down John Green's back catalogue of books, to see if they're as amazing as this one.