And We Stay (Book Review)

And We Stay
Jenny Hubbard
Source - Library
Published January 28th 2014 by Delacorte Press

When high school senior Paul Wagoner walks into his school library with a stolen gun, he threatens his girlfriend Emily Beam, then takes his own life. In the wake of the tragedy, an angry and guilt-ridden Emily is shipped off to boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she encounters a ghostly presence who shares her name. The spirit of Emily Dickinson and two quirky girls offer helping hands, but it is up to Emily to heal her own damaged self.

This inventive story, told in verse and in prose, paints the aftermath of tragedy as a landscape where there is good behind the bad, hope inside the despair, and springtime under the snow.



Review:

And We Stay is not a book for everyone. If you are like me, you should probably not read this book. But if you like poetry (Emily Dickinson in particular) then you will probably like this one.

One of my biggest problems with this book was that it is written in third person. And reading it that way left me feeling completely out of the story. I didn't feel as if I was inside the story watching these characters make their good and their bad choices.

The Plot:
I love boarding school books. I have read a lot of great ones. But this one wasn't all that great......The boarding school is not a HUGE part of the story line, and it was more of an underlining.
Emily Dickinson played a big part in this book. And I don't like poetry. (At all). There is also a little poetry between the chapters which I didn't like.

The Characters:
Again, because of the third person.....I never connected to the main character Emily Beam. Emily goes through so much in the course of the book that I would have loved to be able to connect to her more.
The other characters are written well, I enjoyed reading about Emily's roommate.

There is a huge plot twist in this book. And it makes the book even sadder.


Overall I think that this book is something that you either love or hate. It isn't bad, it just is not my thing.
If you like reading third person and poetry then you will probably love this. But I don't.
(1/5)


Do you like poetry? If you have read this book, did you like it? If you haven't, does this sound like something that you would like?