Kathy Parks

4.5 Stars. Not a forever favorite, but a solid dark comedy!

"Trevor Dunham talked quite a bit about his man part just before he drowned."

I gotta say, this book was love at first sentence-sight.

I was super excited for this because it's so rare that I find a dark comedy in YA, especially one with a premise that interests me. This book definitely had the premise. What would you do if you were stuck on a broken-down boat in the middle of the Pacific w/ a bunch of kids you hate? It would be nice to think that you'd all just forget about your differences and Kumbaya and stuff, but would that REALLY happen?? Well, on this boat it definitely did not!

I think that adding comedy and lightness to a life/death situation can be really tricky to pull off, and I was so happy that it was done to perfection here. It was silly and funny in parts (mostly flashbacks), totally sad and serious in others (mostly when life/death situations happened), and had a great use of satire in the everyday things that happened on the boat.

Right away, I loved Denver. She was equal parts funny, snippy, and smart. She was all-alone after being dumped by BFF Abigail, and yet I didn't find her bitter. I think she wanted her friend back, but she didn't become an angry person over it (as I surely would have). I also loved how resourceful she was. She was always thinking and it saved their butts more than once. The other characters were like a Regina/Gretchen/Karen-mix and surfer-dude who wasn't near as annoying as I first thought he would be. This book is a total character book, so if you're not feeling the characters, you won't be feeling this book.

The BEST part was that-- SURPRISE, this book has heart!! I really found a touching story in all the high school drama and mean girl antics. And there was a surprise thing that happened before the ending. I totally did not see this one really big revelation coming. It wasn't shocking in the way I was expecting either (I was expecting dark comedy stuff, and I got real-life realities). My only real let-down was I didn't love the ending. I don't like "lessons" in general, but I especially didn't like it when the lesson was something really frustrating. Although some good things happened, it still gave me a really downer-vibe. This story is not going to be one of my life-long favorites, but it's definitely up there on my fave 2016 books list.

OVERALL: I loved this dark comedy that featured an unpopular girl trapped on a boat w/ popular people that hate her during a natural disaster. It was funny, but also truthful and emotional at times. I loved the characters (which is really what this book is all about) and can't wait to read more by Kathy Parks!

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Adrienne gets the chance to go on a once in a lifetime trip halfway across the world. The purpose is to help her stepfather prove the existence of a mythical family living alone in Siberia. Her real goal is to expose her stepfather as a believer in something absurd, write a expose type article and then land a scholarship to study journalism in school.

I liked Adrienne; I found her to be smart and resourceful in several reasonably terrifying situations. When she becomes a captive (not a spoiler because of the title- duh), she plots her escape by way of seducing the older boy in the family. I found that to be a legit exit plan and was rooting for it to work. I'd put this on the upper end of YA because of the graphic nature of the plot, but for older kids, it is a great adventure.… (más)

Warning: NOT APPROPRIATE FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL

Notes from my captivity is about a girl, Adrienne, who wants to be a journalist. Her stepdad believes there’s a family of hermits living in Siberia that no one knows about and they go off with a team to try to find them.
The team all dies except Adrienne, who is found by the family. She initially thinks they are killers. The family only speaks Russian but the younger brother who is the girl’s age takes some of the belongings from the dead team, and one of the things he takes is a paperback copy of Shades of gray. Adrienne thinks that the family is going to kill her so she makes a plan to seduce the younger brother so that he will protect her.
My problem with the story is page 277. Up until then, the book would have been totally fine for middle school but suddenly there’s a single paragraph where he’s trying to read the Shades of Gray book. Adrienne asks how’s the book and he says, there are words I don’t understand. “What is a cock ring?”
I am so annoyed that an author would wreck a book by putting something completely unnecessary into the story. It has nothing to do with the plot and there’s lots of other things she could’ve had him ask but Parks picked something completely inappropriate and so now I just have to toss the book out because the author felt it necessary to add a paragraph about a sex toy. I don’t want my students asking me or their parents to explain this. I don’t want them looking it up. I wish that paragraph wasn’t there. It really restricts my ability to recommend the book.… (más)

Adrienne Cahill cares about three things: getting into a great college; becoming a revered journalist like her idol, Sydney Declay; and making her late father proud of her. So when Adrienne is offered the chance to write an article that will get her into her dream school and debunk her foolish stepfather's belief that a legendary family of hermits is living in the Siberian wilderness, there's no question that she's going to fly across the world. But the Russian terrain is even less forgiving than Adrienne. And when disaster strikes, none of their extensive preparations seem to matter. Now Adrienne's being held captive by the family she was convinced didn't exist, and her best hope for escape is to act like she cares about them, even if it means wooing the youngest son.… (más)