Review: A sweet gentle coming-of age story.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 28, 2013
A sweet, gentle coming-of-age story for a girl, a group of her friends and the journey they take to fulfill a dead girl's dreams - even as small as they are.There was something just so normal about this book. It was so simplistically real.  I've read relatable books before, but this one was even more so.  It felt like it could of been me.  The simple things, almost dares, in this book weren't outrageous.  They were everyday things - things that if you really wanted to break free of your shell - you would try.  And, that is the simple beauty of this book - the realism.  And it touched me even more to find out that it was finding a dead girl's list that gave Sophie the courage to be so much more than what she was.It's easy to look back on your life, even as a teenager, young adult, new adult or even a fully grown adult and wish you'd had done the things you really wanted to do while you had the chance to do it.  This is some of what the book represents to me.  I'm kind of funny about contemporary books.  We get along if I can find some kind of message in it.  This one I did.  There was a sense of fun about this book, and even a bittersweet kind of sadness.  And they do stupid things, like all of us do at one time or another.It's the relationships between the group that I adore.  Every one of the characters has traits that make them so different from each other.  They also have their own flaws.  But they're flaws that enhance the personality of the character and which still make them extremely likable - well, some of them likable.  Others - not so much.  And some of the characters were so lovable - Johnny -sigh-  Yeah, I developed a crush on that boy character.I loved the voice of this book.  The way it flowed, the words that were used and the feelings I got from it.  Sadness, happiness, anger - it had all the 'feels'  And the ending was just perfect - for me at least.Overall, it was a really great read, with touches of the unexpected.  I would recommend this to anyone who loves contemporary novels.