Review: Insanely smart, well written story that doesn't follow the sold 'ol formula - Will be on my favorites list of 2014
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 25, 2014
Julie Cross heard I liked her short story in the new adult anthology I recently reviewed. So she wrote an entire book for me. She even managed to get it written, edited, proofed, and published really quick!What? You don’t believe me?! Yeah, you really shouldn’t believe the crazy that comes out of my mouth and makes it way to my reviews sometimes….But hand to God, she absolutely floored me with her new adult book Third Degree. And I did nab this ditty because I loved her short story in the anthology Fifty First Times. But somehow, she managed to hit on three issues that are near and dear to me. Two I personally struggle with daily. So, yeah, she wrote the book for me…Izzy is eighteen years old and has already graduated medical school. She’s a child prodigy and probably one of the smartest people you’ll ever meet. But her social skills suck dishwater. Because of this, she fails her emotional competency test to get into a residency program and her whole world starts crumbling around her. With no clue what to do for the next six months until she can take her psychological test again, she enrolls in state college and tries to reinvent herself so she can “learn” how to be a normal college student.It’s at school where she meets Marshall Collins, aka ‘Marsh’. He’s a former student of Izzy’s mom (who is a high school biology teacher) so he knows of Izzy. He actually ends up being her Resident Advisor (RA).Because Izzy is completely socially inept, she makes Marsh’s job that much more difficult due to him having to run interference and handle complaints against Izzy. She honestly just doesn’t know better. I can’t really explain it – you just have to read it and laugh your head off to understand!It’s a fabulous story! Highly original and smart. I was impressed that Ms. Cross didn’t rely on any tried and true formulas for romance. It was like she had a story to tell and she went with it. She even gave it a perfect, if not bittersweet, ending. I can’t tell you anything about it but I know a lot about what happens. I have two extremely close family members that deal with “it”.Sorry, I’ve got to with the vague or you’ll beat me to a pulp!If there were any lulls in the story, I didn’t notice. I flippin’ read this story in one day. I was that engaged.So, yeah, I liked this book. I hope a lot of other people do, too, because Ms. Cross did a wonderful job depicting a debilitating, if not embarrassing, disease – Oops, I let “it” slip but it’s okay, it’s important enough to say.