Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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Publication Date: October 12, 2010
Source: Borrowed
Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.
So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?
Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.
I decided at the end of August that I would spend the rest of the year focusing on catching up on my TBR. That means no new ARC requests, no blog tours, and minimal book purchases. I’m mostly trying to read books that I actually own, but I figured that I would also try to get through some of the books that have been on my TBR forever.
And Please Ignore Vera Dietz has been on my TBR forever. I added it on June 11, 2012. I had just turned 22 years old. I hadn’t even moved to New Jersey yet. I lived by myself!! I was still working my last college job! Who even was I back then? Anyway, I’m not sure what took me so long to read this book. I saw it at the library and decided that I’d finally actually read it.
And much like it took me forever to finally decide to read it, it took me forever to get into it. It took me three days to make it through the first fifty pages! Luckily, after that, it picked up a lot and I finished the remainder within a few hours. I think that the biggest reason it took me so long to get interested in this book is the subject matter. Back in 2012, I would have jumped right into a tragic book about a dead friend. In 2018, I tend to avoid that kind of thing. But once I got into the book and the plot really started moving, I didn’t want to put it down.
I think that the best part of this book for me was Vera’s relationship with her father. I’ve never really had a relationship with my father (not since I was a toddler, at least) and although both Vera and her dad could be frustrating characters from time to time, they so clearly loved each other and it warmed my heart so much.
Vera’s relationship with Charlie, on the other hand, just about gave me whiplash. I can see where Vera was coming from with some of her actions toward the end of Charlie’s life, but there are also decisions she made that I just can’t forgive. And while I understand that Charlie was going through his own stuff, the way he treated Vera was so unforgivable. This didn’t necessarily make me lower my rating (after all, teenagers make stupid decisions every day), but it’s definitely something that bothered me throughout the book.
I’ve waffled a lot on how to rate this book. On the one hand, I think it was really well-written and there were moments in the book that legitimately broke my heart. On the other hand, I actually debated DNFing this at one point because I just could not get into it. I think that three stars is a fair rating in the end.
Have you read Please Ignore Vera Dietz? Which book has been on your TBR the longest?
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