A Review of 'The Bermudez Triangle' by Maureen Johnson

“Lifelong best friends Nina, Avery, and Mel face their first separation the summer before their senior year, when Nina attends a ten-week program at Stanford. But how much can happen in ten weeks?

Plenty, it seems. Nina finds herself blindsided by Steve, the adorable ecowarrior down the hall. Too bad he lives in Oregon and she’s from upstate New York. When the Stanford program ends, she has to wait 8,736 hours before she can see him again.

At least she’ll soon be reunited with Mel and Avery. But Nina isn’t the only one whose life was turned upside down in ten weeks While Nina was gone, Mel had her first real kiss With Avery.”

This was an amazing read! I say that about a lot of books, but I really mean it!

All of the characters were so well-developed. Each character was so different from the other ones that it was easy for the story to take on a life of its own. I felt like it really dealt with issues that today’s teenagers face today; discovering who exactly you are. That can apply to whatever aspect you want it to. For Avery, it was figuring out her sexuality and finding out just what she wanted. Even realizing what she already had in front of her.

Many kids my age think they have it all figured out (trust me, we all have our moments). That’s why this story felt so real—it’s the perfect example that shows us that we really don’t. No one does. It’s not just teens, it’s adults and younger children too. Avery’s confusion, Nina’s confusion, Me’s loss for words… it’s totally real.

I found out about Maureen Johnson by watching the Vlogbrothers on YouTube (yeah, they come up quite a bit in this blog. But they are quite excellent! By clicking on ‘Vlogbrothers’ you will be taken to their official YouTube page). She is a friend of theirs and they even did a Book Club on it (those are rare in their videos, but they’ve done a few of them so that they could come up with short one or two sentence taglines for the books they read.

While watching the Vlogbrothers episode where this book was mentioned, Hank and John Green informed me that this book was going to be banned. Banned books are usually some of the best books. That’s why it’s always excellent to read them! I understand why it was banned. Parents freaked out because of the content. It’s really a huge debate. I don’t think the banning was necessary though.

As far as a recommendation for this book, I think it’s appropriate for most ages. Nothing explicit happens. It’s chick lit, there are no explosions or gory deaths. Other than that, I will leave it up for you to decide if you can read it or not.

I think I will do on more weekend post after this. This one will appear a little later because I have to finish my homework. On top of that, I have to write it and prepare for it in other ways. I also get really distracted… yet another reason why it’ll take a while. Until then, have a great rest of the day! Where I am, it’s beautiful outside. Enjoy it while you can!

--Jude

P.S. 'Bermudez' is not spelled wrong. It's not supposed to be 'Bermuda.' It's a last name. A couple people have told me that it was spelled wrong and I had to explain this to them.