A Review of 'Please Ignore Vera Dietz' by A.S. King (Audio Book)

"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."

It was a little stressful listening to this book.  Vera is under so much pressure.  First, she has her dad on her back about getting hours at work.  She practically works a full-time job while attending high school.  I know that I'd be in tears every night if that were my situation.  I could barely handle a regular part-time job in college.  It just affected my mood so much-- I was losing friends that I had just made because I could never spend an evening hanging out due to the fact that I was working.  My grades weren't what I'd hoped they'd be.  I'd wake up in the middle of the night all the time and often cry myself to sleep.  I can only imagine what it would be like to have a full-time work status, have six or so classes (doesn't matter how easy they might be), and be a senior in high school.  Holy crap.

On top of working, Vera holds an enormous secret.  I'd even say that it's too big of a secret for one person to carry, especially because it's the secret of how her best friend died and how a business burned down.  To not tell anyone of significance these humongous secrets... I'm surprised that she hasn't made herself sick.

This book took a little while for me to get into partly because Vera would be telling us about her life (well, work, any way) and we know that something happened to her best friend to cause his death, but we're not sure what and we're also not sure how these things are related.  You're hooked from the beginning, but for me at least, I had a hard time seeing where the story was going at first.  If you stick with it though, the ending is actually quite interesting and totally worth the wait.  For me, the story was a lot bigger than I thought it would ever be, despite knowing that a death occurs from the beginning of the book.  That was really exciting.

I give 'Please Ignore Vera Dietz':

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude