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Taking Off (2011)

by Jenny Moss(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0802721931 (ISBN13: 9780802721938)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Walker Books for Young Readers

review 1: I really WANTED to love this book, but just...didn't.Writing: I thought the writing and dialogue were super stilted. Very young, I thought, and the repartee just didn't seem natural.History: Felt like the author was pushing it down my throat at times. It seemed awkward to put certain things into dialogue, like explaining NASA things to Annie that were clear to me and should've been to her, considering where she grew up.Characters: I thought they were just blah. Annie, in particular, just annoyed me to no end. She just seemed so young and immature - definitely not like a senior in high school. I thought she was immature and irresponsible. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why not one, but TWO awesome guys were totally in love with her. Just did not seem b... moreelievable. Tommy was nice enough, but was sort of full of himself (also, why did he decide to follow HER out to Virginia??). Mark came off as a possessive jerk, despite him supposedly being kind and loyal and athletic. Oh, and Annie turning from not-even-sure-about-college to sudden Ph.D-seeker seemed odd to me. Also, inconsistent: suddenly she was brave! And played tennis! And has all these other talents!Plot: The Challenger was the only interesting and non-whiny part of the whole story, and even though so much of it was geared to that, I thought it just kind of fell off. I didn't buy why Annie was so smitten with Christa, nor did I really feel her emotion with the crash was authentic. The fact that her dad let her go off with Tommy with no money or supplies or transportation and then got mad at her for (innocently) sharing a room with him was weird.Despite all this, it was actually a somewhat engaging read. Probably a 2.5 star book for me, but just not on par with my other 3-star books.
review 2: It would have been a four-star book if only...1) The event which this ENTIRE FREAKING STORY revolves around... falls flat. Flatter than flat. Flatter than the earth as people thought it would have been 700 years ago, when they thought the earth was flat. So flat that you are dumbstruck by how they could have made such an emotionally tragic event in American history sound so... flat.2) The main character came straight out of a Mexican soap opera. Sobby characters who sob at every complicated turn in their life get on my nerves.3) It wasn't really convincing, the relationship that Annie and Christa McAuliffe had. I'm supposed to be convinced that after a friendly volleyball tourney and after a small family dinner conversation will totally inspires someone to totally go off about "reaching for the stars"? That's a little bit bordering on obsessive. If i went on and on, droning about how that dinner experience and that volleyball experience with America's Favorite Teachernaut was so inspiring throughout the whole book, wouldn't that seem kinda a little weird that someone could get so close to someone else they've barely met? That's kinda the whole relationship Annie and Christa McAuliffe had throughout the entire book. I just can't get it into my thick skull that a two-time experience could be so "tragically inspiring".It would have been a two-star book except...The plot line was interesting enough. If you take out the annoying protagonist, annoying boyfriend, and annoying protagonist, then the story itself at least captured my attention. That's what matters, right? Hey, there were times when Annie from Texas wasn't so annoying. If you actually took out the crying sequences, those tragic moments could have been more tragic.Also, the main event which the story was supposedly supposed to revolve around was what brought me to read this book in the first place. I kept hoping and hoping throughout the book that the event would finally happen, so that things would get more interesting. But if that was the climax, then it sure is a pretty... lame climax. I was so disappointed after the even happened. LIKE SERIOUSLY HOW COULD YOU WRITE SOMETHING SO EMOTIONLESS?!?!?I don't know, maybe that was the part where the author wasn't exactly sure how to write out. But nevertheless, three-star book, amateur characters, and.. yeah. less

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