Dear Reader by Mary O’Connell (ARC Review)

Credits to Flatiron

Dear Reader by Mary O’Connell

Release Date: May 9, 2017 (TODAY)

DNF @ …mystery percent again

*I won this as part of a Goodreads giveaway – trust me, this totally didn’t sway my review XD*

I read this book back in the day called Wuthering High. It back when I totally had questionable book likes, but I still thought it was pretty good. It included all of these epic literature classic references, and even though I totally did not know most of them. XD That’s what I expected this book to be, but what I got was…weirdness.

Once Upon a Time…

Gilmore Girls with magical realism! Dear Reader is an original, poignant modern-day take on Wuthering Heights, as a high school senior searches for her teacher and meets a boy who may just be Heathcliff come to life

For seventeen-year-old Flannery Fields, the only respite from the plaid-skirted mean girls at Sacred Heart High School at is her beloved teacher Miss Sweeney’s AP English class. But when Miss Sweeney doesn’t show up to teach Flannery’s favorite book, Wuthering Heights, leaving behind her purse, Flannery knows something is wrong.

The police are called, and Flannery gives them everything—except Miss Sweeney’s copy of Wuthering Heights. This she holds onto. And good thing she does, because when she opens it, it has somehow transformed into Miss Sweeney’s real-time diary. It seems Miss Sweeney is in New York City—and she’s in trouble.

So Flannery does something very unFlannery-like: she skips school and sets out for Manhattan, with the book as her guide. But as soon as she arrives, she meets a boy named Heath. Heath is British, on a gap year, incredibly smart—yet he’s never heard of Albert Einstein or Anne Frank. In fact, Flannery can’t help thinking that he seems to have stepped from the pages of Brontë’s novel. Could it be?

With inimitable wit and heart, Mary O’Connell has crafted a love letter to reading, to the books that make us who we are. Dear Reader, charming and heartbreaking, is a novel about finding your people, on the page in the world.

The first thing that the story went wrong was in the writing style. It felt like it was too forced? Like, it wanted to sound like a create classic story, but it just fell flat. There were lines that I just sat there and blinked at the book going, this isn’t right. This doesn’t sound right. o.o It just didn’t work for me, and I felt like I couldn’t connect to it.

The second thing – and really the most important thing – was the storyline. It was very strange. I only read a few chapters in, but I’m dead serious when I tell you this is how the story progressed:

1. Flannery goes to school
2. Flannery sits in her teacher’s classroom and starts to worry about her teacher because she’s not there on time
3. Flannery discusses how she loves this teacher because she gives her really harsh advice on her papers
4. Flannery sits quietly and awkwardly for the whole class period while the mean girls do mean girl stuff
5. Finally, a teacher comes around and finds out the teacher is missing and then the princi-PAL shows up and tries to be their friend
6. Class ends, and somehow Flannery knows that Miss Sweeney’s purse is in her desk and steals it
7. Flannery takes stolen purse into restroom to dig through it
8. Flannery finds Miss Sweeney’s beloved copy of Wuthering Heights
9. Flannery starts reading it but alas, it’s not Bronte’s words on the pages but it’s about Miss Sweeney who has run off to New York with possibly talking about a guy is who dead?
10. Flannery read this ridiculously awkward passage about her teacher totally hooking up with her high school boyfriend and NO awkwardness is mentioned whatsoever (even when the teacher goes, Oh, Dear Reader, this is too spicy to read…but we woke up naked [oh OOPS])

    

    Snow White was not pleased. I’m not pleased. We’re quite equally not pleased.

11. Flannery only stops reading this awkward part because someone is barfing in the stall next to her and the smell bothers her and couldn’t be part of this “dream”
12. The next page is a conversation about the puke and then the next page is her going on how they possibly clean puke – BUT NOTHING ABOUT HOW YOUR TEACHER JUST HAD RELATIONS IN A MESSED UP VERSION OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS.

At that point from consultation of my friend and her friend that was randomly there, they gave me wise advice: STOP. DO NOT PASS. DO NOT COLLECT GO. THIS IS WEIRDNESS.I concurred with them, and I stopped the madness. XD

The End.

No stars since I didn’t get far enough and a Snow White rating!

Check it out:

• Goodreads
• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble

What do you think? Should I have stuck with it? Did I make the right choice to run away? Have you read this? Let’s discuss in the comments below!