The third book for my pop cultural assignment has brought me back to some much more familiar territory: The YA novel. As much as I love Maureen Johnson’s series Shades of London I haven’t actually read any of her other books so I was pretty excited to be assigned this.
One day, Ginny gets a letter from her recently deceased Aunt Peg, that she should buy a plane ticket to London and pack for a long trip. So she does and starts on a trip of a lifetime. She is given 13 little blue envelopes that she can’t open until she is told. She can’t call, email or journal while on the trip. She is supposed to live in the moment. The letters have two purposes, 1. show Ginny what her Aunt has been doing for the last two years since she just left New York without a word and 2. explain why she did what she did. Aunt Peg sends Ginny all Europe, from London to Greece. Now if this was my aunt, I would be a little pissed that I was sent all over without a clear idea of where I was going next but that’s me. Ginny is a smart girl that is a little bit of an introvert. So doing this is quite the undertaking. It forces her to branch out of her comfort zone but also say good bye to her beloved Aunt. On her adventure, she meets playwright and actor, Keith. Keith is pretty much the opposite of Ginny. He is out going and not afraid to meet new people. Ginny is immediately attracted to him and asked him to come along for parts of her journey. He helps her come out of her shell and supports her coming to terms with the death of her aunt but it’s her journey and ultimately she does it on her own. In the end, Ginny leaves Europe more confident in herself but at peace with the death of her Aunt. It was a satisfying ending.
And yet there is a sequel. The Last Blue Envelope takes place few months later.
*Spoiler Alert*
Before Ginny could read the last letter, it was stolen along with her backpack in Greece. Even though, she figures out part of what was in the letter when she finds her Aunt’s paintings I don’t think she was fully ready to let go of that summer, partly because she never got to read that last letter. Well, miracles of miracles a boy in London emails her and says that he bought her backpack while in Greece and has her letters. So she once again goes to London to retrieve it and since she is there, she tries to pick up with Keith even though their communication has slowed as of late. As you can imagine, their reunion doesn’t go as planned when she discovers that Keith has a girlfriend and to make things worse, Oliver drops the bomb that there is another piece of art her Aunt has left for her to find. She once again travels all over Europe without knowing where she is going and what she’ll have to do. The last time she did this she was mostly alone, this time she has Oliver,( who basically blackmails her into sharing in the profits of the sale of her Aunt’s work for the letters) Keith and Keith’s girlfriend Ellis and it’s full awkwardness. We didn’t get to know that much about Keith in the first book as he came and went in the narrative. In this he is much more present and honestly, he would drive me crazy if he was my friend. Ellis is sweet and it’s hard not to like her even if she is the girlfriend. It is Oliver who probably understands Ginny the most. True, he had the benefit of reading her letters (ok that’s not so great) but he knows when to be quiet and when to talk. He’s not a bad guy if you can get past the whole blackmail thing. This book wasn’t as good as the first. I was satisfied with how the other one ended. Yes, there was some unfinished business. The stolen letter and the are they dating are they not ending with Keith but life is full of unfinished business and I believe that Ginny ended a better person than where she began. At times it felt like all of this was meant to have a sequel and other times it felt like it was put together to capitalize on a popular book. Also the ending wasn’t as great. Yes, once again Ginny is in a better place than she was when she began but once again there are relationships left up in the air. It’s like Miss Johnson is leaving it open to write another book even though the letters are all gone.
I liked the first better then the second but I enjoyed them as a whole. They, however, are not as good as her Shades of London series, which is definitely worth the read.
I remember years ago, Madonna was quoted as saying that she wasn’t a religious person but a spiritual one. For the life of me I can’t find the actual quote. Internet, you have failed me! This seemed strange to me at the time because Madonna was very much in her Kabbalah phase and it seemed like everything in her life was influenced by it. Just listen to albums Ray of Light through Confessions on a Dance Floor for more evidence. She has since have moved on from Kabbalah. I’m not sure if she is still practicing or not but the presence is not as prevalent in her music as it used to be. Does one have to actively practice a religion to be that religion? The one thing that stuck with me from my Introduction to Islam class I took in college (taught by New York Times Bestseller, Reza Aslan. Yep, I’m totally name dropping!) was that in Islam, if you don’t practice you really can’t be really considered Muslim. Now, I took that class *gulp* over 10 years ago, so I apologize if that is not entirely accurate but I do remember that Islam is a very practical religion as well. As Mr. Aslan explained, if you couldn’t pray five times a day at the right time that’s ok, as long as you get those prayers in sometime during the day. If you can’t fast during Ramadan because of work, illness or other circumstances, that’s fine, too, as long as you make time to fast later to make up for it. That last point was illustrated to me when a former co-worker had to skip a week of fasting during the month of Ramadan because she was having stomach pain. As soon as she was feeling better, she completed that week of fasting. This makes sense to me. If you think about it, you really don’t have to go to church or read the bible to call yourself a Christian.
There was a recent discussion on Twitter about whether or not you avoid reading popular books. Is the fact that the book is popular and “You just got to read it” a turn on or turn off. Whether a book is popular is not really a selling point for me but I’m not going to avoid reading it if it is. Unless it’s an Oprah book. Now bear with me. Oprah’s Book Club has done so much to get people to read and for that I applaud her. It has also been a boom for the publishing industry, it has promoted authors that probably would never get exposure or that level of exposure but as a former bookseller, it made my life difficult. I know, it sounds weird but ask any bookseller. For years, Oprah wouldn’t announce her new pick until she did it on her show. People would immediately come into stores asking for the new Oprah book and we wouldn’t have a clue what they were talking about since we were working and not watching Oprah. And rarely would people who watched the show know the title of the book they must read and would come in with no information. Now, it’s a little easier. Oprah works more with publishers to make sure her picks are ready to go with her sticker already on the book when she makes her announcements. Also, now with the internet, if customers come in for her books and we were left unaware, they could look it up more easily but yeah Oprah. Also I found that a lot of her picks were the same. Different authors but all carried the same theme and that didn’t appeal to me.
2 Women, So Many Books 