For my class I needed to choose a Printz Award Winner or Honor book. My choice was Please Forget Vera Dietz by A.S. King. I had absolutely no idea what this book was about when I chose it and will admit that I picked it because I loved the cover.

Vera’s best friend Charlie is dead but not quite gone. She sees him a lot, usually at really inconvenient times like when other people are around. He is trying to tell her something, but she doesn’t want to listen.

Vera’s dad’s motto - “Ignore it Vera.”

Ignore the fact that Charlie’s dad beats his wife; ignore Charlie’s weird relationship with a guy who tried to lure them into a car 6 years earlier; ignore what people say about you; ignore that your mom left; ignore everything. Vera’s attempt to ignore things does what it does to most people who don’t deal with things, it exacerbates (one of Vera’s vocabulary words) them.

Vera turns to drinking even though her dad is a recovering alcoholic and his dad was an alcoholic (and his dad too). Vera discovers that a couple of drinks make the pain more bearable. With a couple of drinks she can deal with her job delivering pizzas, her relationship with her dad, her failure to deal with Charlie’s death.

Watching Vera come to terms with Charlie’s death and deal with her own life is powerful. Like Melinda in Speak, Vera transforms from “invisible Vera Dietz” to “invincible Vera Dietz.” Vera finds her voice, her power, her confidence and herself. ( )

As brilliant but difficult to love as Charlie himself. ( )

I'm a big fan of A.S. King, and it is incredibly weird to read a book by her that is almost normal in its weirdness. Almost a straightforward narrative, but I guess it was an early book. I've often heard this book described as funny, and it wasn't that for me -- I liked it, and I thought it was true to itself and pleasingly sarcastic, but not overly so. It was good. ( )

Oh my God what a heartbreaker! I can't believe it took me this long to read this stunner. I will definitely recommend this to students strongly in the coming year. Vera is trying to live under the radar in her town of Mount Pitts, hoping no one will find out about her mother. Her best friend has just died under suspicious circumstances and details about something related to his death casts a pall over his memory. Even though Vera hadn't really spoken to him in a few months before his death, she keeps seeing thousands of Charlies imploring her to set things right. She had fallen in love with him even though her father warned her about getting involved with him, or any boy. Told in chapters from a variety of different perspectives, even the Pagoda's (it's a long story), this book mixes humor with heartbreaking details that bring true depth to all of the characters. ( )

This is a good novel, a quick read, I liked it but I didn't love it. Vera is a good character, sarcastic, smart, witty, and broken. Her best childhood friend Charlie died and she is dealing with it by working non-stop and sneaking a few sips of vodka every once in a while. The problem was, she and Charlie had a big falling out months before he died, and she is the only person who really knows what happened that night. I liked the style of the author, the characters felt real and I cared about them. I love the cover! Good quick, realistic book to pick up.

4/16/13 Re-read, I enjoyed this book even more than I had originally the second time around. I don't know what I missed in the first read through, but I missed something and this book earned itself another star. ( )