The Popularity Papers

                               


Amy Ignatow has hit it out of the ball park again with number two of her much beloved series The Popularity Papers.    I love everything about these books!   The artwork is amazing; it is so colorful and appealing.  I admit that I am always inspired to go and write something in my own journal and I always wish that I could be more creative with the embellishments that I add to my own words.  Of course, I also want to start knitting something right away too, but you can't read and knit at the same time!  Appearance aside, I also really love how the story is presented.  We have two girls with different lives, who share and  learn from their personal experiences which are, in my opinion, important issues that girls at this age should be thinking about.  I love how they both arrive at the right conclusions for their particular problems and that we get to read about them in such an inspirational and entertaining way.  If I had daughters, I would make sure that they had the whole series to date, and of course, I would make sure they could create their own journals, and be able to knit if they wanted to as well!

Shiver, Linger and Forever

Shiver

First book in the trilogy…

Okay, I must admit I was very stricken by how many similarities there were in this story compared to Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, and it biased me for a while, because, quite frankly, I am “super sick” of the whole teenage love/angst paranormal scene.  But I persevered, and found that, even though there are some likenesses here, there are also quite a few differences, and that the similarities aren’t a bad thing because Stiefvater chose the things that I particularly liked about the Twilight books.  For example, a strong female protagonist who is smart and independent.  The use of poetry and mention of other good works that teens might not even think about reading (but might now!), and the show of respect and restraint on the male protagonist’s part when it comes to having sex, and even when it does come up, it is in the right conditions and all about love (as it ideally should be). I Liked how both protagonists, Grace and Sam, had a share of page time, I got to see and understand both characters from their points of view.
 All in all Shiver, though heavily steeped in romantic metaphor (all on the male protagonists part!), is just about perfect for the girl who wants these ingredients in her next romantic book after Twilight. 

Linger
On to part two in the trilogy, it didn’t behave as I expect most trilogies to behave, this wasn’t really a filler piece… there was loads of action, the usual gooey, romantic metaphors, and a cliff hanger at the end.  Unlike Shiver, you cannot just leave now if you wished because it wasn’t wrapped up in a neat conclusive parcel. 
I would like to say that I am glad that this time there were four people telling the story, apart from Sam and Grace, there is now Isabel and Cole,   because it really made the difference I think in the pace and interest of the ‘middle’ part.   I have to say that I am pleased with how little steeped it was in werewolf lore.  The wolves are just the catalyst for the story and stay in the background behind the character development of the four protagonists. 


Forever, the last book in the series, maintains the same tempo as the first two, concluding satisfactorily all four threads of the story.  I am relieved to have finished them, though it wasn’t too hard for me (despite so many corny metaphors).  This is a wolf story that I did’t mind (because the other were books making the rounds these days  seem to be so gritty and aggressive).  The story was nice and the wolves were just wolves, doing natural wolfy things, not human ones.  That is what made the difference for me when reading this.