Book Review: Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King

Hi, everyone!

I got to read Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King. Here’s the summary, if you haven’t had a chance to see or read this awesome book:

Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.

So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?
Vera is a pizza delivery girl whose vocab I use to study for the SAT. She is an interesting person because she is not your usual distraught, rebel teen or your usual good girl stay in the lines, which are unfortunately many main character teen types that I find in YA books. She is an interesting mix of the two and does not always make the right decisions. She was a very real character that I liked a lot.

The book kept constantly switching point of view, time period, and even style of the chapter. It was fascinating because I would become so into what was currently happening, then it would switch and show us a piece of Vera and Charlie’s history that made them such good friends, and back to present again. There were a bunch of little side chapters and charts from Vera’s father that gave us a wider view into Vera’s life and what she was dealing with in addition to her dead friend’s mysterious death crisis.

I would recommend this book to someone who wants to read a deep yet light hearted book about friendship and just the choices we have to make in general. This book does have an aspect of magical realism, but don’t let that turn you off because I’m not a huge fan of magical realism, but it was woven so beautifully into the story that you simply cannot have the story without it.

A.S. King is an amazing author, so make sure you check out her other books too!

~Victoria