Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood

Well...I gave up on this one. I hate to do that and I rarely do because so many times I think a book starts out slow (like Wendesday Wars) or I possibly even think it's incredibly boring (like Shooting the Moon) until I read a little bit more or finish it out and I love it. But sadly, this just wasn't going to happen with this one. I chose to "read" Sammy and Juliana with an audiobook - my first audiobook - and was so disappointed. There were two truly dramatic and captivating scenes in the book (as of the first eight or so chapters that I've read) but other than that I didn't enjoy it. I wasn't interested, I didn't enjoy it, and I found myself deeply annoyed by the amount of cursing that took place. Who cares that it's about high schoolers? I couldn't ever use that book in my classroom because of it, so it annoyed me. All of that added to the fact that I would listen while I drove, and would therefore either come close to rear ending semis because I was half-way falling asleep or I would just never opt to listen to it and plug in my iPod instead...I'm gonna have to give it the boot. Sorry, Sammy. Maybe next time.

I also wanted to mention that there was a lot about this book that I didn't like - beyond just being bored by the audiobook and some of the plot. I also felt like there was far too much foul language and sex in it. This is where I say that I've been having somewhat of an internal battle about this very thing in literature for a while, and struggling with what I deem "appropriate" and who gets to make that call. I feel like there's a lot that should be left up to each individual student, but I also know that if a student takes my recommendation for a book or pulls one off my classroom shelf, I will be the one who is responsible when angry parents come to complain. I also know that my parents sheltered me very much as I was growing up and I appreciate that very much; I tend to lean more on the conservative side of things when it comes to what is appropriate and what isn't. But I also know that a book that might very well be completely inappropriate for the majority of seventh graders may be the life of a different seventh grader and is therefore normal rather than inappropriate. It's a debate, I know, and one that I often have with myself. All of that being said...I did find this one to be slightly inappropriate. There wasn't a lot of sex but any sex in books is annoying to me. The language didn't start off that bad but as I progressed through it the f-words flew much more rapidly and regularly, and that also annoys me. Personally, this one's a no-go.