Every Exquisite Thing

Some parts were really good, but overall, it was just not cohesive enough for me.

I find Quick to be very readable. This is the first one of his young adult novels I read, and I think it was pretty great overall. There is a lot to talk about in this book, if it ever comes up in a book club. I really loved that reading this book referenced other works that a reader may not discover otherwise. It's like a literary rabbit hole.

How many times have I had someone's first novel wow me only to find that the second novel was simply ho-hum? I don't know, but it has happened many, many times.

That's what happened here. Silver Linings was very good; Exquisite Thing was disappointing.

I have lots of reasons why. Let's see if I can list some of them. (Warning: There are a few small spoilers coming up.) The plot in which a fan finds an author reminded me of the plot of Fault in Our Stars. (Honestly, even the author in Exquisite was a bit like the author in Fault.) The main character's parents are all over the place, together, apart, not listening to their daughter, and even listening too much to their daughter; they did not seem consistent. The relationship between the main character and her pseudo-boyfriend was tepid. And I loathed the way the main character, at the urging of her therapist, began to talk about herself in third person.

That's probably enough for you to decide for yourself if this is a book you want to spend a couple of hours with or not. I say you could better spend the time watching another banal sitcom and I don't watch tv.