Reviews

I really love this book but the parts about the cuban missile crisis felt quite pointless to me, I skimmed over most of it. The ending leaves much to the imagination, there could’ve been more added there. Other than that it was great, it goes back and forth between third person and an older Clem’s perspective and the first few chapters are before he was born, about his parents and grandparents. I’m not quite sure it’s a teen book but I am a teen and I enjoyed reading it.

sarahward's review against another edition

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4.0

I really liked this book. Mal Peet's writing style gets into my head and I found myself rereading certain parts just because they sounded so lovely. With that being said, the Cuban missile parts could have been shorter and towards the end I just started skimming them to get through it.

christiek's review against another edition

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There's a lot here that wants to be liked. I enjoyed the characters, the plot is interesting. I didn't read far enough to know how the whole thing was connected to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I gave up on the book after the history lesson that tried to be written in Clem's voice about 188 pages in. For the whole of those 188 pages, I have no idea why a teenager would be interested in reading this book. I kept wondering, Why is this YA? What did me in (besides a fairly slow pace) was the narrative voice. About a 1/3 of the book is first person by an adult Clem and the rest third person. It didn't work for me even a little.

nedge's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

pwbalto's review against another edition

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5.0

But it's not like I wouldn't hand this to a teen. I would, I so very very would. In fact, I might suggest it as a class read for a high school class studying the Cold War - the Cuban Missile Crisis is given a lot of pages here. But Life: An Exploded Diagram is teen reading in the way that Jonathan Safran Foer can be teen reading - not an obvious choice. I have been saying that it's kind of like John Irving by way of John Green.

Full review on Pink Me: http://pinkme.typepad.com/pink-me/2012/03/life-an-exploded-diagram-by-mal-peet-review.html

alysona's review against another edition

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4.0

Read this since it made SLJ's Battle of the Books and liked it. Hope it gets more visibility.

steph01924's review against another edition

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4.0

Whatever ending I was expecting, it was not that. What WAS that?

I don't know what to say about this book. It was very interesting, at times it enthralled me, but...damn. It was heavy. Kind of depressing, and not always in the good way.

I enjoyed the back and forth history of the generations of Clem's family, the chapter names and the wry voice of older-Clem narrating. I loved Goz; what a great character. I enjoyed some of the Cuban Missile Crisis history. It got a little...pointless? I guess? to me towards the end, when there were things I was much more interested in focusing on. I skimmed those last few inserts.

This is one of those books. It's well-written and has an interesting premise and was quite taking at the time, but I doubt I'll ever go back to it in the future. It's not going to be one of my absolute favorites.

Spoiler

I guess I prefer my books to have some hope at the end. I thought for sure Clem was going to die on 9/11, and, hell, maybe he did since it CUT OFF SO ABRUPTLY. Jesus. Either way, maybe I can imagine that the attack helped him realize he should go back to be with Frankie and they lived together for the rest of their crippled days, perfecting the art of Doing It. I don't need the happy ending to be all spelled out but...there needs to be some glimmer of hope from the characters that that is where it's heading. I don't know if I got that from Clem, and that's probably what bothers me.

But that is my thing with books, and may not be yours. I'd still recommend it to people who can handle this type of book.

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