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A review by liralen
Breakfast Served Anytime by Sarah Combs
3.0
Mmm. Promise that wasn't quite delivered on, I think. I was interested in this one because I went to nerd school—not just nerd camp, as Gloria does, but a bona fide nerdy public boarding school with the same kind of scholarship offer that Gloria gets by virtue of going to this nerd camp: get accepted, and go, to nerd camp (school) and get a free ride to the local university. (Like Gloria...I wanted outoutout, which meant not the local university.)
Gloria never felt quite fully fleshed out to me; I think her voice was a little too...careful. Still, she ends up being a fairly entertaining character by dint of being something of a snob in a way that the author is in on. Says another character: "So what you're saying, basically, is that you're a huge snob, you're way better than everyone else, your own ego is too big for the big ego-fest, and that this silly acting business is best left to stupid little plebeian morons like, oh, I don't know, me?" (136)
And, a little further down the line: I was starting to realize that my own keen Powers of Observation, on which I prided myself beyond reason, were selective and mostly ridiculous. The truth was that I noticed things if I cared about them. If I didn't immediately care or understand, they filtered right through (154).
Plotwise, though, the whole thing fell a bit flat for me. There's this moment when clear-cutting is built up as the Big Thing that will come to define Gloria's summer, and I thought, oh, huh, that's not what I expected from the book, and then I kept waiting...and waiting...and, actually, nope. It's not the thing that comes to define Gloria's summer. Instead her summer looks a lot like anygirl's time spent at this sort of summer programme: she meets some people she probably wouldn't in her normal life (note: I did appreciate that her roommate, in particular, wasn't made out to be the mean girl); they have some low-key adventures; the big mystery about the professor is resolved in a manner that's a bit disappointing for characters and reader alike. The real substance never really materialises.
In sum: idea more interesting than end result. Oh well. At least it's one more off my to-read list.
Gloria never felt quite fully fleshed out to me; I think her voice was a little too...careful. Still, she ends up being a fairly entertaining character by dint of being something of a snob in a way that the author is in on. Says another character: "So what you're saying, basically, is that you're a huge snob, you're way better than everyone else, your own ego is too big for the big ego-fest, and that this silly acting business is best left to stupid little plebeian morons like, oh, I don't know, me?" (136)
And, a little further down the line: I was starting to realize that my own keen Powers of Observation, on which I prided myself beyond reason, were selective and mostly ridiculous. The truth was that I noticed things if I cared about them. If I didn't immediately care or understand, they filtered right through (154).
Plotwise, though, the whole thing fell a bit flat for me. There's this moment when clear-cutting is built up as the Big Thing that will come to define Gloria's summer, and I thought, oh, huh, that's not what I expected from the book, and then I kept waiting...and waiting...and, actually, nope. It's not the thing that comes to define Gloria's summer. Instead her summer looks a lot like anygirl's time spent at this sort of summer programme: she meets some people she probably wouldn't in her normal life (note: I did appreciate that her roommate, in particular, wasn't made out to be the mean girl); they have some low-key adventures; the big mystery about the professor is resolved in a manner that's a bit disappointing for characters and reader alike. The real substance never really materialises.
In sum: idea more interesting than end result. Oh well. At least it's one more off my to-read list.