Tuesday, January 29, 2013

ARC Review: Me, Him, Them, and It

Me, Him, Them, and It by Caela Carter
3.5/5 stars
Bloomsbury, 2013
369 pages
YA Contemporary
Scheduled to release February 26

Source: Received an e-ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

For a main character who is supposed to be smart, Evelyn sure is an idiot. In order to get her parents' attention, she decides to become "bad Evelyn." This means partying, drinking, smoking pot, and engaging in repeated acts of unprotected sex. When this unsurprisingly results in pregnancy, she withdraws and tries to ignore it, rejecting talking and making decisions. Once she does decide to carry the baby to term, she continues to reject everyone and avoids making decisions. I know she's in a tough situation and at only sixteen, she's largely incapable of maturity, but I just wanted to slap her at some points. As she grows to realize, she is surrounded by a group of people who will support her, provided she ask for some assistance and shares her feelings. That's ALL she has to do but she's mostly too stupid to do it.

At the beginning of the book, Evelyn is meeting with Mary from Planned Parenthood to discuss her options. She hates her parents: her cheating father who left them and her silent mother, who allowed him to come back for the sake of maintaining appearances. Although she had previously been the model daughter, she had rebelled (with long-term hookup Todd) in order to gain their attention. Her pregnancy is ultimately successful in this goal. After dithering for pages, she decides she still wants to continue to attend school but she does not want any one to know. Thus she moves from Florida to Chicago to live with her beloved Aunt Linda, her partner, and their children. The rest of the book follows Evelyn with them, as she continues to make no decisions or rushes through decisions only to regret them.

Although we have to spend our time in Evelyn's head with all her stupid thoughts, we still get to meet some characters who are actually endearing. Chief among them are Evelyn's adorable cousins Tammy and Cecelia. They are the sweetest cutest little girls and their innocent love and adoration of Evelyn was a much-needed pick-me-up. Another great character was Maryellie, a fellow pregnant student but her boyfriend is actually happy about the baby and her family is rallying around her to help her raise her child.

While I hope this review captures how annoying I found Evelyn, I can easily say that the writing was very engaging and the countdown to birth made the pages turn easily. The additional bright spots of Tammy and Cecelia and basically every character who wasn't Evelyn or the baby father Todd helped me get through the book.

Cover: Hair color and girl made of skin and bones is quite accurate actually so kudos for that-I also love the baby bump drawn on.

Question: I've read a couple of books about teen pregnancy now, always focused on the girl's perspective. Are you familiar with any that focus on the guy's? Or alternate between the two? If so, please leave a recommendation below (even if you didn't like it).

Other Opinions:
A Good Addiction
Blkosiner's Book Blog
Diamonds and Coal Book Reviews
Once Upon a Prologue

9 comments:

  1. I loved Cecelia and Tammy!
    Lovely review.
    As for guy's perspective, Hanging on to Max I read a while back by Bechard. I don't remember much but I liked it.
    And First Part Last by Angela Johnson

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  2. I thought about requesting this, but decided that I would probably have very complicated feelings about a teen pregnancy book. So glad to read your review and see what I missed out on!

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  3. Annoying, unrelatable characters are the worst. Sorry this one had one.

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  4. This sounds like it would be a little irritating if the main character is one that you find so annoying. Don't you hate that. Great review. I'll have to think about this one. :)

    Jenea @ Books Live Forever

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  5. Huh, I think it'd be interesting to read a pregnancy story that focused on the guy, too.

    Thanks for this review! I gotta say, it sort of bothers me that the "it" in the title refers to the baby, hah.

    Wendy @ The Midnight Garden

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  6. Ahh the preggers teen. *looks at others bloggers* yes there it is, I saw this one on Brandi's blog. SO now I get another good review of it, interesting

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  7. Though the book seems like a good read, I don't appreciate immature and irritating characters. Great review! :)

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  8. While this does sound like an interesting premise, it sounds like Evelyn would grate on my nerves. Thanks for your honest review! :-)

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  9. So I'm confused...did you think Evelyn was stupid or not? I couldn't tell. ;) haha Just kidding.

    It gets on my nerves when main characters are whiny brats, too. I think even if I had gotten knocked up at 16 in order to get attention I would have still had enough sense to get it together at that point and stop making rash decisions. I do like that she chose to stay in school, so she has that going for her.

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