Review: Dear Cassie

Happy Belated Book Birthday to 

DEAR CASSIE!!

Title: Dear Cassie

Series: Companion to novel to Pretty Amy and The Next Forever

Author: Lisa Burstein 

Genre: Contemporary YA 

Source: Complimentary e-book from publisher in exchange for honest review

More about Dear Cassie can be found at Goodreads.

Dear Cassie was the first book I've read by author Lisa Burstein, even though this would be her third book out. This is a companion novel and it involves the same characters and world as Pretty Amy and The Next Forever but per the author you can read them in any order. I liked Cassie's story because, it seemed fairly reasonable like something that could happen in real life. What I enjoyed the most was watching Cassie's self discovery and development as I read.

I found it interesting, how the story is written from a journalistic point of view from the main character. I think that really helped me as a reader understand Cassie more. I think the information the author chose to hold back to the end worked well with the style of the story. Even though Cassie hinted and I guessed what her secret was long before Cassie actually revealed it herself, I felt like withholding it until Cassie was ready to talk about it was pretty brilliant.

I like how vulnerable Cassie is, even she tries to make everyone think she is such a hard@$$. She knows she's not that tough and pretty much everyone else can see through her facade as well. 

Cassie's story weighed on my emotions, especially sympathy, for many reasons. The lack of a close parental relationship is really sort of heartbreaking. I think that is one of the most detrimental things to Cassie. I hate for her, the mistakes she made and that she very nearly had to face them alone. Her brother gets mad props for being the type of family member she needed.

If you have read my blog for anytime at all you know I easily fall victim to book crushes. Dear Cassie was no exception. I LOVED Ben! He's mysterious, cute, musician, confidant, persistent and also caring, sweet. If I had to be locked away in some wilderness boot camp, I would hope there was a Ben around!

I appreciate rich descriptions and the value such descriptions can add to a novel. And Dear Cassie is chocked full of detailed descriptions. My only pet peeve with the writing of Dear Cassie was the abundant usage of similes. I enjoy like/as statements but there were so many of these types of descriptions it was almost distracting to me. In that, after a while, every time I'd come across one in the text it would almost pull me out of the story. Clearly the author put a lot of thought into the story to come up with such visual descriptions, it's just this reader got a little bogged down in the sea of similes. Though not enough to stop me from reading and Dear Cassie was still a quick, easy, and good read for me.

Warning: I saw a while back on Lisa's Facebook page that she was able to keep something like a 100 plus f-bombs in Dear Cassie. Well, I don't think she was exaggerating. But for some reason the way the word was used didn't bother me as much as it could have. Just be aware if you are sensitive to language, this book may not be a prime choice for you. BUT if you are looking for a story where an older teen makes some mistakes and is able to learn and grow from said mistakes then this maybe a book you'd should pick up.

I think this book is suitable for older teens due to the aforementioned language and adult themes. Although depending on the kid, I think a younger teen maybe able to glean some valuable life knowledge from Cassie's experience.

Again, I really enjoyed the story and the concept of Dear Cassie, I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It kept me coming back and wanting to know what all was going on in Cassie's World. I don't think this is the book for everyone but I found it to be an enjoyable read. I will be going back and reading Lisa Burstein's first book Pretty Amy soon!