Other characters were real enough that I was frustrated not to get more. I didn’t have enough to quite get Delia, for instance; a few glimpses, but more a story I put together in my head than Delia herself. Muddie, also — while she was fleshed out, she was used so little that at times it seemed it was Jamie and Kit, the twins, and Muddie. I understand, this is told thru Kit’s eyes and it reflects how she sees, or doesn’t see Delia, but, still, I wanted more.

Da — great character, even if I’m a bit over making excuses for weak men’s weaknesses. While the level of acceptance of Da’s flaws is believable, the Da=loving but weak contrasted to Delia=hard working but too strong didn’t work for me.

The timeline: so much was going on, over not just the tight fall 1950 timeline (between end of summer stock & the train cash) but before. I’m wondering why Delia leaving was held back, not made clear until later. Or why Delia was gone for years but her room wasn’t used? I’d definately like to sit down and try to hash out the exact timeline of what was going on when with this one.

And just to clarify– I have no problem with my own life in late September and early October! I could not find enough time in Kit’s life for all of the things that Kit does in that time. I looked very closely at the chapter headings of month and year and the implied passage of time in the narrative, and the action didn’t seem to fit into the timeframe provided. If the dates weren’t at the top of each chapter with the month as well as the year, would this have been noticeable? Maybe not. But they were there, and that called attention to what I referred to as plot rigging. Does this make Strings Attached a bad book? No, but it struck me as a flaw that would likely make this not a final five title.

Do note that our goal here is to discuss titles as we would at the table if we were on the Printz committee, so we have been assuming readers have read at least the flap copy and have a working knowledge of the texts up for discussion. Which means this is not a traditional review blog, it’s a discussion of Printz-eligible titles in the very narrow context of the award. Many of the books I am either championing or panning in the context of Printz worthiness would be treated entirely differently in a more traditional review space, where things like appeal would matter and where it would be possible to have far more than five titles standing at the end of the day.

This review is also problematic in that it is SO deeply referential. I happened to have read (and loved) this novel, so when reading this review, I at least knew who was who, what was going on etc. But for the POTENTIAL reader who is visiting this website in hopes to get a CLEAR idea of what this book really is, there’s a maddeningly sparse amount of plot and character description. We understand (ad. nauseam) how many sticky notes were used, but what we don’t understand is THE BOOK ITSELF. How is one to agree or disagree with the reviewer’s opinions when they don’t even have a clear sense of the actual content of the book?

That said, I realize I’m arguably doing the same thing here, which is ranting about the reviewer without specifically expressing WHY I so wildly disagree. STRINGS ATTACHED is a completely engrossing, elegant though accessible, and intelligent read. It’s exactly the kind of book young readers should have in hand these days. It’s got the titillating stuff sure, but sentence by sentence, Blundell is a WRITER. Her prose is seamless. This story feels simultaneously fresh and classic, which is incredibly hard to pull off. Another stunning duality at play—Kit is both painfully vulnerable and wildly headstrong, totally three dimensional. Anyway, I’ve belabored my point. STRINGS ATTACHED is wonderful, and this review is well, a “hot mess.”

For me, the adolescent quest of “what do I want more than anything in the world?” and “how far will I compromise my morals to get it?” was pitch perfect.

Personally, I never think too hard about issues of dates and times (even after Sarah discussed it in detail regarding Everyone Sees the Ants, I *still* didn’t notice any dates on my second read), so that wasn’t a problem for me. I think it had more to do with the gangster stuff seeming really pulpy (in a bad way). I also now remember being put off by the artifice of the plot – what you called “plot rigging” (good phrase).