Everything I Was by Corinne Demas

Everything I Was by Corinne Demas due out April 2011

Book Blurb

My walls were stripped, and all that was left in the room was a pile of boxes and my mattress propped against the wall."  So begins Irene's journey from an Upper West Side penthouse to—well, she's not entirely sure where. Irene's investment banker father is "downsized" when his company merges with another. When he can't find work, her family's lifestyle—and her socialite mother's spending—quickly catches up with them. Eventually, they're forced to move in with Irene's grandfather in the big family farmhouse upstate. But what begins as the most disastrous summer of her life takes a surprising turn when she meets a most remarkable family.

Rating

3.5 out of 5

Review

I loved the beginning and middle of this book.  It was sweet and real.   I enjoyed Irene and her grandfather’s relationship. I just wanted to crawl up in this little town and read a book in a barn.  The Fox household seemed like a great place to live. They(the Fox fam) were all a little real a little fantasy, because the author wanted you to love them so it added a magic kind of quality to the everyday interactions. Which I loved the feeling it gave me of summer, youth and hope.  I wish she would have made it that simple all through the book.  However, I am guessing they didn’t want it to seem to happy and had to make it more realistic so for example they threw in the father who only comes down from the attic once in awhile.  The end… well it didn’t go downhill it went down a bump ( a small one) .  I just didn’t understand the philosophical turn it took. The language was improbable at points, especially after the accident.  But all in all Irene was real and reacted like a girl her age might(She was a lot nicer than I would have been).  I just think I missed a lot of what the author was trying to get across as “moral of the story”, instead  I just enjoyed the story. 

Read Alikes

    

Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall- For younger readers but it has the best family story, I love the girls!!

While vacationing with their widowed father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters, ages four through twelve, share adventures with a local boy, much to the dismay of his snobbish mother.

Surface tension: a novel in four summers by Brent Runyon- During the summer vacations of his thirteenth through his sixteenth year at the family's lake cottage, Luke realizes that although some things stay the same over the years that many more change.

Reviewed From NetGalley

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