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bookbriefs 's review for:
Burnouts, Geeks and Jesus Freaks: a love story
by Karen Gordon
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Burnouts, Geeks and Jesus Freaks is a quirky and really sweet love story. The story starts in 1999 and spans many years, following the characters throughout childhood, high school and beyond. It was lots of fun, super sweet, and gives you a couple that you just want to root for against all odds. Ben and Carrie are next door neighbors, Ben falling into the geek category and Carrie falling more into the burnout category by default. But they are each so much more than their stereotypes. Karen Gordon does an excellent job at both poking fun at and exaggerating the stereotypes as she does with making her characters grow and break the mold.
Carrie has it rough at home. Her mother is basically unhinged and all she does it take it out on Carrie. Only Ben and MG know what her home life is really like. And because of her mothers verbal abuse, Carrie has a big issue with letting anyone see her cry. As weird as this sounds, tracking her progress with this fear throughout the novel was really sweet and endearing to me.
Ben is just the sweetest guy on the planet. Yes, one of his choices tore me up inside but he eventually makes up for it. Although, I will say that I doubted it for a while there. Things got pretty rough for some characters for a while. This book took me on a rollercoaster ride of all the emotions imaginable. I wanted to see a little bit more of what happened at the end of the story. The first 65% of the story was wonderfully detailed and the pacing was perfect and then things all started unraveling very fast and once they started to resolve themselves I wanted the pacing to slow down again so I could enjoy the end, but it was still at the same heightened pace. It wasn't bad, but I selfishly wanted more Ben and Carrie.
Karen Gordon did a fantastic job with the writing in Burnouts, Geeks and Jesus Freaks. I laughed, I teared up, I awhed. It was quirky fun, had plenty of swoons and if you don't fall in love with Ben I officially think something is wrong with you.
Burnouts, Geeks and Jesus Freaks is a quirky and really sweet love story. The story starts in 1999 and spans many years, following the characters throughout childhood, high school and beyond. It was lots of fun, super sweet, and gives you a couple that you just want to root for against all odds. Ben and Carrie are next door neighbors, Ben falling into the geek category and Carrie falling more into the burnout category by default. But they are each so much more than their stereotypes. Karen Gordon does an excellent job at both poking fun at and exaggerating the stereotypes as she does with making her characters grow and break the mold.
Carrie has it rough at home. Her mother is basically unhinged and all she does it take it out on Carrie. Only Ben and MG know what her home life is really like. And because of her mothers verbal abuse, Carrie has a big issue with letting anyone see her cry. As weird as this sounds, tracking her progress with this fear throughout the novel was really sweet and endearing to me.
Ben is just the sweetest guy on the planet. Yes, one of his choices tore me up inside but he eventually makes up for it. Although, I will say that I doubted it for a while there. Things got pretty rough for some characters for a while. This book took me on a rollercoaster ride of all the emotions imaginable. I wanted to see a little bit more of what happened at the end of the story. The first 65% of the story was wonderfully detailed and the pacing was perfect and then things all started unraveling very fast and once they started to resolve themselves I wanted the pacing to slow down again so I could enjoy the end, but it was still at the same heightened pace. It wasn't bad, but I selfishly wanted more Ben and Carrie.
Karen Gordon did a fantastic job with the writing in Burnouts, Geeks and Jesus Freaks. I laughed, I teared up, I awhed. It was quirky fun, had plenty of swoons and if you don't fall in love with Ben I officially think something is wrong with you.