I first was introduced to the story by the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes. I really enjoyed the movie, and was looking forward to reading the book. I enjoyed that, in the beginning, the book explored the relationship between Ruth and Idgie much more deeply than in the movie. I also liked how much more candid Evelyn's thoughts were in the book than in the movie. Instead of portraying her just as a crazed and angry housewife who was bent on getting her way after tolerating so much injustice, the book really explored her thoughts behind why she was so timid, and why she began to think it wasn't right anymore for her to be treated the way she had been treated.

The writing style was a bit jarring at times. Sometimes I felt as though the jumps from present to past were a bit too sudden and disrupted the flow of the story a bit. Other times, I felt that they really added to pivotal points in the novel.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this, and I particularly loved the southern setting.

A nice, pleasant summer read. A bit predictable, but hey, I wasn't looking for anything too complex. It's a simple story of summer love and family. :)

As much as I hate to give in to hipster-ey / pop culture fascinations, I really do have to admit that this book is pretty great. I first heard about it from the famous quote about "if people were rain, I'd be a drizzle and she'd be a hurricane." And this book has a good handful of really beautiful quotes like that.

Sometimes it can get a bit stereotypical/cheesy as far as teenager-ey antics go, but overall, I really enjoyed this book.

I almost felt as though this book was given more credit than it deserves when it was recommended to me. The writing style is okay, but sometimes I felt like the lack of punctuation and run-on sentences didn't add to the story, it seemed a bit overused by the end of the book.

It also seemed like I was wanting to see more character development in the main character, and what happened to her before she was kidnapped. It glazed over it, but seemed to only focus on what happened during the kidnapping/immediately before it, and only a few minor details about her family life and personal life.

Overall, an okay quick read, but lacking in character development.

I don't know if there's a single thing in this book that I could point to as something I particularly enjoyed or thought was unique, innovative, or thought-provoking. I know that it sounds pretty harsh, but I can't understand why this book was written.

The story is told through the eyes of a young girl who learns at age nine that she can taste feelings and attributes through food. She learns about ONE family secret this way; with everyone else's food, it simply gives her grief or mild interest. Her brother is discussed throughout the novel, but is mostly boiled down to just a weird kid with a weird "ability" to... turn into furniture? Because he doesn't like his life? And that's it.

There is little to no character development, and in some places, I actually felt the characters get less and less interesting as the story progressed. The mother, Lane, is describes as flighty in her interests, but it sure doesn't seem like it in the book. Her affair is never commented on or discussed other than "it's a thing that has happened for a long time".

I felt almost no connection to any of the characters in the story; many of them were either brought up, and then rarely mentioned or commented on again after they fulfilled their "purpose" in relation to Rose, the main character. Others that did exist throughout the entire story didn't develop at all. I didn't feel like I learned anything about them, for the most part, throughout the story.

Furthermore, there is virtually no setting. Besides naming places or street names, I would have no idea where this story took place had I never heard of L.A.. And I have even less of an idea of when this story takes place. There's talk of laptop computers, movies shown on airplanes, and television. But cell phones or any advanced technology aren't spoken of. I guess the setting is somewhere from the mid-nineties to the 2000's?

Aside from story and narrative, the prose is pretty poorly written. As a reader, I find it irritating when I have to go back and re-read a phrase or sentence or passage several times to attempt to understand the meaning. This novel was filled with passages like that, as well as metaphors and descriptors that didn't even make sense. Flashbacks were also occasionally hard to follow, too. And the no-punctuation-for-dialogue? Really annoying, and really poorly done. It was sometimes hard to understand what was part of the dialogue and what was internal monologue. Lastly, the author wasn't creative at all with dialogue signifiers. "S/He said" and "s/he asked" were pretty much the only two phrases used throughout the entire novel.

I have no idea where or by whom I was recommended this novel. And I don't know why that person or site recommended it to me.

The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets came to my attention in a Barnes & Nobles when I was in the mood to browse solely based on covers. Yep, that's right. I was judging books by... well, you know the drill. The cover was pretty and had an interesting title. When I turned the book over to read the summary on the back, I was pretty curious. I've always been a fan of books that explore the relationship between criminals and victims, and this book seemed like a good combination of that, plus a little bit of contemporary social criticism.

And, I'll honestly say that I was impressed. After reading a few poorly written books previously, I was very happy with the prose and story line. There were three or four main perspectives being told in this novel, and I found myself getting excited to read every one of them when a new chapter hit. Usually I get bored with one or more perspectives, but this book kept it fresh and interesting.

Ultimately, I wanted more at the conclusion of the book. I felt like it was wrapped up too quickly, and I was wanting a lot more out of a few characters, which is why I am giving this novel only four out of five stars.