Kirsten SmithBesprekingen

Comedy

nov 2023 bingo challenge: set in Oregon, graphic novel

children's/teen/adult graphic novel, rated E, series (part one)
A beautifully illustrated Goonies-inspired adventure with a diverse group of girls (different skin tones, body types and at least one queer/lesbian) set in modern day Cannon Cove, Oregon, a fictional town beset by tourist fans of "The Gloomies" pirate treasure children's adventure movie.½

4.5/10, The story's concept is really original and promising, but its execution is quite boring and uninteresting, but at least the art was good.

It didn’t knock my socks off, but it was cute enough. I liked the art and the setting, and the characters were diverse and likeable.
I was hoping for snappier dialogue, and it was irritating that the book ended on a cliffhanger. Still, I think fans of Lumberjanes would enjoy.

Very cheesy. Why is this set in 1999? For cheap jokes? I have issue 2, hopefully that one is better.

Not getting any better. I won't be continuing.

Sweet and short, 3.5*. If you've seen the Netflix show "Trinkets" based on this book you'll find they took very little (some of the best parts) to make the tv version more edgy, modern, and suspenseful. The book is more relatable.

Highschool students conspire to get a popular girl's sister to date.

2.5/4 (Okay).

The beginning is weird and silly enough to draw me in. The rest of the movie is pretty ordinary, though, with most of the comedic characters inexplicably disappearing.

I really enjoyed these characters. Somewhere I read a review that called this a "grown-up Lumberjanes" and that feels very apt. It's interesting and fun and then ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, so I would like to try the next volume!

Funny, charming, no attention to reality or how people in the world actually react to crime.

Most of the characters are likable if not super well-defined yet. The story is pretty typical treasure hunting with some character drama mixed in. Lots of women here, which is nice to see representation-wise, especially when not defined explicitly in contrast to men and patriarchal ideas of gender. That can be important but not always fun or interesting.

Popular, pretty Bianca Stratford is in dilemma. A family rule forbids her from dating until her unpopular, rebellious, boy-hating older sister Kat gets a suitor of her own. In an attempt to win Bianca, a potential boyfriend desperately attempts to set Kat up with Patrick Verona, another rebel who may just be able to win Kat's heart.

Region 1 (NTSC)

I liked this. I mean, you don't see me reading contemporary books very often, so this summer will be sort of an experiment (Because there's at least 11 more contemporaries on my list for this summer). This was good. It was deep. It was cute. It contained a complete story in between the front and the back cover, which is a plus.
But it wasn't amazing. It didn't such me in. I wasn't begging for more at the end.

So, this lands solidly at a 3.75 stars.

This book desperately wants to be a madcap adventure filled with pirates, hidden treasure and quirky female protagonists. The adventure is mild, and the characters really don't consist of much beyond their quirks. It seems more like a book trying to get on a bandwagon (see: Lumberjanes, Ms. Marvel, etc.) rather than one trying to blaze its own path.

A blonde woman goes to Harvard.

Concept: F
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: D

Enjoyment: C

GPA: 1.3/4½

Loved it! Really, really good poetry, really good story.
On a side note the author seems like a really awesome person-living in LA, likes rock shows. Love some of the movies she co-wrote, too!

What do Moe, Tabitha, and Elodie have in common? Not a whole lot. In fact, pretty much nothing, if you were to ask any of them before the day they meet up in, of all places, Shoplifters Anonymous.

These are girls from all different walks of life. Tabitha is a "typical" pampered princess, Moe a so-called rebel living with her Aunt, and Elodie is the new girl in town, still struggling with changes in her family. They go to the same school, even take some of the same classes, but never, ever would have talked to each other if it weren't for the one thing they share: stealing stuff. Whether it's a stick of gum or a designer bag, the girls soon find themselves meeting secretly and challenging each other to take stuff. And as it gets more and more intense, they're finding that they are -- holy crap -- maybe even bonding.

Of course, they all know none of this can go on forever -- the shoplifting or the friendship. Or can it? As the girls truly get to know one another, they realize there's more to their bonds than their secret trips. Can they make it work?

In a super fun, modern twist on classics like The Breakfast Club (is this at all surprising, given Kirsten Smith's screenwriting creds?), TRINKETS is a wonderful story of friendship, family, adversity, and the occasional hijinks. Fans of Susane Colasanti and Lauren Myracle will fall in love with these characters and find themselves aching for more YA from Kirsten Smith.

cute read.

Sweet, short story about finding friends in unlikely places. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

A novel in verse. There seem to be more of these than there used to be. This one has a likeable protagonist, but I thought the execution lacked depth and resonance. I think I would have enjoyed the novel that's hovering just behind the poetry.

Trinkets centers around three girls from different social circles who are all assigned to attend a program for shoplifters. Sounds like The Breakfast Club, right? Yes, and that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Trinkets is narrated by all three girls in alternating points of view. I was initially alarmed to see that Elodie's chapters are in verse. While I love poetry, YA books in verse are really not my thing. At all. Luckily for me, Moe's and Tabitha's POVs are in regular prose.

While most of the book's events will not seem surprising to anyone who watches John Hughes movies -- the girls discover that they actually have a lot in common, fix their love lives and even seem to conquer their kleptomania -- this book was a fun, feel-good read with some laugh-out-loud moments and charming romantic subplots. If you're in the mood for a fun contemporary, this one should definitely make you smile.

Read more reviews @ my blog, YA Romantics

I really enjoyed Trinkets. Going in, I was expecting to be put off by these three teenage girls who steal, especially when I really wound up not liking Pretty Crooked, which had a main character that also stole, albeit for different reasons. But instead of a book that focused only on the stealing, we got a look at three girls who have their own sets of issues, who ultimately become friends. It was this journey from semi-acquaintances to really good friends that I enjoyed most about the story.

The book is told in alternating viewpoints, so we get equal time with Elodie, Tabitha, and Moe. Each girl has a very distinct style and way of telling their stories: Elodie uses verse, Moe uses journal entries, while Tabitha's words are told in your usual typical story style. Aside from their way of writing, each girl's voice is also distinct. I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed all three, although Moe was definitely my favorite.

There is a lot going on in this book. Tabitha's parents are pretending to be fine when they're really not, Elodie's mom died of cancer and her dad remarried someone much younger who Elodie has trouble connecting with, and Moe's parents were killed in a car accident when she was young, with her and her older brother coming to live with their aunt. The book really tries to tackle why each girl steals (and, in Moe's case, why she also dresses goth and hangs with people your mother would not approve of). While I liked watching the girls' evolution and very much enjoyed the twists and turns throughout, I do think the ending was perhaps a bit too neat and clean, but in the end it didn't wind up bothering me too much.

Trinkets is a book that tries to tackle a lot of issues, and for the most part, succeeds really well. I adored the girls and the way they came to trust and depend on each other, and their discoveries about what it means to be a real friend. There's a lot of humor mixed in with the girls' darker thoughts, making this compelling and entertaining in equal measures. I'm very glad I gave it a read!

An e-galley was provided by the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

A novel in verse, The Geography of Girlhood provides a poetic glimpse into the tumultuous world of a teenaged girl. Narrator Penny Morrow chronicles her life from ages 14-18 in free-form verse, detailing her world of sadness, awkwardness, confusion, anger, resentment, and small victories, all told with a disarming detachment. The verses are deceptively bite-sized and easy to ingest; she doesn't wallow in her misery or reveal too much of her personal angst, but you can sense it in the white space of the pages.

Author Kirsten Smith, who helped write a number of screenplays about teenagers (10 Things I Hate About You, Ella Enchanted), expertly inhabits the mind and body of a confused teenager who has moments of clarity. Penny has a lot of personal issues to deal with -- an absent mother, her father's remarriage, a popular older sister, infatuation and first kisses, changing friendships -- and the verse form helps keep things succinct and to the point. No superfluous words, just the facts. It reminds us how difficult it can be to come of age.

Smith's novel tells the story of Penny's journey through high school in a series of poems. While the trope could be tiresome, Smith's use of each poem as sort of a vignette of an individual moment or day in Penny's life is instead a lovely collage that creates the picture of who Penny is and who she's becoming. I also find that the use of poetry to portray moments is a more realistic way to narrate the time, because in all honesty, our memories aren't smoothly-written and transitioned narratives from one day to the next, they're a collection of times and people and events patched together, some standing out more than others. Smith captures the restlessness of being a teenager in a small town nicely, and I will probably be searching for a copy of this novel to give to a teenaged relative who's currently about to enter high school in a small town as well.