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Journal Entry 1 by lizziwhizz from Skowhegan, Maine USA on Tuesday, June 06, 2006
 From Booklist
Raine, a wildly eccentric 18-year-old, is making her second try for senior year at St. Ursula's school on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Her guidance counselor is Al, who lives next door to Raine's wealthy, intellectual family and has seen Raine playing the bagpipes in her garden or befriending homeless people. Obsessed with "humanity's cruel streak," Raine prefers to organize antinuclear protests and to keep scrapbooks on the Holocaust rather than study, upsetting her high-achieving parents. But her idealistic, "crazy, jangling" conversation is filled with truths that soothe Al, whose marriage is disintegrating, and he finds himself unwillingly pulled toward his student. Mixing sharp dialogue, lyrical narration, and Raine's yearning, intelligent diary entries, first-novelist Hurley explores her characters' complicated, intersecting lives with an affection that's contagious, even as she asks deeper questions about how to live bravely and survive betrayals, both global and personal. Readers won't easily forget Raine, who, despite her apocalyptic fears and flights of fancy, recognizes the world's "astonishing things."
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Journal Entry 2 by lizziwhizz from Skowhegan, Maine USA on Sunday, June 11, 2006
I am not going to finish this book; after 60 pages I was still not interested, which was disappointing to me. Based on the cover and the blurb on the back, I was expecting something a little lighter, maybe Georgia Nicholson a little older and with some sense, but this book seems to be quite a bit more "literary" than I expected. There were parts that I quite enjoyed, like Mary's references to her home in Greenland, but others confused me, like some of the things Raine's grandmother tells her--the character seemed contradictory to me for some reason. I often felt a bit dumb, as there are references to aspects of Jewish culture that I know nothing about, and felt like I just wasn't getting the joke, or the full meaning of the passage. The book simply wasn't what I expected, and not what I am in the mood for.
I am sending this to Lizabeth86 as part of an Almost Live Swap at bookrelay.com--I hope you have better luck with it than I did!
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St. Ursula's Girls Against the Atomic Bomb
