Famous Last Words by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

Published: July 2nd 2013

Sixteen-year-old Samantha D’Angelo has death on the brain. Her summer internship at the local newspaper has her writing obituaries instead of soaking up the sun at the beach. Between Shelby, Sam’s boy-crazy best friend; her boss Harry, a true-blue newspaper man; and AJ, her fellow “intern scum” (aka the cute drummer for a band called Love Gas), Sam has her hands full. But once she figures out what—or who—is the best part of her summer, will she mess it all up?

As Sam learns her way around both the news room and the real world, she starts to make some momentous realizations about politics, ethics, her family, romance, and most important—herself.

What a wonderful little book!

I was expecting it to be a light read, offering only a few hours of entertainment—what I got, was one of the best reads of the summer. I really and truly loved every single detail of this book. Doktorski is a master of the YA craft, and I cannot wait to see more from her.

Her characters were realistic, compelling and most important: interesting. The female protagonist was a character I actually found myself cheering for. She is eccentric, silly and relatable. She is the kind of girl you would want to be friends with. This is a hard thing to master in character development, to create a character so real the reader actually cares. Doktorski banged the nail on the head with her group of eccentric characters.

It was not the typical run of the mill “teenage love story,” it had depth, moments of humour and overall a great experience for the reader.

This is the perfect book to turn to when you are having a bad day, or when you are simply looking for an escape from life for a few hours.

As you turn the pages, you find yourself immersed in the story, and smiling along with the characters.

Brilliant.

Thank you, Raincoast Canada for the ARC.