Wednesday 14 December 2016

‘Palo Alto’ by James Franco (Review)

‘Palo Alto’ by James Franco

A book about a group of teenagers struggling with how they feel, think and act towards certain aspects/ people in their lives. The last chapter was a separate short story all of it’s own.

Rating - 7/10

If I was to describe this book in 3 words: Dark, Modern, Indie and Captivating.

Favourite Quotation’s: 

“I guess in some people’s lives, no one tells you what to be, and so you be nothing”.

“What an adventure lies behind one quick turn of the steering wheel”.

A few reason’s I purchased this book:

I was hoping for another ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ and this seemed like it would be similar, I have seen this book advertised in film a lot recently and I wanted a book that I wouldn’t be able to put down (I wasn’t disappointed).

From the first line of the first chapter, this book caught me,

“Ten years ago, my sophomore year in high school, I killed a woman on Halloween”

The deal was done, I was buying the book. With a first line like that, how can someone not be curious about how this happened, why this happened and everything in between?

The last chapter (the bonus story) was one of my favorite parts of the whole book. It was different to the rest of the content but still as modern and captivating.. just more naive and innocent.

I wasn’t expecting to be taken a back by how graphic this novel was at times but I think that’s what makes read more ‘modern’ and 'indie' and what separates it from similar books within these genre's.

The reason why this book didn’t receive a 10/10 for me was because I got a little lost with the characters sometimes. I wasn’t always sure which character I was reading about, I don’t think this was made clear enough (for me) and there are only 213 pages, I would have liked a longer book (which is also a compliment!)

Overall, I would recommend this book and I am looking forward to seeing the movie when it is eventually released here in the UK.


S x

No comments:

Post a Comment