Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club

Hello,

I have been so bad about doing book Reviews!  I'd like to do my own Book Club Link up if any of you are interested...

This past week I read "On the Come Up" by Hannah Weyer

Here's the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "Based on a true story, an impassioned and propulsive debut novel about a headstrong girl from Far Rockaway, Queens, who is trying to find her place in the world Written in an urban vernacular that's electrifying and intimate, On the Come Up introduces a heroine who is irrepressible, dynamic, and unstintingly honest. Thirteen-year-old AnnMarie Walker dreams of a world beyond Far Rockaway, where the sway of the neighborhood keeps her tied to old ideas about success. While attending a school for pregnant teens, AnnMarie comes across a flyer advertising movie auditions in Manhattan. Astonishingly, improbably, and four months before she's due to give birth?she lands a lead role. For a time, AnnMarie soars?acting for the camera, flying to the Sundance Film Festival, seeing her face on-screen. But when the film fades from view and the realities of her life set in, AnnMarie's grit and determination are the only tools left to keep her moving forward. Told with remarkable compassion and based on the real-life story of Anna Simpson, whom the author met during the filming of the award-winning Our Song, Hannah Weyer's debut novel is an incredible act of literary ventriloquism that powerfully illuminates the lives of the urban unseen."

My thoughts:  I wanted to really like this book.  But it needed to be about 300 pages longer.  Or only focus on a few years of her life.  It was spread so thin that I just felt like it was filled with flat stories in a way... and this could be a very, very powerful story if told right.  It doesn't do the real life "AnnMarie" justice.

What have you been reading?

Jasmine