Mary O'Connell (1) (1966–)

2.5-3.0 YA Great concept here -- this is really an homage to Wuthering Heights and liberally quotes and references it. Also smart girl main character, Flannery Fields who isn't afraid to pursue her passion for books and writing, even if it means she is unpopular. She is a senior at Sacred Heart Catholic school for girls, early admission at Columbia, and this book takes place in one day in NYC. When her beloved English teacher Miss (Caitlyn) Sweeney doesn't show up for school one day, but has left behind her purse and copy of Wuthering Heights, Flannery goes AWOL from school and takes the train into the city to find her. She is part Nancy Drew, part Holden Caulfield as she searches the city for her distraught teacher. The only thing she has to go on, and this is where the book turns away from plausible and toward annoying, is Miss Sweeney's copy of Wuthering Heights, which isn't Wuthering Heights at all, but a journal/narrative of what she is doing in the city (trying to find her newly dead former first boyfriend/having a nervous breakdown) -- so the book is happening in real time? And writing itself? Unclear. Early in her search, Flannery meets Heath Smith (ugh) on a bench on Columbia's campus, a handsome British boy who tags along to help her on her quest and also provides her first kiss, first experience of love, and motivation to pursue writing. Tall order. Is he real? He leaves some real objects behind....but unclear. Flannery spends the day alternating between a manic swoon of love and despair for her teacher's mental state which (according to the 'magic' book) is rapidly deteriorating. We get Caitlyn Sweeney's complete story -- way more than a student should know about her teacher and way too much interior monologue -- both Flannery's own insecurity and Miss Sweeney's red pen editing of her thoughts and feelings which tend toward cliche. (first love, etc.) Lots of great ideas/themes here, including faith and religion, but wish it had been executed better.… (plus d'informations)

I really thought I’d like this book but I struggled to get into it.
The storyline is definitely interesting.
Flannery is a bright high school student in Miss Sweeney’s literature class.
They are studying Wuthering Heights. Flannery and Miss Sweeney both already love the book.

When Miss Sweeney doesn’t show up for class one day, Flannery is concerned. She looks through her desk and finds the teacher’s purse and personal copy of Wuthering Heights. As she flips through the book to read her teacher’s notes, the book starts rewriting itself with Miss Sweeney as the narrator.

The book tells Flannery where her teacher is, so Flannery takes a trip to NYC to locate her.

Along the way she meets a charming, confusing, mysterious boy named Heath.

Love the concept but the execution is lacking.

Flannery sees her teacher as her mentor, so when Flannery has an internal monologue going she also “hears” her teacher’s corrections on the way she’s expressing her thoughts.
I found this kind of jarring. It was weird to have another voice break in and criticize someone’s inner thoughts.

Then we’ve got Miss Sweeney who is upset because she just found out her first love has died. She is young herself, only 25. So the man she hurt at 18 isn’t that far in the past. When she learns of his death she feels responsible. It is because of her grief that she’s set off to NYC trying to “find him” again.

What kept me reading was because I wondered how this story would end. Would Flannery find her teacher in time? What exactly did Miss Sweeney plan to do? What’s Heath’s story? How is this all going to wrap up for Miss Sweeney, her deceased ex boyfriend and Flannery and Heath?

If the ending had justified my continuing to read the book, I’d have bumped this up to three stars. But I got to the end and was just as confused.

I hate leaving a negative review. I know every book was someone’s dream. But this book just doesn’t work for me.

If you like the idea of the story but want something different, I recently read Austentatious by Alyssa Goodnight and it had all the fun I’d missed in this novel.… (plus d'informations)

FROM PUBLISHER: For seventeen-year-old Flannery Fields, the only respite from the plaid-skirted mean girls at Sacred Heart High School is her beloved teacher Miss Sweeney’s AP English class. But when Miss Sweeney doesn't show up to teach Flannery's favorite book, Wuthering Heights, leaving behind her purse, Flannery knows something is wrong.

The police are called, and Flannery gives them everything—except Miss Sweeney's copy of Wuthering Heights. This she holds onto. And good thing she does, because when she opens it, it has somehow transformed into Miss Sweeney's real-time diary. It seems Miss Sweeney is in New York City—and she's in trouble.

So, Flannery does something very unFlannery-like: she skips school and sets out for Manhattan, with the book as her guide. But as soon as she arrives, she meets a boy named Heath. Heath is British, on a gap year, incredibly smart—yet he's never heard of Albert Einstein or Anne Frank. In fact, Flannery can't help thinking that he seems to have stepped from the pages of Brontë's novel. Could it be that Flannery is spending this topsy-turvy day with her ultimate fictional romantic hero, Heathcliff, reborn in the twenty-first century?… (plus d'informations)