{ARC Review} Tales From My Closet By: Jennifer Anne Moses

Title: Tales From My Closet
Author: Jennifer Anne Moses
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Shelves: Young Adult, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
Publication Date: January 28th, 2014
Source: Scholastic/Netgalley for review/gifted
Format: e-arc/physical ARC

 Synopsis: Justine the vintage lover, Ann the eccentric dresser, Becka the queen of glam, Polly the lover of pajamas, and Robin the dreamer of fabrics. These five fashion loving girls will come together in a story of family, friendship and fashion to tell their stories and share their love of clothing. Told from unique perspectives, Jennifer Anne Moses's Tales From My Closet gives readers a look inside a teenage girl's closet, and her heart.

Review: A huge thank you to Scholastic via Netgalley, AND Traci @ The Reading Geek for sending me this ARC for review!
 Wow. These girls were BITCHES. I'm sorry, but I have not a single ounce of sympathy for them. Their stories did not impress me. What each of the girls had to deal with were actually terribly sad problems, but they way they dealt with it, and their petty mannerisms and trashy behavior just did not work for me.

Characters: Tales From My Closet is told from the points of view of 5 different teenage girls. Like every unique individual, they each had their own problems, whether it be with family or love. This would have been something interesting to read, had the girls not been horrible characters. Some were tolerable, but none of them seemed like they could handle anything. At the age of fifteen, they weren't exactly adults, but some teenagers are quite mature, and I didn't see a single morsel of maturity in any of the girls. They behavior was terrible! Picture this: Becka and Justine are enemies, but when Becka is rushed to the hospital because of Justine, what does Justine do? She just yells at her mother for blaming her and sits at home. I honestly could not believe it and it made me want to THROTTLE her. If I knew someone (even a mortal enemy) was in the hospital because of something I had done, I would feel guilty beyond belief and I would definitely do the best that I could in that situation. Apparently, Justine was too much of a baby to have these logical thoughts. Honestly, the personalities of these girls killed the book.

Storyline/Plot: It was nice to see a family dynamic woven in along with high school drama and friendship. The story was fast paced. There were a few parts that were mundane, but overall the plot was typical for a group of teenage girls.

Writing: Ah ha. The writing. Do you remember reading those picture books when you were younger, with all the blatant statements capped off with an exclamation point? Like this:

"Jayne wore jeans yesterday!"

Tales From My Closet was FULL OF THOSE. And I didn't expect that from a YA book. In a picture book, or even MG, yes, but NOT in the genre where many readers have high expectations for the writing. This just goes to show that some books will disappoint you a little bit and not every work will have lyrical and flowing writing.

Conclusion: While I wasn't going to walk away before finishing Tales From My Closet, I really didn't like it all that much. The whole thing seemed a bit childish and petty to me.

xoxo,
Fiction_TheNewReality