5 brilliant, beautiful, shining stars to one of my new favorite YA books!! I'm obsessed. I need to reread this immediately. ( )

I didn't know what to expect with this book, but I was eager to find out. I've only been a member of Uppercase Box for three months but I've found all the books Lisa's curated to be great reads, even if they weren't a book I would have naturally sought out for myself. This is a contemporary YA novel, which is a bit out of my normal fair. The protagonist and narrator is Parker Grant, a junior in high school who lost her eyesight and her mother in an accident when she was younger, and her dad just three short months ago.

I really liked Parker. She put up walls and set up rules to protect herself, and over the course of her book, discovers that she's only isolating and hurting herself in the end. She has a set of devoted friends who she has to learn to let in more than she has, to also to make new friends. This is a book about seeing other people differently and changing impressions. First impressions -- kneejerk impressions -- and Parker's one-strike-and-you're-out philosophy with life have to change in order for Parker to grow and become comfortable again with her life, and for her to admit to herself that her rigid view regarding people might not be the best strategy.

Also, there was an honest depiction of grief which I appreciated, and I found myself crying along with the book at a certain point. Well done. ( )

*agresivamente obligando a todos a leer este libro*

Original de: El Blog del Gato - El Extraño Gato del Cuento

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Parker Grant doesn’t give second chances to people who break the rules. Because she is blind, the rules are both for her and the people around her to make life better. After her mom died in a car accident leaving her blind, her first boyfriend, Scott, broke her heart, and her dad dies of a prescription drug overdose, the rules are more important than ever. She is no longer afraid to tell people what she really thinks because she can’t see anyone’s reactions, but when she and Scott are back in the same school and the track coach asks if she would be interested in running on the team, she learns that her bluntness is preventing her from healing and from being able to care about the people around her. Maybe some of her rules are meant to be broken.

Not if I See You First is an emotional roller coaster. The issues with friends and lack of communication feel real. Her perspective on not judging people by their color or weight is also a nice touch. The biggest issue, however, is the continuation of the YA trend to have female main characters be unlikeable, self-obsessed, and mean, particularly if they have some kind of disability. Having a disability does not give you a license to treat others poorly, but Parker only barely realizes that she has been awful to many people around her at the end of the book. However, when she does realize that she’s made big mistakes, she does try to fix them. In spite of the issues, the book shows wonderful friendships with different kinds of relationships for each person and deep emotion, dealing with divorce, death, abandonment, blindness, and being a good friend, making it a great read for any fans of young adult books. ( )

What a read. This blew my mind. As someone who can see, I have never been blind before, and Lindstrom does an amazing job of communicating how blindness must be. Parker's "disability" is not seen as a hinderance, and she lives her life to the full extent. Parker, to be blunt, is absolutely badass. I wish I could be like her. However, this leads to the "flattening" of other characters in the story. Their characters are still prominent, however, and Lindstrom has an ensemble cast that are distinct characters in their own right, but none of them are as fully-realised without Parker. Obviously, since its a first-person story, they don't really exist without her, but they don't seem to really be there outside of her. In addition, the primary "other" in the book - her ex-boyfriend - is only alluded to and referred to, and is only given a role in the book until later on. While this is for story's sake, it means that I didn't really care or endear myself to this boy. But, on the plus side, what we do know of these characters are entirely fleshed out through dialogue. And Lindstrom is amazing at dialogue. If this was a playscript, I would still be able to imagine the story without needing the descriptive serifs of literature. Despite the secondary-school setting, the book goes headfirst into the classic cliché of romance, drama, and BFFs, and still comes out doing them extremely well thanks. The ending, however, left a bit much to be desired, but still wrapped things up nicely.


I would recommend to anyone. Just anyone. It's a pretty lighthearted - but serious - and witty read. ( )