My expectations for The Six Rules of Maybe were exorbitantly low after reading The Fortunes of Indigo Skye, also by Deb Caletti. In the latter novel Caletti's writing was insightful but tedious, and her characters were too eccentric without explanation. However, The Six Rules of Maybe was wonderfully written and has a large cast of colorful characters.The book jacket's summary reads something like: this is the story of Scarlet, a nice girl who has trouble fending for herself. When her older sist...

After 300 odd pages, I'm left wondering what the hell I just read. The book was filled with scenes and details that didn't matter, and some chapters made me wonder if they were written solely because the author forgot her plot. There were so many things that could have been left out, and so many descriptions and parts of the inner monologue that came off as majorly superfluous. There were too many things going on all over the place, that it was easy to miss what the POINT of it all were... that

(cross-posted from http://www.thecontemps.com)Author Deb Caletti has a very special place in my heart, as she is one of three authors I credit with introducing me to (and subsequently hooking me on) contemporary YA literature, way back before I started writing for teens myself. Her books Honey, Baby, Sweetheart and The Queen of Everything helped me discover my own young adult voice and inspired me to begin work on the manuscript that would later become Twenty Boy Summer. I even had the opportuni...

I first picked up Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti when I was 16, and I remember it was the first time I really understood what people meant when they said they truly related to a character. Caletti's leads tend to be teenage introverts (always female), and being a quite shy and awkward youth, I always felt a sense of sisterhood with her characters. I think Caletti's protagonist Scarlett makes a decent point about introverts in that there isn't really anything WRONG about finding yourself

Summary: It’s interesting and somewhat serendipitous that I read this book after The Things A Brother Knows, because instead of a thorny brother relationship, we have a thorny sister relationship. Scarlet’s older sister Juliet has always been the shining star and boy magnet. It seems that everything comes effortlessly to her. Unlike her big sister, Scarlet is used to putting Juliet’s and other people’s needs ahead of her own desires. When Juliet finally left home and embarked on a career as a si...

So if this is a draft of my review for SLJ, am I breaking copyright to post it here? Not sure. They do pass them on to Follett and Amazon, and I see them on the public library catalog, too. Anyway, here goes:Caletti invites readers into Scarlett Hughes’ life and all its maybes. The introspective teen copes when her charismatic sister Juliet shows up pregnant and married after a Portland hotel singing job. Both Scarlett and her mother quickly come to adore the husband—Scarlett perhaps a little to...

It's funny. I had never heard of Deb Caletti before. She doesn't have the following, it seems, of Dessen. This is a shame, because I think she may have a little something on her. It's a double-shame, really, because Caletti's book covers are created to look like your garden variety chick-lit Dessen knock-offs. But it seems like Caletti's writing is denser than Dessen's, in a good way, mostly. There are moments where things get a little too abstractly poetic, but mainly, the story keeps moving in...

A few weeks ago, I was at my local library, casually looking through the YA shelves. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just browsing, when a book caught my eye. Well, the book's author is what really grabbed my attention - Deb Caletti - because I remembered hearing great things about her contemporary books from fellow bloggers. After checking out the summary on the back I knew I'd be checking out The Six Rules of Maybe; the main character, Scarlet, resonated with me, as we are both wo...

Scarlet Ellis is seventeen, and in her junior year of high school. She lives with her mom on an island off the Western coast of Washington/Oregon. Her life consists of worrying about the people around her - from her neighbors to the rejects at school to her best friend. When it seems like she couldn't possibly have more people to keep content, her sister shows up, married to a man that she hardly knows and pregnant with his child. This just piles on to Scarlet's plate, and when she realizes that...

Scarlet spends most of her time worrying about other people. Some are her friends, others are practically strangers, and then there are the ones no one else even notices. Trying to fix their lives comes naturally to her. And pushing her own needs to the side is part of the deal.So when her older sister comes home unexpectedly married and pregnant, Scarlet has a new person to worry about. But all of her good intentions are shattered when the unthinkable happens: she falls for her sister's husband...

I'm not exactly sure if this book would be classed as 'a favourite' of mine. The main character Scarlet was really interesting and I loved being stuck in her head. Scarlet cares about everyone else's needs before her own and when her sister Juliet comes home married and pregnant, Scarlet finds herself getting mixed up with her emotions. I could really understand Scarlet and while reading how she felt in some situations it would be the exact words I could never grasp when trying to understand my

I wanted to like this one more, I really did, but...kind of irritatingly blah.

I almost didn’t read this book. I was about forty pages into it and wasn’t enjoying the first person narrator, Scarlet, very much. I remember thinking I would give it a few more pages. (I have a fifty page rule: if I don’t care by fifty pages in, I don’t finish the book.) And then I came across a passage that made me realize I didn’t like Scarlet for one very good reason: she was far too much like me. So I finished the book after all.The Six Rules of Maybe follows high schooler Scarlet during a