Book Club//When You Reach Me

­­­­Welcome to this month’s edition of Book Club with YA Bookologists. This is a feature where I talk about what the book club I attend discussed. I do this to perhaps share new insight into popular books that you might’ve read before.  Recently we read When You Reach Me by Rebeca Stead. Here are some of the points we came up with. SPOILER ALERT

•  The lack of defining time travel was very frustrating as we have no explanation for how the essence of the book works. This is distracting from the main focus of the book which are relationships.
• The homeless man (old Marcus) should not have to die in the end because of all the others way possible to save someone from a truck. The ending of the book was rather sudden with no real closing for Marcus.
• The romance in this book was disastrous. Simply perplexing. Miranda and Collin have short, snippets of kissing and followed by several, longer paragraphs of being friends. Without the romance When You Reach Me still would’ve been completely realistic.
• New York City in this book was very realistic. The description a setting of only a few square blocks resonated with many of us in the book club. There were details about which places to avoid, bad landlords, and tips on how to live in the city all really brought the setting alive.