Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Every Crooked Pot by Renee Rosen

In her heart, Nina Goldman knows that beauty is only skin deep. But as a teenager in Akron, Ohio—-with her larger-than-life father, Artie, a color-blind carpet salesman and frustrated musician—-the only thing Nina wishes for is...to be beautiful. Or at least normal. As if having such an eccentric dad wasn’t enough, Nina has another issue to face: the mirror. Born with a strawberry birthmark over her eye, Nina spends countless hours applying makeup and trying out ridiculous hairstyles to hide her eye. Convinced that her birthmark is the only reason she’s not popular and can’t find a boyfriend, Nina must find other ways to survive high school. With a string of crazy exploits that have her riding in dryers and appearing on TV, Nina proves she’ll do just about anything to fit in, and even more in the hope of finding love.

Every Crooked Pot was a wonderful book. It was funny and heartfelt. I felt as if I could really relate to this book because it was so realistic. While reading this novel, I could not put it down. Some chapters were a bit slow getting started, though. I thought the plot was great because it wasn’t extremely predictable. Throughout the book, I always found myself wondering what would happen next and was usually wrong. All in all, this novel was great. The vocabulary was pretty easy but there were some Yiddish words I didn’t know. I love Rosen’s style of writing because it is descriptive and had many details, making me feel as if I were actually in the book.

Content: This book had profanity, sexual content, alcohol use, and drug use.

Rating (0 - 10 scale): 8

Reviewer Age: 15
Reviewer City, State and Country: Leopold, Missouri United States