Review | Leftovers by Laura Wiess

Blair and Ardith are best friends who have committed an unforgivable act in the name of love and justice. But in order to understand what could drive two young women to such extreme measures, first you'll have to understand why. You'll have to listen as they describe parents who are alternately absent and smothering, classmates who mock and shun anyone different, and young men who are allowed to hurt and dominate without consequence. You will have to learn what it's like to be a teenage girl who locks her bedroom door at night, who has been written off by the adults around her as damaged goods. A girl who has no one to trust except the one person she's forbidden to see. You'll have to understand what it's really like to be forgotten and abandoned in America today.
Are you ready?

Thoughts: I thought this book was fantastic.

I've read Wiess' Such a Pretty Girl. I remember I read it when I was a cashier at a big department store and it was a slow day. I remember I was done with it before my shift was over. I remember it was great. So I needed to read this one too.

From the first page, its intense and completely captivating. I couldn't put it down, and while I had no idea where it is going, I needed to find out. It is written in alternating points of view, as both Ardith and Blair describe the events that lead farther into the story until it heads to their final, desperate act.


I love the way it was written, with enough information to keep me hooked, but not enough to reveal what would happen next. I was caught by surprise with every turn of the page, and was witness to how both girls were forced to change and grow up from innocent and naive, to disturbed and angry.

The ending is not predictable but yet I got a sense that I somehow knew it was coming all along. It was brilliant, intense and scary because it left me feeling that it was possibly the "right" thing after all.

This book is a dramatic and disturbing story of two girls who are pushed to the edge, and it will keep you turning pages until the end. I would definitely recommend this book to older YA readers, and adults.