Just Jealous Book

Like many books I have read, I really enjoyed this one. The title suits this book completely as "Just Jealous" it is exactly what this book is about. The whole book is based on jealousy when one girl can't have the one she loves. I'm sure many 17 year olds go through the same thing but this book is very dramatic and has a very tragic ending and I know that this ending is not very realistic but gets the point across what people do for love.

It starts off at the end of the story, dramatic and you have no idea what's going on. Then later in the story you find out what has happened and you relate to the beginning, eager to read on. Before reading this book I read "Looking for JJ" another book by Anne Cassidy and it enjoyed it, so was keen to read this one. It is written in third person as it says Elise "felt", Carl "thought" and is in the past tense. "Elise was struck, and she had some". The author has used this to sort of look back on what has happen in the story and tell the story in a distant but still detailed way.

I think this book is a drama, fiction book as it is very shocking (people dying). "Peter Fenner was there lying face down on the concrete". This sentence makes you visualise a boy lying on the floor but leaves room for variation, as everyone can change what they think Peter looks like and imagine who they think he is. It is very dramatic as it is in the second paragraph of the book so it is straight to the point yet very undetailed. It's still based on real life but still adding pieces that are over exaggerated and unlikely to happen.

I like the story line, as it is different but based on the real world, not just the life inside a book. I think this book is written for a small audience of older children and teenagers, as it is about love but yet also about the terrible things that people do to others. For example when you hear in the news about someone murdered in the park you quite often assume that a youth has done this down to the influence of drinking or drugs. Like it says in the book "Just another teenager up to no good." This implies that lots of teenagers today are troubled and commit crime, but I don't think this is a fair stereotype to youths. A big proportion of them are well behaved it's just a small minority that commit awful crimes, like the ones committed in this story. The word "another" assumes millions of teenagers do it but only a small percentage do. Then it continues saying about the influence of "Drugs or drink".

On the other hand this sentence does not stereotype teenagers, it just shows you what it does to you and shows you that they are not actually bad people just with the influence of alcohol they cannot control their actions. In the story this statement isn't correct but in real life it is quite often true, many people are sensible but with the influence of these things they become terrible people.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, but I think all her books are a bit too similar for me, and I enjoyed "Looking for JJ" slightly more than this one. I liked the fact that it was in third person so it was told in a distant narration; this made me feel like I was there with them. It was very dramatic and I think it maybe needed a little bit of humour within places but it was a very good book and I would recommend it to everyone.