Scarlett Johansson Books

I did not care for this book at all. I thought the first half of the book was very believable and thought-provoking. You might not like her character, but at least Carrie was facing truly deep moral issues...but then the second half of the book just proves that your first impression of Carrie was actually right. She is a shallow, young, clueless girl that is pretty much a loser. Not the "deep-angst, I feel sorry for your inner turmoil" loser, just a loser. She could not make a commitment to anything or anyone and therefore, left the end of the story to be flat. I like flawed characters, but Carrie was just see-through without any connection to the reader.

Positives:
I enjoyed the character development of Mike. He was such a focus of the novel that I felt he was the only one I really got to know.

Negatives: (sorry if you liked it, I really didn't...)
I found this to be very predictable.. in a bad way. Is there even a good way to be predictable?

A lot of it was also completely unbelievable.. Hello? Free rent in NYC? Reality check please.

So much of the plot developed her relationship with Kilroy, and then it ends up burning out and I was just like- what? That was such a waste of time.

Not to mention the central characters relationship to her fiancee... They were supposedly together for 8 years and they just stop talking? Trying? They both just give up- and practically IN SILENCE? It seemed so unrealistic. It was such a relief the few times in the book when the central character cried. I was practically begging her to cry. Even when she did, though, it felt contrived.

Ugh. It frightens me for the future of literary criticism that so many accolades were heaped upon this book. The protagonist is unlikeable and, worse, unknowable. She floats from place to place, freeloading off of barely-known acquaintances without shame, not bothering to inform her mother or best friend that she has left the state. There is zero character development. I kept reading because I could not wait to find out what happened at the end, but might as well have stopped reading halfway through - entirely unsatisfying ending. Although Carrie comes home in the end, she apparently does so begrudgingly--or perhaps because nothing better comes up--and without any hint of love or grief for her former boyfriend. One thing that greatly puzzled me about the book was the time period. Did anyone else notice this? Nothing suggests that the novel takes place in a different decade, yet no one uses computers or cell phones. Carrie uses old-fashioned telephones and calling cards and otherwise appears to have no means of communication other than US Mail. I found this distracting. For beach reading, this book is certainly a step up from James Patterson or Nicolas Sparks (what isn't?), but Packer is hardly the literary giant she has been made out to be.

Dive From Clausen's Pier starts with the attention grabbing dive of Mike Mayer leaving him a quadriplegic. Carrie, his girl friend, feels guilty because had her attitude been better that day Mike may not have dived off the pier. And then she feels guilty for wanting to leave Mike, leave town and leave all her friends and head for New York City. She finds a place to live, she meets up with Kilroy again and has a relationship with him. Kilroy is a bit of a drip but then again so is Carrie and they are both shallow as well.

I put the book down and did not even care about finding out the ending. Then weeks later, I came back to it read to the end and found some aspects of Carrie's character interesting. She finally does return to Madison but it is too little too late and yet... Mike still finds her fascinating.

This book might have been so much with such an intriguing start but instead it took a dive.

Many too many details. This book was okay to read, but it was pretty depressing and difficult to get through. It deals with a some tough themes (loving, letting go, self-exploration, family responsiblity, expectations, ethics). It's easy to slip into the main character's shoes, although her shoes are rigid, uncomfortable, and terribly, heartbreakingly painful. The writing was not bad, but it's just a difficult story to read. Not uplifting in the least. Could definitely have been streamlined, it felt quite drawn out, which is undeniably what the main character probably felt like in the situation she is put in. Not one to read again, for me.