Please Ignore Vera Dietz

Please Ignore Vera Dietz
By A. S. King
Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. 326 pgs. Fiction

Vera Dietz isn’t sad about her former best friend’s death; in fact, she hates Charlie. She hates him, how he betrayed her, and the fact that he is dead now. But that doesn’t stop the Charlies from visiting her, pressuring her to tell the police what she knows about the night he died. Vera ignores them, focusing on her own life, even though she’s started drinking and making out with a 23-year-old. But as Vera relates her life in the present and her relationship with Charlie in the past, she begins to realize what she needs to do.

This is kind of dark and kind of hard to read. Horrible things happen to Charlie and Vera’s life is rough too. This is definitely not for the faint-hearted or those who want to avoid the bad, but realistic things of life. But if you can get past the bad language, the creepiness you feel at different situations, you will find a book about finally accepting the bad things of the past and realizing that a person doesn’t have to end up like their parents before them, but that they can forge their own identity and path.

MN