Book: All The Things You Are by Courtney Sheinmel

Publishing Info: Published by Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing; 256 pages in hardcover

Goodreads summary: Twelve-year-old Carly Wheeler lives a charmed life. Her mother is a stylist for the soap opera Lovelock Falls, she lives in a nice house, and she goes to an excellent private school. But when Carly’s mom is arrested and charged with embezzlement, everything starts to unravel. There are shocking stories about her mother’s crimes in the local newspaper. Carly’s friends start avoiding her. And her stepfather starts worrying about money. How can Carly put her life back together when it feels like she’s missing all the pieces?

This book was just okay for me.  I know I was supposed to feel bad for Carly, but I just didn’t care that she was going through a hard time.  Overall, I just couldn’t muster up any kind of sympathy or emotion for Carly, her family, and her friends.  It was hard to relate to, as far as a close relatively embezzling money to support me goes.  I guess I can relate to wondering if I can trust people after they’ve betrayed it, but the book just felt bland.

There wasn’t a lot of emotion in it, and I was really bored.  Schinmel did a lot more telling than showing, and I was bored out of my mind reading about what Leigh (Carly’s mom) court case was like.  I kept waiting for something interesting to happen, and unfortunately, it didn’t get interesting.

I did like that Carly learns things like forgiveness and who her real friends are.  And her stepfather did stick by her, even though he didn’t have to.  She calls him Faux Pa, which was cute the first few pages, but by the end of the book, it got way too cutesy and annoying.

It gets a 2 out of 5.  It was okay, but a little bit younger than I was expecting.