Review: Dear Cassie

Dear Cassie
Pretty Amy, Book 1

Author: Lisa Burstein
Pages: 352
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Source: YA Books Central for Review

Description from Goodreads:
What if the last place you should fall in love is the first place that you do?

You’d think getting sent to Turning Pines Wilderness Camp for a month-long rehabilitation “retreat” and being forced to re-live it in this journal would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

You’d be wrong.

There’s the reason I was sent to Turning Pines in the first place: I got arrested. On prom night. With my two best friends, who I haven’t talked to since and probably never will again. And then there’s the real reason I was sent here. The thing I can’t talk about with the guy I can’t even think about.

What if the moment you’ve closed yourself off is the moment you start to break open?

But there’s this guy here. Ben. And the more I swear he won’t—he can’t—the deeper under my skin he’s getting. After the thing that happened, I promised I’d never fall for another boy’s lies.

And yet I can’t help but wonder…what if?

First Sentence: "Are you there, Smokey Bear?"

Review:

Dear Cassie is, initially, a very hard book to like. Where Amy in Burstein's debut Pretty Amy is weak and sympathetic, Cassie is brash, vulgar and completely uninterested in anyone's pity. At times, Dear Cassie hurts to read, and I had a pretty visceral reaction to some of the hatred that Cassie spews at everyone. However, Dear Cassie is also the kind of book that slowly changes over time to become something else entirely, depicting an impressive character arc through the alteration in the writing style.

For approximately the first half of the book, Cassie insults everyone, both out loud and in her head, and she swears like a sailor. She slut shames, she makes nasty assumptions, and she generally hates on every single person in the world. While it's fairly obvious Cassie uses this hate as a coping mechanism, as a way of avoiding her own problems, it's not pleasant to read. What Burstein does quite effectively, though, is reflect Cassie's progress in rehab through her writing. As the book progresses, Cassie talks less about others, and sticks much more to the basic facts. She swears less, mostly only in her dialog. Over the course of the novel, her outlook becomes healthier, and that's reflected so well in the narration.

What I am perhaps most glad of is that Cassie had a deeper issue than the arrest that was so central to Pretty Amy. Yes, it was the catalyst that sent Cassie's life spinning off the rails, but she had much bigger problems come after. Burstein deals with a larger, darker subject than that, and does so well. Burstein does not try to fully heal Cassie over the course of the book, and she doesn't oversimplify her experiences. In fact, I think Cassie's still trying to bury her past, to forget what she's done at the novel's closing, which is more realistic than being over what she's been through.

I almost DNFed Dear Cassie, but pushed on in hopes of the change that I did eventually find within its pages. Like with Cassie herself, the other characters come off as stereotypes of the different kinds of rebellious teens: the slutty one, the tortured one, the hot one, the tattooed one, the jock,  etc. It's a regular breakfast club of teen lawbreakers. Burstein does eventually give a bit more depth to the others, but the story really isn't about them. I get that the focus is on Cassie's mental progress, and that this wasn't the kind of camp where they all sit around and talk about their feelings. They're there because they're sort of beyond the point where ordinary behavior, like talking with others, can shock them out of their ways. Still, a bit more development into some of them might have been nice.

What left a bad taste in my mouth, though, is the romance. I do understand the purpose the flirtation served in helping Cassie overcome her issues with boys, but I think they got too serious too fast. I never felt a real connection between them, and I really don't think she's mentally stable enough for a relationship right now, not to mention a long distance one. On top of that, I'm not entirely convinced Ben is on the level. The romance sort of overpowers the plot towards the end, and that is unfortunate.

Much darker than its counterpart Pretty Amy, Dear Cassie tackles rough subject matter in an honest, harsh way. Though not for everyone, Dear Cassie will appeal to those looking to see more grit in YA writing, those sick of wimpy heroines. Burstein's sophomore novel is daring, and sure to be a hit with the right readers.

Rating: 3/5

Favorite Quote: "'You need to live this life,' she whispered. 'You can live it with regret, or you can let it go.'"