Review: The Lighter Side of Life and Death by CK Kelly Martin

Jan 6, 2011 by shanyn

Title: The Lighter Side of Life and Death
Hardcover, 240 pages
Author: CK Kelly Martin
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: May 25, 2010
Source: Library
Buy: Amazon

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Book Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Mason Rice is having the night of his life. He’s just delivered an incredible performance in the school play, basked in celebratory afterglow vibes at the party of the year, and lost his virginity to one of his best friends—the gorgeous but previously unobtainable Kat Medina. His dreams are coming true, and the future looks golden.

Unfortunately, Kat sees things very differently. Crossing the friendship line was a big mistake, and all she wants is to forget it and move on, even if that means forgetting Mason altogether. What’s a guy to do? Well, if you’re Mason, you hang your hopes on the first attractive twenty-three-year-old you cross paths with. At first Mason wonders if he’s imagining the chemistry . . . until Colette invites him over to her apartment. Suddenly Mason’s living in a whole new world.

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Review:
My first surprise when reading this book was that it’s from the boy’s viewpoint – when I skimmed the summary, I just assumed that it would be from a girl. After I got that under control, I was bombarded with 20 different names of people-I tried to keep them straight but ended up just giving up and reading through hoping I would figure it out later (I did).

Needless to say, I didn’t start out so well.

The story overall was fine – it did not go the way I imagined. I thought the story would be more focused on the relationship of Mason and Kat – and it is, but there is a lot more Colette than I would have expected. The narrative style of CK Kelly Martin was very internal dialogue heavy, which made this a slow read – and, at some points, not very interesting.

I did keep reading and was mostly enjoying myself, but nothing much stands out about this book – I think the character development with Mason was meant to be the real kicker and it was just okay.

Overall, an okay book, but nothing that particularly stood out or hit me. I would be interested in reading another by this author, but would not really be interested in a sequel.

Buy: Amazon

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