Do You like book Fourth Comings (2007)?
I have a love/hate relationship with the Jessica Darling books. The slang in the first two books drove me up a wall. Jessica forever pointing out how she hates high-tech forms of communication and loves the 80s grates after awhile. But at the same time, the way Megan McCafferty has structured the books around actual dates means that this character and I are going through the same things at the same time and there's a lot of truth behind it.Fourth Comings tackles my fundamental problem with this series: the completely unrealistic character of Marcus Flutie, Jessica's high school and sometimes-college boyfriend who talks like a fortune cookie and since kicking his drug habit apparently is okay with everything and never shows emotion. The plot of the book is thin and some of the ways old characters show up feels forced (Dexy was best left in college). But since McCafferty has announced there will be a fifth and final Jessica Darling book, this sometimes-frustrating book is worth reading to watch Jessica come to terms with her relationship with Marcus. The book is written as a week long diary to Marcus. I was originally annoyed with the writing style -- it comes off as Jessica wanting us all to congratulate her on what a clearly great writer she is for using a paragraph to make a sentence long point. But it also makes sense, because she's obviously playing a role for Marcus. This is a censored Jessica. The honesty I was used to wasn't quite there.And hopefully by the fifth book, Jessica will have realized she's not the only recent grad who can't afford graduate school and doesn't have any money. She's always been a self-absorbed character, which other characters mercifully point out, but this member of the class of '06 found it a bit much.Overall, I'm looking forward to where things will go from here.
—Amy
So. What do you do when you've graduated from college at a prestigious university (that put you in debt for thousands of dollars) and you've discovered that you did not major in something useful and employable, but instead majored in psychology and can't find a job? And what do you do when you live in a city that you can't afford and that your boyfriend hates? And what do you do when your sister suspects that your mom might leave your dad and it's making you question the entire institute of marriage, which is inconvenient considering that your boyfriend has just proposed to you?If you're Jessica Darling, you write about it. And not only do you write about it, but you write about it with your signature snark and pop-culture-bashing pizzazz. And it's laugh-out-loud funny and angsty without being annoying and it's totally un-put-down-able. The fourth book in the Jessica Darling series takes a slightly different format from her previous books. Instead of taking place over a year (or years), it takes place over one week in September. This is a very significant week for Jessica because at the beginning on the week, she went to Princeton intending to break up with her long-time boyfriend Marcus. Instead of breaking up, Marcus proposed to her and now Jessica has one week to mull it over and come to a decision. It's a decision that she never really thought she'd have to make, especially when she's 22 years old, essentially unemployed, and sharing a small basement apartment with her best friend and a lesbian couple. McCafferty is at the top of her game with this novel that perfectly captures the problem of a recent college grad that has way too many options. It's so hard to decide what to do because making a choice to do something means choosing NOT to do so many other things... I highly recommend this series for 20-somethings everywhere (and also everyone else... because it is awesome).
—Abby Johnson
Although I don't care about these series anymore, I feel compelled to express my opinion once again. Can you really blame me? I LOVED the first two books and then the next installments crushed my heart. I just can't believe what an enourmous downfall this series has taken. Don't get me wrong, I've been disappointed in books before but not to such an extent. These books have abruptly turned from fresh young-adult novels to good old chicklit. What I don't get is the author's point. If she wanted to indulge in the chicklit genre why not leave Marcus and Jessica to their happy ending in book two and start a new series with her great ideas?I feel so cheated. This series was supposed to be about the crazy experiences of snarky but cute Jessica Darling who we all couldn't help but love despite her somewhat f*cked-up view of the world around her. Yeah, like that happened. Gradually the focus of this series became the relationship between Jessica and Marcus. Normally, I am a sucker for romance especially a complicated one but this time all the drama left a bitter taste in my mouth. Book three began with Jessica and Marcus's break-up, followed by all the author could think of, finishing with guess what - the inevitable reunion.And just when you think things my turn up all right with the next one -you get a bang on the head with the first pages of book four. Jessica is thinking how to dump Marcus. My answer: ??? Yes, when faced with the facts Marcus does the most natural thing in the world - he proposes. And here we are presented with this new twist in the book and the only purpose of it is to get us to the end where out of nowhere Marcus and Jessica will make up again. I guess I might have learned to deal with it if Jessica had finally confronted Marcus and the had talked face-to-face about their past and present, how it affected their relationship and about their future together or not. Yeah, Jessica wrote these notebooks to Marcus expaining why she couldn't be with him although she loved him but there was never dialogue between the two of them. He wrote things she wrote back but they never seemed to communicate. It was like they talked at each other never paying attention to the other one's feelings or thoughts on the matter. It all probably happens in book five (because: (view spoiler)[It is not much of a spoiler because it's quite obvious from the start but... at the end of this book Jessica says No! Surprised? Sure! (hide spoiler)]
—Polina
