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    Please Ignore Vera Dietz
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    Please Ignore Vera Dietz
    Unavailable
    Please Ignore Vera Dietz
    Audiobook8 hours

    Please Ignore Vera Dietz

    Written by A. S. King

    Narrated by Lynde Houck

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Vera's spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she's kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.

    So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone-the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?

    Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 1, 2007
    ISBN9780307942111
    Unavailable
    Please Ignore Vera Dietz
    Author

    A. S. King

    A.S. King is the award-winning author of young adult books including the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Ask the Passengers, Everybody Sees the Ants, 2011 Michael L. Printz Honor Book Please Ignore Vera Dietz, and the upcoming Reality Boy. After fifteen years living self-sufficiently and teaching literacy to adults in Ireland, she now lives in Pennsylvania with her small, freakish family. Find more at www.as-king.com.

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    Reviews for Please Ignore Vera Dietz

    4/5

    406 ratings71 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I have read and enjoyed a lot of AS King books; I thought this was the weakest AS King book I had read. I just felt that it was missing the special magical realism of King’s other books and thought the story was a bit boring and typical YA.In this book Vera is trying to recover after the death of her lifelong friend Charlie. As part of this she is trying to uncover the secret as to why Charlie’s behavior became so self destructive towards the end of his life.This book is full of lots of high school drama and kids acting out. It also makes a strong commentary on people ignoring the misfortune or troubles of those around them in order to not “make waves”. It’s fine for what it is; which is mainly a coming of age story in which Vera struggles with the tough life Charlie has faced and the fact that Vera and her family didn’t do anything to help or stop it. It just didn’t grab me like other AS King books have and didn’t make me feel wonder or intrigue...it just made me feel tired.Overall this was an okay book. However, I felt like I had read many similar stories before in many contemporary YA novels. It was okay but not great and I could have taken or left it.
    • 2/5
      Decent story but a little anti-climatic. A lot of info and build up for not much of an ending. I did like the alternate POVs of Charlie, Vera, her dad and even the pagoda. There was a little humor and quite a bit of heartache. The best part of the book was the relationship between father and daughter and how it improves throughout the book, along with Vera's personal growth.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful, thoughtful, heartbreaking story.
    • 3/5
      I thought the premise was great,but it just felt like the threw in too many teen issues to deal with half-heartedly. Plus, Vera and Charlie weren't super likable to me so I wasn't really invested. Easy, breezy book so I'm considering it an okay read.
    • 3/5
      A slightly above average YA novel about friendship, first love, and betrayal. Vera and Charlie have been friends forever, but when Charlie takes up with a new group, Vera is left to sort out her feelings, the truth, and what it means to forgive. This was a smarter book than a lot of the examples of the genre, but there were still some big holes in the plot that I don't think King closed adequately, and when a novel depends on the supposed charisma of one of the main characters, it's incumbent upon the author to make that charisma come through clearly to the reader. For me, I didn't get why a smart and cool girl like Vera would be so invested in Charlie. But maybe that's just me. I never did have time for teenage angst - even when I was a teenager.
    • 4/5
      Vera's best friend Charlie is dead. For the last year, she has hated Charlie as he changed from the boy she grew up with into someone she barely knew and certainly didn't like. But now he is haunting her, pushing her to tell the truth about what she saw on the day he died.
    • 4/5
      Great book ... But it would be better with no swear words
    • 5/5
      Oh my God what a heartbreaker! I can't believe it took me this long to read this stunner. I will definitely recommend this to students strongly in the coming year. Vera is trying to live under the radar in her town of Mount Pitts, hoping no one will find out about her mother. Her best friend has just died under suspicious circumstances and details about something related to his death casts a pall over his memory. Even though Vera hadn't really spoken to him in a few months before his death, she keeps seeing thousands of Charlies imploring her to set things right. She had fallen in love with him even though her father warned her about getting involved with him, or any boy. Told in chapters from a variety of different perspectives, even the Pagoda's (it's a long story), this book mixes humor with heartbreaking details that bring true depth to all of the characters.
    • 3/5
      I'm a big fan of A.S. King, and it is incredibly weird to read a book by her that is almost normal in its weirdness. Almost a straightforward narrative, but I guess it was an early book. I've often heard this book described as funny, and it wasn't that for me -- I liked it, and I thought it was true to itself and pleasingly sarcastic, but not overly so. It was good.
    • 1/5
      This is a book that is receiving high praise, but it did absolutely nothing for me. Although, Vera had a cynical, witty voice she was still annoying and very judgemental, and I could not connect with her. As for Charlie, her dead, best friend, I found him totally obnoxious and his decisions were incomprehensible. Then there was Jenny, the bad girl of the story and was she evil. Not only did she steal Vera's crush, but she hurt puppies!!!! Why would anyone try to deliberately hurt puppies? That's when the author totally lost me."Please Ignore Vera Dietz" was dark and focused on alcohol abuse, promiscuity, domestic violence, bullying and drug use, and while I am happy for an author to delve beyond the surface of these issues, I also want to be entertained. This book was painful to read and I found myself skimming most of it. The only redeeming light was Vera and her father's relationship near the end which was touching. Personally, my only recommendation for this book would be, please ignore it!
    • 3/5
      A book I acquired through Book Riot Quarterly box ages ago. The recommendation was gushing, but I'm picky about YA, so it's been languishing on my shelves. Finally picked it up the other night when I was "supervising" one of my son's sleepovers.The book hooked me and pulled me through fairly quickly -- even as I spent much of my time reading wondering when in time this story was supposed to take place. Between the "Great Hunter" spirit in the woods, some vaguely cringey observations about Mexicans moving in to town, all the smoking and leather jackets -- something about it gave me more of an 80s feel than anything supposed to be contemporary. Or maybe it's just because I haven't read this type of book since the early 90s?I did like the book's final resolution -- Vera's furious/sad realization/accusation that being trained to ignore their neighbor's abuse at the hands of her husband trained Vera and her family to ignore all sorts of wrongs and pains. This moment kind of retroactively improved my perspective on much of the apathy that had bothered me earlier in the book. But I was still kind of "meh" on the whole thing. Quite possible that I judged it more harshly because of the hype, though.
    • 4/5
      Vera's best friend Charlie is dead. For the last year, she has hated Charlie as he changed from the boy she grew up with into someone she barely knew and certainly didn't like. But now he is haunting her, pushing her to tell the truth about what she saw on the day he died.
    • 3/5
      Entertaining, interesting book -- but ultimately a mess. Lots going on -- teen death, emerging sexuality, abuse, poverty, alcoholism (teen and parent) and so on and so on. Okay for a mature 8th grader ready for some of these heavier themes.
    • 4/5
      If you are a fan of edgy YA - like The Perks of Being a Wallflower - then this is the book for you. King writes very realistically and is not afraid to show life like it really is.
    • 4/5
      Angsty, mysterious, dogged -- all the things I like in a YA novel. Our female protagonist is dealing with the death of a friend, delivering pizzas, living with her SAH father, and the onset of graduation. But all these details are methodically revealed throughout the novel through frequent flashbacks, scene changes, and memories.The style of this book takes some bold risks, doing lots of things they say not to do. 97% of the novel is the main protagonist, but there are scenes from the antagonist girl, the dead boy, even an inanimate building. (And I get yelled at for one head-hopping scene in my novel.) The scenes aren't extraneous, but they do jar one.But that's the thing. This is a novel for the short attention span. Scenes are short, change time and setting often, to the point where you start to forget what the main timeline is and where we left the protagonist. And it's not like a mystery novel where someone investigates clues. They're just doled out methodically in a sort of flashback history that led to the downfall of these teenagers.But my favorite aspect is that the novel raises questions, which is what good books do. The title refers to what happens when one chooses to turn a blind eye to events. The "first they came for the Jews, but I said nothing..." problem. The book appeals to the "jaded person in a shitty high school situation" plot, which I'm a sucker for.
    • 4/5
      Eighteen-year-old Vera Dietz had been best friends with her next-door neighbor, Charlie, for most of their lives. Then Charlie betrayed her. And then he died. Vera knows something about the night he died, something that would clear his name of a terrible accusation. But she doesn't want to tell.I have some mixed feelings about this one. On the plus side, it's a very fast read, entertainingly written, with some clever narrative quirks. Some of Vera's teenage angst feels almost painfully believable. And the story definitely held my attention, as I kept turning pages waiting to find out exactly what had happened between Vera and Charlie and what it was she wasn't telling.But I also kept tripping up on little details that just didn't feel right. (For example: Vera talks a lot about her Vocabulary class, which seems to consist entirely of memorizing short lists of words and using them in sentences. Which... huh? Why is a high school senior doing this kind of elementary school exercise? And how the heck do you get an entire class out of that? It's amazing how how thoroughly this one stupid thing threw me right out of the story. Repeatedly.) It also has almost a little too much of an Afterschool Special kind of feel to it, seeming almost to go down a checklist of Important Teen Issues: abusive relationships, alcoholism, teen pregnancy, illiteracy, sexual predators, parental abandonment, falling in with the wrong crowd... It's not preachy, exactly, but it comes pretty close to it, especially with the "your parents really are hard on you because they love you" and "don't look the other way when something is wrong" messages.
    • 5/5
      I am having a hard time pulling myself out of this story to write about why I loved it so much.Every time I read one of A.S. King's books, I want to read another one. Everybody Sees the Ants, Ask the Passengers, Reality Boy, and now Please Ignore Vera Dietz. She never disappoints. I always want to recommend the one I've just read to someone, like, immediately upon finishing--stop what I'm doing and take it to someone, thrust it in their face, and say, "You HAVE to read this."
    • 4/5
      A sharply written novel, smart, realistic, and touching.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book, though it took me a couple times to get into it. Vera is clearly not perfect, but she is a good person who wants to do what's right, but in her own time. The additional asides from her father, the pagoda, and dead Charlie really added a lot to the telling, and made everyone much fuller character-wise. I also thought the two stories, past and present, was a great way to tell the story.
    • 4/5
      Top notch reading! Please Ignore Vera Dietz is told from Vera's point of view as well as a few words from her friend, Charlie and the town pagoda. The book details Vera's struggle to recover from her mother's abandonment and most recently the death of her best friend,.Charlie. The fact that Vera and he weren't speaking at the time of his death, makes his loss even harder for Vera to deal with. I love A. S. King's quirky writing style and how she understands teens and their relationships with adults. 4 stars
    • 4/5
      I love A.S. King, she is becoming one of my favorite authors. Vera's best friend Charlie died and she isn't really dealing. She is just trying to keep going with her life, good grades in school and her full time job delivering pizza. But Charlie knows that she can clear his name so he keeps trying to influence Vera into telling the truth.

      The story alternates between Vera in the present, Vera and Charlie's history, Charlie in death, Vera's dad and the Pagoda, a structure built in town that kind of presides over everything. Charlie and Vera both had difficult home lives for different reasons. I loved getting all the different points of view of the story. I liked being able to find out how Vera's dad felt about what was going on, what happened in the past and his wife Sindy. I also liked learning Charlie's thoughts on what you learn upon your death. The Pagoda also provided a few laughs in a fairly dark book. I love the language the author uses to describe everyone's feelings and thoughts, it just sounds so appealing. I also really liked Vera and her dad, it was nice to watch them become stronger and learn to pay attention to each other, themselves and others.

      It's so easy to love King's characters. I loved Vera's quiet strength and she honestly sounded like a cute kid. She was so responsible but by being so responsible she was kind of missing out on the point of being in high school. I also really felt for Charlie. He had a very difficult life and did what he thought he needed to do to survive and protect Vera. But he allowed many people to manipulate him, from the man in the white car, to Jenny Flick, and to his father. Between Vera and Charlie I think that readers can easily find someone to relate to.

      ***Spoiler***
      My only complaint is a little bit spoilery. We never find out what is in the envelope. We get Charlies notes on the napkin to Vera and we get an inkling of what's on the cd/dvd, but I never really figured out what it was that Charlie thought Vera could never forgive him for. I have a guess as to what it might have been but some confirmation would have been nice (I'm a little slow on the pick up sometimes.) Because what I thought it was I don't think is something that could really be blamed on Charlie so there is no reason for him not to be forgiven. Of course i read an arc and there is a chance that this part of the book was changed.

      It was a great read and I'm glad this won a Printz Honor book. While it was dark it also had an uplifting ending.
    • 4/5
      How does someone working 40 hours a week get straight As? By going to a school that assigns Lord of the Flies in twelfth grade and takes a month to get to chapter 10, and apparently assigns no homework in math, history, or science. And by needing less sleep than any teenager I have ever known or been.

      A reviewer says this book is a lot more realistic for contemporary teenagers than Catcher in the Rye. For inner life, that's true. The voices and characterizations are great. If it's as realistic about academic expectations, I'm glad Vera's career expectations are modest.

      The friendships, the hostility, the parent, the kissing, all felt true. What was untrue and distressing (thinking about a reader wanting easy money) was that the pervert dispenses so much money for such mild requests. Surely the average pedophile wants more for less?
    • 5/5
      This is definitely one of my favorites.?
    • 4/5
      Vera is just trying to live her life flying under the radar, finishing high school and working full time delivering pizza. She lives alone with her dad, and is grieving over her ex-best friend Charlie, who died before they could reconcile. Vera’s a responsible student, she volunteers with animals, and is working to pay for college, but the stress of Charlie’s death has sparked a habit of drinking alcohol to cope.

      Please Ignore Vera Dietz is a unique contemporary novel about grieving, growing up, and making life choices. The story is mainly told through Vera’s perspective, but there are occasional chapters told by “the dead guy” and Vera’s father, which fill in some of the details of Vera’s story. A town landmark also provides a perspective which works better than it sounds.

      The protagnonist Vera lives a refreshingly normal life. She is smart, witty, and somewhat of a geek. She’s dealing with normal life problems while seeking redemption and dealing with the remorse she feels about Charlie’s death. She is trying to overcome the family demons in her closet and is concerned about turning into her mom while coming to terms with her dad. Vera is strong and responsible generally, but she makes some poor choices while she is trying to come to terms with Charlie’s death. She is at a crossroads figuring out her next step.

      The tone is light and matter of fact while dealing with some heavy themes. Charlie’s story is a heart breaking and complex one and as the story unfolds we get to find out what causes his death. Charlie “appears” to Vera constantly after his death, and she feels his presence everywhere, even as a pickle in her sandwich. Vera knows she needs to help Charlie in order to help herself move on.

      This storytelling is very unique, compelling and well written. I was turning pages eagerly to find out what happened with Charlie’s death, and how Vera will deal with the aftermath.Vera’s stories about delivering pizzas were horrifying – this is a more dangerous job than I realized!

      This is the first book I have read by A.S. King but I’m looking forward to catching up on her first novel The Dust of 100 Dogs. If you liked other unique realistic fiction about grief such as The Sky is Everywhere, Revolution, or Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour I encourage you to check out Please Ignore Vera Dietz.

    • 2/5
      Is it okay to hate a dead kid? Even if you loved him once? Even if he was my best friend? Is it okay to hate him for being dead?

      Yes, Vera, it is, because I hate Charlie, too. (But unlike Vera, I do not feel compelled to forgive him.)

      By the time I read through Please Ignore Vera Dietz I had to question: why the hype? Why is this book popular and, by the large, so well received? If I am going to speak honestly, I have to say that I would rather not recap this book at all. The only emotion King roused in me was the strongest, most long-lasting heat-wave of anger I’ve experienced by reading a book, and it was all directed at Charlie.

      To top it lightly, Charlie betrayed and bullied his best friend–from feeding the entire school a Dietz family secret to chucking beer cans in her direction, and not to mention tossing a pile of some literal nasty onto her head. Charlie was cruel at every chance he got, sullied everything that was sacred in their friendship, and offered no apologies. I won’t deny it: if I were Vera, I’d cry. That is some cruel punishment from your childhood BFF.

      The book begins at Charlie’s funeral, however — he died before they two could mend their shattered friendship. Throughout, “a word from the dead kid” appears as Charlie talks about his decisions, and of Vera, but he cannot explain his betrayal. Paraphrased, and if memory serves me right, his reasoning stands: “So why did I betray Vera? I don’t know.” Wow, how enlightening.

      Charlie loved Vera but shunned her away out of fear, believing she is levels above him in a world of class. I can respect Vera’s character: she loses her best friend twice–a lost friendship that can never be restored, and despite the many ways in which Charlie trampled over her, she holds her head up. But can she find it in her to forgive Charlie? (Because I cannot and will not.) Aside from her secret fancy of alcohol binging, Vera displays humbling traits in spite of all that has occurred.

      And yet: just as I don’t have it in me to forgive Charlie’s actions, I feel nothing toward Vera. Nothing. Not even the slightest drop of sympathy. Charlie treated her cruelly, and although she suffers for it, I feel that Ms. Dietz is underdeveloped. I fully acknowledged Vera’s presence in the book, but I didn’t connect and continued reading as if she were a nagging part of the background. To some extent, it was an odd reading experience. Even more so, it was simply frustrating.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant, luminous YA novel featuring zen sayings, flow charts, communication after death, pizza delivery technicians and a sentient pagoda. I can't say enough good things about Please Ignore Vera Dietz! It's like John Green's NEXT book. Two young people wrestle with their genes/destiny (alcoholism, wife-beating)as they run the gauntlet of high school culture. It's a gem--plot, characters (young and middle aged), tone (funnysadwise) and message (leaving that up to you). My heart went out to Vera's dad, Ken, a recovered alcoholic whose flow charts bring instant clarity to life choices. The author has said that she includes content for adults: this novel speaks truthfully to everyone trying to live a conscious--as opposed to ignoring--life. It also rephrases the question: am I more than my genes? A.S. King asks: can we catch the future from our parents/past? "Well if it’s as easy as catching my future from a blood relative, then I guess I’m due to be a drunk, pregnant, dropout stripper any day now. ” I almost didn't read this book because of the cover...phew!10 out of 10. Highly recommended to all!
    • 5/5
      What a wonderful find! This is a very thought provoking book dealing with many subjects including bullying, friendship, betrayal, death, physical abuse, and grappling with honesty and doing the right thing.Vera Dietz is haunted by the mother who abandoned her, leaving her father to raise her. A stripper who ran away when Vera was a young child, Vera fears that she too will become like her mother. Her best friend Charlie fears he will become his father and will physically and emotionally abuse women. Struggling with identity issues, their relationship is longstanding and strong, until Charlie leaves Vera behind to run with the wrong crowd, Vera is sadder than sad. When Charlie betrays Vera because he needs so desperately to fit in, Vera cannot forgive.Charlie's choices cost his life and now his ghost haunts Vera to come forward to clear his name. Charlie's new friends border of sociopathic and his new girl friends is crazy and controlling.Acting out in violent ways, the girlfriend burns down the local pet shop, leaving the puppies to die. When Charlie tries to get out of the relationship, he pays a very high price, and after his death he is blamed for the fire.While the subject matter is difficult, this is indeed worth the read. The psychology of abandonment, the need to fit in, the repercussions of bad choices are handled very deftly in this book.Longing to fly under the radar, Vera knows she must stand tall and tell authorities what she knows.The author does a wonderful job of portraying Vera's relationship with her father and his struggles.Highly recommended!!!!!It is sad and it is funny. It is quirky and it is serious. It is redemptive and profoundly touching.
    • 4/5
      This story of Vera's and Charlie's friendship, their slow separate spirals toward destruction, and the way that Vera rebuilds, is mesmerizing. High schoolers will eat this up.
    • 5/5
      AS King does a fantastic job of taking the reader along a journey of teen awakening and brings the characters to life.
    • 4/5
      King's non-linear, almost jumpy storyline worked exceptionally well with Vera's story. I liked it very much, and I liked Vera. Her issues were very believable and her coping mechanisms seemed familiar. I thought she really grew over the course of the novel, and though there was a bit of cheese in the resolution, it worked.

      Strong characters (even the pagoda!) and an interesting tale. Recommended.