Favorite new book read in 2013 
 As much as I love this movie, I'm surprised at how long it took me to get around to reading the book. I'm glad I finally made it happen. At first I was unimpressed with the writing style, but I soon found out that the author was 16 years old when she wrote it, and suddenly everything was forgivable. Besides, I've been reading a lot of Victorian literature recently, and those cats are tough acts to follow as far as linguistic flow is concerned. There were a couple of errors that stabbed me straight in the heart and could've easily been fixed by a decent editor, but I was able to gloss over them. 
 For example, we have one character, an educated character, mind you, telling another that she "wouldn't drink that if she were starving in the desert." Drink. Starving. They don't match. Granted, it is dialogue, and it could be an attempt to show that the character isn't totally with it, but I think it was a mistake on the author's/editor's part because that kind of error doesn't fit at all with the character who said it. But, it's forgivable because I'm not sure about the author's intent. However... 
 There are a few (thankfully very few) instances of something like this: a character asking another character "Gotta cigarette?"... 
 AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!! My soul is being ripped asunder! Somebody, quick, make a horcrux! "Gotta" is a colloquial compounded form of "got to," not "got a." It is also dialogue, but I refuse to believe that the spelling has anything to do with the character who said it; that is all on the author. Oh my eyes and limbs! Oh my lungs and liver! Oh my heart on fire! Oh my stars and garters! GOLLUM, GOLLUM, GAROO, GAROO, GOTTA! 
 ...OK. I'm back. I'm calm now. So, noting such a visceral reaction to a couple of phrases, how can I go whole hog and give this book five stars? Because "it was amazing," and that's what the fifth star stands for according to Goodreads. I confess that I have a soft spot for bildungsromans to begin with, and this one delivered. It explores a lot of the angst felt in certain situations occurring at a certain age, and does it very well. I also love tragedy, and this could easily have been titled Ponyboy Curtis and the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week. Poor kid. 
 Plus, this was a novel written about characters, not just plot, and I always love it when the characters drive a story. A couple of spots seemed a tad unrealistic, as if these teenage boys were actually feeling the emotions of a teenage girl instead, and then I remembered that it was written by a teenage girl and not a teenage boy. Well, let me alter that statement. The feelings of the boys were quite realistic, spot-on in fact, but the actions resulting from those feelings were what were out of place. Those instances are minimal, and I probably only noticed because I'm highly attuned to such things given my bildungsroman interest. 
 Or maybe I'm part of that sexist crowd that didn't think a girl could write such a poignant story about boys, and I'm looking for something to pooh-pooh? I'm not sure. 
 Regardless, I'm still not changing my rating. It tugged hard at the heartstrings. Five stars, Ms. Hinton, and bloody well done! I'll definitely be reading this again. I could hardly put it down, and I already knew the story from the movie. 
 Very good book-to-movie translation, by the way. I'm not sure if I've seen another so accurate. 
 Stay gold.