Reviews for Mama, Are We There Yet?

The average rating for Mama, Are We There Yet? based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-06-16 00:00:00 Jason Liebel If I had to use one word to summarize Ten Miles Past Normal, it would be boring. I'll admit it: I wanted to read this because of the cute cover and because the male protagonist is named "Monster". I happen to have a penchant for guys with unusual names, and so I thought this might be worth reading. Wrong. I thought that maybe this would be a self-discovery story, or something of the like, but it's basically just Janie prattling on about how horrible her life has been since her parents decided to live on a farm. There is no real story. I quickly tired of Janie's inner monologue of how horrific her life is and how her mother is so incompetent in virtually everything she does. I kept thinking, Cut your mother some slack! She's only trying to be nice. For some reason, it really bothered me the way Janie portrays her mother. Now, I'm not so naïve as to think that teens don't have quarrels with their parents, but something about the way Janie treats her mother, and the way she views her mother just rankled me. And it isn't just Janie that acts this way. Later, Janie has a conversation with a friend, Verbena, and the subject comes up about how Verbena hates that she's had to relocate so many times: "Moving so much when I was little didn't matter. [. . .] But it gets harder every year. In fact, I'm thinking about divorcing my parents, just so I can stop moving. The damage it's done to my social life is overwhelming." Somehow, the author implying that a person's social status is more important than their family didn't sit well with me. I realize that it was probably meant to be sarcastic rather than literal, but it bothered me nonetheless. And it doesn't end there! Monster tells Janie that his parents are crazy (oh, but his gram is okay - thank goodness for gram!), and so he has moved out of their house and into his own. I began to wonder if the author had some sort of personal vendetta against parents. It seemed like every character had a horrible relationship with one, if not both of their parents. I don't know - perhaps I made too much of it. But all of this did get me wondering: Is this sort of thing the norm in a lot of YA fiction? Have I been somehow overlooking it until now? The following quote was the best part of the whole novel: "I think it's time Janie rejoined the family," my dad says. "I'm tired of her acting like we're not good enough for her anymore. [. . .] "She's fourteen, for Pete's sake," my mom says to my dad. "Don't you know anything about fourteen-year-old girls?" "Not much," my dad admits. "But I don't think being fourteen excuses you from having a nice word for your mother from time to time." I actually sat the book down and clapped after reading that sentence. Definitely the highlight of the novel. I've read quite a few novels with practically no plot and they were just fine. But they had interesting characters and witty dialogue to compensate for the less than stellar plot. Ten Miles Past Normal has none of that. The characters are all flatter than a fritter (as my grandma would say) and held no interest for me whatsoever. What follows is how the author describes Monster's character: "Standing in front of us - no, make that looming over us - is a Mack truck of a guy, six-two at the very least, in overalls and a tie-dyed T-shirt, his long red hair pulled into a ponytail." That is a walking cliché if I ever read one. I'm surprised she didn't write that he's chewing on a piece of hay and he has buck teeth. It is clear that the author wrote Monster's character to fit the stereotypical farm boy. Personally, I thought it was overkill. While I can't say from personal experience, based on most of my GR friends' opinions I'd recommend that you read Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock and skip Ten Miles Past Normal if you're looking for a good novel featuring life on the farm. P.S. Am I the only one that thinks the font on the cover makes this look like a verse novel?

Review # 2 was written on 2013-12-27 00:00:00 David Lewis Janie's first few weeks of high school haven't exactly lived up to her dreams. All of her friends have different classes, and she has been marked as an outcast ever since she came to school with goat poo on her shoes. Janie wants to be "normal", which is hard when your parents are hippy-esque farmers. On her journey to get to the magical land of boyfriends, football games, and parties, Janie gets a little....lost. She learns to play the bass, is arrested for trespassing, steals a giant wooden cross, and befriends a rather large boy named Monster (thats his real name). Pretty soon Janie is so past normal, she may actually be where she is meant to be. Do not assume too much from this book. It's clean, quirky, and perfect for younger teens. It was delightful, easy, and light. But it was nothing more than that. It was not hysterical. It was not ridiculous. It was not so truthful that it ached. It was like a water-downed Stargirl, or an unfunny Dairy Queen. It was fine. Nothing was blatantly wrong or flawed with it, but if you compare it to other books in the same vein, it just doesn't hold up. However, I do think middle school girls would like it. Perhaps it will give them insight on what to expect in the next few years. It's not really scandalous enough to be enjoyable for high school kids, I think, who want some more dirty drama. Thank you, S&S Galleygrab for providing me with a copy.