Famous Last Words - Hardcover

Doktorski, Jennifer Salvato

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805093672 ISBN 13: 9780805093674

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2013

Synopsis

In Famous Last Words by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski, sixteen-year-old Samantha D'Angelo has death on the brain. Her summer internship at the local newspaper has her writing obituaries instead of soaking up the sun at the beach. Between Shelby, Sam's boy-crazy best friend; her boss Harry, a true-blue newspaper man; and AJ, her fellow "intern scum" (aka the cute drummer for a band called Love Gas), Sam has her hands full. But once she figures out what―or who―is the best part of her summer, will she mess it all up?

As Sam learns her way around both the news room and the real world, she starts to make some momentous realizations about politics, ethics, her family, romance, and most important―herself.

About this title

About the Author

Jennifer Salvato Doktorski is the author of the young adult novel How My Summer Went Up in Flames. She is also a freelance nonfiction writer and has published articles and essays in national magazines, such as Cosmopolitan. Her first paid writing gig was at The North Jersey Herald & News, where she wrote obituaries and began her lifelong love of news and coffee. She lives in New Jersey with her family.

Reviews

Gr 8 Up-Sam D'Angelo spends the summer before her senior year as an intern for a local New Jersey newspaper, and she learns a lot, both on and off the job. Working at the obituary desk provides her with a new lens through which to view her town, her boy-crazy best friend, and the dying newspaper industry. Sam is joined at the desk by AJ, a reliable and witty college student/drummer in a local band. Completing a romantic triangle is Tony, the features desk intern who, in Sam's opinion, is "incredibly hot in a universal, People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive kind of way." Sam plays an integral role in solving an abuse-of-power incident in the mayor's office and learns the secret of writing obits (it's about the life, not the death). She also has an opportunity to talk with a survivor of a Nazi prison camp in a scene that conveys the teen's professional growth. The other characters in this plot-driven novel are not as well developed. Harry, the paper's editor, is a caricature of the old-time newspaperman, especially when he utters lines like "Everybody has a story, D'Angelo." Fast-paced, light entertainment.-Shelley Sommer, Inly School, Scituate, MAα(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Sam’s summer vacation is packed: she’s interning at a New Jersey newspaper, where she works the obituary beat with a cute, funny—if sometimes moody—drummer named AJ. Between researching the biographies of fire victims and trailing the mysteries of a corrupt local mayor, she barely has time to reluctantly catch up with her often absent, party-hearty, boy-magnet best friend, Shelby. As she plots and prepares for her future, Sam learns to stick up for herself, live a life worthy of a fine obit, and “read between the lines” when it comes to her relationships. Doktorski (How My Summer Went Up in Flames, 2013) returns to familiar summer coming-of-age territory with this sophomore novel, proving her comfort with the frame by providing a smart, compact, and pleasurable read. Grades 9-12. --Courtney Jones

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805093672
• ISBN 13: 9780805093674
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288