Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now in CLCSC Pasadena Area Book Group

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Nov 18, 2019 Nick rated it liked it

Shelves: young-adult-fiction, young-adult-fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Oddly, this was about a 95% straight fiction novel, with one character providing something of a fantasy twist to the story.
Until the ending, I was trying to decide between 4 and 5 stars, but the ending left so much in a sort of fake resolution that I really disliked that part, and it almost ruined the book for me.
I work with kids and teens in my day job, and the basic story was a really interesting one that I wanted to be able to recommend to some of them. The main character comes from a home th Oddly, this was about a 95% straight fiction novel, with one character providing something of a fantasy twist to the story.
Until the ending, I was trying to decide between 4 and 5 stars, but the ending left so much in a sort of fake resolution that I really disliked that part, and it almost ruined the book for me.
I work with kids and teens in my day job, and the basic story was a really interesting one that I wanted to be able to recommend to some of them. The main character comes from a home that has basically been a single mom and a grandmom since her birth, but upon her mother's death she finds out who her father really was, supposedly, and is sent to live with him.
He's horrible in so many ways that it was fascinating to watch this human train wreck. What I was not seeing were reasons why not one but two intelligent and interesting women had fallen in love with him, and the answers eventually given were NOT satisfactory. He's a mean-spirited bully to his own family, and after things he says in the story, should NOT be trusted as a physician, since he says oddly derogatory things about psychiatrists prescribing drugs [never mind that a psychiatrist is a specialized physician trained in doing just that, among other things]. He has abused his wife emotionally, treats his children like they're not supposed to have any input on their long-term goals or lives, and then says he WANTS the daughter he had with another woman, the one he had actually wanted aborted. So, all this is okay because he likes The Beatles and Cinema Paradiso??? Given things he says he believes, I found it difficult to follow how he could actually enjoy either one.
The way he treats Tiffany is also abusive, between trying to force her to show her "natural" hair while suffering from the effects of a medical condition that has left her mostly without it and things like taking away the medications she's been taking for really serious anxiety and OCD problems. He makes no effort to learn a thing about her before trying to decide what she will be and what she will do. The whole basketball tryout thing was odd, though. There's no explanation for her wonderful shooting touch, combined with a total lack of other basketball skills.
Then there's the whole subplot about someone else who might be Tiffany's "real" father. That made almost no sense, since he seemed to know of Tiffany's existence, but somehow hadn't made his presence known until the death of Tiffany's mother. Um...why not?
All that was secondary to how annoying the ending was, with Anthony, the abusive dad, saying that he's willing to change pretty much everything about his personality as previously displayed. He CAN'T change some of it without giving up his religious faith, because he belongs to a very narrow-focus church that really does agree with some of the stuff he said and did. Since he's still talking about his faith and his church at the end, that really didn't ring true.
So, I'd say the book was good enough to read, but I won't be recommending it much. ...more

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Sep 17, 2019 Amanda marked it as to-read

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Sep 17, 2019 Jennette Neville marked it as to-read

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