#43 Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty
Under a cut for spoilers for Fourth Comings. There are no spoilers for Perfect Fifths. 
I was in high school when I first picked up Megan McCafferty’s Sloppy Firsts, and by the time Jessica Darling was ending her high school career with the next book, Second Helpings, I was doing the same. When Charmed Thirds came out, I was in college, much like Jessica. When Fourth Comings hit the shelves, Jessica was straight out of college and experiencing the real world. So was I. Even through Jessica has lived a far different life than I have, I always felt as if I could connect with her due to the fact that we sort of ended up growing up together.
In Perfect Fifths, Jessica is in her mid-twenties (again, like me), and her life has turned out pretty good for herself. She has a career that’s emotionally fulfilling. Two of her closest friends, Percy and Bridget, are getting married in the Caribbean, and Jessica is just about to jet off to perform the ceremony (which is a funny story in itself). Then she misses her flight, and instead ends up running into Marcus Flutie, the man that stole her heart at sixteen and who she left at the end of Fourth Comings. The two have not seen each other in years. Perfect Fifths is about what happens in that first encounter and afterwards.
In Perfect Fifths, Megan McCafferty takes a lot of big risks. First off, the diary format that was cherished and loved by fans of the first four books has been discarded for a third person omniscient point of view, where we can get into both of Jessica’s and Marcus’s heads. Secondly, where past books have taken place over a single week or three years, Perfect Fifths covers mere hours. The result is a novel that is hyper-focused on the relationship between Jessica and Marcus, with very little else going on. The third risk is the ever changing format of the book. Both the first and fourth sections are written in third person, but the second section is told entirely in dialogue without any tags to let us know who is speaking. The third section is told in a series of fifty-five haikus (or senryu’s, as they’re classified here). The third person sequences are, for the most part, straight forward, but are heavy with symbolism and contain giant paragraphed dream sequences that read as if McCafferty wrote them in an excited rush.
Under a pen of an inexperienced writer, the third person could feel isolating, the short time period might feel slow, the dialogue section would be confusing, and the senryus? Just strange. Fortunately, Megan McCafferty is no amateur. Perfect Fifths is a (dare I say it) perfectly crafted novel. The pieces of Marcus’s and Jessica’s relationship that have been scattered through the four previous novels fall together both beautifully and effortlessly in this final volume. Although the unconventional format may isolate some readers (okay I’ll admit it, the senryu’s are a little strange… but in a good way), I absolutely fell in love with it. I am sad to see Jessica Darling’s story end (After all, who do I have to grow up with anymore? Is this a sign that I’m finished?), but I feel that if it needed to, this is the best place for it to close.
Rating: five stars
Length: 258 pages
Source: Mr. Paperback (Lisbon St, Lewiston)
TBR Pile: 144 books
Similar Books: The previous book in the series. You really cannot read Perfect Fifths without reading the previous books first.
Other books I've read by this author: Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings, Charmed Thirds, Fourth Comings
Next up, some non fiction!
xposted to bookish and temporaryworlds
I was in high school when I first picked up Megan McCafferty’s Sloppy Firsts, and by the time Jessica Darling was ending her high school career with the next book, Second Helpings, I was doing the same. When Charmed Thirds came out, I was in college, much like Jessica. When Fourth Comings hit the shelves, Jessica was straight out of college and experiencing the real world. So was I. Even through Jessica has lived a far different life than I have, I always felt as if I could connect with her due to the fact that we sort of ended up growing up together.
In Perfect Fifths, Jessica is in her mid-twenties (again, like me), and her life has turned out pretty good for herself. She has a career that’s emotionally fulfilling. Two of her closest friends, Percy and Bridget, are getting married in the Caribbean, and Jessica is just about to jet off to perform the ceremony (which is a funny story in itself). Then she misses her flight, and instead ends up running into Marcus Flutie, the man that stole her heart at sixteen and who she left at the end of Fourth Comings. The two have not seen each other in years. Perfect Fifths is about what happens in that first encounter and afterwards.
In Perfect Fifths, Megan McCafferty takes a lot of big risks. First off, the diary format that was cherished and loved by fans of the first four books has been discarded for a third person omniscient point of view, where we can get into both of Jessica’s and Marcus’s heads. Secondly, where past books have taken place over a single week or three years, Perfect Fifths covers mere hours. The result is a novel that is hyper-focused on the relationship between Jessica and Marcus, with very little else going on. The third risk is the ever changing format of the book. Both the first and fourth sections are written in third person, but the second section is told entirely in dialogue without any tags to let us know who is speaking. The third section is told in a series of fifty-five haikus (or senryu’s, as they’re classified here). The third person sequences are, for the most part, straight forward, but are heavy with symbolism and contain giant paragraphed dream sequences that read as if McCafferty wrote them in an excited rush.
Under a pen of an inexperienced writer, the third person could feel isolating, the short time period might feel slow, the dialogue section would be confusing, and the senryus? Just strange. Fortunately, Megan McCafferty is no amateur. Perfect Fifths is a (dare I say it) perfectly crafted novel. The pieces of Marcus’s and Jessica’s relationship that have been scattered through the four previous novels fall together both beautifully and effortlessly in this final volume. Although the unconventional format may isolate some readers (okay I’ll admit it, the senryu’s are a little strange… but in a good way), I absolutely fell in love with it. I am sad to see Jessica Darling’s story end (After all, who do I have to grow up with anymore? Is this a sign that I’m finished?), but I feel that if it needed to, this is the best place for it to close.
Rating: five stars
Length: 258 pages
Source: Mr. Paperback (Lisbon St, Lewiston)
TBR Pile: 144 books
Similar Books: The previous book in the series. You really cannot read Perfect Fifths without reading the previous books first.
Other books I've read by this author: Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings, Charmed Thirds, Fourth Comings
Next up, some non fiction!
xposted to bookish and temporaryworlds