Vera Dietz is trying to ignore a lot of things: that her mother abandoned her when she was 12; that she’s only 18 and works a full-time job as a pizza delivery technician while still managing As in school; that her neighbor routinely beats his wife; and then there’s Charlie.

Charlie, the neighbor boy (son of the wife beating asshole), was Vera’s best friend for most of her life, until he died at the start of their senior year. Matters aren’t helped that Vera was pretty pissed at Charlie when he died, and she knows more about his death and the situation surrounding it than she’s letting on.

Okay, now that you get the gist of Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King, let me tell you right off the bat: I loved the crap out of this book. It’s always tough to pinpoint why you love something. The heart wants what it wants and all that, right?

But there was a scene, and it comes later in the book, that sealed the deal for me. It was one of those scenes that gets to the kernel Vera’s problem, her dad’s problem, and shows that A.S. King is damn brilliant.

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