It is a powerfully nightmarish cautionary tale that vividly depicts what teenagers might, in the long run, be responsible for if either they hook up without adequate birth control and decide to go with the flow, or if one decides to bring a kid into the world with someone who should never ever be a parent. (She's still alive.)īut, to me, this is an absolutely heart-crushing story about the responsibilities and long-reaching effects of parenting. And you have the story of Vera's resilience. So, on one level, you have the mysteries about how and why Charlie so horribly betrays Vera (who loves him) how and why Charlie dies and why Vera is not telling anyone what she knows.

Vera and Charlie have been best friends since they were little kids. PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ flows back and forth between the past (when Charlie is still alive) and the present. 'What is your original face, before your mother and father were born?' King begins the story by employing this Zen koan as the epigraph: Why did Charlie's mother choose to marry and reproduce with Charlie's father? Long before the story begins, what was the thought process of the then-pregnant seventeen year-old as she made the decision to birth and raise the unborn baby that would become Vera? Having spent the past few days thoroughly immersed in PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ, two seemingly unanswerable questions I continue to contemplate are: That we occasionally hear in the present time from Charlie - from the other side - only heightens the mystery of what is really going on with teenage pizza delivery technician and high school senior Vera Dietz, who has not told anyone all she knows about the now-dead boy-next-door. PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ is an extraordinary YA horror show about two teenagers who are so screwed up by their respective parents that you are often unsure who has it worse - Charlie who is now dead or Vera who is now clearly an alcoholic, seemingly schizophrenic, and definitely in possession of more knowledge about what really happened to Charlie Kahn than anyone else. I am motherless and, in the last year, lost my best friend twice, fell in love with a guy I shouldn't have (twice), got beat up by a skinhead Nazi, and have had things thrown at me, including beer cans, money, and dog shit.' It's my senior year and I still have no idea what I want to do with my life.

'Now, Charlie's dead and I'm here in the kitchen - on my way to school, and then to work. I don't think Charlie stopped loving me, either.

'I'm not even sure she did stop loving me,' he adds. 'I ask Dad over breakfast, 'Do you think Mom stopped loving you before or after she met what's-his-name?' 'How often do you wonder about life on the other side? 4 August 2010 PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ by A.S.

Please excuse vera dietz