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Just Like a Friend
Thirty-two year old Vi is more of a friend than a mother to fourteen-year old Patti but conflicts arise when the family faces a serious challenge.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 10, 2010
Love it!!!! Its sad but reaaly good!!!! I got 2 read for a book report so i better husle 2 read. But i dont think it will be that hard!!!!
April 1, 2020
This was a... weird book. It's been on my nightstand for quite some time in my to-read-pile. I found it in a corner when I cleaned out the school-library I worked in, and since it's so old it had to go.
But it was something with the cover and the text on the backcover that had me intrested. So instead of throwing it away, I took it home. And now I've read it.
It was good in that it showed a family and home that was very happy on the surface. But me, as a reader, could see that the mom of the family, Viv, is an extreme airhead. All she cares about is her own looks (she's apparently gorgeous), and having fun. That's it. Full stop. The main character, the girl Patti, at first thinks she has the best mom int he world that is more lika best friend than a mom. Although really, that's not what you need. And she discovers this when her dad, who is quite a bit older than Viv, has a heartattack. Viv can't deal. Like at all, and Patti has to grow up really fast, which changes her.
It's interesting on one level. I had to wonder how come Viv ended up being like she is. And we do find that out from the grandmother who helps the little family and is the mother of Viv. She spoiled Viv as she grew up, plain and simple. She never had to take responsibility or do any household work as she grew up.
So on one way good, and on way a little weird and odd. Hence the low rating. It does show it's age as well. At least it had a moderatly good ending, and I liked the person that Patti had become at the end of the book.
But it was something with the cover and the text on the backcover that had me intrested. So instead of throwing it away, I took it home. And now I've read it.
It was good in that it showed a family and home that was very happy on the surface. But me, as a reader, could see that the mom of the family, Viv, is an extreme airhead. All she cares about is her own looks (she's apparently gorgeous), and having fun. That's it. Full stop. The main character, the girl Patti, at first thinks she has the best mom int he world that is more lika best friend than a mom. Although really, that's not what you need. And she discovers this when her dad, who is quite a bit older than Viv, has a heartattack. Viv can't deal. Like at all, and Patti has to grow up really fast, which changes her.
It's interesting on one level. I had to wonder how come Viv ended up being like she is. And we do find that out from the grandmother who helps the little family and is the mother of Viv. She spoiled Viv as she grew up, plain and simple. She never had to take responsibility or do any household work as she grew up.
So on one way good, and on way a little weird and odd. Hence the low rating. It does show it's age as well. At least it had a moderatly good ending, and I liked the person that Patti had become at the end of the book.
March 6, 2022
I'd been searching for this book, for YEARS!! I'd read it in my early teens, and never saw it again, after lending it out to someone. I could only remember the basic plot: A quiet daughter who needs to reconcile the fact that her young hip Mom, Violet, is a flawed hot mess, with a lot of growing up to do. Violet married an older man, who has a heart attack, and it's in this crisis, that she fails her daughter.
It was a good lesson in realizing sometimes our parents are human. I wish I'd been a little bit older, so as to have grasped it more. I liked how Patti was self-aware enough to realize when people liked her only for her looks, and didn't care about her, beyond a surface level. She was a strong independent character, who had a solid growth arc.
I couldn't remember how the book ended, but upon my recent re-read, realized that was likely due to the book's awkward and abrupt ending. While everything did wrap: Harry was going to recover.
Patti reconciled her relationships with the popular kids, and held firm in wanting to find a secure place in the world. She understood her father and grandma meant well, in their one dimentional wishes for her, but that they were different from what she wanted for herself. We got the impression Vi was going to continue living in stunted adolescence, but Patti was able to appreciate the magic Vi brought to her own life, and was happy she would continue to pass it on, to Nancy's little boy. Vi finally gave her daughter some solid advice, and told her not to worry about what her father and Grandmother said, about her new studious focus, that she was fine to do, what she wanted. I just felt Patti's last lines to her mother "Be safe Vi." As she raced up the library stairs, were like a strange way to end the book.
Overall a solid read. Just wish the ending had something a little bit more.
It was a good lesson in realizing sometimes our parents are human. I wish I'd been a little bit older, so as to have grasped it more. I liked how Patti was self-aware enough to realize when people liked her only for her looks, and didn't care about her, beyond a surface level. She was a strong independent character, who had a solid growth arc.
I couldn't remember how the book ended, but upon my recent re-read, realized that was likely due to the book's awkward and abrupt ending. While everything did wrap: Harry was going to recover.
Patti reconciled her relationships with the popular kids, and held firm in wanting to find a secure place in the world. She understood her father and grandma meant well, in their one dimentional wishes for her, but that they were different from what she wanted for herself. We got the impression Vi was going to continue living in stunted adolescence, but Patti was able to appreciate the magic Vi brought to her own life, and was happy she would continue to pass it on, to Nancy's little boy. Vi finally gave her daughter some solid advice, and told her not to worry about what her father and Grandmother said, about her new studious focus, that she was fine to do, what she wanted. I just felt Patti's last lines to her mother "Be safe Vi." As she raced up the library stairs, were like a strange way to end the book.
Overall a solid read. Just wish the ending had something a little bit more.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 8, 2010
Vi was only sixteen when she had her daughter, and so the two have grown up together, indulged by their father/husband and treating each other like friends or sisters. But when tragedy strikes the family, one of them has to grow up. . .
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews