Goodbye, Rebel Blue - YA Bingo

Completed On: July 20th

# of Pages: 320

Bingo Category: A Book With A Colour In The Title

I have literally been staring at this book on its shelf at the bookstore where I work for months now, and I'm so glad that I had to find a book with a colour in the title, since it's finally given me an excuse to take this book out on a book loan and give it a read.

This book by Shelley Coriell had me laughing from the very first line, and I even tweeted about it:

And throughout the entire reading of this novel, Coriell's unique humor had me laughing. One particular source of humor were Rebel's Bucket List items that are scattered throughout the text, marking the end of each chapter. I have to admit that I may have to steal a couple of her own entries whenever I decide to write my own bucket list :P

I ordered the character of Rebecca "Rebel" Blue - I loved getting her perspective on things, especially since it lead to a lot of lines that made me laugh out loud as I was reading. She was flawed in very human and realistic ways, but was still one of the most interesting characters I've come across in the past while in YA fiction. Reading from her perspective kind of made me want to put a few blue streaks in my hair XDD

Oh wait a minute . . . Been there done that XD

There were a lot of elements of this book that have stuck with be well beyond the last page, and that should stick with any dedicated reader. When Rebel takes on the task of completing every item on do-gooder, perky blonde ponytail Kennedy Green, she signs on for completing one Random Act of Kindness every day, logging 100 hours of community service, running a 7 minute mile and paying to adopt a leatherback sea turtle for each of Kennedy's grandparents, among other things on her 20 item bucket list. These tasks not only are designed to help the community, but they're designed to better Rebel as a person as she works to complete every item, driven by the ideas that the late Kennedy drove into her head about fate and destiny.

This is one of those books where I felt so content in written words and in humanity once I flipped over the last page and shut the book. One special aspect of this book is that it made me not only want to create my own bucket list, but I also began to believe that I could actually get around to completing the items on my list at some point during my lifetime. For your reading pleasure, let me show you some of the items I would have on my own bucket list, including a few entries from Rebel's own list. These are in no particular order.

1) Hop into a taxi and shout, "FOLLOW THAT CAR!"

2) Visit the Jane Austen Centre.

3) Go to all the amazing conventions in the US all in the same year.

4) Ride in a shopping cart and scream, "The British are coming, the British are coming!"

5) Go to Italy and eat garlic bread

6) Go to Japan and visit the Studio Ghibli Museum

7) Spend 2 weeks in New York City doing anything and everything.

8) Get my picture taken with Ashly Burch and Anthony Burch

9) Have Katie Campshure as one of my pen pals

10) Travel across a large walking bridge

11) Meet as many iggles/miggles and amazing geek girls from the internet as humanly possible.
12) Make friends with people that are amazing enough to throw me a surprise party OR that will plan and put together a trip without making me plan every detail.
13) Audition for Niagara's Next Star just for fun.