Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall

Title makes the book sound superficial, when actually it is a thoughtful look at a girl's life & a lot of the bad decisions she has made. Does that make her a bad person? How much can she blame on a psycho mother? Surprisingly good book--hope it comes out as an audiobook soon.

Reviewed by Kirby Jo Franze (age 16) for Reader Views (11/07) Stepping inside the reality of almost every teenage girl's life, Wendy Mass hits the nail right on the head with this witty, realistic tale that will appeal to everyone from daughters to their moms. We follow sixteen-year-old Tessa, "the mall brat," on her epic journey through life up to junior year, when slow reflexes in a dodge ball game suddenly land her at heaven's doors. But, wait, is that Abercrombie & Fitch?!? It would seem that heaven looks a lot like, yup, you guessed it, the mall! Questioning her entire purpose for living, we follow as Tessa reviews her life as a young girl with tough choices, to a young adult with real life decisions in front of her. I believe most girls can relate to Tessa's journey. It travels through everything from cute boys, to temptations, to hard-to-get-along-with siblings and parents. This book is a good reminder to the average teenage girl to listen to her parents; it helps her realize which decisions are the right ones, and is a fabulous warning of the consequences of making the wrong ones. Ms. Mass was quite successful in making us all feel as though we were experiencing the psychotic, crazy days of high school. As a teenager myself, I could relate to the pressures of staying in shape, keeping the right friends and trying to be compatible with the world and everything in it. Though there were times I felt that Ms. Mass underestimated the vocabulary of teenagers by using the word "and" more than a few times, I still felt it was well-written and sometimes quite humorous. I personally learned to be thankful for the life I have and that we can all learn from our mistakes if we let ourselves. Tessa did give in to temptation more than a couple of times, unable to resist defending the underdog and delivering a little payback to someone that really had it coming. Regardless, she stayed pure and stood her ground in some awfully tight spots, which left me with a desire to do the same. I hope all of the readers of "Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall" will walk away with that same desire. This book makes for a delightful read for all of the hard-headed, not quite sure what their purpose is, and slightly crazy, self-conscious, silly girls out there...like me

Are you in the market for a great read? Well, if you are, then look no further than Heaven is A Lot like the Mall by Wendy Mass. This newly released fictional novel takes the reader on a near death experience with the main character Tess. Tess is a high school junior who has really been letting good life experiences pass her by, and in the process, has failed to figure out who she truly is as a person. In the tradition of Dickens' Christmas Carol, Tess has to maneuver her way through heaven's mall to remember and uncover the meaning of her life thus far with only a bag full of objects and a boy with a gruesome head injury for guidance. This book was nonstop read as I wanted to know what each item in Tess' shopping bag represented. It was also fun to relate to some of Tess' memories; like a first hair cut, making and losing friends, and shopping for prom dresses. Mass' poetic style also made the book a quick read, but not necessarily an easy one. The reader really had an opportunity to dig beneath the surface and try to understand the lessons life teaches. For readers who enjoy a deeper meaning to a story, but also one depicted with a great style and sense of humor, than Tess and her celestial mall is the book for you!

Imagine a fluorescent orange dodgeball. A dodgeball doesn't do a lot of damage...or does it? Now picture it hurling toward you at rapid speed, and you are glued to the floor, unable to move. Then you're hit, falling to the ground and blacking out. You think you are dead, but you're not, since you're at your favorite mall where you spent most of your time over the years. You have a chance so you can see some choices you made to lead to the mall. This is what happened to Tessa Reynolds, who is the main character in Heaven Looks a Lot like the Mall, by Wendy Mass, which was published just one month ago. Here is the opening paragraph to the novel: "For fifty cents and a Gobstopper, I lifted my shirt for the neighborhood boys. My oldest brother Matt caught us and chased the boys with a Wiffle bat. Word got around, and at nine years old I became the girl other girls' moms didn't want them to play with." This book is unusual because it is written in verse. Normally that would be a story that I'd think it was boring, but this is written and a very simple, easy to follow way. I thought of this like going from elementary school to middle school. Elementary school was okay, but still enjoyable. Middle school is new, different, and more exciting. When I read the first few chapters, I paid attention to the verse often. After a while, I got caught up into the plot, and forgot about the format, written in verse. "Nail Boy starts taking each object out of the bag and lining them up on the counter. "A white fluffy teddy bear with a red bow around the neck..." "A box of assorted crayons..." "A roll of toilet paper..." "Before me is an odd assortment of my stuff, most of which I haven't seen or thought of in years. `What's so special about these particular things?' "He holds up the bag. `I'm giving you a chance to visit the choices you made. The choices that led you here and-` `I'm here because someone fired a dodgeball at my head.'" This passage shows Tessa discovering the bag of items she bought from the mall. The author's creativity connected the items in the bag to choices Tessa made up to the present. At first, the objects are obscure and innocuous, but Tessa, as well as the readers, soon find their significance. She finds that each item is also related to a store in the mall and to an event in her life. Another reason I loved this book is because of the chapter titles, which related the items with the store Tessa bought it from. Also, on the cover, the author used actual store fonts for the words! Even if the ending in much anticipated and the theme was obvious, I still enjoyed this book so much. Wendy Mass does a wonderful job making the readers feel for Tessa, even id she's not always the most likable person. In the end, Tessa reevaluated her life when she woke up from her coma from all her mistakes and right actions, knew she should become a better person. She also answered her Big Question, which was "why didn't I duck when the ball

I loved this book! It was so wonderful, clever and very creative with the different chapters. I would reccommend this book to anyone, especially girls! The mother/daughter relationship in the book was very enjoyable. All in all, this book was a great escape from reality, and very entertaining.