ARC Review: Famous Last Words by Jennifer Doktorski

Famous Last Words by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski
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Henry Holt and Co,288

Release Date: July 2nd,2013

Sixteen-year-old Samantha D’Angelo has death on the brain. Her summer internship at the local newspaper has her writing obituaries instead of soaking up the sun at the beach. Between Shelby, Sam’s boy-crazy best friend; her boss Harry, a true-blue newspaper man; and AJ, her fellow “intern scum” (aka the cute drummer for a band called Love Gas), Sam has her hands full. But once she figures out what—or who—is the best part of her summer, will she mess it all up?F

As Sam learns her way around both the news room and the real world, she starts to make some momentous realizations about politics, ethics, her family, romance, and   most important—herself.

This book had me from the very first couple of sentences from the summary. I am currently taking a journalism class, which is pretty much writing in the school newspaper and yearbook, and just a story about a teenage student who writes just intrigued me.! Who knew this story would turn out to be so much more than that and so scandalous, but so sweet at the same time!

Sam, Samantha, is the main character in this story and might I add that she is an amazing writer. Sam has a summer internship at the local newspaper which sound awesome right? Except that she's writing the obituaries instead of a lead story. The thing about Sam is that she doesn't care what she's writing as long as she's writing. Her friend,Shelby, may tease her and say her jobs lame and that she's not living her life .. etc, but Sam doesn't care because she's doing what she loves and does best -- writing. This is what I love about Sam she doesn't really care what others think about her as long as she's doing something she enjoys, she could care less and I really connect to her because of that. 

As the story progresses, Shelby just starts to annoy the living hell out of me. I hate saying it, but she really does. She calls Sam all the time wants her to do things out of her comfort zone,Sam feels bad, goes and Shelby then, always, leaves her alone to do nothing. She also whines and complains a lot to because Sam is always working instead of hanging out with her. I don't really see how her and Sam are best friends -- they are nothing a like with no common interest and they are always fighting.I understand how best friends are and how sometimes we have friends that bring out the best in us because we are to shy, but Shelby just didn't do that for me and I couldn't connect to her character at all.


Throughout this story there is a mystery element that I really enjoyed. Being an intern, Sam doesn't really get to experience much besides making phone calls to the people who's died families. So when she finally gets a good,mystery, case to work with, I jump out of my seat for joy and then hurry up and sit back down for the ride because there was a lot of twist and turns to this fun mystery. I felt like I was kind of watching or reading Nancy Drew and I liked that a lot. 

Another thing I didn't see coming, though it is in the summary, is the romance part of this story. There is just so many things going on throughout this story -- Sam trying to find herself and who she is, her trying to solve the mystery, making new friends who are just like her & getting closer to her family, that I just didn't expect it.  

Sam really struggles throughout this story with herself. Sam is normally the shy girl who just has always been Shelby's shadow. She is finally making friends that actually have common interest with her and the guy who becomes her love interest is the guy you never would have expected because they've always been friends. I did, however, see it coming because I guess I read to many contemporary stories, but it was slow and progressive! I don't hate insta- love, but I like a story better when it doesn't have ista-love because I like getting to see the characters fall in love with each other and you really get to see that in this story and that makes me love it even more. 

With this being said, the ending was amazing and breathtaking. I didn't want it to stop! In fact, I wish it would have been longer because I really connected with Sam and the person she became and was. 

If you like contemporary stories with a little Nancy Drew this is the story for you and I promise you Sam-I-Am will leave you laughing,inspired, and in love with her and her secret guy ;) 
So don't miss out!