{"id":40326,"date":"2024-05-21T21:40:07","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T01:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=40326"},"modified":"2024-05-21T21:40:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-22T01:40:07","slug":"review-of-excuse-me-while-i-ugly-cry-by-joya-goffney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=40326","title":{"rendered":"Review of Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry, by Joya Goffney"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry<\/em><\/p>\n

by Joya Goffney
\nread by Jordan Cobb<\/p>\n

HarperAudio, 2021. 9 hours, 39 minutes.
\nReview written October 25, 2021, from a library eaudiobook
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry<\/em> is a teen romance with a lot of depth. Quinn is a senior in high school and one of the few Black girls at her private school. She pours out her private thoughts in her list journal. But one day, she accidentally picks up the journal of that cute guy in her study group instead of her own.<\/p>\n

She works to fix the switch, but he\u2019s lost her journal. Or so he says. Then someone anonymously starts blackmailing Quinn. If she doesn\u2019t complete the items in her list to do before the end of high school, the blackmailer will start posting embarrassing pages from her journal on the internet \u2013 beginning with the revelation that she didn\u2019t actually get into Columbia.<\/p>\n

Quinn\u2019s parents met at Columbia, and they\u2019ve been planning on her going there since she was born, so Quinn didn\u2019t manage to tell them she didn\u2019t get accepted. She even forged an acceptance letter \u2013 and then they made the news known far and wide. Part of her list was to tell them the truth, but Quinn isn\u2019t sure she can ever do that. Another item is to tell the guy she\u2019s had a crush on for years how she feels \u2013 though that may be changing. Yet another is going to visit her grandmother, who\u2019s in a nursing home with dementia. Quinn\u2019s afraid she won\u2019t even recognize her.<\/p>\n

So she begins by tackling an easier item \u2013 visiting the two colleges where she did get accepted. And Carter, the cute guy who lost her journal, is willing to come along and help. Maybe he isn\u2019t the blackmailer after all \u2013 though Quinn still isn\u2019t sure she can trust him.<\/p>\n

As Quinn works through all of this, she makes some new friends and gains some new experiences. And she does some things she was afraid of doing.<\/p>\n

It all adds up to a fun read about a teen who made some mistakes, but is trying to pull herself out of them.<\/p>\n

The only thing I didn\u2019t like is that Quinn\u2019s use of the list journal is seen as a bad habit. She wrote in the journal so she wouldn\u2019t have to open up to actual people. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the way it works. Journaling is good for you! And I think that opening up to a journal makes it easier to open up to actual people rather than harder. I think you\u2019d be a lot less apt to stuff your emotions. So I hope she won\u2019t give it up forever.<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I\u2019m posting the oldest reviews I\u2019ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They\u2019re still good books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney read by Jordan Cobb HarperAudio, 2021. 9 hours, 39 minutes. Review written October 25, 2021, from a library eaudiobook Starred Review Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry is a teen romance with a lot of depth. Quinn is a senior in high school and one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,21,24,42,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobooks","category-contemporary","category-romance","category-starred-review","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40326"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43805,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40326\/revisions\/43805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}