We've got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you'll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)
(4) Base Camp
Pearl is a great storyteller, so the plot is easy enough to understand. Essentially, it goes something like this: Girl meets boy; girl falls madly in love with boy; girl makes decisions with her heart instead of her head—you know the drill. So why the Base Camp rating, you ask?
Well, the narrator switches back and forth between timelines, so sometimes it's tricky to figure out where we are in the story. Pearl is giving us her take on what happened after the fact, but at any given moment, she'll tell us how she felt in the middle of an event as well as what she thinks about it now that it's over. Once you get the hang of her storytelling style, though, it's simple enough to keep up with her.