The books I am comparing are Kristen Tracey's Hung Up and Mary Amato's Guitar Notes.
The Set-Up:
- Guitar Notes is the tale of Tripp (a loner guitarist) and Lyla (a fancy cellist) who leave notes for each other in a practice room and form an easy (yet forbidden because they don't run in the same circles) friendship.
- Hung Up is told only through the phone calls and messages between Lucy and James after Lucy calls James' number. It details how they get closer and closer, but for some reason, Lucy is reluctant to meet. (A/N: it's NOT because he's like a stranger on the phone or anything.)
- They both detail people talking and developing a friendship without meeting in person
- They both have epistolary elements
- The main characters are a male and female duo.
- They both have some pretty good dialogue
- This is mean but true: They both have plots that involve nothing but fluff for the first 3/4ths of the book and then in the last 30 or so pages BAM drama appears out of nowhere that has bare minimum to do with anything other than to give the book a semblance of plot.
- Their methods of communicating are different. GN had notes, HU had phone calls.
- Guitar Notes wasn't limited to epistolary
- Hung Up was exclusively done in phone call format.
- Hung Up's cover angers me
 |
| Look at those people. Look at their blatant faces. Be angry |
- The catalysts were different (HU was Lucy's big secret and GN was Lyla gets in a car accident)
To be honest, it's all a matter of opinion. While both endings came out of left field, Guitar Notes' didn't piss me off as much as Hung Up's did. Lucy ended up being a liar and her back story was so completely ridiculous that when I got to that part, I almost threw my book at the wall. While GN's was kind of random and just added in to give it a plot, it was an overall better book. Read that one instead.
Sincerely,
Owyn the Intern
P.S: Check out my blog for more of my reviews!
Posts
For Book store