Review Detail

This is a well-written, feel good story with just the right ingredients to keep you in suspense, make you cry from the good and bad, and also make you laugh. If you liked John Green’s “The Fault In Our Stars”, you’ll love Sherry Mayes’ “Stop the world.” This novel is about triumph and disaster, and as in Rudyard Kipling’s “If,” treats those two impostors the same. The story is seen through the eyes of main character and Beauty Queen, Jody Angel Taylor. Although Jody is/was a beauty queen, she is the prototype flawed and beautifully crafted protagonist.

I love the structure and pacing of “Stop the world”. We meet Jody at her lowest point, a broken girl who has to find some semblance of a life in the midst of chaos and misfortune. She must not only deal with her own physical, mental, and emotional demons, but somehow factor in her mother’s heartache as well. And deal with them she does. My favorite character is Annie aka Dr. Sledgehammer. She brings to mind Carla from the back-in-the-day sitcom “Cheers.” In short, “Stop the World” is unpredictable, inspiring, and a testament to the human spirit.