Famous Last Words by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

Shelby is currently unemployed and would like to keep it that way.ĪJ is in college and a second year intern, so he's showing Sam the ropes. Shelby has a hard time accepting the fact that Sam has a job and puts in a lot of long hours depending on the paper's needs. She is constantly trying to get Sam to go out, but Sam isn't much for parties.

Shelby, on the other hand, is a flirt and loves to party. He seems nice enough to her, friendly, talks to her, but the group of friends he hangs out with are the typical stuck up popular crowd that belittle every one around them. Sam is really shy and not very outgoing and Rob is totally out of her league. The problem is Rob is dating one of the most beautiful girls in school. They were at a party and Shelby went up to Rob McGinty, Sam's long time crush and told him Sam had a thing for him. Her best friend is Shelby, who she is kind of mad at currently. Unfortunately, she doesn't get to showcase her talents much in obits as the space allotted each person is relatively small and they just provide the stats of the person's life. She longs to do something a little bit more news worthy, so she does hit some of the reporters up with story ideas hoping she might get the chance to write a feature. Since she is low man on the totem pole, so to speak, she is assigned obits. She is called an intern, but she does get paid for the job. Sam is spending her last summer of high school at the local paper. They are, after all, all about the characters and the characters are very well defined. The background is not nearly as fleshed out as the characters, but it really works for her stories. Doktorski's last book, there is not a whole lot of depth to the locations within the book. Most of the action takes place in the newsroom.

The two scramble to fill the obits page, because if there are not enough people dying, they have to do a feature obit which entails calling friends and family for quotes, so they can do a feature on someone for the day. Her partner in crime is AJ, who works in obits with her. She is called intern scum by Harry, the editor in chief, and Moronica by Bernie, the copy-desk editor.

The story opens up with her writing her own obituary.

I think the job may have gotten to her because all throughout the book, she is writing people's obituaries, people that are very much alive. It is the only paper that still prints on the premises and while it may seem like a dream summer job, the problem is she is writing the obituaries. Sam has taken a summer intern position at the local paper, the Herald Tribune.

Famous Last Words by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski