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261st out of 294 books
—
183 voters
Marly's Ghost
by
David Levithan (Goodreads Author),
Brian Selznick
When Ben's girlfriend, Marly, dies, he feels his life is over. What could possibly matter now when Marly is gone? So when Valentine's Day approaches, it makes sense that this day that was once so meaningful to Ben leaves him feeling bitter and hollow. But then Marly shows up--or at least her ghost does--along with three others spirits. Now Ben must take a painful journey t...more
Paperback, 208 pages
Published
October 18th 2007
by Speak
(first published December 1st 2005)
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I'm not really that big a fan of Charles Dickens, but I am a huge fan of David Levithan and Brian Selznick. I was expecting a modernization of A Christmas Carol with a twist and the amazing dialogue and true-to-life characters that I expect from Levinthan. What I didn't expect was the cheesy nearly word-for-word retelling of a book I never really liked in the first place.
It should really come as no surprise that Marly is dead, the victim of a cancer that claims the lives of far too many peop...more
It should really come as no surprise that Marly is dead, the victim of a cancer that claims the lives of far too many peop...more
Ben's girlfriend, Marly, has died, and he can't find himself able to move on. He isolates himself from his friends, and he completely avoids any chance to celebrate Valentine's Day, which was his and Marly's favorite holiday. He begins to believe that love and this holiday are both humbug, and so begins his hauntings of the ghosts of Valentine's day past, present, and future. This story is a clever spinoff of A Christmas Carol, but it is experienced by a young man during Valentine's Day. It's re...more
Welcome to A Christmas Carol: the Valentine's Day Version, a truly inspired retelling.
Marly has died, after a slow withering away, leaving her boyfriend Ben alone. And as most of us would probably be quick to do, Ben needs to lay blame. So he blames the world, and love, and life. Love tricked him, left him. He decides it can't be trusted. And that no one else should trust it, believe in it, or experience it either. If possible, this is even more heartbreaking thatn all that the original Scrooge...more
Marly has died, after a slow withering away, leaving her boyfriend Ben alone. And as most of us would probably be quick to do, Ben needs to lay blame. So he blames the world, and love, and life. Love tricked him, left him. He decides it can't be trusted. And that no one else should trust it, believe in it, or experience it either. If possible, this is even more heartbreaking thatn all that the original Scrooge...more
Ben is heartbroken and hates all things surrounding love and Valentine's Day ever since his long-time girlfriend died of cancer. He makes a point to be surly wherever he goes and he's starting to lose focus on what's really important. He is suddenly visited by some very interesting spirits who work to help him understand the true meaning of love and Valentine's Day.
I was really interested by the thought of _A Christmas Carol_ being presented as a new adaptation, but this kind of just came across...more
I was really interested by the thought of _A Christmas Carol_ being presented as a new adaptation, but this kind of just came across...more
In this book, David Levithan writes a re-mix of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In this version Ebenezer “Ben” Scrooge is a 17-year-old high school student who has just lost the love-of-his-life Marly. He struggles to find the will to go on and spreads his unhappiness and hatred and distrust of love to those around him, including his friends and acquaintances. They attempt to help him deal with the loss, but he is having none of it.
On Valentine’s Day eve, he is visited by the ghost of Marly,...more
On Valentine’s Day eve, he is visited by the ghost of Marly,...more
This was the fourth David Levithan book I've read. I despised the first and didn't appreciate the second, but with the third, I thought that I'd finally found an appreciation of him. When I first started Marly's Ghost I was confident that I actually liked his writing, that it had been an unfortunate coincidence that I didn't like the two co-authored novels that I had read. By half way through the first chapter, I was wrong.
I thought Marly's Ghost was terrible. The premise was promising: A remix...more
I thought Marly's Ghost was terrible. The premise was promising: A remix...more
Yep, you've guessed it - this is a modern day retelling of the famous A Christmas Carol. This short book tells of Ben's journey after the death of his girlfriend, Marley. Some interesting elements are added here - for instance Tiny Tim has now become a male gay couple and Valentine's Day has replaced Christmas. The rest of the elements are kept quite similar and it's interesting comparing the two books.
More @ ComaCalm's Corner!
More @ ComaCalm's Corner!
This book describes itself as a remix of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and I can't fault the description. The premise is changes from an embittered 19th century miser scoffing at Christmas to a 21st century teen, Ben, whose girlfriend, Marly, has recently died of cancer, and who can't bear to face the approaching Valentines Day. The story borrows a little too heavily from the source material, and the Dickensian vocabulary and phrasing ring awkward in the mouths and minds of the contemporar...more
Marly’s Ghost is a modern day retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol; the only exception being that it takes place on Valentine’s Day instead of Christmas. Ben’s girlfriend Marly loses her life to cancer and Ben is distraught. When Valentine’s Day rolls around, Ben is so bitter about love that he tries to ruin the holiday for everyone else.
David Levithan was able to take a Christmas classic and put a nice twist on it. Marly’s Ghost follows A Christmas Carol very closely, but is still d...more
David Levithan was able to take a Christmas classic and put a nice twist on it. Marly’s Ghost follows A Christmas Carol very closely, but is still d...more
What works? Death of a friend is traumatising at any age. For a young man in high school the loss of a girl friend would indeed be painful. Well-meaning friends would try to reach out, and in anger hurtful words could indeed be said. Presenting the love between the two young men was a nice, modern addition and acknowledgement. Seeing Ben's actions as the cause of Marly's continued suffering was an effective twist. She needed his help and much as he needed hers.
What did not work? Ebenezer Scroog...more
What did not work? Ebenezer Scroog...more
High school student Ben is mourning the death of his girlfriend, Marly. In his grief, he has changed: he is alienating his friends, he is making snide comments to other students, and he believes that "love is humbug." On the night before Valentine's Day, he is visited by Marly's ghost, who warns him that he will have three visitors that night. The visitors are the spirits of Valentine's Days past, present, and future. This remix, as the author calls it, of Dickens's A Christmas Carol follows a v...more
This is a wonderful book that is engaging and engrossing. It's written intelligently framing all of the elements of the original Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol to fit a modern day Valentine's Day, and Levithan admitted in the author's note that it was originally going to be a romantic comedy, but matured into the finished product, and being a reader, as well as an aspiring writer, I rather appreicate that. This is also a romance story that deals with the supernatural, in which the main chara...more
Ben has just suffered a loss unimaginable to most teenagers - the death of his girlfriend. And now, as Valentine's Day looms and he isolates himself from the people who care about him, he is visited by Marly's ghost, who tells him to expect three spirits...
This is sort of a remix of "A Christmas Carol" by Dickens so I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. I think Levithan is fantastic normally but here, I just didn't get him. I don't know if it's a result of t...more
This is sort of a remix of "A Christmas Carol" by Dickens so I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. I think Levithan is fantastic normally but here, I just didn't get him. I don't know if it's a result of t...more
Levithan's process for writing this book (which he describes in the Author's Note) was more interesting to me than the story itself, although it was a quick, fun read. A retelling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Levithan's version is set on Valentine's Day and Ben (a teen-aged Ebenezer Scrooge) is suffering. His girlfriend, Marly, has recently died and he's become cynical and hard-hearted about love as a result. Three ghosts appear (love past, love present, love future) and...well, it's...more
David Levithan calls this book a remix. It's an almost exact re-telling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, but set in modern times. It revolves around Ben, a boy turning his back on love after the death of his girlfriend Marly, lost to cancer. You know the story...he sees love as a humbug, and then is visited by a series of ghosts who attempt to show him the error of his ways.
This book follows Dickens's original so closely that it never had a chance to develop its Levithan-ness, which is a...more
This book follows Dickens's original so closely that it never had a chance to develop its Levithan-ness, which is a...more
For what the book was, a Valentine's Day version of "A Christmas Carol" I really enjoyed the book. I would have liked to see a little bit more artistic license taken with the book, but Levithan stated in the author's note that was not his intent, so for the intent of the author it was a really good book. Although the plot was all very predictable having read A Christmas Carol or seen any version of it, the book is still very cute while still being a very sad tale. The author did exactly what he...more
"Marly's Ghost" ist eine Nacherzählung von Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol" (dt. "Eine Weihnachtsgeschichte"), nur dass es hier nicht um Weihnachten geht, sondern um den Valentinstag.
Marly, die Freundin von Ben, ist vor vier Monaten an Krebs gestorben und musste Ben alleine zurücklassen. Und so fühlt er sich auch, er zieht sich zurück, kümmert sich nicht mehr um seine Freunde, die natürlich auch um Marly trauern, und Ben wünscht sich, auch tot zu sein. An Valentinstag kommt der Geist von Marl...more
Marly, die Freundin von Ben, ist vor vier Monaten an Krebs gestorben und musste Ben alleine zurücklassen. Und so fühlt er sich auch, er zieht sich zurück, kümmert sich nicht mehr um seine Freunde, die natürlich auch um Marly trauern, und Ben wünscht sich, auch tot zu sein. An Valentinstag kommt der Geist von Marl...more
Jun 18, 2010
Emily
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Anyone who thinks Dickens' version just wasn't sappy enough
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This in not a good book. I did not finish it. I was looking for a fun read after the Beirut to Jerusalem book. This is a YA short fiction called a "remix of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol." The book is about 16 year old Ben who has just suffered through the cancer death of his girlfriend, Marly. Ben is now "Bah Humbug" about love in general and Valentine's Day in particular. On Valentine's Day Eve, he is visited by the ghost of Marly who is chained to the earth because of him. The book goes...more
view all 4 comments
Dec 11, 2009
Infinite Playlist
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
my sister, Anni, anyone who enjoys a sweet lovestory
Above all things, this book is about love. You can find it on every page, in every sentence. Every word is pure feeling. As usual David Levithan managed to capture something beatiful in his words, something you can feel by reading those unique descriptions.
This story has the undertitle "a remix of The Christmas Carol" which describes it perfectly. It is a retelling of Charle's Dickens classic but instead of Christmas the holiday of the moment is Valentine's Day. I'm impressed how Mr. Levithan ma...more
This story has the undertitle "a remix of The Christmas Carol" which describes it perfectly. It is a retelling of Charle's Dickens classic but instead of Christmas the holiday of the moment is Valentine's Day. I'm impressed how Mr. Levithan ma...more
Feb 13, 2008
Lacey Louwagie
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Dickins' fans
Recommended to Lacey by:
Theodora
So, this is a Valentine's version of A Christmas Carol. The premise is that the main character, Ben, hates Valentine's Day ever since his girlfriend Marly died of canceer. It was my first time ever reading a remixed novel, so the phrases and dialogue that came directly from Dickins's original jarred me a bit -- and I kept getting pushed out of the story because the Muppet Christmas Carol stayed so close to Dickins's original language that I couldn't hear anyone except muppet characters saying a...more
Marly's Ghost is a Valentine's story based on Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Actually, it's more than just a retelling. It is what Levithan refers to as a remix:
...more
This is very much a remix novel. While I've endeavored to create my own music, I've also sampled greatly from the story's original source. . . .
I decided to reread Dickens's original. I hadn't read it since ninth grade or so, and I quickly realized that I'd let all of the other versions (from Scrooged to Scrooge McDuck) block out what Dic
Oct 13, 2007
LFPL Teen Services
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
death,
books-for-boys
“When you die, the heart just stops. When she died, my heart just stopped. I knew she was dead. In every hour, every minute, every second since that one small gasp, I knew she was dead. How could it be otherwise?”
When Marly died, so did Ben’s passion for life and love. He found consolation in the fact that since she was dead, he should lead his life as though he were dead too. When Valentine’s Day rolls around and the school is decorated with hearts and flowers and everyone in the halls feels th...more
When Marly died, so did Ben’s passion for life and love. He found consolation in the fact that since she was dead, he should lead his life as though he were dead too. When Valentine’s Day rolls around and the school is decorated with hearts and flowers and everyone in the halls feels th...more
In this "remix" of Dickens's classic Christmas Carol, teenaged Ben must cope with his girlfriend's death by being visited by the spirits of love past, present, and future. The idea was clever, and it was fun picking out which characters were which from the original story, but the re-used dialogue was out of place, coming across as stilted and meaningless. If Levithan had either always had the characters speaking like Dickens or paraphrased the original lines, it would have been smoother. All the...more
A new twist to the common re-telling of 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens. Creating a refreshing new idea to a timeless classic, rather than Christmas the holiday is St. Valentines day. Although all the characters remain the same, Levithan has transformed every one of them. Bringing new ideas to the table such as changing Tiny-Tim to two separate characters. Both carry the same message of the original. The beginning of the story is still the same but takes you for a whirlwind when the first...more
I read part of this book standing up. So into it I couldn't sit. David Levithan has done it again. I didn't like the original book by Charles Dickens. The movie was great. The text, ah not so much. He's not my favorite author, but I respect Dickens' talent.
This was a classy remix. I wouldn't have thought a book could be remixed, but he did that. (He said so in the author's notes.) It sounds corny, but the book made me want to be a better person. It was odd because so much is happening in my lif...more
This was a classy remix. I wouldn't have thought a book could be remixed, but he did that. (He said so in the author's notes.) It sounds corny, but the book made me want to be a better person. It was odd because so much is happening in my lif...more
Love and compassion are the essence of this A CHRISTMAS CAROL retold...Valentine's Day style. Unlike the original, Tiny Tim is not one child, rather, there is a homosexual relationship between Tiny and Tim (two individual male teen characters) in this story. The book is very different from Dickens' original tale, but in other ways, it is very much the same. It appears to me that the author accomplished what he sought out to do and it did it well.
I really like the idea of remixing a well known story, and the plot of this is nice and a really quick read. At the end, it just felt a bit immature and not enough of a revolution, or opening-up of Dickens's story as I would have liked to seen. For this reason, I only gave it 3 stars. Ultimately, if it's near Valentine's Day and you'd like a nice story about love and loss and getting over it, it's a pretty quick and decent pick up.
It was soo much like the Christmas Carol. I had recently finished reading the Christmas Carol for L.A when I picked this up at the library. At times I would laugh, not because it was funny but of how similar to dickens masterpiece. I remember in our play we acted out the 20 question's scene and in this book it was word for word to the Christmas Carol. Though a bit awkward, i enjoyed this book and would recommend it to many people.
Good pre-teen read, but Levithan goes the Twilight movie route here: instead of writing it how it is, he goes out of his way to create equality-based characters. In Twilight's (non-book) case a collage of ethnicity, in this case a pandora's box of sexual preferences. All and all entertaining if you are a fan of A Christmas Carol, but I've read far more interesting books in this age group.
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David Levithan (born 1972) is an American children's book editor and award-winning author. He published his first YA book, Boy Meets Boy, in 2003. Levithan is also the founding editor of PUSH, a Young Adult imprint of Scholastic Press.
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“Life goes on. Get over it. You're still young. It'll get better. Blah, Blah, Blah”
—
94 people liked it
“It was a laugh that came from the tip of his toes, gaining force and soul as it traveled through his body and out into the world in mirthful bursts. There wasn't anything fake about it; it was an amusement park of a laugh, and when it appeared, you wanted to jump on board.”
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