The Universe Versus Alex Woods Review

TITLE The Universe Versus Alex Woods
AUTHOR Gavin Extence
PUBLICATION June 25th 2013 by Redhook
READ July 01 to 03, 2013
SOURCE From Hachette Canada for review

A rare meteorite struck Alex Woods when he was ten years old, leaving scars and marking him for an extraordinary future. The son of a fortune teller, bookish, and an easy target for bullies, Alex hasn't had the easiest childhood.
But when he meets curmudgeonly widower Mr. Peterson, he finds an unlikely friend. Someone who teaches him that that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make it count.
So when, aged seventeen, Alex is stopped at customs with 113 grams of marijuana, an urn full of ashes on the front seat, and an entire nation in uproar, he's fairly sure he's done the right thing ...
Introducing a bright young voice destined to charm the world, The Universe Versus Alex Woods is a celebration of curious incidents, astronomy and astrology, the works of Kurt Vonnegut and the unexpected connections that form our world.

In the midst of the worst reading slump I have ever encountered (not finishing a book in nearly 2 weeks and abandoning 3 titles in that time) I picked up The Universe Versus Alex Woods and was taken by the story from the very beginning. In the end I came out of this one very torn, thus the middle ground rating. Because of this I am going to be doing a very basic review of what I did/didn’t like.

What I did like: I loved the relationship that was built in the novel between Mr. Peterson and Alex Woods. Alex was the definition of socially awkward because of his interests and his general naivety when it came to relationships with others. But in Mr. Peterson he really came into himself and found out exactly what he wanted in life and what was important and what wasn’t. Going on the journey that Mr. Peterson and Alex go on together was absolutely heart wrenching and I found myself getting misty eyed at numerous parts. I also adored the relationship between Alex and his mother. She was a free spirit and she wanted to raise her son to be whomever he wanted to be. She had some strong outlooks on life and the afterlife but she never forced her ideals onto her son and happily sat & watched as his ideals took on very different forms from hers. She was constantly there to support her son in any way she could when he would let her in on what was going on with him.

Finally, I absolutely appreciated how the story focussed on friendship and mother/son love and there was never a romance to be found. I had worried at some instances that a romance was about to take the stage and that it would feel so out of place for Alex, but rest assured that never happens. I guess to sum up what I liked about the novel it can simply be put as the relationships. Even his awkward semi-friendship with goth/emo girl Ellie was done very well. I don’t think these two could ever figure each other out but Ellie was always very open and honest about how good she thought Alex to be. There was a level of respect between them, she respected him for his intelligence and kindness and I think Alex really admired her honesty and her way of being herself no matter what. These characters were just written so well that their emotions were palpable and I really came to feel like I knew them.

What I didn’t like: Now, I know that the story was written the way that it was because it was from Alex’s perspective and he was very much so a I-Need-To-Explain-Everything kind of guy but the constant straying from the plot to explain very trivial things had me wanting to skip some portions of the book altogether. At first I did find it endearing and thought that it really added to Alex’s voice but I think had a lot of this been cut out the book could have been much shorter and still conveyed all of the emotion that it did. This, being the only element of the novel that I wasn’t a fan of, ended up having a pretty big impact on my overall enjoyment of the story. During these sections I found myself to be incredibly bored and so it made the book feel as if it was much more draining than it should have been.

There was definitely more that I liked about this novel than what I didn’t like but I feel that the unnecessary strays from the plot had such a huge impact on my enjoyment of the story that it will be affecting my star rating. I will still be highly recommending this one for anyone looking for a break from the cliche romances that seem to be thrown at us at every turn and instead looking for a solid story of friendship. This one ends up being pretty heavy as it ponders the afterlife and deals with issues such as bullying and assisted suicide. But all of this is dealt with in a really great way and I am happy to have been able to go on Alex Woods’ journey.

Dangerous Girls Review

TITLE Dangerous Girls
AUTHOR Abigail Haas
PUBLICATION July 16th 2013 by Simon Pulse
READ June 21 to 22, 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

Paradise quickly gets gruesome in this thrilling page-turner with a plot that’s ripped from the headlines and a twist that defies the imagination.

It’s Spring Break of senior year. Anna, her boyfriend Tate, her best friend Elise, and a few other close friends are off to a debaucherous trip to Aruba that promises to be the time of their lives.

But when Elise is found brutally murdered, Anna finds herself trapped in a country not her own, fighting against vile and contemptuous accusations. As Anna sets out to find her friend’s killer, she discovers harsh revelations about her friendships, the slippery nature of truth, and the ache of young love.

Awaiting the judge’s decree, it becomes clear to Anna that everyone around her thinks she is not only guilty, but also dangerous. And when the whole story comes out, reality is more shocking than anyone ever imagined...

I have complained on many occasions in the past about the lack of good murder mysteries in the YA genre. The ones that I have gotten the chance to read often feel much too far fetched for my liking or are much too predictable. But I have to say that I think Abigail Haas has hit a home run with her novel Dangerous Girls. The story starts off with a bang and keeps you guessing with every single page turn. I sat down one night to get started on the novel and just read a feeler chapter before bed and before I knew it it was 1 AM and the book was half done.

Elise and Anna have become best friends. They are inseparable and they act as each other's partner in crime as they go to college parties and experiment with drugs and alcohol. We get a really vivid picture of their friendship as the story unfolds because it tells the story of them meeting, the vacation they go on to Aruba as well as the events that take place after Elise’s death. The one negative thing that I have to point out about this novel is that sometimes getting a picture of what time frame I was reading about was difficult. The chapters jump from the present and to two different time frames of the past (arriving in Aruba and the beginning of Elise and Anna’s friendship.) Oftentimes it took me an entire page to realize what point in time I was reading about. But at the same time I do think that this method of telling the story was effective. I liked getting a clear picture of the past that these two girls had and seeing exactly what happened in their final days in Aruba. It would have been nice if the jumps from time frame to time frame were more defined, clear and concise.

As far as characters go, I found myself feeling incredibly bad for Anna. She had gone through a lot. Switching to a new school in the middle of the year, dealing with her mothers cancer and being completely outcasted were taking its toll on her in the beginning. I could definitely relate to how detached she felt because of all of these things and I was happy when Elise took an interest in her and Anna’s social life finally began to grow. The two had a really great friendship but I always viewed Elise as a really dark character who was constantly making bad decisions (didn’t we all know that girl in high school?) We get to see some darkness in their friendship as Anna starts to date Tate and begins to have a life separate from her friendship to Elise. The jealousy that comes from Elise and how torn Anna is about it all was portrayed really well and left you questioning who had murdered Elise because so many different motives were brought forth.

There are also some great chapters in the novel that are transcripts of phone calls or TV specials about the murder and these were a great addition to the story as well. There is a strong sense of a courtroom drama throughout the novel which set a perfect tone for the story. When Anna was on the stand being drilled about everything pertaining to Elise I felt so nervous for her! It was pretty intense. Once we get a clear picture of what happened to Elise I was floored. I have to say that I was not able to call this one at all and am so thankful for that.

Filled with twists and drama that will keep you turning the pages long into the night, Dangerous Girls is a can’t miss for anyone looking for a good murder mystery. It felt like I was watching an intense true crime show on TV but it was great because I got to walk away with all of the answers.

Blog Tour: Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini

Today, I am very excited to have the Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini blog tour stop here at the blog.  This tour is brought to you by Rockstar Book Tours and I will be featuring a book spotlight along with some quotes from the novel and a chance to win in a great giveaway.  First, here is a little more about the book:

Touching the Surface

by Kimberly Sabatini

published October 30th 2012 by Simon Pulse

Experience the afterlife in this lyrical, paranormal debut novel that will send your heart soaring.When Elliot finds herself dead for the third time, she knows she must have messed up, big-time. She doesn’t remember how she landed in the afterlife again, but she knows this is her last chance to get things right.

Elliot just wants to move on, but first she will be forced to face her past and delve into the painful memories she’d rather keep buried. Memories of people she’s hurt, people she’s betrayed…and people she’s killed.

As she pieces together the secrets and mistakes of her past, Elliot must find a way to earn the forgiveness of the person she’s hurt most, and reveal the truth about herself to the two boys she loves…even if it means losing them both forever.

Quotes 

“Maybe heaven was innocence, limbo was ignorance, and hell was fiery illumination.”

“Look on the bright side... " David said.
I waited. Then he roared with laughter. 
"What?" 
"I can't think of anything."
"Asshole.” 

“That's when I saw you, really saw you for the first time. I didn't intend to look at you, it just happened. It was like those pictures, you know, those optical illusions. You can gaze at them forever and see only one thing. Then when you relax your eyes for just a moment, another picture magically appears. The funny thing with that kind of visual trick it that it's really hard to go back to seeing the original picture once you've seen the new one.”

A good friend of mine, Christina of A Reader of Fictions loved this novel and wrote a lovely review for it so here is a link to that review if you want to read it

Click Here To Read Her Review

Kimberly's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Kimberly Sabatini is a former Special Education Teacher who is now a stay-at-home mom and a part-time dance instructor for three and four year olds. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband and three boys.
Kimberly writes Young Adult fiction and is represented by Michelle Wolfson of Wolfson Literary Agency. TOUCHING THE SURFACE is her debut novel. (Simon Pulse – Simon & Schuster, October 30, 2012)

Giveaway

#1: Signed hardcover copies of Touching the Surface for 4 lucky winners - US ONLY
#2: Signed hardcover copy of Touching the Surface for 1 lucky winner - INTL ONLY
Last day to enter is July 21, 2013
Fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter:

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This post is a part of the blog tour brought to you by Rockstar Book Tours

Click the banner below to see all the stops on this tour:

Book Girl's Don't Cry - What I Like To See In A Blog

This week Giselle mentioned that she wanted to talk about what we like to see in blogs, what makes us become a regular visitor/commenter so we decided to run with that. Amy and I have done a similar topic back when we were with the Book Buzzers but it's been a while and we both definitely have some new things to add to our lists.  Now, remember that everything I am about to mention is entirely personal preference and if your blog happens to have something I say I don't like or not have something I like it in no way means your blog is bad. This is just my opinion and everyone looks for different things in the blogs that they frequent.

Look

As far as the actual look of a blog I am definitely a fan of lighter coloured, simple blogs.  I find neutral colors (beiges, whites, light hues, etc.) to be much more welcoming and easy on the eyes.  I also am not big on clutter.  I don't need to know whose team you are on for every novel you have ever read and I don't need to know what tours you were on three months ago.  There have been so many instances where I have gone to a blog and see a tour banner that is way past and I wish I had the power to go on and take it off for the blogger.

In the vein of bogged down blogs that lead me to be confused as to what is going on with it I have to say that I am not at all a fan of Google+.  When I am going to comment back to someone who has been so kind to leave me a comment and I see that they are set up with Google+ I always let out a very annoyed groan.  You can't tell on that thing what was shared by that person from someone else's blog and what posts are actually from their blog.  If I have to sit there a sift through posts to find the persons actual blog they tend to lose me as a commenter because it's uber annoying.

Content

As far as actual content on a blog, the one thing that I like to see most of is of course reviews.  If I go to a blog and see meme post after meme post I'm not a fan.  That isn't to say that I am not a fan of memes, because I am. I love seeing people's Top 10 Tuesdays and Teaser Tuesdays but that can't be ALL that is sustaining your blog. I also look for reviews on both ends of the spectrum.  Like, if I see a blog with all 5 star reviews that blogs opinion doesn't hold much water with me so I am not going to frequent it to see what they think of stuff. At the same time, I'm not a fan of a blog that hates everything either because well, that's just no fun at all.

Finally, I am a big fan of social bloggers.  When I see bloggers that are chatty on Twitter and very social on GR I am fast to become a follower because I love conversing with bookish people. 

This is some of the stuff that I look for when I stop by a blog to decide if I want to add it to my favourites or not, what do you look for?

Also, don't forget that we are always looking for topic suggestions for future posts.

Fill out the suggestion form here!

Stacking the Shelves (60)

The trend of slow weeks for me continued through this week, but I made myself feel better by going to the bookstore twice and finding some good deals & getting some books that I am really excited for.  I did get one ARC this week:

A big thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for this pretty.  Back when I used to do WoW this was one of them so I am super happy that I got my hands on it.

The books I bought:

Bystander and You Against Me were only $4.99 each so I figured that I couldn't go wrong with them.  I've been wanting to read something by Jenny Downham for a while so that one was a really exciting find.  I also bought what will be my first Neil Gaiman book and what will be my first Sarah Dessen book.  I've heard really good things about their latest novels so I decided it was time to introduce myself to these authors. 

Have you entered the madness?

If you haven't yet, be sure to check out the Cover Madness Hop that is going on in the blogoverse right now. There are over 60 chances to win some really great books!

What did you get this week?

Right of Way Review

TITLE Right of Way
AUTHOR Lauren Barnholdt
PUBLICATION July 9th 2013 by Simon Pulse
READ June 19 to 20, 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

Can a road trip repair a romance gone wrong? Find out in this standalone companion to Lauren Barnholdt’s Two-way Street.

Here are Peyton and Jace, meeting on vacation. Click! It’s awesome, it’s easy, it’s romantic. This is the real deal.

Unless it isn’t. Because when you’re in love, you don’t just stop calling one day. And you don’t keep secrets. Or lie. And when your life starts falling apart, you’re supposed to have the other person to lean on.

Here are Peyton and Jace again, broken up but thrown together on a road trip. One of them is lying about the destination. One of them is pretending not to be leaving something behind. And neither of them is prepared for what’s coming on the road ahead…

And to think, this one held so much promise. I was really excited heading into Right Of Way. A road trip novel and a complicated romance? Yes, please. Unfortunately this story quickly began to feel rather childish and I failed to connect to any of the characters.

Peyton and Jace have had a complicated relationship, actually their relationship has ended. After meeting over Christmas, having a few good dates and then experiencing their relationship growing over the phone, their relationship was cut short when Jace stopped responding. It was a cold way for the relationship to end and Peyton was heartbroken. Luckily, we do get both perspectives here and we quickly find out that Jace is also heartbroken by something that Peyton never told him that led him to cut the relationship off. As these threads were revealed in alternating chapters and we got to find out why the relationship ended I was definitely left feeling underwhelmed. Jace’s reason for cutting Peyton out of his life is pretty selfish and absolutely childish. I know that sometimes in romances we don’t make the best choices, but this one was pretty darn ridiculous.

The two are reunited at Peyton’s uncles wedding and they finally decide to talk about what happened all those months ago. This story was pretty confusing at times. It took place after the wedding when Peyton was planning on running away from home to North Carolina only to be ditched by her best friend and have to hitch a ride with Jace. We also get chapters leading up to the wedding titled “before” that show how the two of them were feeling leading up to their big reunion. It got pretty confusing at times and I constantly had to flip back to find out who I was reading about and what time frame the story was currently taking place in. The two perspectives really didn’t feel distinct to me. Sure Jace’s POV had a few more swears in it, but the thought patterns and inner dialogue when thinking about things felt far too similar to be two different people.

Peyton was what I would call a runner. Instead of dealing with any of her issues head on, she finds a way to cut all the important conversations short that she doesn’t want to deal with. Her rather childish behavior for someone 17 years of age had me feeling detached from her actually to the point of strongly disliking her. Her mother is a shopaholic and has done some pretty thoughtless, cold things in the wake of her addiction and Peyton’s solution to this is to run away. I was so frustrated with her inability to deal with anything that was thrown at her in the story. When you look at Jace’s character I guess he was a bit of a runner too, after all he dropped Peyton like a hot potato when he found out her secret (which was really none of his business anyway.)

While the time line does jump all over the place in this one the plot is pretty typical. The last 40 pages or so I felt like I didn’t even need to bother reading because I knew exactly how everything was going to play out (and I was right by the way.) I don’t think there is anything in this novel that stands out among the million other contemporaries out there and if you are looking for a strong connection to characters, I wouldn’t look here.

Contaminated Review

TITLE Contaminated (Contaminated #1)
AUTHOR Em Garner
PUBLICATION July 23rd 2013 by EgmontUSA
READ June 24, 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

After the Contamination—an epidemic caused by the super-trendy diet drink SlimPro that turned ordinary citizens into violent, uncontrollable creatures—the government rounded up the “Connies” to protect the remaining population. Now, two years later, the rehabilitated are being allowed home, complete with shock collars that will either control, or kill, them.

Velvet Ellis has struggled to care for her ten-year-old sister since her parents were taken in the round up. When she finds her mother in one of the “Kennels,” Velvet resolves to do whatever it takes to put her family back together. But the danger isn’t over. It’s beginning all over again…

Gritty and grabbing, Velvet is a harrowing, emotionally charged novel for fans of Carrie Ryan and The Walking Dead.

Blergh. I really didn’t want to finish this book. But I did. Through the first 100 pages I had hoped that something would happen that would suck me into the story and really get the ball rolling. Then once I was passed those 100 pages and it hadn’t happened I felt that I was past the point of no return and decided to finish off the book even though I wasn’t a fan of it.

My main issue with this book is that it felt completely aimless. The story focuses on Velvet and Opal. Two sisters who are surviving on their own after a weight loss drink has contaminated the world and turned people into living, breathing zombies. When the outbreak first occurred it was thought that the only way to save these people was with an ice pick in the eye to do a lobotomy but things have moved forward and when we meet Velvet they are quite different. They have found a way to neutralize the Connies (what they call the contaminated.) They use shock collars to keep them tame and they have them living in kennels until loved ones come and lay claim to them.

When we meet Velvet she is a frequenter of the kennels as she searches for her mother. Of course she finds her and signs all of the papers so that she can finally bring her mom home and they can be a family again. That is basically the story. It’s a lot of Velvet playing house and taking care of her younger sister and her mom. Her mom is basically an invalid, needing to be bathed and wearing a diaper and all that jazz. Along with taking in her mother from the kennel, Velvet also gets a heavy dose of discrimination. There were moments where I felt bad for Velvet and how she had to grow up so fast and be responsible for her little sister and eventually her mother. But I can’t say that I ever found myself caring enough to actually get emotional about anything. In my waiting for something to happen I had a constant feeling of detachment from the story.

While I did find myself at least feeling bad for Velvet, I didn’t find myself feeling anything for any of the other characters. Her first boyfriend, Tony, was an ass who cheated on her so I hated him. At the tail end of the story she meets a new guy in Dillon and he felt too much like a knight in shining armor to me. He came in and was so sweet and overly good to Velvet that it just felt too good to be true. After such darkness was used to portray pretty much everyone in the world he felt much too perfect and I think I would have been able to be sold on his character had I gotten to see some of his flaws. They also fall for each other pretty fast with left me longing for more natural development so that I could ship them, but it just wasn't there.

Some of the early buzz for Contaminated that I saw uses phrases like “relentlessly horrifying” and “bone chilling” and “unputdownable”, I have to say that I didn’t see any of this. I put the book down after every few chapters and had to force myself to pick it back up, so I am deeming it “unpickupable”.

Midwinterblood Review

TITLE Midwinterblood
AUTHOR Marcus Sedgwick
PUBLICATION April 22nd 2014 by Square Fish
READ June 17 to 18, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

Have you ever had the feeling that you've lived another life? Been somewhere that has felt totally familiar, even though you've never been there before, or felt that you know someone well, even though you are meeting them for the first time? It happens. In 2073 on the remote and secretive island of Blessed, where rumour has it that no one ages and no children are born, a visiting journalist, Eric Seven, and a young local woman known as Merle are ritually slain. Their deaths echo a moment ten centuries before, when, in the dark of the moon, a king was slain, tragically torn from his queen. Their souls search to be reunited, and as mother and son, artist and child, forbidden lovers, victims of a vampire they come close to finding what they've lost. In a novel comprising seven parts, each influenced by a moon - the flower moon, the harvest moon, the hunter's moon, the blood moon - this is the story of Eric and Merle whose souls have been searching for each other since their untimely parting.

I’m not sure how I feel about Midwinterblood being classified as horror. I mean sure, a vampire rears it’s head in the pages, and there is a strong theme of sacrifice that becomes quite gruesome, but through all of this it is a love story. It is an epic love story that transcends time.

I had a tough time easing into this one. The writing is what I have come to expect of a gothic novel in that it feels rather old and formal. However, once I was able to get into the flow of the prose I did get sucked into the story. We are treated to 7 stories that are in revers chronological order. So we start off in 2073 and work our way all the way back to before the 10th century. I’m not sure how I felt about this, I mean I liked it but it seemed to me that things were overlapping in a way that could only happen if time were moving forward. For example, the second story tells a tale of an archaeological dig in 2011 that takes place on Blessed Island in which they find a coffin (cairn) that contains two bodies. Jump one story after that and it is 1944 and we get the story of a fallen airman who finds himself stranded on the island with a broken ankle. He reads in the paper about an archaeological dig on an island that he just knows he has been to before. See, it makes sense if time is moving forward, but how did someone in the past make that connection. Unless he lived the 7 lives in reverse, but that just doesn’t make sense because the 7th life was in 2073. See! I am confused folks, maybe something went over my head here, and I am going to look like an idiot when someone explains it to me but this is how I feel right now.

I did enjoy the epicness of the love story here. I loved how we got the end of their story in the beginning and worked our way back, so I guess you can say I liked the general idea of it though the execution left me scratching my head a bit. Reading all the stories and connecting little strings was fun. Every time a new one would start I was so excited to find out who Eric and Merle were in that life. I also did come to really enjoy the darkness of the writing. In my head it read very ominously and I did feel a little creeped out during the last few stories.

Midwinterblood is beautifully written, incredibly dark novel that will make you long for a love like the one you are reading. I do wish that I didn’t end up being so confused for most of it because I do think that it took away from my immediate enjoyment of the novel but looking back it’s definitely a solid story worth reading.

Book Girls Don't Cry - Where are the parents?

For this weeks topic we have decided to voice our thoughts on parents in young adult books.  It seems that I am constantly coming across absent parents or overbearing parents in the books that I read. Rarely do I find a happy medium is achieved by the author on the parental front, it is always either one extreme or the other and that ends up being a big complaint of mine when I finish up the book.

When I look back on the parental intervention in my life growing up I think it was a bit on the slack side.  I was incredibly close with my mother and I would always creep into her room when I got home from wherever I was to talk to her about my night.  It didn't matter what time it was that I came creeping in, she would wake up and we would talk for a bit, sometimes hours.  I wasn't told what time I had to be home, I was expected to use my head and make sure that I was back at a decent time.  I think the open door policy between my mother and I is really what kept me in line in my younger years.  We would talk through things and she would straight up tell me when I was being an idiot.

I think that the freedom that I was given in my teens lead to me being pretty level headed.  Sure I was a hot head when it came to boys and such but I never got myself into scary situations and was able to be pretty level headed.  Now, because of this freedom that I had I can always understand when the parents aren't completely present in the kids life in books.  But when I see that the communication is completely lacking I begin to have a problem with the relationship.  I'm always bothered when I don't see the parents taking an active interest into where their child was or who they were with.  I know you can't keep your teenager on a leash for their entire life but a good conversation can go a long way.  A simple conversation between a parent and their kid can achieve so much in a book.

I am always a fan of a novel with a good family unit because I love reading about family dynamics.  There are so many places the author can take the relationships of siblings and parent/child so I always like to see it explored.  Now, I understand that not all families get along and there ARE parents out there who are absent in their child's life so seeing it here and there is definitely not a bad thing. But it just seems to me that more often than not the parents are absent in the books that I read.  Maybe that is why I started venturing into MG a little more, it seems that age group focuses on the family unit a lot more.

So this is just my take on parents in YA and what I would like to see a bit more of. I understand that the parent/child relationship can get in the way of the progression of the plot in a lot of books but I think that the building of that relationship can really add to the development of the character.  Character development is always first and foremost in the importance department on my checklist of what makes a good book so I think that adding layers there in any way you can is always a good thing.

What do you think about the parents in YA books? Would you like to see their relationships with their kids get a bit more development?

Also, don't forget that we are always looking for topic suggestions for future posts.

Fill out the suggestion form here!