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.

Golden Boy Tour Stop (Review/Interview)

TITLE Golden Boy
AUTHOR Abigail Tarttelin
PUBLICATION May 21st 2013 by Atria Books
READ May 03 to 04, 2013
SOURCE From Simon & Schuster Canada for review

From a rising literary star Abigail Tarttelin comes an unforgettable novel about a boy, a secret, and the single traumatizing event that sends his seemingly charmed life into tailspin.

Max Walker is a golden boy. Attractive, intelligent, and athletic, he’s the perfect son, the perfect friend, and a perfect crush for the girls in his school. He’s even really nice to his little brother, Daniel, a decidedly imperfect ten-year-old. Karen Walker is a beautiful, highly successful criminal lawyer, who works hard to maintain the facade of effortless excellence she has constructed over the years. Now that the boys are getting older, now that she won’t have as much control, she worries that the facade might soon begin to crumble. Steve Walker is also a successful prosecutor, so much so that he is running for election to Parliament. The spotlight of the media is about to encircle their lives.

But the Walkers have a secret. Max was born with forty-six XX chromosomes and forty-six XY chromosomes, which makes him intersex. He identifies as a boy and so has been raised lovingly that way. When an enigmatic childhood friend named Hunter steps out of Max’s past and abuses his trust in the worst possible way, Max is forced to consider the nature of his well-kept secret. Why won’t his parents talk about it? Will his friends accept him if he is no longer the Golden Boy? Who is Max and who will he be in the years ahead?

While Max and his family face life-changing questions, revelations, and the ever-present threat that Hunter presents, Max falls in love. He might be flawed, but could he be the perfectly imperfect boyfriend for misfit Sylvie Clark, the oddball loner in his class?

Told in first person narratives alternating between Max, Daniel, Karen, Sylvie, Steve, and Archie, the physician who attempts to guide Max through this pivotal moment in his life, Golden Boy is at once a riveting novel of a family in crisis, a fascinating exploration of identity, and a coming-of-age story like no other.

GOLDEN BOY is by far the most thought-provoking, eye-opening novel I have read in a long time. I was hit straight off the bat with an unflinching realism and thrown into a family who was dealing with issues that I knew barely anything of. Back in 1999 I watched the movie Boy’s Don’t Cry and it was the first I had ever heard of intersex (back then it was hermaphrodites) individuals. This book took me back into a mind frame where I was curious, emotional and almost in awe at the same time. Not only do we meet Max, who is intersex, but along with him we meet his family who is trying to do their best to find him his place in the world.

The part of this story that stood out to me the most was the family dynamic of the Walker’s. None of them were perfect and they all had incredibly selfish thoughts here and there but in the end they were truly looking out for one another. In the beginning I questioned Steve’s (the dad) devotion to his family, he seemed to be putting his career before everything that was going on at home and he did for much of the novel. But once we start to see all the sides of the story (through the very well done multiple POV’s) we see that there is so much more to his actions and intentions. The mother, Karen, was a difficult person for me to come to understand but once again, once my eyes were opened to everything that was going on I’m not sure I can say I would have been much different if thrown into the same situations. Daniel and Max had a wonderful relationship and seeing the story through Daniel’s eyes was great. He was the innocent onlooker, I felt. He didn’t have all the details of what was going on with his brother or why he was feeling the way that he was, and he didn’t really care. He just wanted to know that he was OK and to get on with life.

All of these characters came to life for me because Tartellin mastered their voices. Each one felt so distinct that I always knew whose perspective I was reading without question. This was done to the point that I was annoyed with Daniel’s POV at first because of how juvenile and repetitive it was, but that’s because it was so perfectly a 9-year olds way of thinking and speaking about things. The character that I connected the most to was Max. His struggles in finding out who he was were heartbreaking and I felt so incredibly sad for him as he forged his way through everything that was thrown at him. Not only did he have to make it through some rough patches but all of it brought to light that he didn’t know who he was or where he fit in the world which no one should ever have to feel.

This novel was an eye opening experience for me as I saw first hand the struggles that an intersex individual can go through in their life. The feelings of displacement, of shame and of a disconnect to things such as sex and marriage really took their toll on Max and it was hard to read at times. As I said before I don’t know too much about the “condition” (for lack of a better word) but I found myself googling a lot throughout the story and finding real life stories that paralleled his in many ways. I also appreciated how we would get a doctors perspective at times which made it possible to teach the reader at the same time that they are reading.

A strong novel that will get your emotions going and leave you wanting to talk about it for hours, GOLDEN BOY does not disappoint. The voices of the characters are strong and the relationships are ones that jump off the page. If you are in the market for a rather unconventional novel with a New Adult feel, this is the one for you.

Interview with author Abigail Tarttelin

What was your inspiration for writing GOLDEN BOY?

Several experiences and works of art inspired me to write Golden Boy. ‘The Women’s Room’ by Marilyn French first had me thinking about gender and feminism. Secondly, having seen XXY in 2009, an Argentinian feature film featuring an intersex protagonist, made me think that I could explore gender through the eyes of someone who had no need to define themselves as either male or female, but was pressured to do so by their family and community. Finally, the summer before I wrote Golden Boy, I was thinking about the way men treat women and vice versa, particularly in regards to rape culture and catcalling across the street. I thought that life must be such a different experience in some ways for men and women, even though gender seems to be so arbitrary and nothing to do with our own choices. Through the eyes of Max, Golden Boy’s protagonist, I felt like I could explore how it felt to be a woman with the surprise of someone who had been brought up as a male.

Which of the characters in the novel do you identify with most?

There are aspects of my experience and my point of view in every character in Golden Boy, but I probably identify with Max and Sylvie most. I’m a little less bold than Sylvie, and a little more insistent than Max, but when I was in school I dealt with aspects of gender roles that Max and Sylvie deal with in the book, for instance the strange segregation of girls and boys in high school, or feeling that encroaching fear as you grow up as a girl and realise that the night is not your friend.

Golden Boy is a split POV novel, why did you decide that was the way you wanted to tell this story?

I enjoy writing in the first person and getting into the minds of my characters. I believe at the moment, for me, that is the best way to understand them and communicate their feelings. I also think Max’s situation has a lot to do with point of view, and I wanted the reader to understand why his parents might react the way he did, why the doctor doesn’t tell anyone, Sylvie’s background in dealing and thoughts on gender, and why Max makes the choices he does.

What has been your favorite part of publishing GOLDEN BOY?

I have thoroughly enjoying my warm-up reading gigs in London. This week I read form Golden Boy at an event called ‘Speakeasy’ and also wrote a story and performed for the ting Hill International Book Festival. I have so much fun meeting readers and I feel that performing really transforms writing into something even more personal to the person who wrote it. That is why I cannot WAIT to tour the US and Canada! I think it will be so exciting and I’m planning on making a video diary for each city on www.abigailtarttelin.com!

I saw that there is some interest in a GOLDEN BOY movie possibly happening, do you have any ideas as to who you would like to see portray the main characters?

I see a Golden Boy movie as a sort of The Kids Are All Right independent film. It’s about gender, where The Kids was about sexuality, but both stories are set in a loving family, in a very nice community and I think that makes the difficult themes much more accessible to audiences. On my facebook page at www.facebook.com/abigailtarttelin I’ve uploaded some ideas for cast, but I’m really interested to see what other people think! I can totally see Naomi Watts as a brilliant Karen though! And this wasn’t how I saw Steve to begin with, but I think Patrick Wilson would make a great Steve. Max would have to be a young River Phoenix type! I’d love Quvenzhané Wallis to be able to play Sylvie, but she’s a bit young right now.

What are some of your early influences that shaped your writing style? (music, books, movies, etc.)

I don’t know if they shaped my writing style, but I’ve read almost everything by Enid Blyton! I was very inspired too by Hunter S Thompson’s The Rum Diary and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Every time I pick up a book I tend to write a piece of prose in that style. But I have always been a huge film fan and offbeat, quirky French films or Spanish films like the works of Pedro Almodovar have influenced me greatly. When I was sixteen or seventeen, my English teacher gave me a copy of The Cement Garden, a novel by Ian McEwan, and I realised that I could write about anything, literally anything. Until then I had just read the classics, and although I love them, they didn’t show me that contemporary culture was an acceptable topic for a novel.

Do you have a writing room? If so, what does it look like?

I would absolutely LOVE to have a writing room. I’m 25 and I’ve never owned a property or rented anywhere bigger than one room in a shared apartment, so I really would love to find a home one day soon where I can have a little writing nook. A friend of mine has a shed he used for recording music in his garden. I’d like to build a tree house to write in in my (currently inexistent) garden!

What are you reading right now? What’s your most anticipated book at the moment?

I just read Sahar Delijani’s Children of the Jacaranda Tree, and it’s wonderful! Sahar is also really nice – I met her the other day because we share the same English language editors! So that’s two reasons to read her book. I am currently looking for the next book to catch my eye. I want one that I’ll really love and will savour. Recommendations welcome!

Abigail's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

In May 2013, from twenty-five-year-old literary rising star Abigail Tarttelin comes Golden Boy - an unforgettable novel about a boy, a secret, and the single traumatizing event that sends his seemingly charmed life into tailspin.

Abby writes for London Fashion Magazine Phoenix and hails from Grimsby, England. She grew up in a field in the middle of nowhere, and likes reading, films, astronomy, the wilds, The Big Bang Theory and Buffy The Vampire Slayer!

Blog Tour Stop: Why Can't I Be You

TITLE Why Can't I Be You
AUTHOR Allie Larkin
PUBLICATION February 26th 2013 by Plume
READ March 14 to 15 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

At one time or another, everyone has wished she could be someone else. Exploring this universal longing, Allie Larkin follows up the success of her debut novel, Stay, with a moving portrait of friendship and identity.

When Jenny Shaw hears someone shout “Jessie!” across a hotel lobby, she impulsively answers. All her life, Jenny has toed the line, but something propels her to seize the opportunity to become Jessie Morgan, a woman to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance. Lonely in her own life, Jenny is embraced by Jessie’s warm circle of friends—and finds unexpected romance. But when she delves into Jessie’s past, Jenny discovers a secret that spurs her to take another leap into the unknown.

Let’s be honest here, the cover isn’t what sold me on reading Why Can’t I Be You. No folks, this is an elusive, practically unheard of case of me reading a blurb for a book and wanting to read it based on that. I can hear your collective gasp at the fact that I read the blurb for this book, I is growing up! I’m happy that I read the blurb and didn’t just write the book off for the cover because I did end up enjoying the novel quite a bit. Now, I can’t say that I loved it but the story was really good and had just enough to keep me reading so I could find out how it would all end.

Jenny is having a rough go; she got dumped as her boyfriend dropped her off at the airport when she was leaving to go on a business trip. To make matters worse, in the midst of all the dumping and crying he drives off with her luggage! By the time she got to her destination I think we got know know a lot about Jenny, just enough that I could completely understand her longing to be someone else at the time. This isn’t the most realistic of stories, but there is enough there for the reader to grasp onto to let their inhibitions go and just go along for the ride. Jenny was a mess and her progressively finding out that she needed to start putting herself first in the novel was really great. She was constantly doing things to make other people happy and pushing things that were important to her to the back burner.

The group of people that she finds herself in when one of them mistakes her for a long lost friend was also great. I did feel at times that the dialogue was a little over the top in their banter with one another, bordering on cheesy but I understood what was trying to be conveyed. Myra, Heather, Robbie, and Fish had themselves a little family and they served to show Jenny how people should be treating one another and that blood isn’t the only thing that means family. I loved Heather & Robbie’s relationship. They had been together so long and weren’t afraid to rib each other and be dorks in front of one another, you could really feel the love between these two. Myra was a bit too much for me, she seemed a bit too chipper and her personality always came across as over the top. She was definitely someone that I would want to punch the constant smile off of her face. No one can be that happy all the time!

The romance was sweet and completely awkward. Sweet because Fish was such a great guy and awkward because Jenny was pretending to be Jessie the whole time. But I liked that Larkin had written the story so that Jenny had incorporated so much about her life into being Jessie. Sure she was using her name, but these people had completely lost touch with her for 13 years so Jenny was able to use details of her real life to explain what she had been up to all that time.

If I had to complain about one major thing here it would be the pacing. A lot of the story felt like it was a bit dragged out and like the book could have used a bit of a page trim. I did enjoy reading the story, meeting the characters, and going on adventures with them but some of it began to feel tiring. I think all of it did serve its purpose though and had me come to really care about these people’s well beings, so at least there is a plus side. This reminded me of a plot you would see in a chick flick movie and is executed fairly well. If you are on the hunt for some good ol’ humerous and sweet chick lit, this could be the one for you!

Allie's Website | Twitter | Facebook

Allie Larkin is the internationally bestselling author of the novel Stay, and the upcoming novel Why Can’t I Be You (2013).  She lives with her husband, Jeremy, their two German Shepherds, Argo and Stella, and a three-legged cat.

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Waiting on Wednesday (54)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature that highlights books that I am anxiously awaiting. WoW is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Doctor Sleep
(The Shining #2)
by Stephen King
to be published September 24th 2013 by Scribner

Stephen King returns to the characters and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance (the boy protagonist of The Shining) and the very special twelve-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

I don't think I should even need to justify this and tell you why I am waiting on it but I will.
1.) Stephen King
2.) A sequel to The Shining.
That is all.

What are you waiting on this week?

Sins & Needles Blog Tour

TITLE Sins & Needles (The Artist's Trilogy #1)
AUTHOR Karina Halle
PUBLICATION January 29th 2013 by Metal Blonde Books
READ January 21, 2013
SOURCE From the author for review

Ellie Watt is used to starting over. The daughter of a grifting team, Ellie spent her childhood being used as a pawn in her parents' latest scam. Now she’s much older, wiser and ready to give her con artist life a rest. But returning to the dry desert town of Palm Valley, California means one more temptation than she bargained for – Camden McQueen. Once known as the high school weirdo, Camden is bigger and badder than the boy he used to be and a talented tattoo artist with his own thriving business. Ellie’s counting on Camden still being in love with her but what she’s not counting on is how easily unrequited love can turn into obsession over time. When Camden discovers Ellie’s plan to con him, he makes her a deal she doesn’t dare refuse, but her freedom comes with a price and it’s one that takes both Ellie and Camden down a dangerous road.


**The Artists Trilogy is a dark and sexy contemporary ride about three flawed individuals caught in a world where it's so easy to justify the bad things we do. This is a pure adult read (Not YA or NA).**

I have to admit that I wasn’t too sure what I was getting into when I signed up to be on the tour for Sins & Needles.  My single previous experience with Halle was with The Devil’s Metal and that one was a very middle of the road novel for me.  What I didn’t find in that one, I definitely found here in Sins & Needles. This is a novel that sucks you in with the very first chapter and keeps you reading until you have devoured every single word.  Needless to say this was a one day read for me and one that left me longing for more upon finishing.

We live out this tale as Ellie Watt who has grown up moving from town to town, never really having a home.  Her parents were grifters who started teaching her the tricks of the trade very early on.  She proves that old habits die hard and we catch up with her in the middle of one of her scams going wrong.  I loved how crooked Ellie’s life was. A lot of the time when I read an adult contemporary the woman is just a regular woman who lives her life by the book and is pretty plain. Ellie was anything but, she had scams going left and right and was raking in the dough doing so.  As her old scams came back to haunt her she retreated back to the small farming town she lived in with her Uncle Jim during her high school years.  She retreats back to being simply Ellie Watt (not one of her many fake personas.)

I really liked Ellie, I liked her possibly more than I have ever liked an MC before.  She was strong headed and she was rough around the edges, I appreciated that because it made her come to life in my mind.  As she cursed and just thought about things in a down to Earth way she became someone I could see myself having a conversation with.  The detached way in which she tells the tales of her childhood (we are treated to Now and Then chapters) really hit home and I felt really bad for all that she had gone through. It’s clear early on that through one of her parent’s jobs she suffered something horrific that left her with scars and a limp. As that part of the tale came to light I felt heartbroken for her and I also understood her anger towards life. Yes, she wasn’t exactly making the best choices as an adult but her childhood didn’t really leave her many options.  It’s pretty sad that her parents abandoning her with her uncle was probably the best thing that could have happened for her.  

The romance within is not your everyday girl-comes-back-to-town-and-rekindles-high-school-romance story.  I loved the twists and turns that Ellie and Camden’s love story took and it constantly keeps the reader on their toes.  It also led to some pretty steamy scenes that had me fanning myself and craving some steak (which I don’t even eat BTW but I’d eat Camden’s steaks any day of the week oooohweeee!) One thing that I love about Halle’s sex scenes is that they are not sweet and sensual, they are rough and steamy, but oh so hot through and through.  

While I did find that the twists were not exactly hard to see coming, the characters and their twisted relationships left me feeling completely satisfied.  The ending is one that leaves you pondering exactly where this series will go and have you dying to get your hands on the sequel.  Sins & Needles is a contemporary novel that has all the makings of a great gangster movie to satisfy your thirst for a rush.  This is series that is not to be missed!

Karina's Website | Twitter | Facebook

The daugh­ter of a Nor­we­gian Viking and a Finnish Moomin, Karina Halle grew up in Van­cou­ver, Canada with trolls and eter­nal dark­ness on the brain. This soon turned into a love of all things that go bump in the night and a rather sadis­tic appre­ci­a­tion for freak­ing peo­ple out. Like many of the flawed char­ac­ters she writes, Karina never knew where to find her­self and has dab­bled in act­ing, make-up artistry, film pro­duc­tion, screen­writ­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy, travel writ­ing and music jour­nal­ism. She even­tu­ally found her­self in the pages of the very nov­els she wrote (if only she had looked there to begin with).

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