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.

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.

Zom-B Underground Review

TITLE Zom-B Underground (Zom-B #2)
AUTHOR Darren Shan
PUBLICATION January 2nd 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
READ June 16 to 17, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

Waking up in a military complex, months after zombies attacked school, B has no memory of the last few months. Life in the UK has turned tough since the outbreak, and B is woven into life- and battle- in the new military regime quickly. But as B learns more about the zombies held in the complex and the scientists keeping them captive, unease settles in. Why exactly was B saved? And is there anyone left in the world to trust?

After devouring Zom-B by Darren Shan I was quick to jump into the second book in the series, Zom-B Underground. The cliffhanger at the end of the first book really left me hanging and I couldn’t wait to find out where the series would go from there. Unfortunately, that cliffhanger makes writing this review spoiler free of the first book utterly impossible, so consider yourself warned. Spoilers for Zom-B ahead!

We catch up with B as she wakes up in an underground complex that appears to be some sort of experimental facility. There are soldiers and scientists everywhere. What comprises this novel is much like what we see in the first, just in a different flavor. In Zom-B we see B struggle with the possibility of inheriting her fathers racist feelings. After the shocking incident where Tyler Bayor was fed to the zombies B swore that she would not become her father and set out on her own. In this one she struggles with the injust way that the zombies are treated. See there are revitaliseds and riveveds in this story. Revitaliseds aren’t your typical zombie. They have regained their consciousness and can function and have thought patterns. B is a revitalised. The reviveds are your typical brain munching zombies who aren’t smart at all. I liked watching B struggle with which side she was on. She was neither zombie nor human so she had so much trouble being OK with how the humans were being so cruel to the zombies.

That inner struggle was really the star in this novel and I loved reading about her feelings but I have to say that the spark in this one wasn’t as strong for me. I did find myself a little bored that we didn’t get any answers and I longed to know what was happening outside of this compound. This is a very small story, we get no idea of the scope of what is happening in the world and we only meet a few characters. We also don’t get any answers as to how this whole zombie apocalypse came to be. The zombie controllers in hoodies do make their appearance in this one but we have no new information on the mutants. Although, I guess we do get to meet their leader and that is one wacky guy. Wow, Mr. Dowling is absolutely frightening and enough to give a girl her fair share of nightmares.

The strongest character here remains B. We do meet some other revitaliseds but I wouldn’t say that they become very developed and they felt very much like secondary characters. I did like the dynamic that the addition of these characters added to B’s unsureness about who she is and how she should react to certain situations. We also meet the doctor who is working on these zom heads (what the revitaliseds call themselves), and two soldiers that are helping out but once again these guys never managed to jump off the page for me. Luckily for the series B remains a strong character in my eyes and is able to carry it along by herself.

We are once again left hanging (I think that will be a running theme in this series) and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Just like the first this is also a super short novel that managed to keep me engaged, but not as enthralled as the first one did. The drawings that we get treated to here and there are great and I found myself staring at them for quite a while before I would continue reading the story. Shan has created a unique zombie apocalypse with it’s fair share of layers & an immense amount of twists and I don’t think this is one to be missed.

A Midsummer Night's Scream Review

TITLE A Midsummer Night's Scream
AUTHOR R.L. Stine
PUBLICATION July 2nd 2013 by Feiwel & Friends
READ June 15 to 16, 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

The master of horror takes on the master of theater!

Get ready for laughter to turn into screams in R.L. Stine's re-imagining of Shakespeare's classic romantic comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Everyone knows that Mayhem Manor is cursed. After production on the horror film was stopped due to a series of mysterious deaths, it became a Hollywood legend--which makes it perfect for Claire and her family. If they can successfully finish the film, it should be enough to save their ailing movie studio.

Sure, the old haunted house is creepy, and strange stuff has been happening, but this is Claire's chance. Her chance to become the movie star she's always dreamed and her chance to finally convince her friend Jake that she is girlfriend material. Of course, the fact that Jake thinks he's in love with her best friend, Delia, who is crushing hard on Jake's friend Shawn, who insists on following Claire around, could be a problem, but Claire is sure she can figure it out. After all, the course of true love never did run smooth.

But once shooting starts, "creepy and strange" morph into "bloody and deadly," as the lines between film and reality begin to blur...

Whenever I write a review I try to think of one word that I want to use to describe the book and then I extrapolate from there. Rubbish is the only word that comes to mind when I think about A Midsummer Night’s Scream. This book was terrible. I usually try to be just and fair in my reviews but really there is just nothing good that I have to say about this novel.

The novel kicks off with a group of teenagers getting stranded in the woods when their car breaks down. We watch them set off into the woods in search of help and see them barge into a mansion that is basically a death trap. This stuff was so unbelievable, I mean one girl sits at the dining room table and ends up getting her hand chopped off when a sword fall from the roof, then everyone runs into the kitchen and when they notice the phone doesn’t work they start searching for food. No joke. More of these teens die and then it is revealed that those first few chapters weren’t the real story, they were a movie that the characters in the book were watching. A movie that was made in the 60’s where the teens actually ended up dying so production was stopped. Well guess what, the characters who were watching the movie are rich Beverly Hills kids who are now starring in the remake!

The incredibly fake tone that was set in the beginning is maintained throughout the novel. Everyone in this book does the most stupid things. I mean they remake this movie and, as I’m sure you can guess, people start really dying just as they had in the original. But since the studio is about to go broke they see this movie as their golden ticket and force production through once all the police investigations are over. Now, the people running this production company are the parents of teens who are working on the movie and they keep sending them off to work on this set where people are dying in freak accidents every time they try to shoot a scene. Very believable Mr. Stine.

We are also introduced to a little, hairy, leprechaun looking man very early on in the story. Our MC, Claire, finds him in a trailer and then she keeps stealing his potions. She’s trying to get a love potion to use on a guy that she likes who actually likes her best friend but she keeps stealing the wrong potion. First she steals a hate one and then a Benjamin Button type one but persist she does. I mean wouldn’t you stop when the first potion you stole made the guy you want to love you actually try to punch you? I can’t stress enough how ridiculously stupid every character in this novel was. Her best friend takes the lead in the movie after the original lead dies in a tragic accident. The guys that these girls like must have no brain because they can’t read that these girls like them when the girls are basically hitting them in the face with love sticks. The parent’s are so money hungry that they send their kids off to face probable death multiple times.

I just can’t with this book. The way it was written annoyed the heck out of me. Claire asks the readers questions along the way like she is having a conversation with you instead of you being a reader of a novel. The wrap up of it all is so incredibly far fetched that I found myself laughing when I should have been nervous for the characters. The one thing that I can say that is more on the positive side for this novel is that it did play out in my head like a Goosebumps episode. I think Stine would be better off sticking to MG literature where readers are much more willing to suspend belief to get a fun story. I can’t recommend this novel at all.

Zom-B Review

TITLE Zom-B (Zom-B #1)
AUTHOR Darren Shan
PUBLICATION September 27th 2012 by Simon & Schuster
READ June 15, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

Zom-B is a radical new series about a zombie apocalypse, told in the first person by one of its victims. The series combines classic Shan action with a fiendishly twisting plot and hard-hitting and thought-provoking moral questions dealing with racism, abuse of power and more. This is challenging material, which will captivate existing Shan fans and bring in many new ones. As Darren says, "It's a big, sprawling, vicious tale...a grisly piece of escapism, and a barbed look at the world in which we live. Each book in the series is short, fast-paced and bloody. A high body-count is guaranteed!"

Holy freaking cliffhanger, batman! I am actually mad at this book right now. But, beyond my anger at the shocking last page of this book I have to say that I had an absolute riot reading this novel. It definitely wasn’t what I had expected in that it actually reads a bit like an issue book for the first 75% but rest assured zombie lovers that the last 25% holds a heavy amount of the blood and the guts.

Opening with a scene labelled as “Then” we start out as an 11 year old boy named Brian who wakes up in the middle of the night to find that zombies have taken over his small Ireland town. Once that short scene is over we move into “Now” and we are B who is living in London with an abusive father and submissive mother. B is struggling growing up under the fathers hold. See, not only is he abusive but he is incredibly racist and expects the same to come from his child. We get to see B’s inner turmoil and the struggle that comes along with worrying about growing up just like the father. I was quite surprised to see just how heavily the novel delved into these issues. B’s turmoil really comes to a head on a trip to a war museum where the whole class gets to see a very real picture of the racism that took place in World War II. The viciousness of the racism in the novel could definitely be seen as cruel, unnecessary and shocking to some readers but I have to say that I enjoyed watching B struggle with identity.

There aren’t many characters to come to like in the novel, but I think here that is OK. I still found myself rooting for B once the shit hit the fan, which admittedly doesn’t happen for quite some time. The beginning of the novel is spent watching B run around town with his group of thugs and misbehaving at school. I think this was a good call because I felt like we came to know the relationships and characters really well before they started fighting for their lives. This also led to drawing out a more shocked feeling as to the twists and turns that come later in the novel. For the last 30 pages of the novel I was actually slack jawed by all the twists that came to light.

I think this is a solid beginning to a series that I am really going to like. Shan did such a great job of setting the scene and getting me sucked into B’s life. I really wish there was more that I could say about this one but so much could be seen as spoilers, I even had a really tough time writing what I have because it had to be worded very carefully. At a mere 217 pages this novel packs a unique punch and deals with much more than the blurb lets on. If you are looking for a zombie novel with substance, I think this is a great place to start.

Ask The Passengers Review

TITLE Ask The Passengers
AUTHOR A.S. King
PUBLICATION October 23rd 2012 by Little, Brown
READ June 10 to 11, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

strid Jones desperately wants to confide in someone, but her mother's pushiness and her father's lack of interest tell her they're the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours lying on the backyard picnic table watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn't know the passengers inside, but they're the only people who won't judge her when she asks them her most personal questions . . . like what it means that she's falling in love with a girl.

As her secret relationship becomes more intense and her friends demand answers, Astrid has nowhere left to turn. She can't share the truth with anyone except the people at thirty thousand feet, and they don't even know she's there. But little does Astrid know just how much even the tiniest connection will affect these strangers' lives--and her own--for the better.

In this truly original portrayal of a girl struggling to break free of society's definitions, Printz Honor author A.S. King asks readers to question everything--and offers hope to those who will never stop seeking real love.

Ask The Passengers is the third A.S. King novel that I have had the pleasure of reading. Having read a few in the past I have come to have some pretty high expectations when it comes to her work and this one did not let me down at all. A touching story about identity, love and acceptance this novel had my heart and took me on a journey of discovery.

Astrid Jones is in love with a girl and she doesn’t know what that means. We watch her explore the possibilities and try to figure out what the emotions that she is having mean. I loved the questioning approach to all of this. There were no strong definition lines and through her philosophy projects at school we really get to explore the issue with her deeply. I loved how she applied these projects to what was happening in her life and got into debates with people at school. A.S. King tackled how a teen trying to figure out if she is gay or straight feels as everyone tries to put her into one box or the other. Astrid didn’t know where she belonged, she knew what she was feeling at the time and didn’t know what it meant for the future. I can’t even express enough how I loved that this story stressed that it’s OK to be in the middle and not be sure.

The characterizations here were so strong. In the beginning I actually found that I was having trouble getting into the story, despite that I had an intense hatred for Astrid’s mother and a spot in my heart for Astrid. To me that screams great characterizations, I was having some trouble with the plot, but warmed up to the characters fast. Claire, the mother, was so worried about what everyone thought about her and this feeling extended to much of the small town that the characters were living in. Her favoritism towards her other daughter drove me crazy and her way of ignoring her husband really got to me as well. But Astrid had my love from the beginning. The inner turmoil that she was facing and the pressure from the people around her felt like a weight on my chest and I wanted to help her in any way that I could (even though I couldn’t because it was a book, but that was how into it I was!) We also meet friends of Astrid who are dealing with a lot of the same issues that she was. We see their ups and downs on the path to coming out to the community and it isn’t pretty.

As I mentioned before I did have a settling in period with this one. For about the first 20% I just wasn’t getting into the story as I had expected to. I think that may be due to the strange storytelling that was used to convey the story’s message. As Astrid lies on her picnic table in her backyard she looks up to the sky and watches planes fly by. While she does this she sends all of her love up to the passengers on the planes because she doesn’t know what to do with her love herself. We get short snippets where we are a passenger on the plane and the moment that they feel the love that Astrid sends. This took me out of the story a few times at the beginning because I wasn’t too sure where that element of the story was going but once I got a feel for it and began to understand the meaning I adored those parts. I loved how in the end they really came full circle, it was incredibly heartwarming.

I think this is an important novel and is one that any teen who is questioning their sexual orientation should have available to them. The message conveyed is strong and it definitely has the power to make people feel like they are not alone and that it is OK not to know for sure. I am happy to have gotten to go on this journey with Astrid and thank A.S. King for writing such an important story.

Fall For Anything Review

TITLE Fall For Anything
AUTHOR Courtney Summers
PUBLICATION December 21st 2010 by St. Martin's Griffin
READ June 08 to 09, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

From the author of Cracked Up to Be and Some Girls Are comes a gripping story about one girl’s search for clues into the mysterious death of her father.

When Eddie Reeves’s father commits suicide her life is consumed by the nagging question of why? Why when he was a legendary photographer and a brilliant teacher? Why when he seemed to find inspiration in everything he saw? And, most important, why when he had a daughter who loved him more than anyone else in the world? When she meets Culler Evans, a former student of her father’s and a photographer himself, an instant and dangerous attraction begins. Culler seems to know more about her father than she does and could possibly hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death. But Eddie’s vulnerability has weakened her and Culler Evans is getting too close. Her need for the truth keeps her hanging on...but are some questions better left unanswered?

I’m not entirely sure why I keep doing this to myself. I read a Courtney Summers novel and am then faced with the task of finding new ways to praise her awesomeness and yet still have the review feel like its fresh. Well no, I know why I do it. Because her books are fucking amazing, that’s why. Fall For Anything is no exception. Once again she has brought to light characters that are so incredibly flawed that you are stunned at how they manage to work their way into your cold little heart by the final page.

Eddie is dealing with the sudden, tragic loss of her father. He committed suicide and now she is left alive wondering why he did it. I could’t fathom living with that constant wonder niggling at the back of your mind. Living once your parents light was snuffed out in such an unfortunate way, wondering if you were a part of the reason, wondering what you could have done differently. Right off the bat a very bleak atmosphere is set up and it remains that way through the entirety of the novel. This is something that I have come to expect from Summers and I always brace myself to go into that place before picking up one of her novels.

Eddie isn’t the only one coming to terms with this loss. Her mother has become a zombie and marches around the house in her fathers old housecoat. I was so saddened at how these two could not communicate and help each other out in the ways that they really needed to. To bridge this communication gap Eddie’s mothers best friend, Beth, steps in. It took me a while to get a read on this woman. Seeing her through Eddie’s eyes alone made it hard to see her for who she really was and not who Eddie saw her as. I came to really respect her love for this family and the way she was willing to go so out of her way to help bring them back to life.

Our MC also has light in her life in the form of her best friend Milo. This guy was so incredibly sweet. The way that he cared for Eddie in all situations and was not afraid to call her on her bullshit was amazing. That’s another thing I have come to expect and admire in Courtney’s novels, brutally honest characters. It’s always so refreshing to see people laying their emotions out there and not bottling everything up inside for an entire book. Culler (such a strange name, right?) also steps into Eddie’s life in these pages. He was a student of her fathers and he takes her on an adventure to try to put the pieces together in the why of her fathers suicide. I was so torn when he came into the picture because I had high hopes for Eddie and Milo’s relationship to go to the next level, but I liked how Culler was showing her a new side to her father that she barely knew existed.

A beautiful novel about coming to grips with loss, friendship and family, Courtney Summers has once again hit it out of the park. This girl can seriously do no wrong and I have to say that I am extremely sad this one is over. See, I was holding off on reading Fall For Anything because it was the last of her released novels that I had yet to read. Now the wait for her next release gets unbearable. So umm.. Courtney.. How is the writing of All The Rage Going?

Giveaway: The Well's End

I'm excited to be taking part in a Putnam launch event for The Well's End by Seth Fishman.  This one sounds good you guys, I can't wait to get my hands on it. Below is a bit more about the book, an interview with the author and a chance to win yourself an Advanced Copy!

TITLE The Well's End
AUTHOR Seth Fishman
PUBLICATION February 25th 2014 by Putnam Juvenile

Mia Kish is afraid of the dark. And for good reason. When she was a toddler she fell deep into her backyard well only to be rescued to great fanfare and celebrity. In fact, she is small-town Fenton,Colorado’s walking claim to fame. Not like that helps her status at Westbrook Academy, the nearby uber-ritzy boarding school she attends. A townie is a townie. Being nationally ranked as a swimmer doesn’t matter a lick. But even the rarefied world of Westbrook is threated when emergency sirens start blaring and the school is put on lockdown, quarantined and surrounded by soldiers who seem to shoot first and ask questions later. Only when confronted by a frightening virus that ages its victims to death in a manner of hours does Mia realize she may only just be beginning to discover what makes Fenton special.

The answer is behind the walls of the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia’s dad, the director of Fenton Electronics, has always been secretive about his work. But unless Mia is willing to let her classmates succumb to the strange illness, she and her friends have got to break quarantine, escape the school grounds, and outsmart armed soldiers to uncover the truth about where the virus comes from and what happened down that well. The answers they find just might be more impossible than the virus they are fleeing.

Interview with Seth Fishman

I see that The Well's End was inspired by a pretty dramatic story that happened in your hometown. Can you tell us a bit about that and why you had it in your mind while crafting this novel?
Yeah, Baby Jessica was a big deal everywhere, but especially in my home-town. I remember when they freed her, we were listening to the radio in the car and we honked to celebrate. And everyone else honked too. Nothing like that has ever happened to me since. So, I used that scenario as a base for my character, Mia. Something to craft her with. Then, I figured out an entirely different story to put this crafted character into. The thing is, the well keeps coming back to me, and so does the fall, and now as I write book two, it's creeping up as a more than an 'influence'... that's all I can say, for now. But I'm really enjoying exploring it.

I always wonder if it's difficult for a male author to write about a female main character. Did you find this challenging at all? If so, what steps did you take to bridge any gender gaps you may have come across?
Ha, I found this very challenging. My editor, the wonderful Stacey Barney, was instrumental in helping me sort out some of the technicalities. The funniest thing, though, was writing about the romance budding between main characters. I wrote the boy as I KNEW boys acted, but from Mia's perspective, what they were doing seemed weird, uninterested, which is both very real-life, but also not as helpful for the book. An odd balance to strike.

Do you have a writing room? If so, what does it look like?
I don't really, sadly. That's the future. Right now I'm in the living room in the morning, or the bedroom at night, depending on when. But my wife DID get me an awesome glass desk to write on for my birthday last year. I envision a leather chair and a library and a cat purring nearby.

What books are currently on your to-read shelf?
Good question. My clients' books, of course - can't wait for new ones to come in. But, otherwise, my to-read (and not my currently reading) shelf has Patrick Ness, recommended by the great writer Alexander London. And also, finally, some Alice McDermott.

What were some of your early influences that may have helped shaped your writing style? (books, movies, music, etc.)
My first love was Tolkien, but I wouldn't say that influenced my style. I love books that bend the grammar rules, that feel like the words are actually from a person's mind, and not the author's, and I tried to do that with mine. A modern example would be John Green. When I was younger, everything from Falkner to Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card to ANYTHING by David Mitchell. Movie: Dead Poet Society (I am a crier, even at emotional commercials, ha). This book is sort of a Toy Soldiers meets Red Dawn (the old one), so we can toss those in too, but I love the odd and imaginative. And I try to do the same in my writing. Straightforward different.

Thanks for taking the time to let us get to know a bit more about you and The Well's End, Seth!

Seth's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Seth Fishman (me) was born and raised in Midland, Texas (think Friday Night Lights) and received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England (think cold and rainy and millions of castles). His YA thriller, The Well's End, is the first in a series and the protagonist, Mia Kish, is roughly inspired by a hometown drama that (when I was young) really blew him away: Click Here To Read The Article

Giveaway

Putnam has graciously offered up an advanced copy of The Well's End along with an original piece of artwork from Canadian artist Kate Beaton (to see some of her work for The Well's End Click Here.)

Open to US and Canadian addresses only

Giveaway runs until July 4, 2013

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