Wonder Review

TITLE Wonder
AUTHOR R.J. Palacio
PUBLICATION February 14th 2012 by Knopf
READ March 17 to 18, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

August (Auggie) Pullman was born with a facial deformity that prevented him from going to a mainstream school—until now. He's about to start 5th grade at Beecher Prep, and if you've ever been the new kid then you know how hard that can be. The thing is Auggie's just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face. But can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, despite appearances?

R. J. Palacio has written a spare, warm, uplifting story that will have readers laughing one minute and wiping away tears the next. With wonderfully realistic family interactions (flawed, but loving), lively school scenes, and short chapters, Wonder is accessible to readers of all levels.

I went into Wonder with really high expectations. I had heard so much raving about how touching the story was and finally decided it was time to dig in for myself. All of the praise for this one is entirely warranted. I loved this story from page one straight through to the final page. It's probably the most heartwarming and hopeful story I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

August Pullman is starting grade 5. This is a huge year for him because not only is it his first year of middle school, but it is his first year ever going to a regular school. See, Auggie was born with a severe facial deformity. He was in and out of surgeries all throughout his childhood and frankly dealing with the publics stares and comments just wan't something his parents were prepared to make him deal with. But once grade 5 came it was decided by Auggie and his parents that it was time to put himself out there. As I'm sure you can imagine many heartbreaking scenes come as a result of Auggie putting himself into such a public place. There were people he met in school that I wanted to punch because they were so cold, but what is so great about this story is that there were way more characters that I wanted to hug or give a hand shake.

Sure Auggie meets his fair share of bullying as the story goes on, but he is always such a happy guy. I admire him, I think he has a lot of traits that people in his situation would kill to have. Helping him through everything is a great group of core friends, starting with Summer. I loved how summer was some random girl who just sat with him and day one and continued to do so. She always made him feel welcome and like he had something to look forward throughout the day. Then there is Jack, sure Auggie and Jack had their ups and downs but as we got to know Jack more I became accepting of his faults and saw that he was someone who really was trying to do the right thing, he just had to figure it out the hard way. As if these friends aren't good enough, we have Auggie's family also by his side.

This novel had an amazing family unit. As his parents, his sister Olivia and Auggie all conversed with one another they became people that I loved. You could see in the witty banter between the parents that they really loved one another, I thought they were absolutely adorable. The character that I connected most with was Olivia. She really struggled with how she was often forgotten about because Auggie needed so much care. Her inner conflict with knowing that Auggie needed more attention but yet wanting to be in the limelight was portrayed so well in the story.

One thing that ended up taking me by surprise in Wonder was that we were treated to multiple POV's. I had no idea going into this that it was told in that way and every time I switched the page and saw the name of who was coming up it was like a present. The POV's flowed together so well that I felt like I was always hearing from exactly who I should be in that point of the story. I also really liked the short chapters. Some are merely a page and others span up to 4 but they are all titled and tell of an incident. It feels like we are reading journal entries from each of the characters.

I loved how this story was told, I loved the characters in the story and even more so I loved the relationships between all of the characters. This story dealt with some heavy bullying but it was so uplifting. I took away a message of hope for mankind, and how kindness really shines through in darkness. This is a must read for anyone and everyone. Pick this one up on your next trip to the bookstore, it will not disappoint.

Golden Review

TITLE Golden
AUTHOR Jessi Kirby
PUBLICATION May 14th 2013 by Simon & Schuster
READ April 26 to 27, 2013
SOURCE Simon & Schuster Canada for review

Love, tragedy, and mystery converge in this compelling novel from “an author to watch” (Booklist).

Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.

Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.

At this point in the year I am so ready to just throw in the towel and declare myself a contemporary fangirl. I have been having no luck with dystopians, paranormals or even post apocalyptic stories but every single time I pick up a contemporary I am sucked in and emotional. Those are the best kinds of reads, aren’t they? GOLDEN is no exception, I absolutely adored this book. From the beautiful writing to the amazing characters and the magical inclusion of great poetry.

Parker Frost is an overachiever, she is at the top of her class and doing anything she can to get a full ride to Stanford to chase her dreams. We meet her as she is in the final weeks of her senior year and helping out as TA to english teacher Mr. Kinney. One of Kinney’s most successful assignments in his role of teacher is when he hands his outgoing seniors a journal and asks them to fill it with the answer to this question: “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Pretty loaded question, right? I love the idea of this assignment so much and how it weaved a bit of mystery into the story. See, Parker finds among the stack the journal of Julianna Farnetti. Julianna went missing on the night of her graduation 10 years ago with her boyfriend Shane Cruz. They were the small towns golden couple and their bodies had never been found. As Parker takes Julianna’s journal and reads her innermost thoughts she begins to see that this romance wasn’t everything that it seemed and unravels some shocking truths.

What always makes a contemporary for me is the characters and this one had a cast of great ones. I really liked seeing Parker change as she did throughout the story. We met her when she was on a strict and disciplined path to get into Stanford and we watch her begin to stray in order to find out who she is. All the while her best friend Kat is there pushing her to do something wild & crazy in her final days of high school. Kat was so awesome! I loved her free spirit and her loudmouth ways. She always had Parker’s best interest in mind and was quick to support her in any way that she could. There were so many little things she did throughout the novel that made her into a best friend that I would love to have in my own life. Even Parker’s mother was incredibly supportive of her (even if she went a little overboard) so it was refreshing to see a present parent in the story as well. Not only do we get to see great friendships and parenting but we also get two sweet love stories.

There is so much romance in these pages! We get to see what Julianna had went through 10 years ago which is romantic, beautiful and sad all at the same time and we also get to watch Parker’s crush slowly grow. I liked her love interest, Trevor. He was really funny and because they had known each other for so many years they were able to poke at each other. It was cute because they were incredibly sarcastic with one another and were always forcing the other to read between the lines. Trevor really went out of his way to put himself into Parker’s life and he became someone that was incredibly supportive of her as well.

As you can see there are so many great relationships in GOLDEN and also a page turning, slow burning mystery. All of these elements came together perfectly and I was enraptured by the story until I reached the very last page. I had told myself at about halfway through that I was going to make myself read a chapter an hour to drag it out because I didn’t want it to end but that didn’t happen. I read this in a single day and wouldn’t change a thing about it. If you don’t have this one on your TBR you need to put it there because this is a beautiful story you don’t want to miss.

Eleanor & Park Review

TITLE Eleanor & Park
AUTHOR Rainbow Rowell
PUBLICATION February 26th 2013 by St. Martin's Press
READ April 07 to 08, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

"Bono met his wife in high school," Park says.
"So did Jerry Lee Lewis," Eleanor answers.
"I’m not kidding," he says.
"You should be," she says, "we’re sixteen."
"What about Romeo and Juliet?"
"Shallow, confused, then dead."
''I love you," Park says.
"Wherefore art thou," Eleanor answers.
"I’m not kidding," he says.
"You should be."

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, ELEANOR AND PARK is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under.

This is a novel that I went into with incredibly high expectations. So many of my Goodreads friends and people that I talk to on Twitter have been raving about this book the last few weeks. I was honestly a little nervous that my expectations would get the better of me because I really didn’t think there was any way a book could live up to them. This book surpassed those expectations, it blew them away, it left them in the dust, it was perfect. I have no idea what I could bring to the ELEANOR & PARK fanclub that is new so I am going to keep this short and talk about my favorite things in the novel.

The real gem of this book is the portrayal of the main characters Eleanor & Park. They are incredibly flawed in their own ways and live completely different lives and yet through some shared interests they begin to slowly (very slowly) open up to one another. There was an innocence to their relationship and a sense of wonderment as they explored their emotions for one another. I loved that even after they fell for one another their worlds didn’t stop and focus solely on their love for each other. They were still incredibly self conscious and even pretty damn selfish at times. Eleanor had a lot to deal with, not only did she have to put up with bullshit at school but she had to put up with just as much (if not more) of it at home. I felt for this girl so much you guys. I hated her stepdad, I hated her mother for being so weak and I hated the bullies at her school. But through those things I came to really admire Eleanor, she was herself through and through. She didn’t parade around trying to be something that she wasn’t to make those crappy things in her life go away, she faced them. Park leads a much different life, he comes from a stable family with two parents who are madly in love with one another. I thought he was so adorable. He had this dark rebellious side to him that wasn’t really brought out until he had Eleanor and he realized that some things are worth fighting for.

Their relationship is exactly the polar opposite of insta-love (how refreshing, right?) This is definitely a slow burn romance, the slowest I have ever read and I loved every small step that these two took with one another. As I had mentioned there was an innocence to it as it was new to both of them and they didn’t know what they were doing at all. Most of the romantic scenes were actually pretty awkward which is perfect because at that age they are awkward! Where do you put your hands? How much is too much? You can never be sure. What made these scenes, and everything in the novel really shine was the dual POV. There were random switches between Eleanor and Park's POV some spanned a few pages and some mere sentences but they were perfectly placed to really give you both sides of the story.

I don’t think I would have picked this book up based on the cover, actually I know I wouldn’t have because at one point I did get a review request for this one that I turned down. What a fool I am! Now when I look at the cover there is absolutely nothing that I would change because it is so perfect for the novel. Filled with real life turmoil, a relationship that will warm your heart (seriously I thought at one point that my heart might actually burst) and a general honesty about life that is hard to find, ELEANOR & PARK is a story that you don’t want to miss.

How To Save A Life Review

TITLE How To Save A Life
AUTHOR Sara Zarr
PUBLICATION October 18th 2011 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
READ March 24 to 26, 2013
SOURCE Gifted from Giselle of Xpresso Reads

Jill MacSweeney just wishes everything could go back to normal. But ever since her dad died, she’s been isolating herself from her boyfriend, her best friends—everyone who wants to support her. And when her mom decides to adopt a baby, it feels like she’s somehow trying to replace a lost family member with a new one.

Mandy Kalinowski understands what it’s like to grow up unwanted—to be raised by a mother who never intended to have a child. So when Mandy becomes pregnant, one thing she’s sure of is that she wants a better life for her baby. It’s harder to be sure of herself. Will she ever find someone to care for her, too?

As their worlds change around them, Jill and Mandy must learn to both let go and hold on, and that nothing is as easy—or as difficult—as it seems.

How To Save a Life was a book that I picked up on a Saturday afternoon and after reading a single chapter I knew it was a book that I was going to love. Just the honesty in every word and the astounding development of the characters alone is so great but when you throw in the dynamic relationships and all the emotions throughout, you have a truly touching novel. Jill became someone that I saw myself in at every turn, I felt her anger and sadness and loss. Mandy became someone that I want to wrap my arms around and comfort because she touched me so much. There is no shortage of emotions in this novel and it’s one that will stick with readers for a long time to come.

The development that went into every character in How To Save a Life is no small feat. Each and every character came off the page and as I read I felt like I came to know these people. Jill, Robin and Mandy of course are the most developed and what is so great is that they are all completely different. I felt through their dialogue and their actions in every scene that they stood out from one another and watching them come together was something special. Not only did these three ladies stick out to me, but I also felt as if I came to know Dylan and Ravi just as well. Dylan was struggling in this rut that he and Jill had found themselves stuck in in their relationship. Since Jill’s father passed away they had this destructive pattern and they were just going back and forth, never truly moving forward, always taking two steps back. He was trying to break down the walls of Jill’s grief and get her to open up, but she was struggling opening up to him. In Ravi she found someone new, someone who didn’t know how she acted once her father passed away, someone who wasn’t constantly trying to get her to talk about her feelings. I guess this was a love triangle but it was in no way annoying or cliche. I saw both guys for who they were and came to care about each one.

While Jill is fighting through her own demons, Mandy is running away from hers. I felt so bad for this girl. She moves in with Robin & Jill very quickly in the novel but we are fed tidbits of her home life here and there and I could completely understand her need to flee. Her mom’s only concern was finding a man, she was one of these women who doesn’t know who she is without a man by her side, I found that incredibly sad. Her words of wisdom that she passed on to Mandy just feed this lifestyle and I wanted to shake Mandy and tell her that everything her mother told her was crap. She was so hungry for love and thought that the only place she could find that was in the arms of a man. Readers get to watch Mandy’s eyes open, get to watch her learn what it means to be a strong, independent woman and the shift is truly awe inspiring.

The characters and relationships in this novel have so many layers that get peeled back as the story goes on so it feels like you go on a journey with them. There is a huge part of me that feels like this novel could have just gone on forever relaying the story of these people’s lives and I just would have kept on reading. I find often that I check the page number to see where I stand in a novel and I can say that not once in this story did I find myself glancing at the bottom corner of the page. These are people that everyone should have the pleasure to meet so I definitely think that you should pick up this novel.

Cracked Up To Be Review

TITLE Cracked Up To Be
AUTHOR Courtney Summers
PUBLICATION December 23rd 2008 by St. Martin's Griffin
READ February 06, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

When "Perfect" Parker Fadley starts drinking at school and failing her classes, all of St. Peter's High goes on alert. How has the cheerleading captain, girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, consummate teacher's pet, and future valedictorian fallen so far from grace?

Parker doesn't want to talk about it. She'd just like to be left alone, to disappear, to be ignored. But her parents have placed her on suicide watch and her conselors are demanding the truth. Worse, there's a nice guy falling in love with her and he's making her feel things again when she'd really rather not be feeling anything at all.

Nobody would have guessed she'd turn out like this. But nobody knows the truth.

Something horrible has happened, and it just might be her fault.

After reading Cracked Up To Be I am ready to start a Courtney Summers fan club. Every book I have read by her is my perfect book. They are straight to the point and they feature characters who are so blunt and real that you feel like you knew them in high school. She is the only author I have come across who can write characters that are so deeply flawed and completely mean & cold but make me actually give a damn about them.

Parker used to be perfect. She was on the honor roll (with distinction) 3 years running but since her best friend Jessie went missing at a party one night she has pretty much given up. She’s having weekly meetings with the school counselor and if she comes to school drunk one more time she won’t graduate. Parker had done a complete 180, she went from being Miss. Popular to being Miss. Stay-The-Hell-Away-From-Me. She did everything she could to keep people at arm’s length and she was just in general cold. In the beginning I couldn’t believe some of the horrible things she was saying and thinking & needing to find out what made her make this drastic change got me really sucked into the story. As things unfold and we find out what prompted her to close herself off she became someone that I sympathized with. Somewhere along this road of thinking she was being a total bitch, I started to care about her and feel bad that she was forced to become the way that she was.

What really got me connecting to Parker was her rocky relationship with the new guy, Jake. You can really feel her need to distance herself from him but at the same time she is fascinated with his persistence in the face of her coldness toward him. I liked Jake, he was a bit pushy but he knew how to handle Parker and really gave her what she needed. Her ex-boyfriend, Chris, is also in the picture and they clearly still like to toy with one another. Chris was great too, I couldn’t believe how willing he was to forgive Parker and still want to help her after all that she had put him through. It was clear all along that Parker loved this little triangle that was going on. She needed to be wanted to feel like her actions were actually getting her somewhere, but that went against everything she was working so hard to achieve which is what makes you really realize how mentally ill she was becoming.

What’s feeding her decent into this scary mental territory is the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Jessie, her best friend, from a party they were all at. We don’t know what happened for most of the story and we get little glimpses back to the night of the party as Parker remembers the night. I loved how this added a bit of mystery to the story. As she glances back, I was never sure exactly what had happened surrounding Jessie’s disappearance and I think the slow burn of finding out bits and pieces of the night kept the pace moving at the perfect momentum.

Summers has once again weaved a story that is unflinchingly honest and feels incredibly real. I turned the last page feeling pretty empty and emotionally drained (which is not a bad thing for me, it’s a feeling I love.) I actually sat there and just hugged my ereader for a while and went through the book again in my head. It’s safe to say that I will read anything that Summers puts out and she can’t bang ‘em out fast enough for me!

Blog Tour Stop: If You Find Me

Today I am beyond excited to be taking part in the blog tour for If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch which is brought to you by The Midnight Garden.  This is by far my favorite read of 2013 so far and is a novel that I still think about to this day.  My stop features my review of the novel, an interview with Emily and a chance for US & CAN readers to win a beautiful finished copy of the novel.


TITLE If You Find Me
AUTHOR Emily Murdoch
PUBLICATION March 26th 2013 by St. Martin's Griffin
READ February 17, 2013
SOURCE St. Martin's Griffin via Netagalley for review

There are some things you can’t leave behind…

A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys.

Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go… a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

This review is probably going to be an incoherent jumble of feelings that I can’t translate eloquently into words so there are some things I want to just throw at you in the beginning to make sure that I get my point across. This book. This book is everything that I want in a book; this book is about love and it is so full of heart that I found myself teary eyed pretty much once in every chapter. This book is full of amazing characters and amazing relationships; it is bleak, it is honest, and it is a novel that will definitely stick with me for a long time to come.

Carey and Janessa are girls who have grown up living in a camper in a national forest most of their lives. There they live with their mother, but not really because she is a meth addict who disappears for weeks (sometimes months) at a time leaving Carey in charge of feeding her younger sister & herself and in charge of bringing Janessa up. The way that these girls lived is terrible. They freeze in the winters and often find themselves eating nothing but beans for days, it was shocking to see all the things that they went through growing up. Not only do they live under harsh conditions but the people that their meth addict mother brought into their life and the things she made them do to feed her meth addiction are disgusting and had me so angry that addictions like this exist. The desperation of users to get their next fix is frightening and it puts everyone around them in danger as they are used as pawns. We get most of this part of the story through memories that Carey has throughout the novel, the real story here is when they are found and taken to live with Carey’s father on his farm.

The transition to living in civilization is what really brings these characters to life for me. The bond that Carey and Janessa formed in their years of living in the wild and Carey essentially raising her younger sister is beautiful. Once they are found that bond remains and Nessa really looks to Carey for how to react and deal with everything that is going on. I loved Carey, my heart broke for her situation but she had such a big heart & her undying devotion to her younger sister made everything OK. Even in their dismal situation in the forest their relationship brought light to their life and really got them through it. Nessa was an adorable character and through her mutism we learn that something pretty bad happened that made her lose her voice. What really blew me away here was how Nessa felt like such a developed and well rounded character and for much of the novel the girl didn’t even talk. I loved her and I wanted to cuddle her. We see through Carey how she can read everything about her younger sister without words and it’s really beautiful. I also really liked Carey’s father and his wife Melissa, the effort that they put into helping the girls is so great and you really just felt the love they had for them so much in every page of this novel.

There is no way that this review will ever do this book justice and I don’t even want to think about how many times I used the word love in it but everything I think about this book is love. The characters, the relationships, just everything. There are some pretty shocking scenes, ones that are so hard to read but looking back on it love just conquers all and is what I took away from it. Read this book people, and have some tissues at the ready.

Interview with Emily Murdoch

I had the pleasure of inviting Emily over for a bit of a tea party and before we got going we had a chat about herself and the novel:

Tell us about your book Twitter style, so in 140 characters or less.

That’d be the tagline I came up with for the UK edition:

“What happens in the woods, stays in the woods ... “

If You Find Me is a very poignant and touching story, what was your inspiration behind the novel?

I’m learning as we go along that there are so many answers to this question; some I didn’t even know of consciously at the time of writing If You Find Me.

Such as how easy it was to write a portrait of an abused child, having been one, myself. The psychology of fooling myself in order to write dark and deep, and, as I’m seeing, something so necessary to the world as it stands today …

I’m honored if my darkness can shed some light. This is me paying forward all those books that saved me, as a child.

What character in If You Find Me do you identify with most?

Carey. Most definitely, Carey.

But that’s not to say that Carey is me in disguise. She isn’t. I’d call her an archetype of abused children. Her longing for love and a place to belong. Her uncertainty. Her resourcefulness. Her hero’s journey.

We have a lot in common.

What drew you to the YA genre? Why did you decide that it was the place for you?

Interesting questions! I’m not the color-within-the-lines kind of gal; I’m the by-the-seat-of-my-pants, on-a-wing-and-a-prayer type. I wrote the story I wrote, and ended up with offers from both young adult and adult Big Six publishers.

I guess fate wanted me here. I’ve met the most amazing people, here, too.

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

One day I will have a writing room; I describe it in a recent interview on Imaginary Girls author Nova Ren Suma’s blog (Nova’s amazing new novel, 17 and Gone, releases March 21st!).

In the meantime, I write at the kitchen bar, quite happily. When I write, I enter a state of flow so complete, I have no idea what’s around me, anyway.

Who are your favorite authors?

Ooooo, love this question! I’m very old fashioned:

Frances Hodgson Burnett
Louisa May Alcott
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Charlotte Bronte
Madeleine L'Engle
Charles Dickens
Judy Blume
Madeleine Brent
Anne Frank
Rumer Godden
Carlo Collodi
J. M. Barrie
Roald Dahl
Rudyard Kipling

If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only have one book with you, what book would it be?

Merlin’s Keep by Madeleine Brent

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

Besides the authors mentioned above, I’d have to blame it on my ferocious diary and journal keeping. There’s just a place you learn to go inside, and when you write from there, your arrow flies true.

Thank you so much, Jenni, for inviting me over! It was such a pleasure chatting with you! Now for that tea party. How many lumps in your tea? Cream? I sure hope you like cupcakes!

The tea & cupcakes were great, but the company was even better. Thanks for stopping by, Emily!

Giveaway

St. Martin's Griffin has been kind enough to offer up one finished hardcover copy of If You Find me for one lucky reader.

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian addresses only.

Fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter

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Be sure to check out all the other great stops on this tour:

3/18 The Midnight Garden
3/19 Alluring Reads
3/20 Live to Read
3/21 YA Romantics
3/22 Winterhaven Books
3/23 Once Upon a Prologue
3/24 Hobbitses
3/25 ExLibris Kate
3/26 Xpresso Reads
3/27 Bookish
3/28 Great Imaginations
3/29 Good Books and Good Wine

17 & Gone Review

TITLE 17 & Gone
AUTHOR Nova Ren Suma
PUBLICATION March 21st 2013 by Dutton Juvenile
READ March 02, 2013
SOURCE From Penguin Canada for review

Seventeen-year-old Lauren is having visions of girls who have gone missing. And all these girls have just one thing in common—they are 17 and gone without a trace. As Lauren struggles to shake these waking nightmares, impossible questions demand urgent answers: Why are the girls speaking to Lauren? How can she help them? And… is she next? As Lauren searches for clues, everything begins to unravel, and when a brush with death lands her in the hospital, a shocking truth emerges, changing everything.

With complexity and richness, Nova Ren Suma serves up a beautiful, visual, fresh interpretation of what it means to be lost.

After reading Nova Ren Suma’s Imaginary Girls last year she fast became an author to watch for me. After reading 17 & Gone she has solidified herself as an author that I will buy & read anything that she does. Her writing is remarkable; the eerie, dreamlike quality of her prose sucks you in and leaves you questioning everything that you read. 17 & Gone is a novel about missing girls, not only girls that are taken but also ones who have run away from their life.

Lauren was someone that I really connected with. She struggled with what was happening to her and she wasn’t afraid to put what she needed to do ahead of the boy in her life. This was such a refreshing aspect to her personality because so often in YA the girls put the boys first, it was a breath of fresh air to see a girl who wasn’t afraid to throw her relationship in the back seat and do what she needed to do for herself. That being said, I also really did like her boyfriend Jaime. He was super supportive and I loved how he would go along with her and have very little questions. Their relationship was really sweet and as Lauren reflected on the path they had taken together and how they had opened up to one another I became invested in the relationship and where they would go. The real gem in the relationship department in this novel is between Lauren and her mother. I loved how her mother was portrayed as a completely unconventional mom; an ex stripper covered in tattoos who was always there for her daughter and really took an interest in the goings on in her life. The mother daughter relationship was fantastic and their openness with one another was exactly as it should be.

While reading this novel you don’t only get to meet wonderful characters and experience their relationships, but there is also a mystery going on. Lauren is seeing missing girls not only in her sleep but in her waking hours as well. Throughout the novel I wasn’t sure what was real and what was not and it made reading every page that much more chilling. I was a little nervous that this would be one of those stories that doesn’t really wrap up in the end and leaves a lot for each reader to take from it what they will but I am happy to report that I loved how it wrapped up. I wish I could talk about that aspect of the story a little more but I don’t want to spoil anything.

Much of this tale is Lauren working through the mystery as the elements just keep piling up. She meets more missing girls and as she meets each one we get snapshots of their stories leading up to their ultimate disappearance. Getting each girls story and realizing that no two circumstances are the same kept me absorbed in the story. This novel packs a punch and the writing is absolutely stunning. Once again Suma has come out with a story that I will be recommending to anyone who will listen.

Graffiti Moon Review

TITLE Graffiti Moon
AUTHOR Cath Crowley
PUBLICATION February 14th 2012 by Knopf Books
READ March 04 to 05, 2013
SOURCE Gifted from Giselle of Xpresso Reads

Senior year is over, and Lucy has the perfect way to celebrate: tonight, she's going to find Shadow, the mysterious graffiti artist whose work appears all over the city. He's out there somewhere—spraying color, spraying birds and blue sky on the night—and Lucy knows a guy who paints like Shadow is someone she could fall for. Really fall for. Instead, Lucy's stuck at a party with Ed, the guy she's managed to avoid since the most awkward date of her life. But when Ed tells her he knows where to find Shadow, they're suddenly on an all-night search around the city. And what Lucy can't see is the one thing that's right before her eyes.

I’m sitting here trying to decide how to start this review and I can’t figure it out. So I figured I would start out by telling you that I’m trying to figure out how to start it. I’m pretty late to the party with reading this one, about 90% of my Goodreads friends have read it and loved it, so I kind of feel as if I can’t really bring anything new to the table, all I can do is enforce Graffiti Moon’s awesomeness in some small way. And that’s exactly what this novel is; awesome. It’s a story that takes place in a single night but has characters and a plot with so much development that it feels like it spans much more time.

I guess that’s where my love for this novel really begins. I have always loved movies that take place in one single crazy night; Dazed & Confused, Can’t Hardly Wait, Go and Superbad are some that come to mind and this novel is up there with the best of them. What always surprises me with tales such as this is how well I end up feeling like I know the characters even though I only meet them for a single night of their life. Lucy was such a great character. She struggled with what was happening at home (who wouldn’t worry when their dad starts nailing a new address on the shed in the backyard) and she is on a mission to finally meet Shadow, the graffiti artist she has been lusting over forever. I loved her inner dialogue, she was so intelligent and funny & those elements of her personality are really brought out around her two best friends, Daisy & Jazz. I freaking loved all of these girls! Daisy was a tough cookie and she gave men such a hard time, it was hilarious. And Jazz was a really good friend and such a free spirit. I loved all of these girls and the moments when they were locked inside a bathroom stall plotting were the best.

We also have the boys in this tale Ed & Leo (or Shadow & Poet) and they were just as wonderful as the ladies. They were deep, they had substance, & they weren’t just looking to get into the girls’ pants (though there’s no denying they would have loved that perk.) I loved how into art and literature they were. Ed knew all the greats and had took such great joy in looking at pieces and conversing about artists. Poet’s poems were amazing and raw, I loved the snippets that we got from him here and there in verse, they worked so well. As I had said in the beginning and as I have enforced now the characters, though we only know them for a short snippet of time, are so well developed and full.

I think much of the characters development can be attributed to Crowley’s perfect use of flashbacks. There was lots of reminiscing but never did the flashbacks feel out of place or awkward. I came to love these characters so much and I wanted to know their history so that I could get a better understanding of them so I always appreciated going through memories with them. It’s a pretty fast paced story, as you can imagine from the time line, and a novel that I breezed through pretty fast. Another thing that keeps you sucked in is the wonderful imagery in the novel. I loved hearing about the richness of colors in all of Shadow’s paintings and his yearning for the perfect shade of blue. It was all so beautiful and I could have easily read another 200 pages.

A novel full of romance, full of humor and full of art; Graffiti Moon is not one to be missed. Don’t let the hype scare you because this one has earned every single bit of hype it has ever received. Crowley has just put herself on my authors to watch list and I will be picking up her previous book as well as watching for anything she does in the future.

Scarlet Review

TITLE Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2)
AUTHOR Marissa Meyer
PUBLICATION February 5th 2013 by Feiwel and Friends
READ January 15, 2012
SOURCE Raincoast Books for review

Cinder returns in the second thrilling installment of the New York Times-bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother and the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she has no choice but to trust him, though he clearly has a few dark secrets of his own.

As Scarlet and Wolf work to unravel one mystery, they find another when they cross paths with Cinder. Together, they must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen who will do anything to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner.

When I started my blog last year Cinder was one of the very first books that I read for it. I can remember being so torn and I actually ended up rating it a 3 & then going back a few weeks later and upping my rating to a 4. The premise for The Lunar Chronicles is just so out there and something I think I had some trouble wrapping my head around. Upon finishing Scarlet I can now say that I am a huge fan of what Marissa Meyer is doing with this series!

Scarlet picks up right where Cinder left off but it also tells the story of a new character, can you guess her name? Scarlet! While the story does start off with Scarlet’s side of things, fans of Cinder can rest assured that we still get a very strong dose of the characters we came to love in the first installment. I had worried that I would be disappointed that the sequel introduced a new story but the two tales weave together so seamlessly that it felt like Scarlet’s story was really just an extension of Cinder’s, a side of it we weren’t exposed to in the first book.

One thing that I felt really improved in Scarlet was the pacing. I was pretty bored with the first half of Cinder and that’s why I struggled so much with the rating. Scarlet starts off with a bang and just keeps getting... bangier! There was not one moment that I wanted to put it down and I absorbed it’s 462 pages in a single day. While this one is pretty predictable, just as Cinder was, I have to think that it’s on purpose because predictability seems to be a running theme in these novels. Because of that I didn’t find that it hindered my enjoyment of the story at all because it just felt like that’s how it should be.

So, back to the characters. Both Cinder and Scarlet are such strong women, I loved watching them face all the trouble they got themselves into head on. Cinder meets Cadet Captain Thorne and he really brought out the snarky side of her. I absolutely loved the witty banter the two of them had going on and once our beloved Iko was brought back into the story things got even more hilarious. Scarlet’s side of things took a more romantic route and I can say that I am totally swooning over Wolf. The internal struggle he fights through in the novel and his protectiveness of Scarlet was perfect! He didn’t feel possessive or creepy, he just felt perfectly sweet.

Scarlet is a more than worthy follow up in what is proving to be one of my all time favorite series. Once again we are left in the thick of things and left pining for Cress. I think it’s safe to say that it will be a painful wait, but one that I know will prove worthwhile!

x1000!

Flawed Review

TITLE Flawed
AUTHOR Kate Avelynn
PUBLICATION January 22nd 2013 by Entangled Publishing
READ December 27 to 28, 2012
SOURCE Purchased

Sarah O’Brien is alive because of the pact she and her brother made twelve years ago — James will protect her from their violent father if she promises to never leave him. For years, she’s watched James destroy his life to save hers. If all he asks for in return is her affection, she’ll give it freely.

Until, with a tiny kiss and a broken mind, he asks for more than she can give.

Sam Donavon has been James’ best friend — and the boy Sarah’s had a crush on — for as long as she can remember. As their forbidden relationship deepens, Sarah knows she’s in trouble. Quiet, serious Sam has decided he’s going to save her. Neither of them realizes James is far more unstable than her father ever was, or that he’s not about to let Sarah forget her half of the pact . . .

This book tore me apart in the worst way possible and didn’t even bother to put me back together. Guys, I am serious, this was a very difficult book to read and I think I probably used up an entire box of Puff’s Plus. This is the story of Sarah and James O’Brien who have grown up in a house where they are abused and forced to watch their mother deteriorate into her drug addiction. The heavy issues presented led to a lot of scenes that were difficult to read but rest assured there was also beauty and hope within these pages.

Sarah was an amazing character; I couldn’t be happier with the way that Avelynn developed her. She was beaten and broken but she was still able to find beauty in life. After all she had been through she was able to open up in the most vulnerable way to the love interest of the novel, Sam. Oh, Sam, where do I even start with him? He was so sweet and patient with Sarah and I loved every scene he was in. I liked that, while he was so sweet and comforting, he was also this big burly guy who could throw a punch when needed. Their relationship was by far the most beautiful thing in this novel and the scenes with them created a really good balance of light and darkness within the novel.

The beautiful relationship wasn’t the only one being explored in Flawed. We also see how their home environment and what they have had to go through has created this unhealthy bond between James and Sarah. What really got me about these two was that I completely understood it. Their entire lives they have had to endure unimaginable pain and suffering and all they had was each other. James’ feelings and actions with Sarah often blurred the line of brother and sister, which was, of course, uncomfortable, but came across as understandable as well.

Throughout the story we get to watch as Sarah removes herself from the closed box of her house and comes to terms with how wrong things are with her brother. I really liked how Avelynn had the reader feeling the claustrophobic feel of Sarah being at home, the freeness of her working at the flower shop and then would suck us back in once her brother came around. I think this was a very good portrayal of a young girl finding happiness in the world that she had no idea was there because of her situation.

Be warned folks, this is a very difficult story to read, and it doesn’t gloss over everything with a happy ending, but that’s what makes it so perfect. It’s not fake and it doesn’t hide how ugly life can be.