Eternal Starling by Angela Corbett

Title: Eternal Starling
Author: Angela Corbett
Publisher: Pendrell Publishing
Release Date: December 6, 2011
Pages: 320 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

A love so strong, even eternity can’t separate them.

Evie Starling has lived a relatively uneventful life hanging out with friends, gossiping about boys, and driving her 1966 Mustang. All of that changes when she moves to Gunnison, Colorado, to start college and meets two mysterious men.

For centuries, Alex Night and Emil Stone have yearned for Evie—but they each have their own reasons for wanting to be with her. When both men claim to be her soul mate and tell her about an unbelievable past, Evie learns that she’s not the person she thought she was. Soon, Evie finds herself in the middle of an age-old battle between the Amaranthine Society—the soul protectors, and the Daevos Resistance—the soul destroyers. With a past she doesn’t understand, and a future rife with danger, Evie has to decide who she can trust. But Alex and Emil aren’t the only ones who want Evie, and her soul is about to become the rope in an eternal tug-of-war.

Review:

"Alex had just met me. Why would he care if I went careening off a cliff?" -Eternal Starling, 3% mark on my Kindle

That was a warning. After all, if Evie thinks there is something wrong with another having the common decency to not want a person to go careening off a cliff, there may be something wrong with her. Did I listen to that warning? Not for a second, and did I ever pay for it! My violent dislike of love triangles aside, I thought Eternal Starling was going to be a good book, but its half-awesome, half-infuriating heroine, unlikable love interests, badly done love triangle, and slow-moving plot killed it for me.

Half the time, I liked Evie. She took little to no bull from her boyfriends and she had so much backbone that I wanted to ask her to donate some of it to YA heroines in need. If only we could get the truly fantastic girls to share the wealth, YA would be a better genre for all! But I'm derailing myself. The other half of the time, I could not stand her. In addition to the quote at the beginning of the review, she lets her hormones control her brain--and she admits to it. It does not make me like her any more when she admits to it. It just makes me think she's even dumber.

Let's say it together: reincarnation does not excuse insta-love even if they knew each other in a past life. It is not an excuse to skip over development either. Here, we get not one, but two cases of insta-love, and I wondered for a minute if Anthony Sullivan and his pitchman ways had anything to do with this book. This story is driven by the love triangle (after all, most of what you see in the jacket copy is only just getting hinted at around the halfway mark) and giving it no development is a death sentence. Why does Evie have two soul mates when people are only supposed to have one? Hell if I know and hell if the book has an answer.

Both of her love interests can go jump in a pit of vipers. Alex constantly criticizes Evie's independent spirit, which led to me literally shouting expletives at my Kindle, and he always found a way to rub me wrong. Emil was not as offensive to the senses, but his mushy, annoying attitude got on my nerves. Some of the things he said to her and the way he kept just as much from Evie as Alex did is what sentences him to the pit. I get more excited watching my two inside cats attack than reading about Emil and Alex fighting over Evie. (And really, my cats are hardly fighting; the kitten jumps on our overweight cat and the two run around the house hissing at one another.)

My main reason for hating them both? When Evie uses her backbone to stand up to her, they shut her down almost every time. What the hell?! I love backbones, but when they are chained down by other people like Evie's is constantly, it's almost preferable to have a spineless heroine! Between seeing a heroine rarely stand up for herself and then seeing one stand up for herself but be told to sit back down and shut up, I can't decide which one I dislike more.

When the plot finally steps in, the greater antagonist's motives are poorly explained. I get why the Amaranthine Society tries to help soul mates, but what does the Daevos Resistance get out of breaking them up? The explanation the book offered (they're evil and building an army) was poor. They're never explored any deeper than "they're evil" and the flat picture it paints takes away a lot of the tension. I did like the idea of the two groups, but they're so shallowly covered that they aren't much good. The specific antagonist, a  Daevos Clan, isn't much better.

And I suppose this teaches me not to listen to one particular book blogger. They may be popular and many people may love them (to be fair, this blogger really is a sweet person), but their reviews never match up with my tastes and the books they tend to love the most are the ones I hate the most. Remember, everyone: make sure the people you rely on for book reviews have tastes that match yours in some way. Otherwise, you end up like me, buying books you hate because someone whose tastes are unlike yours said it was awesome.

1 star!

What am I reading next?: A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Title: The Summer I Turned Pretty 
Author: Jenny Han
Publisher: Simon and Schuster BFYR
Release Date: May 5, 2009
Pages: 276 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

When each summer begins, Belly leaves her school life behind and escapes to Cousins Beach, the place she had spent every summer of her life. Not only does the beach house mean home away from home, bu her favorite people are there: Susannah, her mother's best friend, and her sons, Conrad and Jeremiah. Belly has been chasing Conrad for as long as she can remember, and more than anything, she hopes this summer will be different. Despite distractions from a new guy named Cam and lingering looks from Conrad's brother, Belly's heart belongs to Conrad. Will he offer his to her? Will this be the summer that changes everything?

Review:

The first time I came across this series was when one of the bloggers I follow reviewed the final book of the trilogy, We'll Always Have Summer. Gazing at the three covers of the series, my immediate reaction was "Oh God my heart, wait those are the heartstrings not heartburn, but either way Oh God my heart." With summer rapidly approaching and me being in a terrible mood because of various things, it seemed like the perfect time to indulge in some fluff. I just wished the content could have pulled at my heartstrings the way the covers can.

I've got to hand it to Han: she wrote Belly's nostalgia for summers past and present well. She's able to tap into our own memories of summers long gone and wrap us up in Belly's world. Neither the characters nor plot were strong enough to carry the novel and give it pacing, but relaxed prose and a series of events you can't help but smile at as you follow them keep you reading. In fact, Han is so good at what she does that it took me three-fourths of the novel to realize that Belly is an immature brat who doesn't get nearly as much character development as she needs. She lost me as soon as she called her best friend a slut.

Though Conrad has his nice moments, I have no idea what Belly sees in him. He's a jerk, plain and simple. A jerk of a boy I went to school with until ninth grade had his nice moments too, but he was still a jerk to me overall and I still wanted to kick him in the shins. Conrad isn't any different in my eyes. His brother Jeremiah and Belly's "boyfriend" Cam were more likable as love interests and they deserved better treatment than they got.

The teenage characters could have used some more work, but the bond between the kids' mothers was pitch perfect on every note. The way they interacted with one another when their scenes played out and even when they were off-screen doing various things we only learn about close to the end of the novel, the friendship they have and the loyalty they show one another is more interesting than any of Belly's adventures in Boyland. I hope I can have a Susannah to my Laurel when I'm that old (only without any cancer or divorce involved).

The next two books sound more interesting, so who knows? I may read them, I may not. It depends on my mood and how much I need a dose of nostalgic memories of summer. For that much, The Summer I Turned Pretty is a great choice for a beginning-of-summer read.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard

Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin

Title: Masque of the Red Death
Author: Bethany Griffin
Publisher: HarperCollins/Greenwillow Books
Release Date: April 24, 2012
Pages: 320 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC provided by Amazon Vine.
Purchase: Amazon; Barnes & Noble; Book Depository

Everything is in ruins.

A devastating plague has decimated the population. And those who are left live in fear of catching it as the city crumbles to pieces around them.

So what does Araby Worth have to live for?

Nights in the Debauchery Club, beautiful dresses, glittery make-up . . . and tantalizing ways to forget it all.

But in the depths of the club—in the depths of her own despair—Araby will find more than oblivion. She will find Will, the terribly handsome proprietor of the club. And Elliott, the wickedly smart aristocrat. Neither boy is what he seems. Both have secrets. Everyone does.

And Araby may find something not just to live for, but to fight for—no matter what it costs her.

Review:

Thanks to the magic of Goodreads, I can say Masque of the Red Death has been on my radar since August 30, 2011 and as more in-depth descriptions were added, it became one of my most anticipated reads of 2012. Seven months of anticipation, especially after seeing it get consistently positive reviews, make my disappointment in the novel that much more bitter.

Masque of the Red Death had all the ingredients for a great novel. A gloomy mood set by the description and Araby's inner thoughts set the stage for a fabulous post-apocalyptic Gothic novel. Poe's classic short story is creatively twisted into something that is both an original work and a loving homage to Poe's genius. Some scenes of the novel are incredibly powerful--like the one with Will, Araby, and the moonlight flower. I had to go back and reread it a few times because I loved it so much.

What is there not to like, then? The story sounds fantastic in theory, but it is more often lacking in practice.

Araby and Elliott are well-developed characters in all the technical aspects. Elliott has a motivation and is incredibly sympathetic; Araby doesn't have much of a motivation herself, but her despair and loneliness drew me to her and could once again earn a lot of fans out of sympathy for her. My problem is that despite their adequate construction, I couldn't connect with them. They didn't feel alive, so to speak. Their connections with other characters left a lot to be desired too. Why was Araby drawn to Will and Elliott the way she was? The hope they offered? That seems the most likely explanation, but nothing about the characters and their relationships clicked the way they should have.

Two-thirds of the way through the novel, very little had happened and there was almost no forward momentum. I procrastinated on a major paper to read this book and I wanted to at least pretend it was a better use of my time, but I couldn't keep up the illusion when I kept putting it down and watching documentaries about Columbine and OJ Simpson's trial on television.The plot did kick in shortly after--oh wow, did it kick in; I couldn't put it down for those last hundred pages--but saving any sign of plot or action for the last one-hundred pages of the book could lose a lot of readers.

But now I'm done and my Count of Monte Cristo paper is calling my name, motioning me to come closer with a knife in one white, crinkling hand and pen and paper in the other. I think it's best I go see it before I get stabbed--or worse, before one of my books gets stabbed.

As a bonus for readers who want a small insight into how the author chose the names for her characters, look no further than right here. If this is what happens when I express my dislike of a name, I may need to do it more often. Masque left me unimpressed and disappointed, but other readers will doubtlessly enjoy it.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Enchanted by Alethea Kontis

The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell

Title: The Springsweet
Author: Saundra Mitchell
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Harcourt
Release Date: April 17, 2012
Pages: 288 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Amazon Vine-provided ARC

It’s a long way from Baltimore to Oklahoma Territory. But Zora Stewart will go any distance to put the tragic events of her sixteenth summer behind her. So this city girl heads to the tiny frontier town of West Glory to help her young widowed aunt keep her homestead going.

When another Baltimorean shows up in West Glory, Zora couldn’t be more surprised. Theo de la Croix made the long trip out west hoping to court Zora, whom he has long admired from afar.
But Zora has developed an attraction to a rather less respectable fellow: Emerson Birch, a rough-mannered young "sooner" whose fertile land is coveted.

As Zora begins to suspect that there may be more than luck behind Emerson’s good land, she discovers an extraordinary, astonishing power of her own: the ability to sense water under the parched earth. When her aunt hires her out as a "springsweet" to advise other settlers where to dig their wells, Zora feels the burden of holding the key to something so essential to survival in this unforgiving land.

Even more, she finds herself longing for love the way the prairie thirsts for water. Maybe, in the wildness of the territories, Zora can finally move beyond simply surviving and start living.

Review:

After the death of her fiance Thomas and her cousin Amelia, Zora Stewart is ready to get away from Baltimore. All it takes is one unexpected kiss at a party and she's off for the Oklahoma Territory to live with her aunt Birdie and younger cousin Louella until she "comes to her senses." While she is there, she discovers she has the power to sense the location of water, a useful power in such dry lands. In addition to her new gift, two men trouble her. Emerson Birch is regarded by West Glory as bad news, but Zora doesn't see what's wrong with him. Meanwhile, Theo de la Croix has made his way out to West Glory to court Zora, but she isn't interested like everyone wants her to be.

I didn't always like the choices Zora made (surely there was another way to convince her mother to let her go elsewhere), but she wasn't bad as far as YA heroines go. At the very least, she didn't make me want to choke her on a regular basis like some other heroines I've encountered did. Zora's easy adaptation to the constant work in the country after growing up in the city of Baltimore was a little strange; she never struck me in this book or its prequel The Vespertine as the type to easily adapt.

The Springsweet is short and sweet at 288 pages (well, it's short for me) and that challenges it to characterize everyone and get the plot moving more quickly than other novels while still making it feel natural. Does this book meet that challenge? It felt a little bit rushed, like it could have used another fifty pages or so to develop everything. Aunt Birdie's quiet characterization was a high point; my inability to understand what Zora sees in Emerson is on the lower end of the spectrum.

Now then, a quick summary of the novel: A girl leaves home, temporarily moving to another city and taking residence with her aunt and cousin. One of her relatives, who isn't much older than herself, causes the heroine to experience some personal growth, but she discovers something: she has a magical power. The people all love her and her gift at first, but they threaten to turn on her when her gift no longer gives them good fortune. Meanwhile, our heroine is trapped in a love triangle. One man is a good, upstanding man proper society is pushing her toward; the other is a bad boy everyone disapproves of, but she can't stay away from him--and he has a power just like she does.

What I just wrote is an adequate summary of both The Vespertine and The Springsweet. It feels like I've read the same book twice with the names and settings changed and I don't like feeling that way. I expected Zora's narrative voice to be unlike Amelia's because they were such different characters, but I can't tell the difference between them.

The writing remains one of my favorite qualities of the novel. There's something about the way it tosses around metaphors and orders its syntax that makes me have an especially nerdy moment. I wish I had more to say there because of how much I like it, but that suffices and I'm not going to drag it out. Two climactic scenes one after another at the end off the novel ended up having two very different effects on me. One of them had me reading like it would have killed me not to. The other garnered this reaction from me: "Oh. Okay then." Considering that second climax involved someone getting murdered, this is not a good reaction for it to bring out of me.

Fans of The Vespertine will enjoy the return of the lyrical prose and the development of Zora's personal story (not to mention where it looks like the next book might take both her and Amelia), but fans of The Vespertine who do not want to read almost the exact same story with new packaging may not love it as much.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Beneath My Mother's Feet by Amjed Qamar

Switched by Amanda Hocking

Title: Switched
Author: Amanda Hocking
Publisher: Macmillan/St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: January 3, 2012
Pages: 318 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it in a used bookstore

When Wendy Everly was six years old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her. Eleven years later, Wendy discovers her mother might have been right. She’s not the person she’s always believed herself to be, and her whole life begins to unravel—all because of Finn Holmes.

Finn is a mysterious guy who always seems to be watching her. Every encounter leaves her deeply shaken…though it has more to do with her fierce attraction to him than she’d ever admit. But it isn’t long before he reveals the truth: Wendy is a changeling who was switched at birth—and he’s come to take her home.

Now Wendy’s about to journey to a magical world she never knew existed, one that’s both beautiful and frightening. And where she must leave her old life behind to discover who she’s meant to become…

Review:

I just got trolled.

Yes, this is a paranormal romance about trolls, so technically, anyone that reads this book is getting trolled the way someone reading a vampire book gets vampired. That's not the kind of trolled I'm talking about. This kind is:

Not my best work, sadly. The better version of this was tragically lost.

The only reason I remotely enjoyed this book was because I superimposed Internet troll faces onto all the Tryelle/trolls much like I did in the image. That made Switched an unusually hilarious read and it gets an extra star for that, but when taken seriously on its own merit, this book is terrible. Maybe you'll like it if you're into unconvincing paranormal romances and don't mind if those "oh my God, I just discovered I'm royalty" stories like The Princess Diaries get mixed in.

For all the things readers are told Wendy is, the only quality I can really see in her is that she is bratty. She's supposed to care a lot about her human family, right? Then why does she so easily forget them once she among the other Tryelle? I can't remember anything about the other characters either despite all the tell-don't-show characterization. Finn's role could have been better played by a cactus. At least it has living, working cells. That's more than Finn, who is pretty much a piece of cardboard with the ability to speak, can say.

The second half of the novel takes a turn for the sickeningly vapid as details of the extravagance of the Tryelle royal palace take over and go down to the royal iPod (and yes, there is a royal iPod). It may be a princess book and such details are to be expected to some degree, but it was overblown in Switched. Time spent on talking about how wonderful and perfect the palace was and what Wendy's princess lessons were like could have been used to develop characters that desperately needed development and advance a plot that was hardly there.

No one tells Wendy anything and it frustrates me considering everything they keep from her is something she actually needs to know if she is going to do what everyone says she will. There is no intrigue that justifies keeping secrets from her; this is her mother and the two men she interacts with most flat-out starving her of necessary information. How can they expect her to became a just ruler if she has no idea how her kingdom works and who is in it? Secrets are one way to drum up conflict, but it gets downright idiotic if there is no good reason to keep the secrets.

In that vein, why does this book have to follow the misogynistic systems of human monarchies? According to the book, the female Tryelle develop powers more often than the men do (or something like that). Would this and the Tryelle being a completely separate race from humans not be perfectly good reasons to write a more female-friendly monarchy? That would get rid of the eternally stupid problem of royals indoctrinating princesses on what they can't do because it would make them ~impure. Why does Finn get final approval on Wendy's dress? What about Wendy?

I'm just glad it's over. I gave Hocking novels a fair second shot (my first shot was My Blood Approves and I made it exactly one chapter) like I wanted to and now I'm washing my hands of her books now and (hopefully) forevermore. My best friend wants to read this after me and I'm tempted to refuse to give it to her. You don't want this, Kayla! You don't want this.

In case anyone is curious about my thoughts on yaoi Amanda Hocking, this is the only time I will say it and fully expand on it. If you don't care, pretend the review ends in the paragraph above this.

Amanda Hocking is a fantastic businesswoman worthy of my respect.

Amanda Hocking is a terrible author not worth my respect.

At any given point in time, there are two kinds of trends in publishing: the buying trend and the selling trend. The buying trend has to do with the kinds of novels being bought by a publisher so they can be refined any published a year and a half later, sometimes longer; the selling trend is what is already published, on the shelves, and selling well. Back a few years ago, the selling trend was vampire novels thanks to Twilight and meanwhile, the buying trend was dystopian novels. That is why we've seen a switch to dystopian novels as the selling trend.

Like I said, it can be a year and a half between the purchase of a novel by the publisher and final publication. Hocking can produce a first draft in two to four weeks and likely has a final draft a month later. This means she can bypass the long process of a buying trend becoming a selling trend and can cash in on what the selling trend now is while preparing for what comes next, enabling her to make money quickly.

With the takeoff of the ebook industry, consumers want inexpensive books to fill their Kindles and Nooks with and self-published authors can fulfill that need. Hocking's stories are inexpensive, superficially satisfying quick fixes and these are exactly the kinds of books that wildly succeed in the ebook market. She really couldn't have chosen a better market, and this is why she is a millionaire with a seven-figure deal with a major publisher for seven books, four of them brand-new. This entrepreneurship is beyond admirable.

But where is the passion? Never once during Switched did I feel like there was any passion in the story being told. It feels exactly like what it is: an unoriginal novel charged with just enough originality shot in to satisfy most readers, written and published just to make money off current trends in YA. This is why I despise Amanda Hocking the author. There are plenty of copycat novels around, but at least those have some passion in them somewhere, something Switched never had for even a moment.

But what do I know? Switched has spent nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. That must mean she's doing something right--and she is. I respect her when viewing her as an incredibly successful businesswoman who has made herself a millionaire through her methods. When viewing her as an author who latches onto trends and publishes sub-par, superficially satisfying novels for the sake of profit, she disgusts me. You will never be able to convince me she feels passionate about her books.

And those are my thoughts on Amanda Hocking. /steps off soapbox

1 star!

What am I reading next?: Angelfall by Susan Ee

A Beautiful Dark by Jocelyn Davies

200th post! Woohoo!

Title: A Beautiful Dark
Author: Jocelyn Davies
Publisher: HarperCollins/HarperTeen
Release Date: September 27, 2011
Pages: 390 pages (hardcover)


On the night of Skye's seventeenth birthday, she meets two enigmatic strangers. Complete opposites;like fire and ice;Asher is dark and wild, while Devin is fair and aloof. Their sudden appearance sends Skye's life into a tailspin. She has no idea what they want, or why they seem to follow her every move only that their presence coincides with a flurry of strange events. Soon she begins to doubt not just the identity of the two boys, but also the truth about her own past.

In the dead of a bitingly cold Colorado winter, Skye finds herself coming to terms with the impossible secret that threatens to shatter her world. Torn between Asher, who she can't help falling for, and Devin, who she can't stay away from, the consequences of Skye's choice will reach further than the three of them could ever imagine.

Review:

Once upon a time, there was an idea, A Beautiful Dark, and me.

See, I like to write too. I want to be published one day, and one of the many ideas I've had (but have not yet had the chance to pursue) went like this: an agent of good, an agent of evil, and the high school girl they're trying to win over to their side of an ancient war. Only good is also evil, evil is still evil (but sympathetic), and the high school girl will take no bull from either of them. She won't waste her time with anyone who don't give her the respect than she deserves and would rather die than be forced to join the war on either side against her will--and does, actually.

It sounds like a lot of YA these days, right? But A Beautiful Dark in particular seemed to come close to what I had planned. I don't want to be a plagiarist or a copycat (and despite what the success of one author might tell you, being a plagiarist or a copycat does not get you anywhere), so I resolved to read this book despite knowing I wouldn't like it very much. I don't always read bad books for snark, you know. It's occasionally for a pseudo-educational purpose.

And lo and behold, my instincts and were right. I did not like this book, but it gave me some food for thought and a greater sense of direction with my own story. I'll have to make a few changes because they're more similar than I would like them to be, but it will inevitably improve my story so it doesn't end up being as bad as A Beautiful Dark.

In equal parts, Sky drove me nuts and earned my pity. On the drove-me-nuts side, she was inconsistently characterized and I couldn't get a good handle on her. In a single chapter, she does from "I vowed to avoid [Asher and Devin] as much as possible" to "If I kissed [Asher] right now, he'd taste like mint" to (when Asher asks her on a date) "[Meeting my friends] was the truth, but it felt like I was making up an excuse somehow."

But Skye wants to go to Columbia! Fantastic! Aspiring for admission to such a college is a quality I like in heroines. Tell me, what does she want as a career? What is her planned major? How much has it influenced who she is?

Hello? Anyone?

Exactly. It's called characterization. Readers could have gotten a deeper sense of who Skye was with that kind of detail, but a half-baked attempt like this only makes the book worse. Books like A Beautiful Dark that make half-baked attempts at characterization like that (it seems so obvious the detail was shoved in at the last minute so the book wouldn't be called anti-feminist) make me angrier than books that don't try at all. This isn't the only book to try such a trick. It's more like the fifth I've read in recent memory.

Devin and Asher were not well-developed as love interests or as characters. Skye knows their pursuit of her has nothing to do with wanting her affection--in fact, she brings this up multiple times. So why is she attracted to them? Why does she tolerate their attentions and agonize over whether or not she likes them when they aren't worth a second of her time? They aren't worth her time. Skye should have the self-respect to recognize she deserves more than lies and games of hot-and-cold. Every woman does.

Do we really teach young women should tolerate and even encourage someone's pursuit of them even if she knows it's a farce? We're in 2012, not 1889. Why do we still teach them to disrespect themselves like this when it's wrong on multiple levels? I was practically on my knees begging Skye to have some self-respect and tell them to piss off until their pursuit became more about her than each other, but she never did. I thought she would after demonstrating the presence of a working brain, but it appears only a miniscule piece of that brain actually worked. This is why I pity her.

This book doesn't have enough action to be plot-driven or enough deep characterization to be character-driven, so what drives the book? Nothing. It's a plotless piece of fluff. Only read it if you absolutely love love triangles. Again, ONLY READ IT IF YOU ABSOLUTELY LOVE LOVE TRIANGLES. You will not like it otherwise. Writing is blah, supporting characters are blah, and everything about this book is just. So. Blah.

In terms of enjoyment, it gets one star, but it earns a star back because it was useful. I have a clearer idea of what I want to do. For one thing, my heroine is going to have enough self-respect to tell her suitors to piss off when she figures out they're not actually fighting over her, just what she can do. A girl is worth more than that kind of treatment. For another, she's not going to flip-flop about how she feels multiple times in one chapter. Books like A Beautiful Dark make me weary of YA and our society, but they teach me so many things. I suppose I can be thankful for that much.

2 stars!

What am I reading next?: Hanging by a Thread by Sophie Littlefield

H.Y.P.E. Project: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books
Release Date: May 3, 2011
Pages: 487 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it for the H.Y.P.E. Project (details here)

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself. 

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves… or it might destroy her.

Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the literary scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.

Review:

Characters

Hands-down, Tris was the best part of the book. Her fantastic character development as the switch from Abnegation to Dauntless changed her in some ways and left her untouched in others is the kind of stuff I want to see in every book, not every few months in rare books. When the boys took her to the Pit to scare her, I felt fiercely angry for her and hoped the boys would get their just desserts eventually. The other characters were so pale next to her, people colored with just twelve crayons instead of two-hundred fifty-six like Tris.

It dampened my buzz a little every time I remembered there isn't anything truly extraordinary about Tris, though. Objectively, she is unusual because she is the average human being thrown into a sea of people wired like robots instead of human beings. Is that the best way for her to stand out? Because she is the only normal one in a crowd of abnormal people (and they are only abnormal because they are not written the way they should be)? Tris deserves better than that.

Really, characters other than Tris (and possibly other Divergents) just don't form connections to their families and have no issues with dropping them if they leave for another faction? Are there drugs in the water? That isn't the way a human being works. Humans are social animals and form deep connections with friends and family. Being able to sever those connections as easily as everyone apparently does in the world of Divergent? That doesn't happen very often.

Plot/Pacing

This was largely what I heard about Divergent prior to reading it: It's so exciting that it will make you want to pee your pants and you'll be glued to the book from the first page to the last.

Well? Where was the excitement for most of the novel?

The last eighty pages did catch my attention and kept me reading when I had other work to do.The four hundred pages before that were a very different story. Jumping in and out of trains to get around isn't exciting to me; it's stupid, as demonstrated when a Dauntless girl died leaping out of a train. Really, when only ten new members are allowed into Dauntless per year, they need to keep all the people alive that they can. Until Tris started navigating her fear landscape near page four-hundred, I could easily put the book down.

Moreover, it didn't take me thirty seconds to figure out what was going to go down, who was involved in the evil plot, and how they were going to do it. The hints had spotlights on them and such pains were gone to so Tris (and the reader by extension) would know what the big deal about being Divergent was that it gave everything away. So I suppose Divergent is decently plotted, but it is painfully transparent in its execution. I don't like waiting one-hundred fifty pages for the villains to reveal themselves when I've been aware of them the entire time.

Themes/Conflicts

I have little to say here. The points about what courage means (doing something even though you are afraid) are valid and everything Tris had to go through to figure them out was great character development for her. The conflict between the Dauntless initiates was well-drawn considering exactly where they were and what would happen if they didn't make it in.

Writing

The writing was nothing outstanding in terms of its stylistic choices and descriptions, but it never distracted from Tris' trials or what was going on and worked well with the kind of story being told. If I had to make a clear verdict (and I do), I would say the writing is great. Not poetic-great or I'll-remember-it-forever great, but a writing style so smooth that you never need to stop and consider a bad description or watch the atmosphere fall apart because of a disastrous choice of words is respectable.

Logic

I'm sorry, what?

(I really don't use GIFs often, but this about sums up my feelings about the logic of Divergent... and it involves a kitten. Leave me alone.)

What happened to Chicago? How did this deeply flawed society develop? How did it not fall apart ages ago? Why did anyone think the faction system was going to prevent war when history has shown time and time again that creating deep divisions between people like the faction system does will lead to war? The prejudice the Erudite had against the Abnegation demonstrates exactly this. Also, what kind of government would let large numbers of the factionless stay around, become bitter at the system for its highly unfair processes and its inability to give everyone a fair go, and possibly plot their own revolution? It looks like you're pretty much done for life once you're declared factionless. Because of that, I'm surprised and a little disappointed the factionless played no real part in the novel..

Stick around for the sequels, some of you might say to me. That's what sequels are for: expanding on the first book. Why should I get the sequel? Tell me. Why should I? The first book of a series is supposed to hook me for sequels and Divergent failed to do so. Too many questions are left unanswered or with hints at an unsatisfying answer and I did not like the book overall. I highly doubt paying $17.99 for Insurgent when it comes out and spending several days reading it will be a worthwhile investment of my time and money.

Was it worth the hype?

Not at all. For all the good word I've heard, for all the time my friends have spent talking it up, and for all the accolades it's getting, I don't see what the big deal about Divergent is. So many questions are left unanswered, but I lack the motivation to keep an eye out for Insurgent when it comes out in about three months.

Bonus cover section

I envy the abilities of the person who made this cover. As I've learned in the past year and a half, digital design is not easy and the cover, down to the details of each and every little flame of the Dauntless symbol, looks flawless. Great focus, understated fonts--I would love to be able to create something like this some day instead of turning green over someone else's ability to do it.

2 stars! (But I would put it closer to 2.5 stars.)

What am I reading next?: Embrace by Jessica Shirvington

Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne

Title: Harbinger
Author: Sara Wilson Etienne
Publisher: Penguin/ G.P. Putnam's Sons
Release Date: February 2, 2012
Pages: 309 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.

Plagued by waking visions and nightmares, inexplicably drawn to the bones of dead animals, Faye thinks she's going crazy. Fast. Her parents beleive Holbrook Academy might just be the solution. Dr. Mordoch tells her it's the only answer. But Faye knows that something's not quite right about Dr. Mordoch and her creepy, prisonlike school for disturbed teenagers.

What's wrong with Holbrook goes beyond the Takers, sadistic guards who threaten the student body with Tasers and pepper spray; or Nurse, who doles out pills at bedtime and doses of solitary confinement when kids step out of line; or Rita, the strange girl who delivers ominous messages to Faye that never seem to make any sense. What's wrong with Holbrook begins and ends with Faye's red hands; she and her newfound friends--her Holbrook "family"--wake up every morning with their hands stained the terrible brown of dried blood. Faye has no idea what it means but fears she may be the cause.

Because despite the strangeness of Holbrook and the island on which it sits, Faye feels oddly connected to the place; she feels especially linked to the handsome Kel, who helps her unravel the mystery. There's just one problem: Faye's certain Kel's trying to kill her--and maybe the rest of the world, too.

A rich and tautly told psychological thriller, Harbinger heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in young adult fiction.

Review:

Visions of waves swallowing her whole and drowning her have plagued Faye Robson since the age of six and her parents have finally had enough. Her father drops her off at Holbrook Academy with a boatload of other disturbed for trouble-making teens without warning. Her first full day there finds her paired with five other students who become her Family and the first real friends she's ever had. Then Faye and her friends wake up with bloody drawings on the floor and their own hands stained in blood. In their desperate search to find out what is going on, Faye and her friends come across an old diary and a set of cards detailing a prophecy. Whoever the Harbinger fated to end the world is, they must be stopped at any cost. Even if that cost is their lives.

I'm kind of having a hard time putting together words for this. I came in expecting one kind of book and found myself engrossed in something unexpected--something seasoned with a dose of strange and a bucketful or originality. Books like these make it difficult to capture their magic with the simple words I can cobble together.

Harbinger is the kind of book you want to save for a time when you know you will not be interrupted. I saved it for such a time because I had the feeling it would be one of those books and I ended up spending five hours on it with only one short break. Harbinger leaves just enough of a mystery hanging around at all times to keep readers moving toward the end of the chapter, and tantalizing cliffhangers kept me turning pages just when I thought I would be able to stop and take a break. This kind of mix is why I only had one break in that five hours.

The writing gets a little repetitive at time (and not just due to anaphora), maybe a little droll too, but the descriptions of Faye's visions as they set in come to life and make me feel like the waves are coming for me too.  Faye was a well-drawn character, though her friends were less so and her connection with Kel didn't have the depth to it that I would have liked. Faye wasn't the nicest character in the world, but I grew to care about her. Poor girl, being so isolated like that for most of her life. Hardly anyone wanted to get near her for reasons she had no control over.

Still, I'm not blind to the book's flaws. It starts off slowly and takes almost a third of the novel to get going. A massive red herring that went unchallenged for most of the novel? I saw through it from the start. Too many clues that pointed to the truth were left sitting out in the open and I kept wondering when the book would stop pretending and confirm what I already knew. Descriptions of the Peak War, the Cooperatives, heavy rationing of gas, food, water, etc. begged for deeper exploration, but keeping the concentration on what was going on inside Holbrook Academy with Faye and her friends left that world woefully unexplored.

The description claims the author is an exciting new voice in young adult fiction and I have to agree. With a debut this strong and grabbing, I think I've found a new author to keep an eye on for future works. It can only get better from here and when it's already good... Are you ready for something unexpected and a little (or just short of very) strange? Try Harbinger out.

4 stars!

What am I reading next?: Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

H.Y.P.E. Project: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Title: Across the Universe

Author: Beth Revis

Publisher: Penguin/Razorbill

Release Date: January 11, 2011 (hardcover)/November 29, 2011 (paperback)

Pages: 398 pages (hardcover/paperback)

How I Got the Book: Bought it for the H.Y.P.E. Project (details here)

  

Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the spaceship Godspeed. She has left her boyfriend, friends--and planet--behind to join her parents as a member of the Project Ark Ship. Amy and her parents believe they will wake on a new planet, Centauri-Earth, three hundred years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed's scheduled landing, cryo chamber 42 is mysteriously unplugged, and Amy is violently woken from her frozen slumber.

Someone tried to murder her.

Now, Amy is caught inside a tiny world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed's 2,312 passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader. And Elder, Eldest's rebellious teenage heir, is both fascinated with Amy and eager to discover whether he has what it takes to lead.

Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she put her faith in a boy who has never seen life outside the ship's cold metal walls? All Amy knows is that she and Elder must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again.

Review:

Amy signed up for being frozen for three hundred years while the ship Godspeed took her, her parents, and others to a new planet known as Centauri-Earth, but she didn't sign up for spending most of those years with her mind still active in her frozen state. She most certainly didn't sign up for nearly dying when someone unplugged the cryo machine keeping her alive and frozen. Elder, the heir of Godspeed and its eventual leader after Eldest steps down, is fascinated by Amy, a girl so unlike the others. Though he would love to get to know her better, they have bigger worries on their hands: Eldest is behaving suspiciously, Amy feels there is something very wrong on the ship, and someone keeps unplugging cryo machines, killing the people inside. To save Amy's father and the other Frozens, they will have to find the killer and it may lead to the breakdown of order on the ship.

Characters

I felt Amy was a little stronger of a character than Elder, though both of them could have been improved upon and their connection needed to be stronger than it was. Her early chapters from when she was frozen/getting frozen were terrifying and the strongest scenes of the novel. For those scenes alone, I will be keeping this book instead of giving it to my local used bookstore for credit. I never fully got a grip on Elder's character. Was he a rebel to the max, a whiner, a wimp, a boy wise beyond his years? All the above? None? I know his thoughts, but I don't feel like I know him well enough. Not to mention that his fantasizing about Amy at the beginning was pretty creepy.

And the big secret Elder reveals toward the end? B-U-L-L. We'd been in his head for half the book by the time it was revealed; that something that big didn't come up earlier felt cheap and unbelievable. I have abandoned other books halfway through for pulling the same trick and it has me so badly frustrated that I doubt I will pick up the next book at all.

Plot/Pacing

The plot line about who was unfreezing/killing the Frozens was painfully predictable and the book as a whole would have been much stronger if it had been dropped altogether. Honestly, “predictable” is this book’s middle name. There wasn't a lot about the novel I didn't see coming. Still, something about their narrative voices kept me reading when I got bored and wanted to do something else. Maybe it was hope I would see the triumphant return of strong scenes like those at the beginning of the novel. If only that hope had been rewarded.

Themes/Conflict

Across the Universe was unexpectedly as much of a dystopian novel as it was a sci-fi novel. It hits all the main ideas (people should not be controlled, they deserve to know the truth no matter what the consequences might be, ), but it doesn't try to do anything new with those messages. The standard black-and-white view is defaulted to without much of an attempt at bringing out the shades of grey in why generations of Eldests ruled the ship the way they did. Since the antagonist was clear from the start, there really wasn't much conflict going on.

Writing

I quite liked the writing style and it had its beautiful moments, but it was also one of the book’s problems. Elder and Amy are two separate people with very different personalities, but they described everything the exact same way and used the same evocative language. I constantly lost track of who was talking because there was so little difference in their narratives. It got bad enough that I would be reading through Elder’s point of view while he interacted with Amy and I would still think I was reading through Amy’s point of view.

Logic

I may be intelligent and incredibly pretty (your mileage may vary on the latter, but that’s what I think), but science is and always has been my worst subject. Still, even I can see how wrong it is when Newton’s first law of motion (an object that is in motion will stay in motion until an external force acts upon it) is ignored. There are probably deeper problems than that, but that’s the one that really sticks out. Then again, considering it gets retconned at the beginning of the sequel… Nah, that could have been easily fixed in this book with one simple note from Amy that Newton’s laws don’t work that way. I’m not the most believable person on this, but there wasn’t much else that stuck out as particularly illogical, nonsensical, or just plain wrong.

Was it worth the hype?

For all its strengths and flaws as a book, I think I can say that yes, it was worth the hype. It isn’t the strongest book, but it’s a good introduction to YA sci-fi that appears to be the start of a good series and could lead readers to even more YA sci-fi novels. After that cheap twist at the end, A Million Suns isn't high up on my to-read list.

Bonus cover section

I like both of them, but I’m a little more partial to the paperback’s cover. The hardcover’s cover is beautiful with the stars, but it’s also very cheesy and makes you think the book has a strong romantic element when it doesn’t. The paperback’s cover is more visually appealing to me. The circular shape, clear focus, and various shades of blue catch my eye just as well as the hardcover’s cover would and give a better picture of what Across the Universe is really about.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne

H.Y.P.E. Project: Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

Title: Nightshade
Author: Andrea Cremer
Publisher: Penguin/Philomel
Release Date: October 19, 2010 (hardcover)/June 28, 2011 (paperback)
Pages: 452 pages (hardcover)/454 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it for the H.Y.P.E. Project (details here)

Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she'll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters' laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything- including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?

Review:

Alpha female Calla Tor knows what is expected of her: to remain chaste until her eighteenth birthday, when she will mate with the other wolf pack's alpha male Ren and rule the new pack together. Then she goes out on day and saves Shay Doran from death for a reason she can't explain. A few days later, Shay starts at her school and the Keepers who dictate what she and the other Guardians do say to keep Shay safe. What is the purpose of this human boy staying with the Keepers? And why can't she stop wanting him to touch her when she is supposed to be another? Questioning what she thought was her destiny could cost her everything if she makes the wrong choice.

Characters

My first impression of Calla came when she thought "wow, he's hot" (paraphrased) of Shay when he was on the ground writhing in pain. This surely should have warned me of what was to come. Calla's inability to get her hormones under control drove me batty. Feeling desire is good. Controlling your desire is good. Letting your desire dictate your every action is imbecilic. Having makeout breaks when it is not a good time to do so is borderline TSTL. "Oh my God, we just [plot event from Nightshade]! What do we do now?" "Make out and pin each other down!" It felt like seeing Red Riding Hood all over again.

Ren and Shay are just as disrespectful of women and overall disgusting. Ren's attitude of "sure, I dated all these other girls, but I'm all about you now, Lily!" is unrealistic; guys who act like that are never really going to be "all about" the girl they say it too. I think readers are supposed to prefer Shay or at least see what Calla sees in him, but when he calls girls gum-snapping bimbos, I'm more inclined to hit him than kiss him. Shay's insta-love connection with Calla did not get developed and only became more annoying with each page.

Plot/Pacing

I saw two sources of plot in this novel: Calla's indecision about Ren and Shay and the slow unraveling of the truth about the Keepers and Guardians. The former felt forced and her indecision got old very quickly. The latter was well-done, if predictable; in fact, most of the novel was predictable, especially Shay's role. The pacing of the novel was more impressive. It only took me three days to read, though I did end up throwing it a few times after reaching a boiling point in my frustration. After breaks lasting anywhere from five to twenty minutes, I got back to reading.

Themes/Conflicts

A very intelligent friend of mine said she read the book as a sexist dystopia of sorts and the deeply misogynistic dynamic of the packs had a purpose as both a message and a source of conflict. I did see how Nightshade can be read in such a way, but I could not continue reading like that because the messages the society was trying to get across (double standards, slut shaming, and general sexism are horrible) were continually being undermined. One such way it is undermined is detailed  under Logic, and the second way is how no such gender conflict was shown between female Keeper Lumine and male Keeper Efron. Are all feminist texts banned there? Do the female Guardians not look Lumine and Efron and wonder why they can't be equal to male Guardians the same way?

With the main conflict being Calla's feelings for Ren and Shay, there didn't seem to be a lot of interesting conflict. I've already made my feelings about that very clear. I wasn't a fan of the way the narrative showed a distaste for feminine things like skirts either. Feminine =/= weak. Then again, according to this book, it pretty much does. Giving Calla a position of power and continually subverting her and having her defer to men she doesn't need to defer to was just cruel.

Writing

Unremarkable for the most part, but it had two particularly bad moments that stick out in my mind. The first was on page 131: "The muscles in [Bryn's] jaw jumped about in a furious dance." Personally, I thought the muscles were doing a drunken tango for their lives. The other time was on page 231, when Calla couldn't stop staring at "the velvet darkness of [Shay's] irises." I could swear I've read a description exactly like that before, but it was in a vampire fic posted online and written by a thirteen-year-old girl during her first attempt at writing. Lazy storytelling in how there are two back-to-back chapters of info-dumping did not help.

Logic

So Calla is slowly breaking away from a society that disrespects her so she can have the free will to be with... a guy who disrespects her? Shay is supposed to represent the freedom to make one's own choices, but he is no less disrespectful than Ren and she defers to both just as easily. Not only does this undermine the the message the book is trying to get across, but it makes her look stupid because the book is about little else than her meebling about which boy to be with. After she brushed off the bite of a giant guard-spider until it nearly killed her, she needed no help in that department.

Was it worth the hype?

No. Just no. I heard this was a book with a strong heroine and a well-done mythos. The "strong heroine" conversation is a long, complicated one where everyone says something different, but I do not feel Calla is a good heroine or a strong one. I do agree about the mythos being well-done, but it is not given the attention it deserves.

Bonus cover section

This is probably my favorite part of the book. I have the hardcover edition and the cover model vaguely reminds me of my goddess Ke$ha.

2 stars!

What am I reading next?: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Title: Graffiti Moon

Author: Cath Crowley
Publisher: Random House/ Knopf Books for Young Readers
Release Date: February 14, 2011

Pages: 257 pages (hardback)

How I Got the Book: From the publisher via NetGalley

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.

Review:

For her last night of senior year, Lucy means to have fun with her friends Jazz and Daisy, but there's one thing she really wants to do: find Shadow, the mysterious graffiti artist who leaves his stunning artwork throughout the city. Just by looking at his art, she's got a feeling he's the kind of guy she could really fall for. Too bad it seems like she's stuck sharing the night with her friends and a few guys, including Ed, whom she kindasorta broke the nose of a few years ago. But what's this? Ed knows who Shadow is? Together, they set out into the city to find him and Lucy doesn't realize the guy she's looking for is standing right next to her.

Give me a second so I can ogle the cover again. The light in the background and the title font and the positioning of the models all tied together equals one of those covers I drool over. Okay, I'm good. Time to talk about the content and not the pretty outside, though the inside is just as beautiful.

While this YA contemporary romance is nothing too new (actually, it kind of reminds me of those movies that get made every other year or so; think Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and similar movies), the book does manage to stand out from the crowd in how much emotion it can evoke from the reader. The writing was beautiful, painting the scene and both Ed and Lucy's thoughts clearly for me as if someone were spraying graffiti on a wall. Told in alternating points of view, both Ed and Lucy had very enjoyable narrative voices and I loved the banter they had with one another. Fun dialogue like this book had is a key component of a good book for me.

Lucy and Ed both grew throughout the novel and the changes in them are subtle enough to creep up so silently that I hardly realized how much they changed until the book was over and I was grinning like a happy little fool. Their friends Jazz, Leo, Daisy, and Dylan had their touches of depth too and I was interested in what happened to them, though I preferred their relationships stay to the side so we could concentrate on Lucy and Ed. Even the parents/guardians/people over twenty-one had depth and development! How often does that happen anymore? It seems like never.

I only had two problems with the book and they were pretty small. I didn't care much for Poet's poetry; while I thought it was good, Graffiti Moon was Ed and Lucy's story and his poetry distracted from what was going on with them. And every now and then, Ed and Lucy's voices go so samey that I spazzed and forgot who was narrating until I realized one of them was being spoken of in the third person, so it had to be the other person talking.

Originally published in Australia in 2010, I'm glad Graffiti Moon will be coming to the US and reaching a wider audience. How can a book that leaves me grinning every time I think about it not be a hit? Well, it's totally possible considering current trends and all, but maybe this will be an exception. If only I could get ahold of a print copy right now! This is the kind of book I would cuddle like a pet and love for years and years and make others read so they could enjoy it too.

4 stars!

What am I reading next?: Wanderlove by Kristen Hubbard

The Sharp Time by Mary O'Connell

Title: The Sharp Time
Author: Mary O'Connell
Publisher: Random House/Delacorte Press
Release Date: November 8, 2011
Pages: 228 pages (hardback)
How I Got the Book: Christmas gift.

Sandinista Jones is a high school senior with a punk rock name and a broken heart. The death of her mother has left Sandinista alone in the world, isolated and vulnerable, When the school system lets her down, her grief and instability intensify, and she ponders a violent act of revenge against a teacher.

Still, in the midst of her crisis, she gets a job at the Pale Circus, a funky vintage clothing shop, and finds a kindred spirit in her coworker, Bradley, a boy struggling with his own secrets.

Even as Sandinista is losing heart, confronted repeatedly by the failures of those in authority, she is offered a chance to believe in the redemptive power of friendship. Now she must choose faith--and forgiveness--or despair and vengeance.

Readers will cheer Sandinista on as she navigates an often brutal but unexpectedly beautiful world.

Review:

Since the death of her mother a few months before, Sandinista has been on a slow downward spiral and a haunting incident involving her, Alecia Hardaway, and their teacher Catherine Bennett has pushed her closer to the edge. Getting a job at the Pale Circus, a vintage clothing store, with Bradley and the store's owner Henry helps her and getting to know other business owners on the same street does too, but that might not be enough. If she can't conquer her anger, Sandinista may end up taking her pretty pink gun and doing something she will regret.

I may not like most of the characters (especially Erika; what happened to her is terrible, but what she is doing is wrong and not at all anything that should be construed as "girl power" or feminism, something I'm glad Sandinista realizes), but I understand why they are the way they are and sympathize with them. That's an accomplishment in itself because if I dislike a character, it's often because I find them unsympathetic. Sandinista, our school-skipping and orphaned heroine, is a little difficult to understand, fairly sympathetic, and very, very angry. I can't recall if I've ever read about such an angry heroine.

One of the novel's main subjects, the abuse of students by teachers and faculty and how the school system can so badly fail the students, was unexpected, but I found it to be a powerful event to focus on. No parent wants to think their child is being abused not just by their peers but by the teachers that are supposed to be helping them. As I've seen while watching the news, this still happens all too often to be comfortable. I wish I could find more YA novels dealing with that subject. Recommendations, anyone?

I did struggle with the novel at some parts. Multiple times, I stopped and thought that this was less of a young adult book and more of an adult literary novel. I wouldn't be able to come up with proof to support why I feel that way, but that's what kept coming to mind. I do have an appreciation for adult litfic, but one reason I don't seek it out as regular reading material is because it reads so monotonously to me. It's nothing to do with the content, just the way it's written. That same problem happened to me while reading The Sharp Time.

Not to say the entire novel reads in such a dull way (or as dull as this review, if you ask me, but I guess I expended so much of my energy and enthusiasm on a recent glowing review that I'm having trouble being my usual bouncy self while reviewing). Some of the scenes in the novel are undeniably tense, like when Sandinista drives to Catherine Bennett's house with her gun and ends up throwing Toad at her window. I just about bit another hole in my lip when I was reading that scene.

Strangely enough, my brother shares a name with the character Bradley. I love my brother (I call him Bubba), but he says things that make me want to castrate him. Book Bradley said this on page 37: "How fun to work with a girl; it's like having my very own Barbie doll." If Bubba were less of the foul-mouthed-gamer type and more free-spirited, I could see him being like Book Bradley just because of that one line. The problem? Bubba is a misogynistic shitwaffle. Book Bradley reminding me of Bubba in such a way was not good for him at all.

I've been debating with myself back and forth about whether or not I would recommend this for anyone, but I think I'll go with yes. It may help to approach it as adult litfic instead of young adult, though. Maybe if I'd known ahead of time and approached it differently, this short book wouldn't have felt like it was five times longer.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: The Ghosts of Ashbury High by Jaclyn Moriarty