Read and Dream: My Book Life: contemporary

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My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh Review

Title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Author: Ottessa Moshfegh

Genre: Contemporary

Blurb: Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

Me: I've seen this incredible cover everywhere, and finally decided to see what the hype was about. Definitely nothing like I expected, but not too groundbreaking or even really that interesting.

Title: Severance
Author: Ling Ma
Blurb: Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. So she barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies halt operations. The subways squeak to a halt. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.

Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale and satire.

Me: Eerily relevant and beautifully poignant, Severance was one I absolutely tore through. Such an incredible exploration of what we value in our contemporary world and what we need to be aware of going forward.

Title: The Hours
Author: Michael Cunningham
Genre: Contemporary, Fiction
Blurb: In 1920s London, Virginia Woolf is fighting against her rebellious spirit as she attempts to make a start on her new novel. A young wife and mother, broiling in a suburb of 1940s Los Angeles, yearns to escape and read her precious copy of Mrs Dalloway. And Clarissa Vaughan steps out of her smart Greenwich village apartment in 1990s New York to buy flowers for a party she is hosting for a dying friend.

The Hours recasts the classic story of Woolf's Mrs Dalloway in a startling new light. Moving effortlessly across the decades and between England and America, this exquisite novel intertwines the worlds of three unforgettable women.

Me: After reading Mrs. Dalloway for the second time and being even more blown away, I decided to pick up The Hours and see how Cunningham's interpretation/inspiration from the book would be. For what initially seemed like a glorified fanfiction, it was the closest to a real homage to Woolf I think anyone could have written. But nothing comes close to the real thing.

Title: Normal People
Author: Sally Rooney
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary
Blurb: At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.

Me: She finally did it, gals. After having seen Sally Rooney's name in every bookshop for the past two years, I watched the trailer for the new Hulu series and decided I needed to bite the bullet and try the books. And AHHHHH (coming from the excitement of binging the show right now)- I'm so glad I did.

Title: Girl, Woman, Other
Author: Bernadine Evaristo
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary
Blurb: Joint Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2019

Teeming with life and crackling with energy — a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood

Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.

Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.

Me: I'd casually heard the name of this book everywhere for the past few months, but it took me a while to realize it was a recent book (one that won the Man Booker Prize in 2019!). I'm so glad I decided to finally read it - probably one of the best reads of 2020 so far.

Title: The 100-year old man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared
Author: Jonas Jonasson
Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: Humor, Contemporary

Blurb: It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson. Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin. Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into the flowerbed (in his slippers) and makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, we learn something of Allan’s earlier life in which – remarkably – he helped to make the atom bomb, became friends with American presidents, Russian tyrants, and Chinese leaders, and was a participant behind the scenes in many key events of the twentieth century.

Me: Hilarious! Came to me during a reading slump, and completely cured it. Such a nice change to a lot of the dramatic books I've been reading lately.

Title: Kids of Appetite
Author: David Arnold
Publishing Date: September 20th, 2016
Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction

Blurb: Victor Benucci is an intelligent boy with a love of art (Matisse!) and an urn full of his father's ashes. Madeline Falco is a simultaneous extreme opposite. Both find a home in a greenhouse with a group of dreamers.

Madeline's uncle has been killed. The police would like to know their story. Songs of flowers, ice cream, a family of five, terrible things happening to the most wonderful people, and a bit of love all combine to create the most Super Racehorse of a story.

Title: Let's Get Lost
Author: Adi Alsaid
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction

Blurb: Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named Leila. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.

Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth—sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

Title: Dumplin'
Author: Julie Murphy
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction

Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin’” by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked…until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back.

Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pageant—along with several other unlikely candidates—to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any twiggy girl does. Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City—and maybe herself most of all.

With starry Texas nights, red candy suckers, Dolly Parton songs, and a wildly unforgettable heroine—Dumplin’ is guaranteed to steal your heart.

Title: Everything Everything
Author: Nicola Yoon
Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
Publisher: Delacorte

Spoilers in white...Highlight to read!

My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in seventeen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla.

But then one day, a moving truck arrives next door. I look out my window, and I see him. He’s tall, lean and wearing all black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly.

Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.

Title: Beauty Queens
Author: Libba Bray
Publisher: Scholastic
Genre: Humor, Contemporary

When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.Written by Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.

Title: Girls like Us
Author: Gail Giles
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Contemporary

Blurb: (from goodreads) With gentle humor and unflinching realism, Gail Giles tells the gritty, ultimately hopeful story of two special ed teenagers entering the adult world.
Quincy and Biddy are both graduates of their high school’s special ed program, but they couldn’t be more different: suspicious Quincy faces the world with her fists up, while gentle Biddy is frightened to step outside her front door. When they’re thrown together as roommates in their first "real world" apartment, it initially seems to be an uneasy fit. But as Biddy’s past resurfaces and Quincy faces a harrowing experience that no one should have to go through alone, the two of them realize that they might have more in common than they thought — and more important, that they might be able to help each other move forward.

Title: Mosquitoland
Author: David Arnold
Publisher: Viking
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Contemporary

Blurb: (from goodreads) "I am a collection of oddities, a circus of neurons and electrons: my heart is the ringmaster, my soul is the trapeze artist, and the world is my audience. It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange."

After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the "wastelands" of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland.

So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way. But when her thousand-mile journey takes a few turns she could never see coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.

Told in an unforgettable, kaleidoscopic voice, "Mosquitoland" is a modern American odyssey, as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.

Me: Every once in awhile there seems to be a book that captures all the little snapshots and quirks of life. Mosquitoland, for me, did just that.

The Ups: I've missed my contemporary! It's been awhile since I've read a contemporary novel and this book showed me, yet again, why the genre is my favorite.

Mim Malone...oh ever the heroine. She was such a breath of fresh air for me, especially because I see the quiet, romantic girls in books and also the snarky, cynical ones, but Mim was something new. She had such an unique voice that was neither romantic nor snarky, but what I felt was very real...in the Mim sense. I think that she had a lens for viewing the world that was like no one else's and to see her story through that lens was fascinating.

This book is, in my opinion, a scrapbook of snippets of people's lives woven into Mim's. I connected with Mim such that I felt so much love for the people she cared about, but I was also distanced from her just enough to see her as someone else. Her journey itself was not my favorite; the plot line wasn't super cohesive. But the people she met on the way have found a place in my heart.

Walt and Beck...my boys. I won't go into too much detail, but I think that both characters were as special, if not more, as Mim.

It's very hard to condense the small beauties of this book into a review, but seriously...two words.

WAR PAINT. (oh and lipstick)

The Downs: Like I said before, I loved the mental and emotional journey Mim experienced, but didn't find much with the actual, physical journey. As a reader, the emotions and character development are much more important in judging the quality of a book to me, so I tend to weigh that a little more.

But the actual plot and setting matters, and I didn't quite find it completely easy to follow what was exactly happening. Okay, rephrase that... I didn't feel the need to follow what was happening. It felt like the writing wasn't doing the work for me.

Overall: Develops a real sense of love, compassion and familiarity with the story and lodges itself right in your heart.

Rating: 5 kisses!

Since You've Been Gone Review

Title: Since You've Been Gone
Author: Morgan Matson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction

*Spoilers in white. Highlight to read.*

Blurb: (from goodreads) It was Sloane who yanked Emily out of her shell and made life 100% interesting. But right before what should have been the most epic summer, Sloane just…disappears. All she leaves behind is a to-do list.

On it, thirteen Sloane-inspired tasks that Emily would normally never try. But what if they could bring her best friend back?

Apple picking at night? Okay, easy enough.

Dance until dawn? Sure. Why not?

Kiss a stranger? Um...

Emily now has this unexpected summer, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected), to check things off Sloane's list. Who knows what she’ll find?

Go skinny-dipping? Wait...what?

Me: I've been wanting to read this for a while now and I'm so glad I finally got around to doing it.

The Ups: The friendship between Sloane and Emily was so amazing without being over the top or sappy. It felt very real, and the connection they had was crucial to the book and it made the story much more interesting. I love realistic fiction/contemporary books because I like to imagine this happening at a different place on Earth right now. I think that what makes things feel like real life are the little details, embedded here and there. This book had so many of those little things, and I adored them. The playlists that Emily and Frank would run to, the play Bug Juice, the lists that Sloane left Emily, the sharpie tattoos. All of those details added to the book.

(and the good ole' 1D reference)

I really like Sloane's list and how Emily followed it, and as she crossed things off, she felt herself change. I think that that was a really awesome character development, especially when Emily could feel herself becoming braver and more comfortable with other people. I would love to make to-do lists like that and stick by them...especially with a best friend.

I really enjoy friendship stories, and all in all, the relationship between Sloane and Emily, while not portrayed directly, was very strong and I really think that both of them brought out the best in each other.

The Downs: Frank Porter. Okay, as a character, I loved him. I really did. I think he was a great person, and he had so many interesting quirks about him. But seriously. The plot line involving him was cliche, overdone, predictable...just annoying.

Spoilers: SERIOUSLY. He just had to leave his girlfriend. For Emily. He couldn't just be single. Nope. I'm pretty sure I've read that same plot at least 10 times.

Overall: A great character development and friendship story, but the romance was unoriginal.

Rating: 3 kisses!

Saint Anything Review

Title: Saint Anything
Author: Sarah Dessen
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction

Blurb: (from goodreads) Peyton, Sydney's charismatic older brother, has always been the star of the family, receiving the lion's share of their parents' attention and—lately—concern. When Peyton's increasingly reckless behavior culminates in an accident, a drunk driving conviction, and a jail sentence, Sydney is cast adrift, searching for her place in the family and the world. When everyone else is so worried about Peyton, is she the only one concerned about the victim of the accident?

Enter the Chathams, a warm, chaotic family who run a pizza parlor, play bluegrass on weekends, and pitch in to care for their mother, who has multiple sclerosis. Here Sydney experiences unquestioning acceptance. And here she meets Mac, gentle, watchful, and protective, who makes Sydney feel seen, really seen, for the first time.

The uber-popular Sarah Dessen explores her signature themes of family, self-discovery, and change in her twelfth novel, sure to delight her legions of fans.

Me: I don't know about you, but I love Sarah Dessen. I have a weak spot for her books. I've heard a lot said about them because they are "repetitive", but I think it takes talent and effort to keep coming up with these books and making big hits out of all of them.

The Ups: I think that Saint Anything was definitely one of her more insightful, deep novels. It dealt with a lot of topics, and dealt with them well. Sydney just as one character experienced guilt for something she didn't do, anger at her mother's blindness towards her brother's flaws, and dealing with her own security of always being invisible. But all the characters had struggles and problems that were prominent in the story. It made the book much more meaty and gave a lot of chew on.

As always, I love Sarah Dessen's writing. I will agree that her books have a similar tone and feel to them, but I like that that sets her off from other authors. I feel like there should be a "Sarah Dessen" genre...

(btw, totally random, I've just started getting really into glee. Comment if you love it :))

I liked the story line to this book, and all the different character relations going on. I really liked the character of Layla, and how incredibly unique she was. She wasn't afraid to stand up for herself and the people she cared about, but she also acknowledged her flaws.

It was great to speed through this book. I was entranced into Sydney's world, which is what usually happens with me and Sarah Dessen books. I was up all night finishing and it was totally worth it!

The Downs: I feel like Sydney wasn't my favorite protagonist of Sarah Dessen, but I definitely connected to her. I think that she could have been a little more exciting to read about, or portrayed in a better way, but I liked her well enough.

The only thing was, this book didn't have a spark for me. It was good, it was thought-provoking, but it wasn't the best.

Overall: A good one, but not the best of this author.

Rating: 4 kisses!

All Fall Down Collab Review

Title: All Fall Down
Author: Ally Carter
Publisher: Scholastic
Genre: Mystery, Contemporary

Blurb: (from goodreads) A new series of global proportions -- from master of intrigue, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Ally Carter.

This exciting new series from NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Ally Carter focuses on Grace, who can best be described as a daredevil, an Army brat, and a rebel. She is also the only granddaughter of perhaps the most powerful ambassador in the world, and Grace has spent every summer of her childhood running across the roofs of Embassy Row.

Now, at age sixteen, she's come back to stay--in order to solve the mystery of her mother's death. In the process, she uncovers an international conspiracy of unsettling proportions, and must choose her friends and watch her foes carefully if she and the world are to be saved.
I'll be formatting this review a little differently today. I collaborated with the awesome Christina @Books and Prejudice (go check her blog out). We decided to break it down into some of the main aspects of the book, and give both of our thoughts. I'll be talking in blue, and she'll be talking in pink.

Plot:
Me: It was interesting enough. The entire idea of her hunting after the Scarred Man and trying to get her revenge was really interesting. However, I feel like a lot of the plot was a bit expected, and some things happened "coincidentally" that wouldn't have happened in real life. I also saw the main plot twist coming at the end, which kind of downed the entire book. Also the ending. Who end a book like that? Just cut it off. Like what. the. hecky.

Christina: I really liked the idea of this plot. I started reading this without having read anything about it, so I honestly didn't know what it was about. But the idea of a disturbed girl hunting down her mother's killer in a foreign embassy. That's kind of neat. Some super silly things happened that made me seriously laugh. But that ending. I felt like Carter was attempting to do a cliffhanger but it just fell flat. It doesn't really lead me to want to care about the next book.

Characters:
Me: This was a rough spot for me. I felt uncomfortable with Grace, the main character. I think her sort of "craziness" and her inclination to act on impulse was a bit disturbing and instead of feeling for her I found myself distancing myself from her as a reader. That made the entire book a bit distanced from me and didn't give me reasons for her doing the things she did and acting the way she did. I loved Ms. Chancellor. To me she didn't feel like the sugary-sweet counselor who pretended everything was okay. She understood what was going on, and she was okay with it.
Noah and Megan, I really liked. I think that their characters were well defined and described, and I found myself sympathizing for them, especially Noah. Alexei, however, I didn't like as much. I didn't feel the old relationship between him and Grace and their history. He was very...distant.

Christina: Our main character, Grace, suffered a severe trauma three years before the start of All Fall Down. This leads her to be quite mentally unstable. Many of the antics that she gets herself are quite comical. One of the things that annoyed me about this book was the lack of character growth from Grace. Yes, she's grief-stricken. But by the end of the book, I felt like she could have changed some and learned how to deal more with her grief. I love reading about people's takes on mental instability. So I really felt like there was so much room for personal growth here.

I really loved some of the minor characters. Ms. Chancellor and the Scarred Man are so complex it's almost impossible to guess who they truly are and what their loyalties really are. They had me guessing all the way to the very end. The two of them had me going thinking, "Is Grace really that crazy?" up until near the end of the book. I liked Alexei, but I wish he were better developed. It was almost like he was thrown into the mix for the sake of having a love interest. And then taken out at the last minute when the author realized that it wouldn't work. What was that? Cliffhangers are at least supposed to make sense... right?

Setting:
Me: THIS. This was beautiful. Even though it was a bit of a fantasy setting, I could totally see the embassy happening in real life. The different nations and their embassies coming together on one island and having issues was plausible, and I also found it fascinating to think about. How would it feel to go to the next building and be in a country that is normally half way across the world? Love it.

Christina: Adria. What is this place?! A small Mediterranean country that is peaceful, and super powerful in trade... okay??? A made up country, I get it. The real setting, though, is Embassy row - the street lined with the houses of different embassies for different countries. This is actually a pretty cool concept. With it, we can mingle so many different nationalities of teenagers and have people correct our stupid Americanisms (it's football!).

Overall: An interesting plot with a great setting. A fresh concept.

Rating: 4 kisses!

How did you like our collab review? Any feedback? Thanks!

I'll Give You the Sun Review

Title: I'll Give You The Sun
Author: Jandy Nelson
Publisher: Dial Books
Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction

Blurb: (from goodreads) Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.

Me: I am currently rethinking the power of literature. The beauty. I'm also contemplating on the genius of the contemporary genre.

The Ups: The writing of this book is absolutely phenomenal. Literally seamless. It is one of those books that you read and that you can tell the author's blood, sweat and tears were truly thrown into writing this story, and to make it the best it could be. It not only really told the story it needed to tell, but performed it beautifully, all the words and metaphors and visualizations working together like puzzle pieces. It really entwined all the characters and their relationships with each other together.

Speaking of...the characters. They were so beautiful. They were real, and their portrayals were heart-wrenchingly believable. They all had their unique voice, and as the POV transitioned from Jude to Noah, it was very smooth and I could tell who it was. Their tellings of the "before" and "after" really showed their flaws and how they'd grown through the years. But not only Noah and Jude, but their mother, their father, Oscar, Guillermo, Brian, even to the parrot who wouldn't shut up about Ralph, they all had their stories and distinct characters. I honestly think that I could have read a book about any of the characters in this story and I would have enjoyed it.

The power of art, power of love, POWER. This book shows a lot of themes and weaves them into the book, and I think the biggest one is power. The power that someone/something has over you, the power doing something or being with someone can make you feel like you possess, and the fact that only you have the power over yourself. I loved the art in the book, and how talented Jude and Noah were and how that related directly into their lives. The romance was also one of my favorites of all time, both between Oscar and Jude and Brian and Noah.

“I love you,” I say to him, only it comes out, “Hey.”
“So damn much,” he says back, only it comes out, “Dude.”
He still won’t meet my eyes.”

The Downs: Zero. Zip. Nada. Nunya. NOONNNNEEE.

Overall: A riveting, heart-wrenching, heart-breaking-and-then-puts-it-back-together novel. Might be the best one I've read so far this year.

Rating: Beat. My. Scale. Shot through the sky. I don't even have words.

When I Was The Greatest Review

Title: When I Was the Greatest
Author: Jason Reynolds
Publisher: Atheneum Books
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Contemporary

Blurb: (from goodreads) In Bed Stuy, New York, a small misunderstanding can escalate into having a price on your head—even if you’re totally clean. This gritty, triumphant debut captures the heart and the hardship of life for an urban teen.

A lot of the stuff that gives my neighborhood a bad name, I don’t really mess with. The guns and drugs and all that, not really my thing.

Nah, not his thing. Ali’s got enough going on, between school and boxing and helping out at home. His best friend Noodles, though. Now there’s a dude looking for trouble—and, somehow, it’s always Ali around to pick up the pieces. But, hey, a guy’s gotta look out for his boys, right? Besides, it’s all small potatoes; it’s not like anyone’s getting hurt.

And then there’s Needles. Needles is Noodles’s brother. He’s got a syndrome, and gets these ticks and blurts out the wildest, craziest things. It’s cool, though: everyone on their street knows he doesn’t mean anything by it.

Yeah, it’s cool…until Ali and Noodles and Needles find themselves somewhere they never expected to be…somewhere they never should've been—where the people aren't so friendly, and even less forgiving.

Me: Amazing voice and amazing characters. Super enjoyable. (Also, look at that cover)

The Ups: THE VOICE.

You go, Jason Reynolds, you go. It is completely original, absolutely addictive, and so believable. The story is never boring, because the voice truly seems to bring it to life. You know when someone is telling a story and you get so interested because the way they're telling it? That was this book. The book is a wonderfully written use of simple words to create big feelings. It really connected me to the characters, especially Ali, and the world that Ali was living in.
And that brings me to my second point. Ali. I loved him so much.

I think that he was such a good guy, and a very genuine person. He was very lovable to me as a reader, because he knew what was right and what was wrong, and was very sweet, but also tried to act cool sometimes and screwed up a few times as well. I really connected to him and I think that his relationships with the other characters and their story really enhanced the book.
The supporting characters, Noodles, Needles, Doris, Jazz, and John, were amazing. Even though some of them didn't get much time in the book, I still felt like I knew all of them personally, and since they were such a big part of Ali's life, they became a part of my heart as I read the book. Especially Jazz and Needles, I loved both of them so much. And I think Needles and his syndrome really added to the book, because Needles was more than just his syndrome, and it showed.
I also loved the strong sense of family, the strong relationships in this book. John and Ali's complicated father-son relationship was also incredible. Needles and Noodles and their love for each other but yet the bad feelings because of something that had happened before (won't spoil it) broke my heart and put it back together again.

The Downs: It was a really enjoyable book, but not mind-blowing. It didn't change my perspective on anything. I'm also a tad bit confused on when in the year it was set..?

Overall: A beautiful coming-of-age story, with phenomenal voice, characters, and relationships between said characters. Recommend it for more gritty contemporary fans.

Rating: 5 kisses!

All the Bright Places Review

Title: All the Bright Places
Author: Jennifer Niven
Publisher: Knopf
Genre: Romance, Contemporary

Spoilers are in white. Highlight to read.

Blurb:(from goodreads) Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.

Me: I am speechless, I am wonderstruck. I am mindblown and torn apart and crying and amazed.

The Ups: The fact that I am even trying to review this book and trying to analyze it is so crazy, because I am at a loss for words. I went into this novel not too pumped because I thought that it could never top Eleanor and Park or The Fault In Our Stars and would just be a weird knock-off, but I was so wrong.

I have never met a character like Theodore Finch. I have never seen such a character who loved so strongly and so passionately and was so incredibly smart and talented but broken at the same time. His love, his passion, his beauty really came to me like no other. He was horrific but beautiful, shattered but lovely. The fact that he was bipolar scared me so much, but I think that the way it was written and the way I could feel it slowly getting to him made it even better.

Violet Markey, I loved, because she was nothing special. She had had such horrible things happen to her, but she really gained strength as the book went on. She was incredibly afraid, but wouldn't admit it. And the thing that I also really liked was that I could see her moving on. I could see her always remembering Finch, but becoming a really amazing person. That gave me a lot of hope at the end.

The two of them together were beautiful. They were the Jovian-Plutonian gravitational chamber. (Read the book you'll get it.) They were, I think, a match that would have been incredibly unlikely but they connected because of what they had experienced, what they had gone through. There was just so much beauty in this book. It was one of those stories that really makes you think and try to understand the book and just life in general after you read it, and I shed quite a lot of tears in the book, not because it was overly depressing, but because I realized that this was something real people had to deal with, and that broke my heart.
It makes us question:
"Can we just ever cut out all the bad words from our lives?"

The Downs: I started writing this review about 30 minutes after I read the book, after I relaxed a bit and stopped crying. Right then and there, the book was flawless. It had completely blown me away. Now, looking back on the book, I realize that there were some technical things that I hadn't noticed while reading it, but it doesn't matter, really, because what I took from the book was the intense emotion I had felt right after reading it.

Overall: It's been a very long time since I've read any book that moved me this much, especially a romance.

Rating: Beat. My. Scale.