Review: Dare You To by Katie McGarry (@KatieMcGarry @HarlequinTeen)

Posted on May 28, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

I don’t know if you remember, but I really loved Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry. It was the book that made me admit I liked reading contemporary. It was a weird realization — I was pretty sure that if there were no explosions or dragons or magic or aliens, it probably wasn’t the story for me. But nope, that’s not true at all. I loved Echo and Noah, and the beautiful, bittersweet romance that developed between them. When I heard there were going to be sequels, I was excited, but nervous that Katie would go in and introduce more drama and tension for this couple that, in one book, had enough drama and tension for a lifetime.

I needn’t have worried. Dare You To follows one of PTL’s secondary characters: Beth. And this created a whole new set of worries. Beth was an interesting character in PTL, to be sure, but did I want to read an entire book about her? She wasn’t really all that likable.

But ultimately, I decided I trusted Katie. If she could make me love contemporary, surely she could make me love Beth.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk’s home life, they’d send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom’s freedom and her own happiness. That’s how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn’t want her and going to a school that doesn’t understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn’t get her, but does….

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can’t tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn’t be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won’t let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all…

My Thoughts

When I started reading Dare You To, I was a tad on the worried side. Like Pushing the Limits, the story is told from two perspectives. We open with Ryan, and I was not too fond of him. He seemed exactly like the type of guy I steered clear of in high school. So I wasn’t sure I’d want to spend an entire book with him.

Then we moved to Beth, who was every bit as abrasive and argumentative and damaged as she was in Pushing the Limits. She made bad decisions and was self-destructive and harsh, and I was concerned.

But I knew from PTL that Katie McGarry is adept at taking characters from uncomfortable situations and making them punch me right in my tear ducts, so I persevered. It didn’t hurt that Dare You To was told with the same flowing, evocative prose that caused me to devour Pushing the Limits in just a couple days. And it wasn’t long before I was completely swept up in Beth and Ryan’s story, rooting for characters who I didn’t even like in the beginning. Soon, the pages were flying by, and during the times when I had to reluctantly put the book down for things like parenting and housework, Beth and Ryan stayed with me.

The verdict? I think I loved Dare You To even more than Pushing the Limits. It tugged my heartstrings left and right, made me smile and gasp and cry. By the end, I was completely in love with Beth and Ryan, as well as much of the supporting cast. Yes, there were moments when I wanted to throttle both of them (especially Beth), but only because they stayed so very true to themselves, and sometimes real people do things that are throttle-worthy. But most of the time, it just wreaked complete and utter havoc with my emotions, in the best possible way.

This book is a bit…ahem…hotter and heavier than PTL, and also manages to go a bit darker, a bit more dangerous, a bit more raw. It takes all the things I adored about PTL and amps them up, but in new and refreshing ways. It’s a fabulous follow-up to Pushing the Limits, but will also stand just fine on its own if this is the first of Katie McGarry’s books you’re trying. I will say, as with Noah in PTL, some of Ryan’s inner monologues can begin to smell a tad like Roquefort (read: cheesy), but I was sucked into the story enough that I didn’t care. Dare You To kept me blissfully engaged from beginning to end. If you enjoy emotional, butterfly-inducing YA contemporary romance that doesn’t shy away from some heavy issues, I recommend Dare You To wholeheartedly.

Review: Poison by Bridget Zinn (@HyperionTeens)

Posted on May 23, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

I discovered Poison by Bridget Zinn in a bit of a different way than I discover most books. I noticed a flux of updates on Twitter about helping spread word about an author’s debut, because she couldn’t do it herself. Curious, I followed one of the links, where I learned Bridget’s bittersweet story: she had finally achieved her dream of publication, but hadn’t lived to see it. Bridget died of colon cancer in 2011.

But her story continued, carried on by her family, friends, and colleagues. The reading and writing community banded together to promote Bridget’s book, a lighthearted fantasy about an assassin and a magical piglet. Bridget’s story, combined with my own love of fantasy, pushed this book up to must-read status for me.

The Plot (from Goodreads):

Sixteen-year-old Kyra, a highly-skilled potions master, is the only one who knows her kingdom is on the verge of destruction—which means she’s the only one who can save it. Faced with no other choice, Kyra decides to do what she does best: poison the kingdom’s future ruler, who also happens to be her former best friend.

But, for the first time ever, her poisoned dart . . . misses.

Now a fugitive instead of a hero, Kyra is caught in a game of hide-and-seek with the king’s army and her potioner ex-boyfriend, Hal. At least she’s not alone. She’s armed with her vital potions, a too-cute pig, and Fred, the charming adventurer she can’t stop thinking about. Kyra is determined to get herself a second chance (at murder), but will she be able to find and defeat the princess before Hal and the army find her?

Kyra is not your typical murderer, and she’s certainly no damsel-in-distress—she’s the lovable and quick-witted hero of this romantic novel that has all the right ingredients to make teen girls swoon.

My Thoughts:

Poison is different from most of the fantasy I’ve read, either YA or otherwise. It’s lighthearted and whimsical, and never takes itself too seriously. I’ll admit, my personal preference normally trends a bit darker, but Poison was a fun read that kept me smiling from beginning to end.

From the first few pages, it becomes clear that Poison is a different type of high fantasy. It’s not Lord of the Rings. It’s not even The Princess Bride. Don’t let this scare you, but if I had to find something to liken it to in tone, I’d probably have to pick…A Knight’s Tale. Yes, that terrible Heath Ledger movie. (That I kind of love anyway. Shh, don’t tell.) It’s got that same mix of medieval setting with modern language and humor, and though the stakes are high, the situation never really feels truly dire, because that’s not the tone of the story.

Kyra isn’t the most likable heroine I’ve ever read, but she’s fun. As the Master-Potioner-turned-attempted-assassin, she doesn’t really turn the trope on its head, but she gives it a refreshing spin. She has her share of cleverness, but also isn’t immune to the semi-regular embarrassment that comes with her not-so -developed social skills. But she doesn’t go SO far into the land of the socially inept that it becomes strange that she catches the eye of the Good Looking Guy. Whose name is Fred, by the way.

Fred is a fun character. Yes, he does arrive on the scene as Good Looking Guy, but he quickly displays a carefree and quirky personality that won me over. But the real star of the story, in my opinion, is Rosie the Magical Piglet.

You know a story is going to be fun when there’s a magical piglet involved.

Together, Kyra, Fred, and Rosie search for the princess, thwart bad guys, and endeavor to save the kingdom. There’s magic in the from of witches and potions, but no sweeping, glittery spectacles. There’s road trips and sword fights and court intrigue, but with none of the grittiness that normally accompanies these things in fantasy. Part of me missed the grit (seriously, I think this was the best fed and least financially challenged group of fantasy travelers I’ve ever encountered), but grit would have clashed with the playful tone of the book.

Poison is a fun, frolicking adventure that enjoys making its readers smile and laugh. The pages turned quickly, and the plot kept me engaged from beginning to end. If you’re looking for something fun, friendly, and full of whimsy, check it out.

Review: The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa (@jkagawa @HarlequinTeen)

Posted on May 9, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

Received an advance digital copy from NetGalley for review.

I was a huge fan of Julie Kagawa’s The Immortal Rules, even though I was a little hesitant at first. Vampire dystopian? Really? Haven’t both those genres been beaten to death with the redundancy stick, resurrected into genre zombies, and then been decapitated with a sword dipped in the blood of a dead horse?

But then I read it, and I loved it. Julie Kagawa’s fluid prose, her complete willingness to dive into the nitty gritty elements of her world, and her unique spin on both the vampire and dystopian genres won me over almost immediately. So when I saw the sequel, The Eternity Cure, was up for review on NetGalley, I requested the heck out of it.

Okay, so you can really only request one way, and there is no way to make an emphatic request, but if there was, I would have done it. I would have strenuously requested.

(NetGalley: “Oh, you strenuously request? Then we’ll take some time and reconsider.”)

I’m getting away from myself here. LET’S TALK ABOUT THE BOOK.

The Plot (from Goodreads):

Allison Sekemoto has vowed to rescue her creator, Kanin, who is being held hostage and tortured by the psychotic vampire Sarren. The call of blood leads her back to the beginning—New Covington and the Fringe, and a vampire prince who wants her dead yet may become her wary ally.

Even as Allie faces shocking revelations and heartbreak like she’s never known, a new strain of the Red Lung virus that decimated humanity is rising to threaten human and vampire alike.

My Thoughts:

The Eternity Cure picks up a few months after The Immortal Rules leaves off, after Allie has left behind her human friends – including Zeke, the human boy she had grown to love – at Eden, the last remaining vampire-free city. Now she’s using her sire bond – a psychic link with the vampire who created her – to track Kanin, and it leads her to her former home, where she encounters a new, deadly plague, as well as some faces from her past she thought were gone forever.

Just like in The Immortal Rules, Julie Kagawa does not shy away from the ugliness of her world. These vampires are not glamorous (even the glamorous ones have an ick-factor), and the world they rule is beyond grim. This is a series where I never feel complacent and I never assume that a character is safe simply because they’re important. She keeps the tension high and the action intense from the beginning through to the end, and just when I thought I might get a break — she’d raise the stakes again.

Some of the secondary characters in The Immortal Rules come front and center in The Eternity Cure, which was awesome. We get to spend a good chunk of time with Jackal, the vampire prince who we last saw staking Allie and throwing her out a window. He returns, dark and snarky as ever, and walks an impressively fine line between villain and reluctant hero. Like all the best villains, he is layered and complex, and is true to himself above all else.

Kanin is also back, and I love him just as much as I did in the first book. I am a sucker for the strong, noble, self-sacrificing type – provided they are not sappy and patronizing – and Kanin fills this role perfectly. He is unwavering in his morals and convictions, and they drive every action he makes, but he is also a man who has made many mistakes, and realizes they come with a price. I cannot say enough good things about his character. There should be more Kanins, both in books and in life.

Zeke and Allie both come into their own a bit in this book. In The Immortal Rules, so much of their relationship was hindered by secrecy. Now, they each know up front who the other is, and have to decide whether or not to come to terms with that. I enjoyed both of them, and appreciated their increased honesty, and the closeness that came from it. I also liked seeing Allie embrace her humanity a bit more, and seeing Zeke really examine his beliefs, instead of just accepting what his father believed. There was good growth from both of them.

As far as the plot, I think I’m becoming a bit immune to plot twists, because I watched everyone freak out about the twists in this book when it was released, and none of them really surprised me. BUT! That didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the book in the least – just because I suspect something is coming doesn’t mean I enjoy watching it unfold any less. So I can’t comment on how surprising or satisfying the twists are. What I can say is that the plotting is tight, the action is prevalent, and once you get to the twisty parts – she pulls no punches. NONE. AT ALL. I begin to wonder if she’s even heard of pulling punches.

The Eternity Cure is a solid follow-up to The Immortal Rules, filled with intense action, thoughtfully developed and varied characters, and break-neck pacing that will keep you turning pages well into the night. Just make sure to keep the light on, because here, there be monsters.

Review: Hopeless by Colleen Hoover (@colleenhoover)

Posted on April 1, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

I picked up Hopeless by Colleen Hoover for one reason, and one reason only. This blog post by Myra McEntire. Sometimes I just want a book to wreak havoc with my emotions, and from the looks of things, this book would fit the bill. I started it one night when I was in A Mood, and YUP. Havoc wreaked. Achievement unlocked.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.

Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever.

My Thoughts

From the very beginning, Hopeless sucked me in. It was one of those “just one more chapter” books, where the pages seemed to be flying by and time appeared to stand still. Until I’d look at the clock and realize I meant to go to bed 2 hours ago.

It starts benign enough. There’s humor and fun characters, and the inevitable meet-cute of Holder and Sky. The romance builds simply and sweetly, with lots of raging hormones and “awww” moments. But even though the first half of the story is relatively light, there is a constant unease simmering just under the surface of the narrative. A feeling that although things seem to be going well, things are not quite right, and when Sky figures it out, it’s all going to come crashing down.

And then it comes crashing down.

Sky was a great character to spend the book with. She was funny and tough, secure and smart. Not your typical self-deprecating, clumsy heroine. And the fact that she was such a strong, confident character made it that much more devastating when, in the second half of the book, she becomes very broken.

Holder was a typical misunderstood-bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold, but there’s a reason that trope is so popular. It works. While part of me (the cynical part) rolled my eyes at Sky’s immediate and overwhelming “I’ve never felt this way about a boy” response to him, before she even knows him, the way their relationship develops gave me all the good heart flutters. And then the more I learned about Holder and his past, the more I appreciated him. (Also, eventually, Sky’s somewhat over-the-top initial reaction is explained, making me feel kinda bad I rolled my eyes.)

Now, here comes the part where I give you a warning. The back half of this book is not light reading. There are some very dark and serious issues present, including sexual abuse and suicide, and they are not glossed over. That, combined with the other mature content, makes me need to disclaim that while I loved this book, I would not recommend it for younger teen readers. It may be about high school students, but I’d categorize Hopeless as adult, as I believe that is its primary audience. It deals with some very disturbing topics, and while there are fabulous grin-inducing highs, there are also some horrific lows. So. Proceed with caution.

Hopeless is not for everyone. It may not be for you, and that’s totally okay. It’s a book about healing and surviving after something unimaginably awful. But for me personally, I thought this was a brutally honest, often heartbreaking, yet ultimately uplifting story, with strong nuanced characters and writing that kept me riveted from beginning to end.

Content guide: Contains profanity, sex, mentions of suicide, and sexual abuse, all involving children and teenagers.

Blog Tour: Poison by Bridget Zinn (#POISON @HyperionTeens)

Posted on March 18, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

Today I am so excited to participate in the blog tour for Poison by Bridget Zinn. Poison is Bridget’s debut, but she passed away before she could see her book on shelves and in readers’ hands. This tour is being organized by her husband in her memory, and over 100 bloggers and authors are participating. To see the full list of blogs on the tour, check out this post.

Now, I have not finished reading Poison yet (although I’ve started it!), but so far I can tell you that it’s a fresh and fun fantasy adventure. And there’s an enchanted piglet, which means it’s pretty much guaranteed to be worthwhile. I’ll put up a full review once I’ve finished.

But today, for the tour, we’re supposed to talk about firsts. Any first, within the realm of information suitable for the Internet (which, despite what one might deduce from watching Twitter or Tumblr or Facebook, is not EVERYTHING).

So. Because it is late and this is the only semi-interesting “first” story I can think of, you’re going to get the story of the first time I went water skiing. I shall call it:

The River Wild, But Without Kevin Bacon, Meryl Streep, or Rapids

When I was in high school, I had a small but awesome group of friends in my church youth group. And one of these friends had a dad who owned a boat. One beautiful summer day, he took a group of us out on the Schuylkill River (which is not known for its sparkling clarity, but whatever) to learn how to water ski.

His daughter went first, to demonstrate the proper technique. She was a year older than me and about a thousand times more coordinated. She made it look easy. She even dropped one ski and glided around on one leg for a while. Piece of cake, right?

No.

When it was my turn, I jumped in the water, bobbing in my life jacket like a misshapen apple in a barrel, and slipped the skis on. And by “slipped,” I mean fought desperately for several minutes. The skis wanted to be on top of the water. My body did not. This was a problem. The boat circled lazily around me as I flopped and floundered like a dying fish, until finally I had the skis on my feet.

Then came the task of grabbing the rope. The boat circled again, and the rope slithered across the top of the water behind my back. I grabbed at it, but couldn’t seem to maneuver my ski-addled body close enough. So the boat came around again. And again. And again. I flailed and flushed and considered stripping off the life jacket and skis and calling it quits (never mind that I wasn’t sure if I could get them off after the amount of effort it took to get them on, and I would most likely drown trying).

But my stubborn nature took over, and I refused to give up before I’d even attempted the actual skiing part. So after half a dozen boat passes, I finally grabbed the handle at the end of the rope.

Then I was supposed to prop my feet up in front of me, birthing style, and grip the handle between my knees. In case you have never tried to do this while wearing a life jacket and large wooden planks strapped to your feet, while floating in a semi-viscous river and watched by a group of teenage friends who are all at least three levels cooler than you, this is not as easy as it sounds. Oh, also, the rope was attached to the boat, and the boat was still moving. Which means I’m attempting to do this while being dragged slowly down the river.

Not awesome, people. Not. Awesome.

Finally — finally — I was in position. “Ready?” my friend’s dad called, and I gave a thumbs-up like everything I had done was totally cool and not at all painfully awkward. The motor grumbled and the boat surged, and I lifted up out of the water — HUZZAH! — and then pitched forward and fell flat on my face. I was upright for maybe half a second. Maybe.

That’s no problem, my friends called. That’s totally normal. No one gets up the first time. So I tried again. More flailing, more near-drowning, more stubborn pride, more face-planting. This went on for upwards of an hour.

Finally, I dragged myself back onto the boat, all spaghetti-armed and pathetic, having never actually water skied during my turn to water ski.

Other friends took turns, to varying degrees of success. We took a break for lunch. I ate a sandwich that tasted like failure. “You know,” my friend’s dad said, “you should try again after lunch. Sometimes it just takes your subconscious a little while to process what went wrong. I’ll bet if you try again, you’ll be able to do it.”

Yes. Because if at first you fail miserably at a water sport, you should try it again immediately after eating. This sounds like excellent logic.

But even though I was sure I could never do it, I agreed to try again. Never mind that I was fairly certain my subconscious had been focused mostly on how to create a portal through the dock back to my bedroom at home, where I could hide forever until everyone forgot I had ever attempted this, and not on what went wrong water skiing. I was 100% certain I was about to fall on my face again, make a fool of myself, and possibly die.

But then something miraculous happened.

I did it.

I did it.

I pulled myself up out of the water…and I didn’t fall. I rode the wake behind the boat, the wind whipped through my hair, and I was water skiing.

And in that moment, I didn’t care about all the failures and embarrassments of the morning. I didn’t care that I snorted water up my nose. I didn’t care that the force of the water around my body as I was pulled out of the water did very uncomfortable things to the back of my bathing suit. And I didn’t care that my form was probably less water sprite and a little more hippo ballerina. I had done it. I had accomplished the thing I was sure I would never accomplish, and what’s more — I loved it.

After that, I didn’t go water skiing often, but when I did, getting up out of the water was never a problem. My brain had conquered whatever that mystical thing is that brains do, and had figured out a way around my glitch. And every time I went, I felt exhilarated, empowered, and proud. My family went to Aruba a couple years later and my brother and I went water skiing in the ocean. The guys on the boat were impressed that the waves didn’t trip us up.

The truth is, those waves couldn’t come close to competing with that first obstacle: the part of me that was sure I couldn’t do it, ever, no matter how hard I tried. Once I was able to overcome that, the Atlantic Ocean didn’t seem like such a big deal.

So, there’s my “first” story. What about you? Any big “firsts” in your life that you’d like to share?

And congratulations to Bridget, and her friends and family, on this momentous “first.”

About Poison

Bridget grew up in Wisconsin. She went to the county fair where she met the love of her life, Barrett Dowell. They got married right before she went in for exploratory surgery which revealed she had colon cancer. They christened that summer the “summer of love” and the two celebrated with several more weddings. Bridget continued to read and write until the day she died. Her last tweet was “Sunshine and a brand new book. Perfect.”

Bridget wanted to make people laugh and hoped readers would enjoy spending time with the characters she created. As a librarian/writer she loved books with strong young women with aspirations. She also felt teens needed more humorous reads. She really wanted to write a book with pockets of warmth and happiness and hoped that her readers’ copies would show the watermarks of many bath time reads.

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