Tag Archives: review

Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman (@gayleforman)

Posted on by

I’ve been hearing great things about If I Stay by Gayle Forman for a long time now, but I didn’t get around to reading it until one of my real-life friends mentioned that it (and its sequel, Where She Went) were among her favorite books. I figured if they’re her favorite books, she probably owns them, and so I asked to borrow them. I read both over the weekend of my brother’s wedding, then needed a few weeks to process them. They’re the kind of books I can’t form coherent thoughts about right off the bat.

But now I think I can (maybe) talk rationally about them. Although, for the purposes of this review, I’ll only be discussing If I Stay, because they are very different books.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen ­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, Mia’s story will stay with you for a long, long time.

My Thoughts

If I Stay alternates between Mia’s flashbacks of her life and her out-of-body experience after the accident, watching her friends and family react to what has happened to her, her parents, and her brother. We get to see snippets of her childhood, her interaction with her parents and brother, and the evolution of relationship with her boyfriend, Adam, and her best friend, Kim. Meanwhile, we’re also in the hospital, seeing how Adam, Kim, Mia’s grandparents and other extended family members are coping. And through it all, Mia has to decide if she’s going to succumb to her injuries or fight for her life; if the experiences she hasn’t yet had are worth the pain of the world she’d be returning to.

This book hurt to read. While Mia is a bit of a detached narrator, it was still devastating to view the scene of the crash through her eyes, and to experience each of her revelations with her throughout the book. But although there is lots of sadness and hardship in this book, there is also joy and humor. Mia had an overall happy life. She had parents who loved her, a boyfriend who was devoted to her, and friends that cared for her. She had a creative outlet in the cello that the people in her life may not have totally understood, but still supported.

In a way, that happiness made what happened to her that much harder to read about. Her losses were large and meaningful, and it made it easy to understand why she would debate whether or not she wanted to return to a life that had been stripped of so much. There was no clear-cut right or wrong answer, and no matter what she chose, it would have made sense. It also makes her ultimate choice a double-edged sword. I simultaneously agreed with her choice and regretted, along with Mia, what she gave up by making it.

The few annoyances I had with this book were actually not problems with the book, just bits of added realism for the characters. While Mia adored her parents, and they loved her fiercely, as she looked back on her life, she would reflect on some occasions with her parents that she thought were awesome and I thought were questionable parenting decisions. But of course, that’s because she’s a teenager and these are her parents, and I’m an adult, and a parent, so our perspectives are going to be very different. (Of course, that also has a lot to do with your personal parenting — and life — philosophy, and we all know there are as many of those in the world as there are people. So other parents may think Mia’s parents are the epitome of parenting, and that’s fine too). There were also a couple instances with Adam in flashback that made me raise an eyebrow or two, but again, I understood why they made sense for the characters.

One of my favorite aspects of the book was the use of music, and how Mia, her parents, and Adam were all musicians, albeit very different kinds. Whenever Mia was talking about how she felt playing the cello, or about how her parents or Adam talked about music, I continually thought, yes. This is how musicians think (while I’m not the virtuoso Mia is, I still have a musician’s brain). It made me want to go watch cello videos on YouTube (because there are some awesome cello videos on YouTube. Like this one. Or this one), or to sing, or to dust off my piano music. I loved how they all related through music, and while they approached it differently, they all understood that the music was the important thing.

If I Stay is a powerful and introspective look at life, love, family, friendship, and how everything we know can change in an instant. It was beautiful and haunting and sweet and sad, all at once. It’s not like any other book I’ve read, and it stuck with me for a long time after I turned the last page.

[Oh, also, I have no idea why the cover blurb says it will appeal to fans of Twilight. While it definitely could appeal to fans of Twilight, it is absolutely nothing like Twilight, except that it features a teen female protagonist with a boyfriend.]

Content guide: Contains graphic description of a devastating car accident, profanity, some sexual activity.

 

Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (@Scholastic)

Posted on by

Read and reviewed as part of the Southern Book Bloggers ARC Tour

I’ll be honest. I had absolutely no idea what The Raven Boys was about when I requested to be part of the ARC tour. I just knew a bunch of other bloggers had been raving about how excited they were for it, and about what a great writer Maggie Stiefvater is, so I threw my hat in the ring. And then it arrived in the mail and it was thick, and I had just been in a mini-slump and thought “Oh no. I’ll never finish this in a week.”

And then I finished it in three days (which for some book bloggers is still slow, but with the way my life has been lately, let me assure you that three days is about as fast as it gets). If that tells you anything.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

My Thoughts

First of all, the synopsis is misleading. It implies that there is a romance in this book between Blue and Gansey, and there is not. There is a hint of romance between Blue and one of the other Raven Boys, but not Gansey. Now, I’m pretty sure that if all the foreshadowing is to be believed, the Blue-Gansey romance will come later in the series, but in this first book, there’s actually very little romance at all.

This book does really well on a few fronts. First, the story itself is really interesting. The complex relationships between the boys and Blue, the intricate supernatural element that they’re exploring, and the interwoven mysteries that play out all kept the narrative moving and my attention occupied.

I also really liked several of the characters, particularly Blue, Adam, and strangely enough, Ronan. I’m not even sure if I was supposed to like Ronan, but I did. Adam was definitely my favorite of the Raven Boys, and I thought the best developed. And Blue was feisty and quirky in a way that let me see how she would really fit in well with the odd group of friends.

Maggie Stiefvater’s prose is engaging and flows nicely. I can see why her books are so popular (and now I’m motivated to actually go read the Shiver trilogy, which has been sitting unread on my shelf for months).

One warning: This book asks some pretty big questions that are not answered in this book. One in particular that I thought for sure would be addressed before the end of the book, isn’t. It’s not a cliffhanger per se, just big questions that remain unresolved. Now I’m thinking that it will probably take the entire trilogy to get answers to some of these, but it took the entire book for me to realize the answers weren’t coming.  It didn’t really bother me, but I just want you to be aware.

I did have a few problems with the book that kept me from completely loving it. The first is the shifting POVs. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good multiple-POV book, when it’s done right. And for the most part, this book did it right, with one exception. The villain (of sorts) gets a voice, and while part of me loves the idea of a villain getting to tell his side of the story, I don’t think it worked in this book. It all comes back to my whole hangup with “is this voice necessary?” and his POV was used so infrequently, I didn’t think it was necessary. Interesting? Kinda. Necessary? Probably not. Yes, he lets us in on a few pieces of information we wouldn’t have had otherwise, but I don’t think the story would have suffered without them, or if we had learned them through another method.

Then there’s the fact that I just didn’t really feel connected to Noah or Gansey, and I’m not sure why, but this story really needed me to have a connection with both of those characters to fully succeed. This just might be a problem with my brain, because I haven’t heard of anyone else having this problem. But bottom line, I felt like I really should care about these characters, and I didn’t. Not too much. I didn’t dislike them; I was just sort of apathetic towards them.

Now, will that apathy keep me from picking up the sequel? Definitely not. As I mentioned before, I loved some of the other characters, and the story is fascinating. So while I may not have thought the book was perfect, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I will be eager to pick up the next one when it comes out to see what happens next with Blue and the Raven Boys.

Content Guide: Contains profanity and some violence

Review: Pandemonium, by Lauren Oliver (@oliverbooks @harperteen)

Posted on by

WARNING: Spoilers for Delirium ahead.

Pandemonium is the second book in Lauren Oliver’s Delirium Trilogy. In the first book, Delirium, Lena lives in a future dystopian United States, where love has been designated a disease, and everyone is cured on their 18th birthday. Lena was eagerly anticipating her “cure” and her orderly, predictable life to follow, free from the “Deliria” that leads to mood swings, irrational behavior, violence, and death. That is, until she meets Alex, an “Invalid” from The Wilds – a boy who has never been cured and doesn’t believe that love is something that needs a cure. Alex teaches Lena about love, and they plan to escape Portland to live in The Wilds together. But in the end, Alex sacrifices himself to allow Lena to escape.

Pandemonium’s narrative alternates between two separate time lines. The first picks up right where Delirium ends. It follows Lena in the days, weeks, and months after she has escaped Portland, losing Alex in the process. Predictably, she meets up with other Invalids living in The Wilds, and slowly assimilates to life with them. Away from the familiar comforts of the city. Away from fear of the Deliria. Away from Alex.

The second takes place several months later. Lena is now an active part of the resistance, and is living undercover in New York City. Her cover is that she is part of a new political movement – the DFA or “Deliria-Free America.” The movement’s mission is for the cure to be administered to everyone in America before their 18th birthday. Lena’s mission is to keep an eye on the DFA, especially its leaders: Thomas Fineman and his son, Julian.

[Spoilers Ahead]

But everything turns to chaos when Scavengers – a violent extremist group of uncureds – attack a DFA rally, and Lena and Julian are kidnapped and held hostage together. Their captivity forces them to question their preconceived notions about each other and about who their enemies really are.

Pandemonium was an enjoyable, exciting, fast-paced book. I did find it a bit predictable – I wasn’t nearly as surprised as Lena at the twists and turns of the plot – but that didn’t lessen my enjoyment of it at all. And as much as I loved Alex in Delirium and I wasn’t sure initially if I would be able to accept if Lena moved on, I found that I loved Julian just as much as Alex. I appreciated how the evolution of Lena and Julian’s relationship mirrored that of Lena and Alex – but with Lena’s role reversed.

Ultimately, I thought Pandemonium was a great set-up for the third book in the trilogy. I anticipate the conclusion to the Delirium Trilogy will contain lots of action, a likely love triangle (which is overdone in YA books, but in a world where the entire plot focuses around the benefits and drawbacks of falling in love, it probably can’t be avoided), and Lena’s deeper involvement with the resistance. It answered some questions set up in Delirium while asking several more. And it introduced us to some great new characters.

My frustrations with the book were minor. I missed the characters from Delirium (but I suspect some of them will pop up in the 3rd book). I couldn’t understand how just a couple days lost in the woods resulted in Lena needing weeks to recuperate, considering how physically fit she was at the end of Delirium. And several of Lena’s great plans just seemed far too simple (especially in the couple parts where she has to deal with key codes).

But overall, none of that was enough to take away from my enjoyment of the book. The storytelling was excellent, and I found myself completely immersed in the characters and world that Ms. Oliver created. I’m intrigued and excited to see how she wraps up Lena’s story in book 3.

Content guide: Contains scenes of violence and peril. 

Review: Divergent, by Veronica Roth (@harperteen)

Posted on by

Divergent is the first book in a trilogy by Veronica Roth. The setting is a future dystopian Chicago, where the city – and presumably the country (although nothing much is ever said about the world outside of Chicago) – have been split into five factions according to personality:

Abnegation (the selfless)
Amity (the kind)
Candor (the honest)
Dauntless (the brave)
Erudite (the intellectual)

All children are given an aptitude test when they are 16 to determine which faction they are best suited for. Then, in a public ceremony, they choose a faction for life. If the faction is different than the one they were raised in, bye-bye family (“faction before blood” is their motto).

Those who fail to assimilate into their chosen faction are the factionless, doomed to live in the projects and take the “undesirable” jobs (like janitors and sanitation workers). Ouch.

The narrator of Divergent is Beatrice, or “Tris,” as she prefers to be called once she leaves her Abnegation family to join the daredevil Dauntless faction. Her aptitude test results were inconclusive, ruling out only Amity and Candor, and making her “Divergent” – something that she doesn’t understand, but is told is something she must keep secret if she wants to live.

After deciding that she isn’t selfless enough and that her inner monologue is too snarky to really belong in Abnegation, and never really considering Erudite at all, Tris begins initiation into the Dauntless faction, most of which consists of jumping on and off of moving trains, hallucinating her worst fears, and hurling herself from great heights. She bonds with her fellow transfer initiates (all of whom are either from Candor or Erudite), develops a crush on her 18-year-old instructor, and gets beaten up a lot.

Eventually, Tris’ Divergent nature starts to help her excel in her training — a little too much. She is warned repeatedly — with little to no explanation — to keep her Divergency hidden. And ultimately, through some shoehorned monologuing by the Bad Guy, we learn why it upsets the Powers that Be so much for her to be running around, Divergent. Unfortunately, by the time she learns the truth, it may be too late…

Plot contrivances aside, I really enjoyed this book. No, I don’t think the factions were explained well, and I don’t believe a lot of the rules of the world makes sense. But I was able to suspend my disbelief enough to immerse myself in Tris’ POV, and when you just accept that everything in her world makes sense (even though it doesn’t), it’s an enjoyable read. I’m hoping that some of the more practical questions about the world, why it exists, and how it functions are answered in the next book in the series, Insurgent.

I also hope to see Tris a bit more well-rounded in the next books. She is remarkably self-absorbed, suspicious, and unforgiving in her treatment of others. Even though she was supposed to have equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless and Erudite, I didn’t see many selfless or intellectual traits in her (she figured a couple simple things out using her wits, but the Erudite are supposed to be the exceedingly intelligent, not just the not-stupid). It’s a puzzle, considering she spent the first 16 years of her life among the Abnegation.

This book isn’t perfect. The characters were sometimes confusing. Sometimes infuriating. Some of the plot twists really come out of left field, and others you can see coming miles away. There are gaping holes in some of the logic. And the world building is extremely under-developed.

All that said, I still enjoyed it. It’s fast-paced, it’s entertaining, and it’s escapist. It was a fun way to spend a couple afternoons, and I’m looking forward to finding out what comes next in Insurgent.

Content guide: Contains violence, daredevil scenarios, several scenes designed to play on fear.

Review: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (@Scholastic)

Posted on by

I read The Hunger Games several months ago. I never wrote down my thoughts, because thousands before me already had, and I figured I probably didn’t have much to add. Then I read and reviewed a bunch of other young adult dystopian fiction, some good, some “eh,” and came to the conclusion that if I’m going to judge all of them against The Hunger Games, then I should probably go ahead and review The Hunger Games.

This is a review only of the first book.

We all know by now what The Hunger Games is about. In a future version of the United States (now called Panem), the country has been divided into 12 Districts, each specializing in a different industry, surrounding a central Capitol. Years ago, the Districts rebelled against the Capitol. The Capitol prevailed, and as punishment for the rebellion (and as a deterrent against future rebellion), each year the Capitol forces each District to sacrifice 2 of its citizens – a boy and girl between the ages of 12 and 18 – to fight to the death in a barbaric gladiatorial arena for the amusement of the Capitol’s citizens. One will survive. 23 will die.

The decadent and pampered Capitol citizens, desensitized to the actual horror of what they are watching, view the televised Games as the height of entertainment, Olympics and action movies and reality TV all rolled into one.

Meanwhile, the oppressed citizens of the 12 Districts live out a nightmare, as they are forced to watch their children mercilessly slaughtered on TV.

And rebellion is out of the question. Each District is patrolled by Capitol-appointed “Peacekeepers,” there to make sure that they willingly send their Tributes and watch the Games like they’re supposed to. To resist is to guarantee death – or worse.

The heroine of the book is Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old girl who has managed to avoid the Hunger Games for the past 4 years. But that all changes when her 12-year-old sister, Prim, is selected to be this year’s District 12 Tribute. Katniss, terrified for Prim, volunteers to take her place — a decision which most likely guarantees a gruesome death.

Katniss is shipped off to the Capitol to prepare for the Games, along with Peeta, the local baker’s son. They are primped and polished, interviewed and pampered, and ultimately turned loose in the arena with the other 22 tributes.

Every single one of them knows, if they are not prepared to fight to the death, they have no hope of winning. And a peaceful sit-in is not an option – the country is watching, and the Gamemakers will guarantee a good show, even if it means unleashing mutant wasps or raining down fire on the tributes.

I will admit, I spent the first half of the book convinced Katniss would certainly find a way to rebel against the Games. Surely she wouldn’t participate. Surely she wouldn’t kill anyone. Surely she wouldn’t fight Peeta. Surely something will happen to make it so that none of these children actually has to die.

But Katniss doesn’t go to the games to rebel. She goes to save her sister, and she goes to try to come back to her sister. Which means she has to win. Which means she has to participate. She’s a 16-year-old girl in a world that has accepted the Games as a part of life for 3/4 of a century.

Children do die in this book. It’s horrible and terrifying and heartbreaking. You want to scream at the Gamemakers and Capitol citizens, “What’s wrong with you?” The book gives a chilling look at the insensitivity that would turn a blind eye to the slaughter of children in the name of entertainment and tradition.

It also gives us, in Katniss, a very flawed young girl. She is angry, stubborn and judgmental. But she is also fiercely loyal, protective, and determined. I don’t agree with all of her decisions in the book. I was actually a much bigger fan of Peeta than Katniss. But I can admire her determination to do what she has to, to return to protect her sister. She clings to hope, even when all seems lost. In the world she lives in, it seems like the only choice she has.

As a parent, it saddened me greatly to think of a world where parents would be forced to send their children into a situation like this, and where children would be forced to endure this kind of brutality and despair. And if The Hunger Games was just a stand-alone story, I may not have enjoyed it as much, even though it’s an exciting and engrossing read. But it is the first book in a trilogy, and does an excellent job of setting up the world that Katniss and Peeta live in.

The first book is sad. I cared about the characters, but I hated the world they lived in. I hated what they had to go through. It’s upsetting. It’s horrifying. It made me angry. And it’s supposed to. If this is the feeling you’re left with after the first book, it’s not a sign to give up on the series. It’s a sign you need to see where it goes.

Content guide: Contains numerous descriptions of disturbing violence towards children, often resulting in death.