Tag Archives: young adult

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (May 21)

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Welcome to another week of It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Journey: the part of the week where I set ridiculously lofty goals for myself that I nearly always fail to achieve. But that doesn’t stop me from setting the bar high, because it would seem I am bad at learning my lesson. Speaking of which…

Guys, I have a confession to make.

I failed miserably last week. Failed. With a capital F-A-I-L.

I set out to read at least four books. I read one. ONE. Uno. The Book Thief was just a much heavier read than I was anticipating, and it swallowed my week. Plus, of course, life kept getting in the way. I went to an author event. I saw The Avengers. There were even more birthday parties (seriously, were all the children in my kids’ classes born in April and May?)

But instead of moving all of last week’s reads to this week, I’m changing it up. I’ve been asked to do a guest post on my friend Kelly’s blog in a couple weeks about dystopian books. And to prepare, I need to read some more dystopians. I’ve read some, but I need to read more. I know there’s no way I can read all the dystopians in two weeks, but I can at least put a bigger dent in them.

First off, I have to finish Angel Eyes by Shannon Dittemore. That will probably happen today, and I’m excited to announce that Shannon (who is ridiculously nice, FYI) has also agreed to an author interview sometime in the very near future when I can get my act together. So be on the lookout for that!

Then, TWO WEEKS OF DYSTOPIAN FUN. I may need a reality check when this is all over, people. On the docket for this week:

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi. I’m so pumped. I’ve been itching to read this one for months.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. I honestly have no idea what I’m getting into with this one, but I’ve heard great things.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner. Again, heard great things. Again, so pumped.

The Glimpse by Claire Merle. There aren’t an abundance of reviews out yet for this one, as it’s a June 2012 release, and what I’ve read so far have been severely mixed. Some love it, some vehemently hate it. So this one could be interesting. We’ll see.

I am banking on the fact that YA dystopians tend to go pretty fast. Plus, I do not have ALL THE ACTIVITIES planned for this week. Although my children do finish school tomorrow, which means the second half of my week is going to be kid-filled and chaotic. I’m hoping I can somehow squeeze in some reading around….that.

I need to get through these this week though, because I have some more potentially awesome dystopians planned for next week!

And yes, I know I’m setting myself up for some minor frustration by reading only book 1 of a bunch of trilogies. But a girl can only fit so much into two weeks. Books 2 and 3 can wait. I hope.

Off I go to mess with my sense of reality.

Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (@Markus_Zusak)

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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I picked this book up at the library. I was a bit apprehensive. Here’s what I knew:

1. It’s Holocaust fiction.

2. It’s narrated by Death.

3. It’s about a young girl who steals books.

You may have picked up on this little tidbit of my personality by now, but if not, let me clue you in: I like happy books. Oh, I’m fine if the characters have to go through some serious trials and tribulations to get there, and I’m even okay if some good characters bite the dust, but ultimately, I like happy endings. Good triumphs over evil. True love conquers all. Sunsets are ridden into, fat ladies sing.

I also like action. Daring escapes, epic battles, heart-pounding adventures. I read for fun, as escapism, because life is hard and complicated enough as it is. If I’m going to engage in some form of entertainment, I want it to be entertaining.

Obviously, I love some books that are exceptions to these these two rules. But by and large, that’s what I go for.

So, knowing this about myself, I was kind of nervous about starting a Holocaust book narrated by Death. Those two things reeeeally didn’t add up to “action-packed entertainment with a happy ending” to me.

But the book came highly recommended from several friends I trust, so I picked it up anyway.

I’m glad I did.

The Plot

The Book Thief is Death’s account of the life of Liesel Meminger, a young girl given into foster care by her desperate mother. Her foster parents, Rosa and Hans Hubermann, are struggling to make ends meet in Nazi-occupied Germany. Shortly before going to live with the Hubermanns, Liesel steals a book from her brother’s grave site: The Grave Digger’s Handbook.

One night, awakened by nightmares of her dead brother, her patient foster father begins to teach her to read the book. And once she has mastered The Grave Digger’s Handbook, Liesel begins to take other books. Not frequently, and never more than one at a time. It’s a compulsion she never fully understands, and rarely denies.

Liesel’s thievery spans several years in their small town of Molching. During that time, she befriends the miscreant boy next door, Rudy. Her Papa hides a Jew, Max, in their basement. She witnesses book burnings, rousing speeches, and parades of captive Jews through town. She struggles through school and her required Hitler Youth meetings. She forms a tenuous relationship with the mayor’s wife. She hides from bombings in a neighbor’s basement.

And through all of this, Death watches, fascinated by Liesel and her need to take books. But Death is never able to simply sit and watch. For this is Germany in the early 1940s, and Death has a job to do.

My Thoughts

This book is not for everyone. Not by a long shot. It’s not fast-paced (it took me an entire week to get through, which is like 5 years in book-reviewer world). It’s sad. It’s set during one of the darkest periods in human history. It’s narrated by Death. So even though I’m about to give a positive review, you have to consider all of these things before deciding whether this is a book you want to attempt.

That said, this was a wonderful book. It’s very different from most of the YA fiction out there. The writing style almost made me feel like I was floating above the story, or dreaming it. Death views everything happening in Liesel’s life calmly. Death doesn’t make many judgments about what he is witnessing. He is intrigued, and sometimes feels sorry for the people he is observing, but he is mostly detached from the events. It almost gave the book a hazy feel, if that makes any sense.

Also, since Death exists outside of our perceptions of time and space (and since he is Death), he sometimes jumps around in the narrative. A character will have something happen to him, and suddenly Death will interject his own thoughts about that character’s death, sometime later. And then we’ll be back in the present again. Sometimes a death is mentioned briefly early in the book, then explained fully later. Other times, Death merely alludes to the character’s later death, and that’s the last we ever hear of it.

Some people find this off-putting or spoiler-ish. But seriously, everyone dies, someday. And I imagine if I was Death, I’d view people’s actions through the lens of their eventual and inevitable deaths too.

As for the human characters, I never felt like I truly knew or completely understood them, because Death doesn’t fully know or understand them either. But I was able to feel them and sympathize with them. I could see many nuances and facets to each of them, but always with a slight sense of detachment. It’s a hard feeling to put into words. Normally, if I don’t feel fully connected with the characters, I can’t enjoy a book. But the detachment in this book seemed very deliberate, instead of the author just not knowing how to make me feel connected.

As for the plot itself, this isn’t a typical Holocaust book, in that we don’t ever venture into the concentration camps (with the exception of Death’s haunting recollection of carrying souls away from the gas chambers) and the main character is too young to fully understand what is going on around her. Liesel’s main concerns are obtaining food, reading her books, and spending time with her friends and foster parents. The main exception to this is the time spent hiding Max in the basement. But even then, Liesel is more concerned with the stories he tells and the friendship they form. She doesn’t care that he is a Jew, and doesn’t spend much time pondering his fate if he is ever found out.

There’s a bittersweet innocence to her story. She can go to Hitler Youth meetings, attend book burnings, and hide a Jew in her basement, but she is still largely ignorant to the horrors of the world around her. Of course, even a child can’t be oblivious forever, and once the war finally comes directly to Liesel, it is heart-wrenching.

I cried towards the end of this book. I pretty much never cry during books (I think the last time I cried was when I read The Chamber by John Grisham in 1998, and I still can’t really explain that one), but I cried while reading this one. The only thing stopping me from a full-on gulping and hiccuping ugly-cry was the fact that my husband was sleeping in the bed next to me, and I didn’t want to wake him up (plus, I kind of thought that if I did wake him up, he may make fun of me for crying so hard at a book. And I didn’t feel like explaining why it was totally justified).

I wasn’t prepared for how hard it was going to hit me. As I mentioned before, I felt like I had gone through the bulk of the book as a detached observer. I didn’t feel completely connected to the characters, although I didn’t mind. And yet at the end, I could barely even breathe through the tears.

The Book Thief is a story of regular people doing the best they can during a period of unspeakable evil. It’s a story of Death being fascinated by life. And a story of a child being a child, in a world where innocence is a luxury few can afford.

I thought it was beautiful.

Content guide: Wartime and concentration camp imagery, Nazi propaganda, mild language, lots of death.

Author Event: Myra McEntire & Amy Plum (with guest appearance by C.J. Redwine!) (@myramcentire @amyplumohlala @cjredwine)

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Yesterday afternoon, I headed up to Nashville for my first ever author event. I’m fortunate to live less than 30 minutes from Nashville and less than 5 minutes from a giant Barnes & Noble, so there’s author events galore around here, but I’ve never actually attended one. I guess I’ve been hanging out in my own little bubble of oblivion or something.

But yesterday changed all that! I got wind a couple weeks ago that there was going to be an event at Parnassus Books with Myra McEntire, Amy Plum and C.J. Redwine. At the time I learned about the event, I hadn’t read any of their books, but I had heard of them and was determined to be thoroughly educated by the time the event arrived!

I read Hourglass and Timepiece by Myra McEntire first, and absolutely loooooooved them. Like seriously. Imagine I made a ridiculous face while saying that, because saying “I loved them” like a normal person just doesn’t do justice to the amount of happy feelings I had after finishing Timepiece.

I read Die For Me by Amy Plum next, which I enjoyed. It didn’t rock my world, but it was a fun read and I was still excited to read its sequel, Until I Die. I was all set to buy a copy, when, lo and behold, I won one. Score! Only problem was, it wasn’t going to arrive in time for the signing. Drat! Oh well.

Then, in an awesome and bizarre coincidence, I was able to get my hands on a copy of Defiance by C.J. Redwine just two days before the signing, and it blew me away. Seriously, it was amazingly good, and I’m so glad I was fortunate enough to read it now instead of having to wait until the end of August.

So anyway. I was PREPARED for this signing.

Before the signing, I met up with some other Tennessee book bloggers for an early dinner at Panera. It was my first time ever interacting in person with other bloggers, and it was a lot of fun. Represented were Marla from Starting the Next Chapter, Nikki from Books Most Wanted, Shalena from Writer Quirk, Hannah from The Book Vortex, and Megan from Myth-Illogical. And me. Duh.

Left to Right: Hannah, Nikki, Marla, Me, Shalena, Megan

We headed back to Parnassus around 6, ready for the signing to start at 6:30.

C.J. arrived first, and sat right behind us, since she wasn’t actually a participant in the event itself (probably because her book is still months away from release). We chatted for a few minutes and I may have incoherently gushed just a tad about how much I loved her book, and how I read it all on Mother’s Day, and how I nearly had a heart attack at one point.

Maybe.

Amy and Myra arrived a few minutes prior to 6:30, grabbed some water, and got down to business.

Pardon the shoulders. I was in the second row.

And guys, I’ll admit it. I took notes. Copious notes. As I furtively glanced around, I noticed I was the only one taking notes, but I know me. I have the memory of a goldfish sometimes, and without notes, I would never remember anything they said. And I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything fun at all. But thanks to my extensive, copious notes, I can give you some fun details.

First Amy introduced herself and told us a little about herself and her books.

Some interesting tidbits:

  • She knew she wanted to write a paranormal romance, so she made a list of all the paranormal creatures she could think of (vampires, unicorns, werewolves, etc.), then stared at it and tried to decide which ones she wanted to write about.
  • She eventually narrowed it down to two: zombies and gods. She then set out to take aspects of each and merge them into something new and interesting. Thus, the Revenants were created.
  • She lives in France, and lived in Paris for five years. Specifically, she lived in Jules’ art studio.

Then Myra took the floor for a couple minutes to introduce herself and her books.

Interesting tidbits:

  • Ivy Springs is based on Franklin, TN (which is where I live! Woohoo!)
  • She started writing Hourglass in a writers’ club, where she was given a prompt that may-have-been-but-wasn’t-necessarily “Ann Dosseldorf.” She started writing based on this (dumb) prompt, and thus the first chapter of Hourglass was born.
  • Most of the plot Hourglass was the result of her calling people up and asking “what if?” questions.
  • She wanted to make sure her main love interest was not “creepy and sparkly.”

They then took turns reading from their latest books, Amy from Until I Die and Myra from Timepiece.

Then the floor was opened up for Q&A. Here’s some highlights from each of them.

Myra McEntire

  • When asked a question about whether or not there’s going to be another point-of-view change in the 3rd Hourglass book, Myra cryptically responded that there is no third book. Officially. And that we should maybe check her blog soon, maybe, because there could be something there, allegedly, about something. Maybe.
  • Then I threw something at her.
  • Okay, I didn’t, but I kind of wanted to. There MUST be a third Hourglass book!
  • The original title for Hourglass was “Weaver,” which she admits sucked.
  • The original name of The Hourglass was The Establishment, which is much less cool.
  • She recommends that no one ever attempt to write a time travel book, ever. Including her. Because it’s just too hard and confusing.
  • Emerson Cole was not named after the creepy kid in The Sixth Sense who sees dead people. But once I drew her attention to the connection, she said that from now on, she will say she named Emerson after him on purpose, and she will put an asterisk with my name by any mention of it, because that is a cool connection.
  • I kind of hope she does.
  • She doesn’t have a lot of time to read, and when she does, she prioritizes the writing of her crit [critique] partners, C.J. Redwine and Jodi Meadows. She also loves audio books.
  • Her favorite characters to write are Emerson (because she wished she was more sarcastic as a teen) and Kaleb (because he is awesome).
  • The most surreal part about her entire authoring experience was “everything.” Literally.

Amy Plum

  • The original title of Die For Me was “Sleepwalking,” which she loved but HarperTeen thought was too boring. So she suggested a bunch of other titles, which they rejected, and then they picked “Die For Me.” She likes it now.
  • The third book is called If I Should Die.
  • The first book she wrote, which has never seen the light of day, is a memoir of her first year in the French countryside entitled A Year In the Vines.
  • She also doesn’t have much time to read, and will read her friends’ books first, then books sent by her publishers. She is also endeavoring to read more in French, since she lives in France and is trying to be a “good expatriate.”
  • She has to write sitting on her bed. She built an office to write in, and had to put a bed in it because she can’t write at a desk.
  • She had 3 surreal moments as an author. The first was finishing her first book (A Year In the Vines). The second was when her beta reader told her she may have something with the first few chapters of Die For Me. And the third was when she was offered her book deal with HarperTeen and realized she was going to be able to quit her job teaching at a university in order to write.
  • Her favorite characters to write are Kate and Georgia, but it’s hard for her to pick because she adores all her characters, even the villains.
  • The first draft of Die For Me was a lot steamier because her beta reader was really into historical romance and kept telling her to dial it up. Most of the steamy additions were the first things to go during the editing process (much to Amy’s relief).
The Q&A session ended on Myra’s words of wisdom, “Don’t be a nutbag.” I can’t really remember why she said it, I only remember that it was said. Well said, Myra.

After the Q&A, they set up a table to sign stuff for us. I got my copies of Hourglass and Defiance signed, but didn’t have either of Amy’s books yet. Fortunately, I had contacted her on Twitter earlier in the day explaining that I was getting the books but they hadn’t arrived yet, and she told me she’d come prepared with bookplates for me. So she signed those instead, and they are ready and waiting for whenever my books arrive.

Also, when I revealed that I hadn’t read Until I Die yet, she responded (extremely cryptically, I might add), “Oh…I apologize for the end. I’m really, really sorry. I mean, I had to do it. I had to. But I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad at me.”

“What did you do?” I asked her. “Who dies? Who dies?” But she wouldn’t tell me.

So for those of you who have read it, if you are mad, Amy is sorry.

I posed for pictures with all three authors, but for some reason my camera ate my picture with Myra. So now I’m going to have to stalk her and get another one.

Relax. I’m kidding.

I think.

But at least I have pictures with C.J. and Amy! And BONUS: I do not look like a psycho. You have no idea how many pictures of me there are floating around the world where I look like a psycho. I don’t know what it is I do. I have like psycho eyes or something. But in these pictures, I look like a human! Huzzah!

Me and C.J. Redwine

Me and Amy Plum

I will have to track down Myra at a future date to get a picture. She lives in Nashville, so surely there will be an event in the near-ish future where I can right my photographic wrongs.

Aside from that one mishap (which I didn’t even realize until way after the event had ended), the event was so much fun. I’ll have to make it a point to go to more of these in the future!

And then I went home and watched TV until 11:30, because I had really overdone it with the Dr. Pepper at Panera.

The end.

Review: Timepiece by Myra McEntire (@MyraMcEntire @EgmontUSA)

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Timepiece is the sequel to Hourglass, which is awesome and crazy and a wee bit over-the-top but not so much that I can’t love it anyway.

Whereas Hourglass is told from the point-of-view of reluctant time-traveler Emerson Cole, Timepiece‘s narrator is her boyfriend’s best friend, the dark and brooding Kaleb.

The Plot

[Spoilers from Hourglass ahead. Skip down to My Thoughts if you haven’t finished it yet. Then GO FINISH IT.]

Timepiece picks up shortly after the conclusion of Hourglass. Emerson and Michael have been reunited, much to Kaleb’s dismay. They have succeeded in their mission to rescue Kaleb’s father, Liam, the director of the Hourglass. The devious Jack Landers is still on the loose, and no one has any idea what his endgame is.

Additionally, Kaleb and the other young members of the Hourglass are starting to be able to see rips, something that only Emerson and Michael could do before. And the rips are getting bigger.

No sooner have we digested this information than a new, mysterious baddie shows up and hands Kaleb an ultimatum in no uncertain terms: Deliver Jack Landers, or life as he and his friends know it is over.

Soon Kaleb, Emerson, Michael and the entire Hourglass crew — complete with some new recruits — are searching for Jack, using every trick in their arsenal, both technological and supernatural. But Jack always seems two steps ahead. And time is running out.

My Thoughts

Timepiece starts with a bang. New, bigger bad guys are immediately introduced and the stakes are promptly upped. We were introduced to the basic mechanics of this time-slippy world in Hourglass; this time we get into details. We find out more about most of the secondary characters. The action increases significantly.

Bottom line: If you thought Hourglass was fun, Timepiece is going to blow your socks off.

I’ve got to admit, I was a little tentative at first about the switch to Kaleb’s point of view. I felt like I had developed a good relationship with Emerson in the first book, and I was comfortable viewing the world through her eyes. Plus, the Kaleb we meet in Hourglass, and at the beginning of Timepiece, is a crass, womanizing drunk. Charming, sure, but I spent a good portion of the first few chapters wanting to smack him upside the head.

[Also, as a side note, add some tattoos and piercings, and I was totally picturing Kaleb like this:

I know, Kaleb’s not a football player and probably doesn’t go around telling anyone “Texas forever,” but his personality screamed Tim Riggins to me. Anyone else?]

Okay, sorry, just had to throw that out there.

Luckily, while I can’t say that I wound up agreeing with all of Kaleb’s choices, I was able to understand him, sympathize with him, and really like him. Even when he was being a womanizing drunk. He was a great narrator, and it was really interesting viewing this crazy world through his eyes.

It was also fun to see Emerson and Michael from someone else’s point of view. In Hourglass, their relationship is all fluttery feelings and absurd chemistry and sparks of electricity. In Timepiece, we can see how that gets a little annoying to the people around them.

We get to know the secondary characters better, especially Emerson’s best friend Lily, which made me super happy. I was really hoping we’d find out more about her, since I really enjoyed her character in Hourglass. There’s still a few characters I would like to know more about. Maybe the third book will use one of them as narrator?

Jack Landers is a great villain. He’s evil and scary and dark, but not cartoonish. He’s given a solid back story, so that you understand him but still don’t like him. He’s smart and cunning and not given to extensive monologuing or pointless vendettas. You can really understand why he would be two steps ahead of our group of heroes, without making him ridiculous or them stupid.

As far as the story in Timepiece, I was riveted from the first chapter through the last page. There is a ton of action in this book. The stakes are higher, the powers more developed, the craziness heightened. Like Hourglass, it had a few twists that I absolutely did not see coming, yet none of them felt contrived.

There is a love story in Timepiece, but it is not a love triangle, thank goodness. I was scared, going in, that I was going to have to put up with Kaleb and Michael being all angsty and territorial about Emerson throughout the book (as Kaleb obviously has feelings for Emerson in Hourglass), but that fortunately did not happen. As it was, I really like the way the romantic angle was handled. It felt real. It wasn’t all sparks and sighs and fluttery feelings, which is nice, because I don’t think that’s the way romance normally happens.

Overall, Timepiece was a fun and exciting story. I really enjoyed the characters and was never quite sure what was going to happen next. The book ends with an obvious setup for a third book, but while I am itching to read more about the world of the Hourglass (which will probably be a while, since Timepiece hasn’t even been officially released yet), I still felt completely satisfied at the conclusion.

Content Guide: Contains some violence, mild sexual content/innuendo, mild language

Note: I received Timepiece as a digital review copy from NetGalley. Timepiece will be released on June 12, 2012. You can pre-order yours on Amazon now!

Review: Die for Me by Amy Plum (@harperteen)

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Die for Me is the first novel in the Revenants trilogy by Amy Plum. I’m going to a book signing for Ms. Plum next week (WHEEE!) and really wanted to have read her book before meeting her in person. Unfortunately, it’s not looking like I’ll be able to squeeze in book 2, Until I Die, before the event, but at least I now know who the characters are and what the basic story is.

The Plot

Die for Me is the story of Kate Mercier, recent orphan and new Paris resident. She and her sister, Georgia, moved to Paris following the death of their parents in a tragic car accident. Kate hasn’t been dealing with the loss well, and spends her days secluded in her bedroom in their grandparents’ house, reading books and wallowing in depression.

Eventually, her sister convinces her to venture out of the house and experience the beauty of the city. Kate begrudgingly takes her up on her advice, and winds up meeting a tall, dark and handsome boy named Vincent. Vincent and Kate begin a tentative courtship, but almost immediately, Kate realizes that there’s more to Vincent than meets the eye.

Shocked, Kate learns that Vincent is in fact a Revenant: an immortal being who feels the irresistible compulsion to sacrifice his life saving humans. He lives with a group of fellow Revenants in a giant Parisian mansion, and the group of them wander the city, looking for people to save. When they trade their own life for a human’s, they take 3 days to mend, then come back to life, good as new.

But no sooner has Kate absorbed the information that her boyfriend is an immortal kinda-zombie, than a darker truth is revealed: Vincent and his kindred are not the only Revenants. There are others. Except that they don’t feel a compulsion to save human lives; they feel the compulsion to end them.

My Thoughts

I have mixed feelings on this one. First, the plot point comparisons to Twilight are abundant and fairly obvious. I’m not going to go into the minutia in detail, because others have already done so (see examples here and here). Personally, I don’t actually mind if one book is really reminiscent of another, as long as it has its own spin on the subject matter.

Yes, this book has many similarities to Twilight, as they are both teen paranormal romances between a human and an immortal. But Revenants ≠ Vampires, Kate ≠ Bella, and Vincent ≠ Edward. So I don’t really mind that the story bears some resemblance to Twilight. I don’t begrudge Ms. Plum her inspiration (if indeed Twilight was her inspiration — I haven’t asked her, so I don’t know), because I honestly think genuine new ideas are a dying breed. If we demanded all books were utterly unique, there wouldn’t be much to read.

That said, while I don’t mind that Die for Me resembled Twilight, I also can’t help but compare the two in terms of what I liked and didn’t like.

Winner: Die for Me

I liked Kate. She seemed a relatively level-headed teen who tried to think through the bizarre situation she was in. Yes, she had her share of caution-to-the-wind “but I’m just so in love” moments, but mostly she tried to actually use her brain and make logical choices. She tried not to let her relationship with Vincent define her (although ultimately, it pretty much did), and didn’t turn into a puddle of goo every time he looked at her.

I also loved the Parisian setting. I’ve got to be honest: I’ve been to Paris, and I wasn’t all that thrilled with it. But I would love to go to the Paris that’s described in this book. Ms. Plum beautifully paints a picture of Parisian culture and nightlife that’s vivid and lush.

I enjoyed the Revenants mythology. It was a unique and intriguing (not to mention far less gross) take on the traditional zombie/vampire theme. I liked that most of the time, they appeared utterly human and didn’t have any defining [cough*sparkly*cough] characteristics. That made it a lot more believable that they were just walking around in public, mingling with the humans. And the “rules” of their existence made sense within the context of the story, which is always a must for me to enjoy a paranormal/fantasy/sci-fi anything.

And overall, I liked Ms. Plum’s writing style. She chose her words well and her writing style had a nice flow to it.

Oh, and the cover art? Die for Me wins, no contest. So pretty.

Winner: Twilight

I’ve got to admit: while I would never put Twilight up there as the greatest romantic literature ever (Jane Austen would roll over in her grave), Stephenie Meyer had a knack for conveying the belly-fluttery feeling of first infatuation (I’m not going to call it love. I’m not.) She was really good at putting those swoony feelings into words. And Amy Plum also does a good job, just not as good.

Stephenie Meyer also had an advantage with “the hook.” The thing that kept you needing to go to the next chapter, because you couldn’t just stop there. It’s why I tore through all 4 books of the Twilight saga in just a couple days, the same amount of time it took me to read Die for Me. I was interested, but the sense of urgency just wasn’t there.

Too Close to Call

I know that people keep saying that Kate and Vincent have a healthier relationship than Edward and Bella…but I’m just not seeing it. Both girls are kind of consumed. Both relationships go from just-met to can’t-live-without-you in a freakishly short period of time.  Both guys are just a wee bit stalkerish. And if the title of the book is any indication, I’m kind of guessing that at some point, both girls are ultimately going to sacrifice their lives so they can stay with their stud.

Yeah, Kate is less dramatic than Bella. I don’t see cliff jumping in her immediate future. And if Vincent left her, she’d probably be okay. Eventually. But it doesn’t change the fact that Kate basically clings to Vincent as the most/only important thing in her life.

A couple other thoughts:

Insta-Love

It’s out in full force in Die for Me. I have to admit, I’m one of those people that’s bothered by it, but also accepts it as a necessary evil in YA. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say that Kate and Vincent’s relationship is realistic — I know that instant attraction takes place in real life, but the can’t-live-without-you super-devotion that develops in an extremely short period of time…I’m not convinced that it’s entirely realistic (although author Amy Plum thinks it is, which explains why it’s there).

Final Conflict

First of all, I saw the bad guy coming from a mile away. It seemed like the reveal of the bad guy was supposed to be somewhat shocking, but there was some extremely heavy foreshadowing that made it…not.

Then when it came down to the final showdown, everything felt a little too convenient. Of course things are possible with Kate and Vincent that haven’t ever been possible for anyone, ever. Because they’re just so deeply bonded after knowing each other a couple months, more than people who have been in love for decades. Of course. *sigh*

On the one hand, I get that it’s probably not as much fun to write/read about a “normal” relationship where they have to deal with the situations they’re in with whatever skills they already possessed (or didn’t possess). But on the other hand, why is this relationship so much stronger than other human-revenant relationships? They don’t know each other all that well, haven’t known each other all that long, and I don’t buy that their instant chemistry trumps another couple’s decades of intimacy.

I still found the end of the book exciting and mostly satisfying. I just kind of wish the way it got there didn’t feel a bit contrived.

Final Verdict:

I liked Die for Me. I just didn’t love it. And since it is bound to be directly compared to Twilight (it’s even being marketed as “the next Twilight” and fans are told “if you liked Twilight, you’ll love Die for Me”), I can’t help but try to think about which one I enjoyed reading more.

And honestly, even though I will be the first to admit that Die for Me is technically superior and has far fewer frustrating elements…I have to give the edge to Twilight. It had that pull, that sense of urgency that kept me reading late into the night even though I had a newborn baby who I just knew was going to wake up at 4 a.m. I didn’t feel that with Die for Me. It was just…good.

I still am interested in reading the sequel, Until I Die. Just because book 1 resembled Twilight doesn’t mean the entire series will, and I think I would probably enjoy it more if my mind wasn’t constantly drawing comparisons between the two. And again, I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy Die for Me. It just didn’t sweep me up and enthrall me like I wanted it to.

Content Guide: Contains violence, death, wartime images, mild sexual content.