Mini-reviews: Cinder, Requiem and Anya’s Ghost

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Published by Square Fish, an imprint of Macmillan

I have seen several raving reviews for Cinder and while I definitely liked it, I can’t say it was love for me. I definitely loved the concept, and thought that Meyer took the Cinderella story and crafted an incredibly unique re-telling, and I really liked the characters, especially Cinder herself. I listened to the audio and the narrator, Rebecca Soler, did an excellent job. Such a good job, in fact, that I made sure to get the second installment of this series, Scarlet, on audio as well. I’m definitely a fan of this novel and am excited to see what Meyer does with the series. I think dystopian novels are just becoming old hat for me these days. I haven’t fallen in LOVE with one in a long time. But Cinder is good, definitely well-written, thoughtful, great characters. I’d still recommend it for sure.

Requiem by Lauren Oliver
Published by HarperCollins

I FINALLY got Requiem from the library and cracked it open immediately upon returning home. For much of the novel, I must admit to feeling underwhelmed. I was, strangely, more interested in Hana’s story than in Lena’s. I found Lena’s portions of the novel more meandering, with too much happening. There was a revolution, there was a love triangle (sort of), there was the possibility of her mother being back in her life … it was too much, and because of all of that not enough attention was given to any one aspect of Lena’s story. Hana’s, on the other hand, was fascinating because she was living in the world as a Cured, engaged to one of the most prominent men in society, and she was learning major Important Things about this world. Overall, I was kept interested in the book but was disappointed in the ending and almost felt like it could have been four books instead of three.

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol
Published by First Second, an imprint of Macmillan

Sometimes a graphic novel is exactly the kind of book I need to entertain me without too much effort on my part. I really liked this one, in which a girl falls into a well, finds the ghost of a girl who fell in that same well many years ago, and befriends the ghost. The illustrations in this one were gorgeous, the story is one of those that has a light lesson within, and I was overall incredibly entertained and interested in this story that Brosgol told. For those of you who enjoy a graphic novel every now and again, like myself, Anya’s Ghost is not to be missed.

Come August, Come Freedom by Gigi Amateau

Come August, Come Freedom by Gigi Amateau
Published by Candlewick Press
Review copy received at SIBA

Gabriel is a young slave growing up in post-Revolutionary Richmond, Virginia. He has a loving mother and a close relationship with the young son of his master, so when he is sent to the city to learn the blacksmith trade, he is nervous but determined to be a successful smith like his father was. Gabriel learns a lot and grows up quite a bit in the years he’s away from the plantation, and when he comes back, he knows exactly what he has to do: become the driving force behind a slave rebellion.

Come August, Come Freedom is a beautiful novel for the young adult reader that is inspired by actual historical events. I’ve been wanting to read this book ever since SIBA but when I learned that Amateau’s going to be at the UCF Book Festival, I really got my butt into gear and finally picked it up. What I loved about this novel is its uniqueness for the YA genre, if you will. It seems like (at least to me, anyway) everything YA is either supernatural, dystopia, or romance. Very rarely to I see a straightforward historical fiction YA novel (if you know of more, especially more recently published ones, do let me know!). Not only is Come August, Come Freedom unique, but it is exceptionally well-written and told me a story about a figure in history I had never heard of before.

Gabriel is the kind of character the reader can sympathize with immediately. He was educated alongside his master’s son, so he is a rare literate slave, and he has a determination and fiery drive inside of him that causes the reader to root for him from the beginning. He knows that his life is inherently wrong, but it’s not until he gets to the “big city” does he realize that he can actually do something to change it.

This book is really heartbreaking to read, because the reader knows that this rebellion can’t possibly end well for Gabriel and the other slaves, but it’s impossible not to remain hopeful that it will. It’s even more difficult to read because Gabriel ends up falling in love and getting married just before carrying out the rebellion, so the hope that he’ll be successful and be a free man by the time the book is over is something I continued to hold onto until the very end. History isn’t usually pretty, though, and Amateau gives Gabriel’s life and fight the respect it deserves while being honest about what really happened. It’s a reality that is necessary to read about, difficult as it may be.

I really appreciated Come August, Come Freedom on so many levels. Amateau is a talented writer and she illuminates this painful part of history for teens and middle graders with clarity, beautiful writing, and respect for that age group and what they should know about slavery. This stuff really happened, and while Amateau doesn’t shy away from the reality of the situation, she puts it out there in an age-appropriate manner – something I imagine must be difficult to do. Also she took a little-known figure in history, Gabriel, and turned him into a complex character with a mom, dad, brothers, and eventually a wife. She created a wonderful novel with so much going for it, and I am very glad I was given the opportunity to read this one. Highly recommended.

Delirium Stories: Hana, Annabel, and Raven by Lauren Oliver

Delirium Stories: Hana, Annabel, and Raven by Lauren Oliver
Published by HarperCollins

While giddily anticipating the conclusion to Lauren Oliver’s Delirium trilogy, Requiem, I figured the perfect thing to tide me over would be to read these three novellas focusing on three minor characters of the trilogy.

The first novella, Hana, tells the story of Lena’s best friend and the time in her life right before she was cured. I found it somewhat interesting to see the events in this story, which were shown from Lena’s perspective in the first novel, from Hana’s perspective instead. It was obvious that while both girls had experienced the same events, they interpreted them in such different ways. While I enjoyed Hana’s novella, other than seeing things from her point of view, it didn’t give me much else to grab onto. I would have liked more from Hana after her cure – but I hear rumors that we get that in Requiem, so I’ll try to remain patient!

Annabel was my favorite of the three novellas because we get to hear from Lena’s mother – we get to see what life was like when the cure was just becoming mandatory, and also we get to see what she lived through during her time in the crypts. The small snippets of information Annabel gives the reader about the time right when the cure was invented were fascinating to me, and I wanted so much more about that than I was given. Also I couldn’t help but admire the strength Annabel’s character possessed to get through so many hellish years in the crypts. This story was definitely the most emotionally affecting of the three and it made me the most excited for the third book.

Raven was one that also made me excited to read the conclusion of the trilogy because it was the one that gave the reader the most in terms of hints about what’s to come. Raven is another damaged, raw, but incredibly tough character (one of many in these books). I liked her in Pandemonium even though she was quite prickly and difficult to get to know at first, so it was nice to read more about her in this novella. This girl has been through a LOT of tough stuff and at a really young age too – so it’s no wonder how she’s mature beyond her years, yet naive in some very significant ways. Reading this story just made me feel closer to a character I didn’t feel that I got to know as well as I would have liked while reading the second book.

I’m definitely glad I read these novellas! I just got an alert today that Requiem is available for pick up at the library, so I’ll be reading that in the next couple of weeks. I’m super excited and these novellas just made that excitement even more intense!

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King
Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Hachette

Astrid Jones has incredible difficulty connecting with her family – her mom and sister are two peas in a pod who leave Astrid out of everything, and her dad is too busy in his own little world to care about her – so instead she spends time lying on the picnic table in her backyard, confiding in the passengers on the planes that fly overhead. She tells them about how she might be falling in love with a girl, a secret she can’t even reveal to her best friend. As her secret relationship with her female coworker becomes more intense, Astrid knows she needs to be honest with herself and her family and friends about who she really is, but has no idea how to do that or what will happen once she does. So she continues to speak to the passengers, hoping they’ll give her the love and strength she needs to open up to the family she desperately craves.

Remember when I read Please Ignore Vera Dietz and loved it so much I couldn’t even really explain why? Well, my experience with Ask the Passengers was just like that but even more, if that’s even possible. King has such a gift for getting into the heart and soul of her characters, for creating these teens who are incredibly raw and real and so heartbreakingly honest it kills me. I loved Astrid from the first page, felt personally affronted whenever someone hurt her, and wished desperately for someone in her family to see her, really see her, the way I did.

The relationship between Astrid and Dee, her secret girlfriend, is one that I loved seeing in fiction. It was written in such an authentic way – Astrid is emotionally conflicted not about whether she likes this girl or not (she knows for sure that she does), but about how far, physically, she is ready to take their relationship. And Dee doesn’t get it, she thinks this means Astrid is questioning the relationship itself, she is hurt and offended, so she takes every opportunity to push the boundaries physically beyond what Astrid is comfortable with, and it creates this conflict between the two of them that is about different things to each of them. But once honesty is brought into the picture, it’s like a light bulb moment for both of them, and it’s so beautiful to watch it all unfold. It’s just so damn honest and true, that’s the best way I can describe it.

Sprinkled throughout this novel are snippets of other people’s lives – the lives of the passengers on the planes that Astrid talks to and sends love to while she’s lying on her picnic table. These sections of the book are genius, if you ask me. Each time Astrid sends love to a passenger, the reader gets to see how the person actually received that love and how it changed their life, at least for one moment. I beyond loved this aspect of the novel – it was so unexpected but so beautiful.

I don’t know what else to say. A.S. King is a master at telling real stories for real teens. I loved Ask the Passengers so much – this is one of those “drop everything and pick up this novel” reviews. Highly, highly recommended!

Reached by Ally Condie

Reached by Ally Condie
Published by Dutton Juvenile, an imprint of Penguin

I’ve felt progressively less excited with this trilogy as the books have gone on, and all I can say about this final installment is that I’m glad it’s over. I’m glad I read it, to see how things turned out for Cassia and Ky and Xander, but I’m more glad it’s done. This sounds horrible, I know, but I just grew bored with the whole thing and I found this third book to be much too long for what it accomplished.

One thing I did like about Reached, and I believe I felt this way about the earlier two books as well, is the excellent writing. Condie really does write beautifully, and the book is full of philosophical questions about life, freedom, the inherent right we have to choice as human beings, and all kinds of other important things. The way she infuses poetry and other historically important writings throughout these books is really smart and gives this series a bit more substance than your typical dystopian novel.

I do like how Condie chose to end this series but I just felt that the book was overall too long and I got bored while reading it. The resolution was good, though, so I don’t know. I think if you liked the first two books you should probably finish the thing. I just wasn’t thrilled with the second book and wasn’t overwhelmed with love for Reached, either.

Did you read this series? Thoughts?

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin, an imprint of Macmillan
Review copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley

The year is 1986 when we meet Eleanor and Park, two misfit high school students who find in one another everything missing in each of their lives. This is a story of an unlikely pair, of first love, of two teenagers trying to figure things out, of two teenagers that believe to the core of their souls that everything will be okay in the world as long as they have each other.

This is perhaps one of the most adorable love stories I have ever read. These kids are so out of place at their school, they each have stuff going on at home that is heartbreaking, yet what they find in one another is the unconditional love each is so desperate for. My heart was full to bursting as I read the story of how their barely-friendship turned into the kind of all-consuming love we all long for and hope to find.

Eleanor & Park is more complex and layered than your typical love story. Eleanor and Park deal with bullying, issues at home (including abuse), racism, and more. They are two kids who have to grow up over the course of the novel, both in love and in life. But what’s so beautiful is that they do this growing up together, as a couple, but also as individuals. It’s brilliant to read and by the end of the book, I was in tears and in awe at these two amazing kids. I loved them.

Eleanor & Park is such a winning combination of a great story, excellent and true characters, and pure heart that I couldn’t put this book down. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend this fantastic novel.

This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin, an imprint of Macmillan

Sloane Price is a teenager when the end of the world begins. She escapes the masses of dead bodies, brought back to life and aching to bite anything still living, with five other students barricaded inside the high school. But Sloane’s life ended months ago when her sister left, leaving her to survive their father’s abuse alone. Now she’s struggling to find a reason to live, and although she’s living through the apocalypse with five people who are hopeful for their survival, she must decide if she can find a reason to stick around. With everything in her life gone, Sloane has to figure out if there’s anything left worth holding onto.

I have to admit that I’m not sure zombie stories are really my thing. I have liked some of them (such as The Forrest of Hands and Teeth series), but others I’ve had difficulty with and even given up on (Warm Bodies comes to mind – couldn’t get through it). This Is Not a Test falls somewhere in the middle. While I liked Sloane and felt deeply for her, I was more concerned with the human aspects of this novel than the zombies. Because it was more about the six of them still hanging onto their lives, I overall enjoyed it, but I do think it was my least favorite Courtney Summers novel due to the zombie stuff.

I empathized with Sloane right away, though. She had an incredibly traumatic life before the apocalypse, and basically everyone in her life who was supposed to protect her had either abused her or abandoned her. So she was pretty indifferent to being alive, and at one point she put herself in harm’s way with the intent to get bitten, with the intent to die. I definitely felt that she was the strongest part of the book, for me, as reading her struggle to decide whether to live or die felt very authentic to me, in the midst of a zombie story. What she was going through was not a normal situation, but she reacted to it based on everything she’d already been through in her life.

While I was interested in the dynamics between the group of six teens, for me this book was mostly Sloane’s story, more about her personal struggle than how she related to the rest of the group. Obviously they played a huge part in the story, but to me they were each a minor character in this story about Sloane’s conquering her internal demons, and therefore I didn’t much connect to any of them.

Summers has no fear in this book! She was not afraid to make Bad Things happen to her characters, and I applaud her for that. I also really liked her stark, cold writing style, a style that I’m almost always on board with but also one that really worked well with the subject matter of the book.

I listened to the audio of This Is Not a Test, narrated by Stephanie Cannon, which was just okay for me. Cannon has a hint of an English accent and I found that to be a little strange. I felt she did a good job with the narration, but I was really distracted by her voice.

I don’t have a ton of experience with zombie books, and I do fear sometimes that they aren’t for me. That being said, I did enjoy This Is Not a Test, due to Summers’ excellent writing and the main character, Sloane, who completely won me over. I would recommend this one for fans of zombie books and YA fiction.

Out of The Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Out of The Easy by Ruta Sepetys
Published by Philomel, an imprint of Penguin
Review copy received at SIBA

Josie Moraine is an ordinary girl growing up in New Orleans in the 1950′s. Except that she’s anything but ordinary – her mother is a prostitute, she lives alone in an apartment at the bookshop where she works (has since she’s twelve, and she’s seventeen now), and even though she comes from sordid roots, Josie has desperate dreams of getting out of the Quarter and going to college at Smith. Josie concocts a plan to get the letter of recommendation she needs to get into college, but just as things begin to fall into place for her, the demons of her mother’s choices come back to haunt her and she becomes trapped in an impossible situation.

If you read Sepetys’ haunting, morbidly beautiful novel Between Shades of Gray, please understand that Out of The Easy is about as different from her first novel as possible. I say that because it’s important to understand that Sepetys is truly talented – she can write about the most opposite of topics and pull each book off incredibly successfully. Out of The Easy is no Between Shades of Gray, but it’s a beautiful novel in its own right, one that I really loved.

I completely fell in love with Josie within the first ten pages of this novel. She reminded me so much of myself – bookish, from not the best of backgrounds, determined to make something of her life – although I’m not nearly as tough as she is! So maybe she reminded me of a better version of myself. But I admired her strength, her tenacity, her determination to create a better life for herself than the one that was expected of her. I loved the fact that life kept throwing her curve balls, and while she was tempted to stray from her planned course of action, she never really fell victim to her circumstances. Instead, she kept her head held high and forged ahead, choosing to do the right thing rather than the easy thing every single time.

Out of The Easy is action-packed but in a quieter way, if that makes sense. There’s a lot that happens over the course of the novel, but it’s not exactly fast-paced. It’s more like spaced out over the course of the book evenly, sort of how real life is (if your real life consists of your mom being a prostitute accused of murder, that is). The pace of the novel kept me turning pages compulsively, but not so anxiously that I missed anything.

I truly enjoyed Out of The Easy and highly recommend it. Sepetys is just as good as I hoped she would be in her second novel, and this book has so many elements within it for a reader to love. Highly recommended!

Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin

Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The second book in the Birthright trilogy begins with Anya Balanchine being released from Liberty Children’s Facility, ready to get back to her regular life, but sure that she’ll do so by following the rules and especially the law. Unfortunately, she can’t get back into Holy Trinity to finish high school, and no other schools will take her due to her criminal record. Her sister, ex-boyfriend Win, and best friend Scarlet have continued living their lives when Anya was gone, and as a result of that things have changed a lot by the time she gets back. In addition, her ties to her family’s chocolate business have put a huge target on her back, so Anya travels to Mexico, where chocolate is not only legal but plentiful, and begins to develop her own ideas about the family business.

After becoming enamored with the first volume in the Birthright trilogy, All These Things I’ve Done, I knew I’d need to get my hands on this second installment as soon as I could. I’m happy to say that this novel did not fall into the middle-of-trilogy trap that lots of these kinds of books do – it was not at all forgettable, it added necessary elements to the arc of Anya’s story, and was compulsively readable. I may have liked it even more than the first one, in fact.

I think the aspect of this novel I liked the most was the fact that Anya has grown up a lot in the space between the two books and it really shows in the character development that Zevin gives the reader. She’s still the same tough-as-nails girl she was in the first book, and she hasn’t lost her softer side, but somehow she’s gotten smarter, more resourceful, and more realistic about the world she lives in and her part in it. She’s still not interested in getting involved with the family business, but there’s a point at which she realizes she may not have a choice. Instead of bemoaning that fact, she decides to come up with a different, maybe better, way to be involved with the business. I liked where Zevin took Anya’s character and I have high hopes for even further development in the third book.

One of the complaints I had with the first book in this series is that I didn’t feel there was much explanation as to why chocolate and coffee were made illegal. Because It Is My Blood answers that question, and for that I was grateful, although I’m not sure how much I buy the explanation Zevin delivers. It made sense and it cleared some things up for me, but I’m not sure Zevin took these explanations far enough to explain as much of this future world as I would have hoped.

That being said, I really, truly enjoyed Because It Is My Blood and I was hanging on every single word throughout the novel. I like this series because it’s very unique, well-written, and still has the solid characterization that I need in a good novel. If you think this is just another YA dystopia I have to say that you are wrong, as there’s something extra special about this series. I’d definitely recommend giving it a try.

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins
Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster
Review copy received at SIBA

Three teenagers are featured in Tilt, tied together by the relationships of their parents. Mikayla is seventeen and head-over-heels in love with her boyfriend, Dylan, but when the unthinkable happens to her, everything about their relationship changes and she’s left shattered and alone. Shane is sixteen and happily dating his boyfriend Alex, who is HIV-positive. Living with his sister’s illness, Shane stares impending death in the face almost every day, so Shane has to make a conscious decision to continue to be in a relationship with someone terminally ill. Harley is the youngest of the kids, just fourteen, and she’s desperately searching for a boy who will love her – regardless of what she has to do to earn that love. These three teenagers are deeply affected by their parents’ decisions, and the choices the three of them make will have drastic consequences.

I don’t think I’ve read an Ellen Hopkins book that I didn’t enjoy, and Tilt fits neatly into that category. In this case, I had previously read Triangles, the companion book to this one that features these teens’ parents (and was Hopkins’ first adult book). The fact that I had already gotten to know these kids through their parents’ eyes made the reading experience all the more interesting and compelling.

There are some really heartbreaking moments in this book, and Hopkins handles them with her usual mixture of brutal honesty, grace, and beautiful writing. None of these characters lives an easy life, and while they each make bad choices, what teenager doesn’t? The important thing is how they end up seeing their bad choices for what they are and resolving to do the right thing next time. That doesn’t happen exactly in the perfect way, but you’ll see. These are smart kids who want to do right.

I can’t say much else about Tilt without spoilers, but I will say that if you have enjoyed Hopkins’ books in the past, definitely pick this one up. And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? She writes gorgeous novels in verse about teens in crisis. I highly recommend checking out her work.