**SPOILER FREE review**An intriguing and well-written book that alternates chapters between Win/Drew's present life at a Vermont boarding school and his past as a ten year-old. Though there are a few very familiar YA tropes here -- a main character who is an outcast at a tony New England boarding school, and a murdered teenager -- this book definitely puts a new spin on them. Based on the clues that were given (some very strange interactions between Drew and his family, the book's title and chapter subtitles, which I think are physics terms, plus the fact that this book reminded me of a 2009 YA book -- don't want to say more as that would be a spoiler for both books) I was able to figure out the big mystery about half-way through the book. Though that type of book is not usually my favorite, I really liked the unique spin that Charm and Strange put on all the genre, the way the book was structured, and the writing. Again, I don't want to say much, because part of the pleasure of this book is trying to put all the pieces together. And even when you've done that, this book will still have you thinking...You want to know what book this reminded me of? Oh, fine. But if you've read either book, it will be a spoiler for the other one: Liar by Justine Larbalestier
Beautiful (yet very readable) literary writing, and a strong Veronica Mars-ish vibe. Really enjoyed it and look forward to reading Tandem!
Re-reading this series in the summer of 2013!Maybe I never made it to book three. I don't remember Marcus being this weird...
I'm re-reading this series on vacation. While I found that Jessica grated on my nerves a little more this time around, this book is still a complete original. Loved reliving the early 2000s….
Don't Turn Around
Don't Turn Around was well-written and plotted and kept my attention. But I never really connected to any of the characters. The blurb says Noa is supposed to be some kind of Junior Lisbeth Salander, but Lisbeth has a lot of vulnerability and is way more complex. Noa and Peter didn't grow and change at all as characters, they just ran around being awesome.That brings me to another issue: Don't Turn Around had that "kids can save the world" trope that my teen reviewers often complain about -- the kids are the smart ones and the adults are inept. That kind of Home Alone stuff delights the elementary school set to no end, but I think it doesn't work in a book for teens.So this book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. It was an enjoyable read, but not a super-memorable one.
Just Like Fate
Caroline moved in with her grandmother after her parents' divorce. After her grandmother suffers a stroke and is recovering in the hospital, Caroline's best friend Simone tries to convince her to come out to a party. Caroline and her older sister are like oil and water and they quarrel. That's when the universe splits: in one universe Caroline stays at the hospital and in the other she goes to the party.What did I like about Just Like Fate? Three of the main characters. At first I thought Simone was going to be the generic YA Wild Child BFF, but she and Caroline had a wonderful (and hilarious) relationship that completely delighted me. I also really liked one of the guys and intensely disliked the other. Not telling you which!Then we come to the ending. So you have two parallel universes going -- do you resolve that, and if so, how? Just Like Fate took a fairly evasive tack, but I was okay with that. There was resolution, and that's all I ask!I'd definitely recommend Just Like Fate to those who are intrigued by the whole parallel universe things but don't want to be overwhelmed with science.The full review will be posted on my blog, YA Romantics,during the week of August 19, with an ARC giveaway!
Black Heart (Curse Workers Series #3)
I think it took me so long to read this book because I didn't want the Curseworkers series to be over. Since I listened to the first two books on audio , I heard Jesse Eisenberg's voice in my head as I was reading. There is just SO much I love about this series -- Cassel's amazing narrative voice, his completely messed up family,the moral ambiguity, the humor…..Can't wait to try Coldest Girl in Coldtown!
Super-confused -- thought this was coming out in August.So I'll keep my review brief for now. As a parent… wow... I found the premise of this one to be emotionally wrenching and heartbreaking. It was hard for me to read at times.Emma's anger toward and awkward relationship with her stepfather felt realistic and well-drawn, but the friendship/romance with the terribly misunderstood bad boy seemed like something I've seen many, many times before. But overall, a very emotional read and great pick for those who like tear-jerker contemporaries!
In Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Violet White and her brother Luke are alone in their crumbling old house (nicknamed "Citizen Kane") after their flighty artist parents head off on a European trip. Money's tight, so Violet has tacked up signs in town offering their guesthouse for rent. Enter River West. He's gorgeous and mysterious and Violet is immediately drawn to him. But there's also something slightly menacing about River…something that doesn't quite add up.The book features some elements very familiar to readers of both Gothic fiction and YA paranormal romance: a girl alone in a spooky setting, the mysterious new boy in town who will either be the love of the girl's life or kill her, etc. etc. But I loved the way that Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea both embraced these familiar tropes and slyly used them to toy with me as I read. Every page of this book was beautifully written, taut with tension and suspense, hinting at terrible things to come. The story takes place in the small town of Echo, a place with a creepy cemetery and abandoned tunnels and kids who whisper warnings about a kidnapper who snatches children. Because the reader is kept in a constant state of uncertainty about River's identity and motivation, I wouldn't exactly call this a romance. Yes, River is a handsome, beautifully dressed guy who whips up delicious meals for Violet and sleeps chastely next to her. But isn't he too good to be true? I hoped he wasn't, but I feared he was...I loved this book. If you love Gothic fiction, beautiful writing, atmospheric stories, suspense, then Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is a must-read!Full review -- and giveaway -- will be on my blog, Jen @ YA Romantics, later this week.Thanks so much to Penguin Teen for sending me an ARC for review.
The Infinite Moment of Us is about a summer romance between two recent high school graduates, Charlie and Wren.This sounded like the kind of character-driven realistic fiction I love, but a lack of character growth and some issues I had with the dynamic of the romantic relationship made this book a bit of a miss for me. Wren's been accepted early decision to Emory and won a merit scholarship, but doesn't want any of that, because that's what her overbearing parents want her to do. So she lies to her parents and turns Emory down and applies for a volunteer program in Guatemala. But before she runs off and shows her parents that they are Not The Boss of Her, she decides she wants to get to know -- and lose her virginity to-- --Charlie. Charlie has real problems. His working class foster parents are short on money, his handicapped younger foster brother gets bullied, and he has a crazy ex-girlfriend who wants him back. It seemed to me like the last thing Charlie needed was some clingy, self-centered girl like Wren who wants to use him for her summer rebellion plan. So Charlie and Wren get together. I have no problem with sex in YA books, even explicit sex, but I never felt emotionally invested in this relationship because Wren came off to me as so needy and manipulative, while poor Charlie got stuck in a melodramatic tug-of-war between Wren and his troubled ex, Starrla. When the end of the story offered an opportunity for both Charlie and Wren to finally show some real maturity and emotional growth, I was so excited …. and then so disappointed that the story went in another direction.I was all ready for Wren to say goodbye to Charlie and get on the plane. This is what Wren says she wants: independence. To be her own person. Meanwhile, Charlie has plans to go college and make a better life for himself. To my complete dismay, the book ends with him leaving his foster family and throwing some stuff in a suitcase and running to the airport to follow Wren to Guatemala. What???? If a female character had postponed her college plans to chase after some boy she'd been sleeping with for a couple of months, I'd be outraged, and I felt the same way about a male character making that questionable decision. This story might have redeemed itself for me if the two had gone their separate ways and then reconnected later in an epilogue. Maybe I'd have liked Wren better after her time in Guatemala. This story seemed to want to be a coming of age story, but never took that last step. I didn't feel like Wren's character grew at all through the course of the story, except for becoming more sexually experienced, and that disappointed me. All that said, other readers may completely disagree. As a library volunteer, I know how popular Myracle's middle grade books are with the 9-12 set. I've also heard amazing things about her YA novel Shine and would love to try it, but, sadly, Infinite Moment just wasn't my cup of YA tea.Received this book as an ARC giveaway at BEA
Earthbound had pros and cons for me. On the plus side, it was engaging and easy to read. Tavia, who has just lost her parents in a plane crash, was a character I immediately felt empathy towards. I especially loved the dynamic between Tavia and Benson, the cute, slightly nerdy librarian she befriends after moving in with her aunt and uncle. They had a nice friends-with-chemistry vibe that I enjoyed.When Tavia starts having visions of a mysterious boy from the past, I was intrigued. She and Benson begin to investigate, realize she's in danger, and are soon on the run. I have limited patience for "on the run" plots, but this one actually kept my interest … to a point. There was a lot of "mysterious this" and "mysterious that" and being chased. After about 250 pages, the reader is clued in to what's going on. But because the book is almost over, the explanation for all the supernatural stuff is pretty basic, mostly limited to what's in the blurb: there are some good guys and some bad guys and that they've been locked in combat for centuries, and the bad guys "manipulate global events for shadowy purposes". These "shadowy purposes" remained both vague and hyperbolic, like a movie trailer voiceover. At one point, a character actually tells Tavia, "You are humankind's last hope." Then there's the love triangle. It wasn't a huge issue for me in this installment, but those readers who have had it up to here with love triangles may disagree. And I'm guess things will get more triangle-y in future books...So while I wasn't wildly in love with Earthbound, I'll remain cautiously optimistic. I'll try to read the second book in the hopes that it will offer a more than a hand wave-y explanation of Tavia's powers and the two factions and what it all means. I'm also hopeful that the love triangle won't become a problem.Read the full review and more YA reviews on my blog, Jen @ YA Romantics
The Boy on the Bridge
Natalie Standiford's How to Say Goodbye in Robot and Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters are huge favorites of mine, so I was super-excited to read this. Boy on the Bridge immersed me in an intriguing and completely foreign world: 1982 Leningrad. College student Laura Reid is participating in an exchange program, spending a semester working on her Russian and soaking up the culture.What I loved most about this book was that the setting was such a unique one for YA. I was fascinated to learn more about pre-Glasnost Russia -- food shortages, strict rules banning fraternization between Soviets and foreigners, and a high level of paranoia. I also loved the way the book depicted the foreign exchange experience in general -- the constraints that come with living with other American students while trying to experience a foreign country.When Laura meets Aloysha on a bridge, she escapes her protective bubble and gets a glimpse of real Russian life -- every exchange student dreams of. But in this case, there's a catch: Laura is repeatedly warned by her chaperones and fellow students that many Russians are so desperate to escape their country that they will feign romantic attachment to Americans as a means of doing so. Of course, Laura falls in love. She's convinced that Aloysha loves her too.The romantic aspect of the book was a bit more confusing for me, and I'll be curious to see how other readers come out. The book is told in third person from Laura's point of view, with no insight into Aloysha's feelings or thoughts, so there is no way for the reader to know if he loves Laura or if she's just a means to an end to him. If you are a reader who needs closure, you may take issue with what, to me, seemed like a frustratingly unresolved ending. Is this a bittersweet coming of age story about a girl who is cruelly duped? A romantic story about love against the odds? An existential statement about the fact that we can never truly know what's in someone else's head? I don't mind books with ambiguous endings, but in this case I feel a little like all the evidence was dumped in my lap for me to sort out. I think the book would have packed more of an emotional punch for me if there had been more resolution. To me, all the evidence pointed toward Aloysha being a manipulator. The extreme instalove, his sudden proposal, his creepy stalking of Laura to Moscow -- these things made him seem way too intense, and she was way too naive. Toward the end of the book, one of Aloysha's friends tells Laura that she's just one of a string of American girls he has romanced, which also pretty damning. Or was he just desperate? I really didn't know what to think and wished that the book had offered more insight.
I think my favorite aspect of the retelling was the fact that this book wasn't afraid to take some real liberties with the storyline. This did not come as a surprise to me, as the premise of Stacey Jay's Juliet Immortal (and the companion book, Romeo Redeemed) was that Romeo and Juliet had become mortal enemies. In Of Beast and Beauty, a centuries-old bargain made between a dark force and the colonists of the city of Yuan ensures that the domed city would remain prosperous as long as a human sacrifice was offered regularly.Princess Isra, like her mother before her, is that human sacrifice. Blind since the terrible day her mother died, Isra lives a sheltered life inside the palace. But when a group of "Monstrous" from the desolate desert outside the dome are caught inside it and accused of a terrible crime, Isra's world changes dramatically. She takes an interest in Gem, the young Desert Boy left by his group and imprisoned in the palace. As they spend more time together, each learns about the world of the other. As they begin to fall in love, they will threaten the status quo and threaten to expose some of the lies that have kept their people locked in mortal enmity.Another thing I enjoyed about Of Beast and Beauty was the way it took many thematic elements of the original story and really looked at them. The concept of beauty (or ugliness) isn't just taken at face value here, but really examined from different directions. The Desert People outside the dome have evolved to be scaly as a protection agains the heat, an adaptation that makes the "Smooth Skins" within the dome think of them as monsters. Isra, who has rough skin herself, has always felt that she's unattractive. I also liked the addition of the political intrigue -- there's a lot of plotting and scheming going on here -- and the way the Smooth Skins and the Desert people hate and mistrust each other.That brings me to the romance. Isra has been raised to be afraid of the people outside the Dome, and Gem has been raised to think that the Smooth Skins within it are evil. While I really liked this element of the story, at first it felt to me that this unlikely couple fell in love a little fast. To be fair, the book did compress time a little, jumping ahead from one season to the next. But still, I felt slightly cheated. Hate-to-love can be one of the most interesting romantic relationships to read about, and I thought that the time compression prevented the reader from seeing the full evolution of the romantic relationship.Of Beast and Beauty also has a third POV character, Bo. He is the son of the king's closest advisor and has been hand-picked as a husband for Isra. At first I was a little worried about this leading to the dreaded love triangle, but in the end, I thought Bo was a great addition to the story and also a very well-developed character.Read the full review and more YA reviews on my blogJen @ YA Romantics
As someone who's just started reading and appreciating YA fantasy, I've enjoyed this trilogy so much.Crown of Embers is still my favorite book in the trilogy, but I thought that The Bitter Kindgom was a fitting end to Elisa's story, with plenty of romance, heartbreak, suspense and sacrifice. As was the case when I started book two, Crown of Embers, it took me a few chapters to get myself oriented and immersed back into the story world. I could have used a little more recap. There was a lot of travel and action in this book -- plotting and hiding and fight scenes and a whole underground sequence that reminded me a lot of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I'm claustrophobic, so this is not my favorite kind of setting! I also didn't feel that Elisa grew as much as a character in this book. On the one hand, I was happy that she's grown so confident, but her lack of confidence in prior books made her more relatable. I also thought the romantic tension was higher in other books -- this segment of the story is more about Elisa.My complete review -- with a summary of all the things I love about the series -- will be on my blog -- Jen @ YA Romantics -- the week of August 10.