Me, Earl and the Dying Girl: Jesse Andrews

Greg Gaines has been purposely spending his life on the edges of high school, dipping in and out of each and every social group. When his mother declares that he must spend time with a dying girl, Rachel, Greg is highly unimpressed. But as their friendship grows, Greg and his best friend Earl try to make her days suck less with one of their (not so) famous films.

This is a great book. Simple, honest and not trying to be anything it’s not. Even though there is a young girl with cancer, the story isn’t overwhelmingly sad. You know what’s coming and Greg, Earl and Rachel respond like teenagers, not like some fictionalized characters where the focus becomes some grand life lesson.

The absolute best part of this book was Earl, Greg’s best friend and possibly the most random person ever. I found myself looking forward to every scene Earl was in. He was the perfect, straight forward contrast to Greg’s occasional moroseness. The writing style is clear cut, full of humor and had me laughing out loud, not something you’d generally expect from a book about teen cancer. The teenagers are teenagers, bad language, self-absorbed and all.

Books that stay true to their characters personalities are always the best. Highly recommend to those looking for something a little out of the ordinary or for something easy, funny and interesting to pick up.

L xoxo 

Under the Never Sky: Veronica Rossi

Aria has lived her whole life in the protected dome of Reverie. Her entire world confined to its spaces, she’s never thought to dream of what lies beyond its doors. So when her mother goes missing, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland long enough to find her are slim. 

Then Aria meets an outsider named Perry. He’s searching for someone too. He’s also wild - a savage - but might be her best hope at staying alive. 

If they can survive, they are each other’s best hope for finding answers. (Goodreads)

Under the Never Sky is one of those 2012 YA debuts that everyone was very excited to get their hands on. When I started reading it in December, I was not impressed. Nothing was happening, the setting was kind of weird and the characters seemed quite unlikeable. But, after a slew of very positive reviews came out, I kept reading and suddenly everything I didn’t like came together to make something amazing.

While the setting and ideas were amazing, what really made the book was the connection between the characters. Perry and Aria… Aria seems soft but is secretly badass. Perry is badass but actually has a ooey gooey melty center. A perfect balance that only got better as they moved through their quest. The story is told from their alternating viewpoints, an element I loved because it really lets you see the whole story, what’s actually going on.

With a completely original plot, twists and turns, and enough back story to make everything come together perfectly, Under the Never Sky is a wonderfully written book. One of the absolute best parts is that the current story is wrapped up to a satisfying ending, with plenty of potential for a great sequel (no cliffhangers, yay!).

Overall, a fabulous and unique contribution to this years round of YA debut novels. With plenty of action and great characters, I highly recommend Under the Never Sky to readers looking for something a little different.

L xoxo 

Minis: Turn of Mind, Children of Paranoia, Domestic Violets

Warning: A ton of mini reviews will be comin’ atcha this week. I’m trying to get through some of the backlog of reviews before the new year. After that I’ll just be writing the unwritten ones off as ‘oh wells’ (obviously not including late December/January pub dates). I read these three books when I went to Canada in August… so that’s kind of how far behind I am…. Anyways! On to the reviews!

Turn of Mind is one of those sneaky books that, months after finishing, still manages to pop into my head every now and again. It’s been said a zillion times already but: AWESOME. So creepy and spine tingly. What if your best friend is murdered and you honestly have no idea if it was you. This book was an amazing look into the confusion and chaos that Alzheimer’s, can throw your life into. Beautifully written with complex characters. Highly recommended. 

Another creepy book! But in a completely different way. I loved how the story read as the protagonists journal entries. This is an incredibly violent book but the journal gave a necessary barrier, an emotional padding of sorts, between the sweet Joseph, and the highly trained assassin Joseph who must do whatever it takes to protect those he loves. Even if that means going against everything he thought he believed in. This book kept me up and then gave me nightmares. Read it… now (or maybe wait until there are lots of people around…). I need the next book!

Something completely different now to mess you up. Hilarious. Honest. Written from a normal guys perspective. Everything about this book worked for me. It was a nice change of pace after my brain was wrung out by the books above and had me giggling under the covers. Poor, poor Tim. Everything is going wrong for him. There was a lot in this book I could relate to: the complete sense of confusion about life in general for one, but I had some problems connecting with the characters at times. This wasn’t a fault of the book but I, as a 22 year old student now going into the world of work, couldn’t really grasp some of the issues that were the focus of this book. Still, the humour, pain and confusion came through loud and clear. 

These books all deserve posts of their own and maybe I’ll get round to rereading them one day… 

L xoxo 

Cinder: Marissa Meyer

Cinder is a new look at an old fairytale: Cinderella. The author does an amazing job at keeping the basic components of the story (an orphan taken in by a horrible family, handsome prince, and so on) in place, while making the plot and characters themselves entirely different. I loved that, though the city and the world wasn’t widely discussed, I’ve finished the book with a pretty good idea of the society and it’s inhabitants.

The setting was New Beijing which is interesting in itself because there are traditional elements worked into the speculative. I loved how the author created a new history and fitted so many traditional science fictional elements into the story (hover cars anyone?).

Character and plot wise: AWESOME. I’m not going to say too much but you have a bad ass Cinderella and the necessary hot prince (in this case, Emperor) and a plot that kept me reading until I finished. This was a one sitting read ,so clear your schedule and settle down!

Apart from the great story and well developed characters, I was particularly interested in the political underpinnings involved in the book. This is what I’m writing my thesis on, when human becomes non human and when non-human in turn becomes human, and Cinder herself was an interesting example. She is a cyborg, born human with mechanical prosthetic elements, and simply being a cyborg comes with a stigma, she is considered non-human. There are also androids, including Cinder’s friend (robots name) who came cheap because of a ‘programming defect’. I’m going to stop nerding out on you guys now but seriously, this book had some heavy background to it’s general awesomeness.

The only thing I disliked about this fantastic book was the fact that it’s the first in a series and I have to wait ages to get the next one and find out what happens next! L xoxo

Received from publisher via NetGalley. Thanks!

Saving June: Hannah Harrington

This wasn’t a book that I was in love with from the start. I thought the beginning was a bit slow, a bit dramatic and not matching up to what I expected from such a well loved book. But I trusted my blogger friends and kept reading, and reading… and reading. Because, all of a sudden, the story took off and became absolutely amazing.

Harper Scott’s perfect older sister commits suicide just before her graduation and no one knows why. Her parents are recently divorced and, rather than having them split up the ashes, Harper decides to take Jane on her final dream trip, to California. With the help of her best friend Laney and the mysterious and intriguingly knowledgeable Jake, Harper sets out on a trip filled with pain, hope, revelations and excellent music. 

This is now one of my favorite young adult reads of 2011 and I think it’s for these simple reasons:

1) It’s got a road trip. Road trip books start off at an advantage because road trips are made of awesomesauce. This one was particularly fabulous because the author worked the growth of the characters and how much we know about them, into the blur of the great American scenery. It was perfectly paced with the greatest ending.

2) It dealt with teen suicide but the focus wasn’t really on the issue, more on how it affects those left behind. There was some very sneaky lessons in there too, letting the reader get to know June through Harper, Laney and Jake.

3) I loved that the love interest and the potential relationship was imperfect. As it should be! Love isn’t perfect and on a road trip that involves your dead sisters ashes… that would just be weird.

4) The amount of amazing music that is used to connect the characters and to make each chapter absolutely perfect. Thank you, Hannah, for giving me so much to put on my iPod!

Have you read Saving June? What did you think? And most importantly, do you have anymore road trip book recommendations to feed my cravings? 

L xoxo 

Received from publisher via NetGalley. Thanks!

TSS: The Broke-Ass Christmas Edition

It’s that Christmassy time of year again and now that I’m officially done classes, have no work until January and only have 1 exam left, I finally have some time to enjoy it (I should be studying but shhhh). I finally wrote out my Christmas notes yesterday! I got to use my sexy glitter pens and everything (glitter makes everything better). They might not get where they are going before the big day but I’ve written them and they’ll get there eventually which is close enough. 

The blog has been prettified with decorations and snow. And this week I finally finished moving over all of our old reviews from wordpress. Now I just have to link them all up in the archive and move over the other posts… But everything should be spiffy and organised for the new year!

Presents have been a bit interesting because we are kind of limited on fundage and, for most of my family, they have to be mailed which means no yummy treats. This Christmas I’ve raided my stash, googled everything and have come up with presents for my little sisters that are cute, unique, fun and cheap: Christmas crackers. Normally filled with an awful joke, a cheesy tissue paper crown (I love these) and a random toy, these crackers will be updated and customised to suit three awesome little girls. My oldest youngest sister (if that makes sense… the one next down in age from me) gets a homemade meal when she visits at New Years.

I’m stuffing the crackers with hand drawn magnets, stickers, colouring pages and teeny tiny pencils, embroidery thread for the eldest to make friendship bracelets, and handwritten letters from their best sister. As soon as I figure out how to make them look all pretty, I’ll post pictures and some instructions. I’m planning on using {this} great tutorial.

This week on the blog:

Review: A Dixie Christmas by Sandra Hill.

Food: The world’s best comfort food made into a delicious soup.

2011 Virtual Advent: Where we introduce an alien to the magic that is the Christmas movie.

What are you guys up to this Sunday? L xoxo

A Dixie Christmas: Sandra Hill

I chose this book because it was Christmassy, and I am a sucker for a good romance around the holidays. Unfortunately, A Dixie Christmas failed to meet my expectations, provoking more unimpressed groans and giggles than the desired heart fluttering, swoons and sighs. 

A Dixie Christmas is a pair of stories, each written originally as a standalone short. The first story, Blue Christmas, follows an uptight business man to Memphis, where he has inherited a random hotel (the hotel sounded kind of fun…). He meets a girl and her crazy family and… we all know whats going to happen next. The second, Jinx Christmas, is set in Louisiana. It involves a NASCAR driver, his ex-wife and their daughter’s Christmas wish.

Now, I wasn’t expecting anything fantastic when I started reading. In fact, cheesy romance would have made me perfectly happy. My problem was with how rushed everything seemed. I would say that the pacing was OK considering that it was two stories in one book, but I’ve read other comparable romances which, despite being short, manage to take their time and build that all important relationship between the reader and the character, as well as between the characters themselves. Lust is fine, but feeling like I’ve been hurried through a story leaves me disappointed. 

I much preferred Jinx Christmas over Blue Christmas simply because of the characters charm. The Southerness really came through and I love anything set in Louisiana. The characters had a nice back story and the plot was quite sweet. Both shorts were obviously unrealistic but again, I expected this. The whole point is to be taken out of your world and plonked down into someone elses.

Overall, a disapointment. I have another of Sandra Hill’s books for review and I’ll give it a shot, maybe this was a fluke.

Have you read any of Sandra Hill’s books? What do you think about her writing?

L xoxo