I love reading books, especially Young Adult books of all kinds. I have a book reviewing blog (The Reading Shelf) that I try to update whenever I'm not reading or procrastinating on the internet.
Sarah Dessen’s latest book, and the last one to read for my Summer of Sarah Dessen challenge! It definitely had some of the things I like about her later books (namely, fun secondary characters!), but it wasn’t my favorite from her.
Emaline was an interesting enough protagonist. She seemed unique enough that I think I’ll remember her from the large assortment of Dessen protagonists, but you never really know. She’s in a transition period in her life, and I’m not sure we always get who she really is, because she’s trying to figure it out just as much as we are.
The romance is interesting enough. Emaline starts the book off with a “perfect” boyfriend, which makes it hard to believe that she’ll end up with the “sophisticated” and “exciting” Theo mentioned in the summary, but the cracks in her relationship quickly appear. Luke may be a great guy, but their relationship isn’t solid, and I don’t think it’s a spoiler (but you may think different, so fair warning) to say that they end up breaking up and Emaline gets together with Theo. That’s not that interesting or surprising. No, the interesting things with the romance, at least in my opinion, happen near the end of the book.
OK, now there are DEFINITELY SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH! AVOID IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED! After the initial honeymoon period, Theo started bugging him. He was often looking down on Emaline’s way of life and her small town without even realizing that he was doing so. There were times I saw bits of myself in Theo, and it both made me sad about myself and ticked off at Theo for making me feel that way. He’s not a bad guy, but he is quite misguided in ways. Initially this was a major problem for me because I figured, like in most Dessen novels, Emaline would finish the book with this guy, because I’ve only read a handful of Dessen novels that end with the protagonist single, and those were all her earlier books. I was resigned to the fact that Emaline would end up with this guy and they’d have a happily ever after and such and such. BUT, things changed. Emaline actually realized that her relationship with Theo wasn’t worked, and it ended! And, even though there were signs that she might end up with Luke again, the ending was ambiguous and Emaline made it clear that she wanted to find herself in college before she thought about starting up a relationship with Luke again. All in all, the ending left me feeling very satisified with the story. OK, IT’S SAFE TO READ NOW, NO MORE SPOILERS!
So, secondary characters. Like most Dessen novels, this book had some great secondary characters that kept me entertained when the main storyline or romance were boring me. There are Emaline’s friends, her half-brother, her (adopted) sisters, her “dad” (not her father – bit confusing at times because her dad is the man her mother married while her father is her biological father and the father of her half-brother – don’t worry, it’s less confusing when you read it), the man at the center of the documentary. All in all, they tended to keep me entertained.
I just had trouble really caring about the main plot at times, and this is what kept the book from getting a higher rating. It was enjoyable enough, but it wasn’t a new favorite. I really liked the ending, though, as you can reading in the spoiler-ific paragraph above.
Now that I’ve read all of Dessen’s published books (all in one summer!), I definitely plan on checking out future books from her, if only for the memorable secondary characters.
This is Sarah Dessen’s very first ever book, and I’m afraid to say that it’s my least favorite as well.
Protagonist Haven is a big reason I am not a fan of this book. If you’ve read this book at all, then you probably know that Haven is tall. Why is this such a memorable trait? Because she brings it up and bitches about ALL THE TIME. Seriously, it was so irritating and frustrating that she has driven me to curse in my review of her book.
I understand that puberty is an awful time where you hate everything about you because you’re obviously so different and a freak and what self esteem? Never heard of it! But the author of this book is not going through puberty. Yes, you should try to get into the character’s head, but the way Haven refuses to see her great height as anything but a sign of being a freak seems a tad problematic. Being nearly six feet tall at age fifteen as a girl certainly makes you unusual, but it doesn’t mean you’re a freak. I have some friends are very tall and have been basically forever, or at least as long as I’ve known them, and, sure, they complain about their height sometimes, but ultimately they don’t let it completely define them. I don’t think I would have had such a problem with it if the book had ended with Haven learning to accept herself and her height and all the good things that would come from it, but she didn’t really. At one point she felt beautiful and not awkward, but it was only for a moment and she ended that moment knowing that she would just feel awkward again once it was over. Shouldn’t she end the book feeling beautiful, or at least not feeling like a freak and unintentionally (hopefully) making tall readers feel equally bad.
<!--more--><!--more-->This might be a bit spoilerish, so this is your warning. There was something I really appreciated about this book: there was no romance! There was a boy that I was worried about for multiple reasons, including the fact that he’s her sister’s ex-boyfriend and about five or six years older, but he didn’t become a love interest.
Overall though, I wasn’t a big fan of this book. It was short, which is the main reason I read the whole thing, but I also skimmed quite a bit. I was frustrated with the way Haven’s family treated her father’s new wife simply because she wasn’t like them (the Weather Pet? Seriously, she’s a person and not just some Barbie waiting around for you to mock her) and Haven was pretty judge-y internally when it came to her so-called best friend, not to mention a random model that never really seemed like a real character. There were some ok-ish parts, but overall I wasn’t a fan of Dessen’s first book and I’m glad to say that she definitely improved. I say stick to some of her later books.
I’m nearly done reading all the Sarah Dessen books, and What Happened to Goodbye is my latest from her. It’s also her second-to-latest book as of now, which means it has the normal romantic formula, family drama, and awesome secondary characters, which is why this was yet another nice book from her.
When I initially saw Mclean’s name, I was kind of frustrated because it was yet another YA name that you’ll probably never see in person, but the book has its reasons. Mclean’s name has meaning and it comes up throughout the books and its various basketball-related themes and events. And Mclean often reinvented herself with variations of her middle name, Elizabeth, which is a much more common name.
I don’t know if I always connected with Mclean. She was a good enough protagonist, but not my favorite or anything. Same with the love interest. As always, it seems that the secondary characters are what made this book for me. The secondary characters in Dessen’s later books are almost always interesting and entertaining and deserve their own stories.
The main reason I didn’t rate this one higher is because Mclean’s attitude toward her mother just frustrated me. I understood where it was coming from – her mother cheated on her father, they got divorced, she remarried that guy, etc. – but Mclean refused to even believe that her mother deserved to be in her life. She got irritated with her over the simplest things and she often froze her out of her life. Then she kind of made a big deal out of something her mother said that I didn’t interpret the way she did, and that she really jumped to conclusions over.
Anyway, another enjoyable read from Sarah Dessen. Not one of my favorites from her, but a good way to spend a couple of days reading.
Yet another Sarah Dessen book, this time one that focuses on friendship more than romance, at least according to the summary. It’s not one of my favorites from her, but I did prefer it when it focused on Scarlett and Halley’s friendship.
Halley is the main character and she certainly has her own story, but I cared more about Scarlett. Scarlett is the pregnant one, the one dealing with all these changes and trying to do what she believes in and dealing with her friend’s first serious relationship. Halley has relationship and mother drama, which is pretty common in young adult books, so it didn’t catch my attention nearly as much. I preferred the scenes with Scarlett and Scarlett’s mother and the man she’s dating (very interesting character indeed, even though he doesn’t have a big role).
Yes, there is relationship drama. I initially liked the love interest, so when things got strained between them I wasn’t really happily (not at Halley – definitely not her fault) and the relationship drama just didn’t interest me. The drama with Halley’s mother was a bit more interesting, but it seemed kind of random and often seemed like it needed some more backstory or focus on it for it to feel real.
The ending was nice, but it also seemed like a little extra bit of drama was thrown in for no reason. (I don’t think this is a spoiler, but be warned in case you don’t want to know anything) I mean, Scarlett nearly has her baby at prom! I thought it was funny when Scarlett specifically yelled at Halley that she didn’t want to have a baby at prom and refused to stay in one place even if it meant they didn’t have a ride because the ambulance wasn’t there yet.
And, this was a bit random, but Halley’s name threw me for a bit of a loop. I know what Halley’s Comet is and I could have sworn it’s pronounced “hay-lee,” like the normal name. Either I’m wrong or this book is so old (it’s from the mid-1990s, I believe) that the name Haley, Hayley, Haylee, etc. is so uncommon that no one has heard of it. Halley kept going on and on about how her name is so unusual and requires a lot of explanation, but the whole time she’s saying this, I’m thinking “how is her name unusual?” But, like I said, that could just be because I grew up in a time when the name Hayley is more common. I mean, one of my best friends in eighth grade was named Hayley! Not really that unusual in my world.
So, tangent over. This was a decent book. I enjoyed it a lot more when it was focusing on the friendship between Halley and Scarlett, so I thought there was too much focus on the relationship and mother-daughter drama, but overall not too bad.
I initially shied away from this book because the summary sounded a little too romance-centric, even though a lot of contemporary books seem to focus on the romance. I am so glad that I didn’t pass up on this book, though, because I ended up loving it.
This book doesn’t seem to bring many new things to the YA contemporary world. Samantha is a rich girl with a distant, difficult mother, older and rebellious sister, friend issues, and a cute next door neighbour. Said neighbour is a cute and amazing boy who cares about his family and happily welcomes Samantha into his world. There’s plenty of drama, both family and romantic.
But you know what? I really didn’t care.
I don’t know what it is about this book, but I just loved it. I didn’t read it all in one sitting or anything, but I think that was partly because I didn’t want it to end. I was interested from beginning to end. I loved Samantha, I loved Jase (BTW, I was very surprised to find out his name is actually Jason – guess I’ve never heard a nickname for Jason; end random tangent), I loved the Garretts, I loved Tim (a friend – no love triangle here), I actually didn’t hate Samantha’s mom (which is quite surprising considering what her mother ends up doing), and I was suspicious of best friend Nan. So, even the characters you aren’t supposed to love are people I was interested in.
Right after I finished reading this and was still riding on the high, I read Snuggly Oranges’ review of this book. She was more impartial to the book and talked about various flaws she found in this book. I saw what she was saying, but her problems just didn’t even register to me while reading this book. So, if you want to read about some possible problems in this book, check out her review, but if you want to read about gushing, well, you already did.
So, yeah, I can’t think of much more to say than that I loved this. The ending seemed like it could have wrapped things up more – although I could partially be saying that because I want more! – but overall I just loved this book and any flaws didn’t really seem to register for me. Definitely want to check out all of Huntley Fitzpatrick’s future books!
This is another 2013 debut, but it’s about a much different topic than most (if any) debuts this year – the Witness Protection Program. Unfortunately for me, this wasn’t an amazing book for me – it was decent, but it didn’t blow me away.
The main reason this book didn’t blow me away was because I had trouble connecting with MC Meg. I’m sure I would be quite whiny if I was stuck in the Witness Protection Program and forced to move around all the time, but it still frustrated me when Meg spent so much time whining and pushing people away and judging her alcoholic mother. It was hard to care about what would happen to Meg when I was too busy rolling my eyes at her. She was in a very dramatic and stressful situation, but it wouldn’t have hurt for her to seem more sympathetic. I guess it makes her a more realistic character, but not one I necessarily want to read about.
I liked the love interest Ethan (although I objected to the few times that Meg suggested he was a “bad boy” – he really, really wasn’t, and it seemed like the author just threw in that characterization every once in a while to get the attention of readers who only like bad boys), but because Meg wasn’t my favorite person, I didn’t really care if they got together. There was relationship drama mixed in with the WPP drama, and it was often too much drama for my taste.
Then there was the mean girl character – sure, she wasn’t a very good person and had too many issues with Meg for basically no reason, but I got annoyed with how many times Meg complained about her and made the antagonism between them seem as dramatic as the WPP drama. It’s really, really not. And you find out something about the mean girl, Emma, that makes you wonder why so many people still make such a huge deal about her and judge her so much.
As I mentioned, Meg didn’t deal with her mother well. She was always complaining about her mother’s drinking, and it really annoyed me because it seemed like Meg didn’t understand at all that her mother had a problem that she couldn’t control. There were random times when she seemed to be fine and not drinking, and it just didn’t seem realistic based on how bad her drinking was previously. Now, I’ve never been in that situation with a parent, but it didn’t always seem realistic and Meg didn’t seem to understand that her mother needed help, not her judgment.
I know it seems like I really didn’t like this book, but that’s not true. The story itself was pretty interesting. I saw some twists coming, but not all of them, and the ending was pretty interesting. I think I’ll wait to read reviews before checking out the second book, but I’m slightly interested to see what will happen to Meg and her friends and family next.
This is my second 2013 debut in a row, and it went much like the last one: I did enjoy it but had a few minor problems with it.
Even a few days after finishing this book, I’m not totally sure how I feel about protagonist Kiri. There were times I identified with her and liked her, and then there were other times where I had trouble understanding her and even sympathizing with her. She was obviously affected by her sister’s death, but there were times that I had trouble figuring out if she had an undiagonoised mental problem or if her actions were just the result of that grief. She seemed a bit uneven, and even though I think author Hilary T. Smith intended it that way, it kind of confused me as a reader.
Then there’s the romance. I think I’ve seen other reviews that seemed a bit iffy of the romance, and though I initially supported it and it seemed to be a bit of a slow burning romance, at some point it almost seemed to turn into insta-love and seemed less genuine. Skunk, the love interest, was initially intriguing and I liked him, but his paranoia seemed to pop up out of nowhere (of course, that could just be me totally missing things) and made it difficult for me to support him, which made me feel kind of bad because he did have a diagnosed mental problem that seemed pretty genuine later on but just stumbled at the beginning, at least for me.
The story of Kiri’s sister, however, was interesting pretty much the entire time. This book wasn’t really a mystery, at least I wouldn’t classify it as such since you don’t have to wait for the very end to finally figure out what the hell’s going on, but it was an intriguing story that kept me turning the pages to figure out what had happened to her. It was probably my favorite part of the story.
The writing in this book was often interesting, with some beautiful metaphors that you often find in contemporary books. There were times that I felt slightly lost, but those were in scenes when Kiri felt pretty lost as well, so it worked well. I would stop reading for a moment for whatever reason and I would feel really confused and not myself because I was so into whatever was happening to Kiri at the moment.
So, there were some minor issues with this book, but overall I thought it was a very enjoyable debut and I plan on checking out Smith’s books in the future.
After being disappointed by all three of Kody Keplinger’s published books, I think I’m officially done with her books unless I hear 100% praise from everyone. It’s not that her books are bad, they’re just not for me, and her second book was no exception.
I read this book via an audiobook, which I rarely do, so this review is mostly going to consist of the audio aspect of it.
First up, the reason I rarely listen to audiobooks – the narrators. Normally they read much too slowly for my taste, although I don’t think that was a problem with this book as much. Narrators also tend to aggravate me with their different voices for characters. Either all the characters sound the same or the narrator tries to use too many weird voices that just don’t work. When I listened to a preview of this audiobook, I thought it sounded like a pretty good narrator, but the voices she used for protagonist Lissa’s best friend Chloe and some of the football girlfriends really got on my nerves. They would have gotten on my nerves if I just read their dialogue because they are really nasty in the beginning of the book, but the voices for them sure didn’t help.
And that brings me to all the slut shaming and girl bashing. Yes, I could tell that the book would probably end with a “see, we’re not so different” and “slut shaming is bad” message, but I really didn’t want to sit through all the slut shaming in the meantime just to hear a quick bit of preaching at the end. It seemed like the message was going to end up on the preachier side of messages, and since I already know that slut shaming is bad, I didn’t feel like listening to a message I already believe in. And, if this is like previous Keplinger books, then it might not resolve the girl bashing; many of the female characters in her books seem to rely on stereotypes and don’t grow much past that.
After listening to an hour and a half of the book and not getting interested in the story or connecting with the irritating protagonist, I decided I was done. I did a little Live Tweeting of the first few chapters and much of it was spent complaining about Lissa, which made me feel even more judgmental than she seemed to be, which made me mad at myself, which made me decide that putting this book aside was probably the best idea. There are people who enjoy this book and this author, but I’m not one of those people. I appreciate the fact that she writes sex-positive books, but they’re just not the books for me.
This was quite an interesting debut for me. I definitely had my issues with it, particularly when it came to slut shaming, but I enjoyed myself a lot more than I thought I would, especially considering my problems.
So, first, the slut shaming. Cricket throws a bit of slut shaming out there, but one case in particular bothered me. There’s a very small, secondary character who plays a minor part in the first part of the book and then disappears. There’s a whole page early on where MC Cricket is basically slut shaming her, and it’s so blatant and over the top that I figured, by the end of the book, Cricket would realize the error of her ways and would feel bad about being so cruel to this girl, even if it was just in her head. But nope, that never happened. This character barely appears at all once the action moves to Nantucket, and even when she gets brought up it’s more about the party she throws at the very beginning of the book. Sure, she wasn’t the nicest person – she assaulted Cricket in the middle of a lacrosse game because they liked the same guy and got away with it because it looked like it was just part of the game – but no one should ever be slut shamed, regardless of how nice they are. There was a little more slut shaming, but it was mostly aimed at that girl.
There was also a bit of an obsession with appearance. Cricket doesn’t seem to have any issues with her appearance or weight, yet she is obsessed with noticing other people’s appearances. She comments on her best friend’s legs, saying that Jules doesn’t have to worry about the small bits of cellulite that most teenage girls have on the back of their legs, which just seemed pretty random. She kept going on and on about her fellow employee, a teenage girl who’s not a size two. Liz is portrayed well and is pretty fun and sex-positive (actually, to the point where she freaks out that Cricket is still a virgin), but Cricket is always going on and on in her head about her appearance: Oh, Liz’s stomach and legs are popping out of her shorts but she’s so confident she doesn’t care; Liz has her hands on her mama hips (I think those might have been the exact words, or something similar); Liz wears a bikini even though she isn’t thin!; and on and on and on. Not fun.
Other than that, though, I did enjoy this book. The various Cricket had were pretty interesting: I hated the relationship between Cricket and Jules because I wanted them to make up and go back to being friends, even though life isn’t that simple, which was a message that the book luckily showed; I was surprised to find myself enjoying Cricket’s romantic relationship, especially since Cricket wasn’t always my favorite protagonist; I really liked some of the secondary characters, like a writer that Cricket helps out; and I wanted to yell at Cricket to mend her relationship with her mother and realize that her mother didn’t need to date in order to live again. I was pretty happy with how things wrapped up and there were some pleasant surprises in addition to some “twists” that I saw coming.
So, I had my problems with this book, but so far I think it’s one of my favorite 2013 debuts so far and I hope Leila Howland’s future books improve upon the problems, because I definitely plan on checking them out.
The Vicious Deep was a pretty decent debut for me last year, so I came into The Savage Blue hoping it would be at least as good as the first and would hopefully even improve upon the first book’s minor problems. I don’t think it improved upon those problems, but it was still a fairly enjoyable follow-up.
The main problem I have had with these books is that I sometimes feel a little lost. Sometimes descriptions aren’t that great or characters do things that don’t really make sense; I’m not always able to figure out why I’m confused, but it happen again and again throughout this book. It would only be a problem for a page or two and I would get back into the flow of the book, so it wasn’t a huge problem that prevented me from enjoying the book a lot.
The romance still wasn’t working for me in this book. The childhood friend is the love interest, but she just doesn’t seem to show up enough to really understand. They’re kind of cute when they’re together sometimes, but there’s way too much drama surrounding their romance that I really don’t get and got a bit tired of reading. I didn’t hate them as a couple but I really didn’t feel like rooting for them.
Instead, I kind of wanted Tristan to end up with the much more interesting character of Princess Gwen. She seems much more complex than Layla, with her mysterious past and her interesting personality. I didn’t necessarily want her to be with Tristan because I thought they were the best for each other or because Gwen needs to end up with someone – I just wanted her to have an even bigger part in the story.
The ending kind of made me mad. Once again I got a little lost and something happened to a character that I really liked that both worried and annoyed me. However, it mostly made me want to get my hands on the third (and final? don’t know if this is a trilogy or not) book to see what happened and if things will work out.
I almost missed out on Jessi Kirby’s books from a lack of interest, and I am so glad I decided to pick up her first two books anyway. Otherwise, I probably would have ignored all the gushing about her latest book and I wouldn’t have found such a reliable contemporary author.
Parker was a pretty interesting protagonist. Yes, she’s the good girl who only cares about school and has a best friend who’s very care-free and loud, some common tropes that are becoming quite tired in YA, but I didn’t mind it too much. I didn’t mind that there’s a guy she’s had a crush on for a while who often flirts with her and has many short relationships while waiting for her to take a chance on him. I didn’t mind the controlling mother who refuses to give her daughter the chance to screw up yet acts like she would always screw up if she wasn’t there to plan out her every moment. So, there are some formulaic bits in this story, especially concerning its characters, but I really didn’t mind because they all still seemed quite fresh.
Parker was a pretty interesting protagonist. I really connected with her and her worries of not achieving anything because she was too busy following the rules and doing what her mother wanted. I’m not exactly like Parker, but high school for me did consist mostly of small, but great, moments with friends and plenty of days just waiting for something in the future, whether it’s a fun event or a new book or the day after a giving a presentation in class. I wanted Parker to do some crazy things even when it’s something as cliché as ditching school (which I never actually did - people in my school were much more likely to wander the halls or pop into other classrooms while skipping class, which I very rarely did and usually had quasi-permission to do, which Parker also kind of does at one point).
The mystery was also quite interesting. Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call it a mystery, but the story of Julianna and Parker’s connection with her was entertaining and engaging. The best part about it was Parker realizing she was dealing with a real girl and not a character in a romance novel or romantic movie. Julianna is a golden girl with the perfect life in Parker’s eyes, and she wants to learn more about her to complete the perfect story; instead, she learns that life isn’t perfect and that Julianna was a real person who felt conflicted and confused and unhappy and loved and scared and other those other emotions that real people experience.
There were some minor issues; well, really just one – the drama of Parker’s relationship with the love interest. It was just a bit frustrating when Parker randomly jumped to some conclusions and angsted about it for a little bit. She also had some friend drama, but ultimately that was better because it helped show a complex friendship that has to go through a difficult period (one friend going to college while the other stays home) and hopefully coming through on the other side.
So, I definitely see why so many people have loved this book. I don’t know if it was the Best Book I’ve Ever Read This Year, but I did really enjoy it and it cemented my interest in future books by Jessi Kirby.
I was starting to worry that I had already read all the Sarah Dessen books that I would really love from her, but this book luckily turned the recent tide of alright-but-not-amazing books from her (and when I say that, I don’t necessarily mean her most recent books, just the ones I’ve read most recently).
This book is just as formulaic as other Dessen books – Annabel is a shy girl for the most part, with a (former) outgoing best friend who seems to be the opposite of her; there’s family drama (although, for once, there aren’t any dead/divorced/absentee parents, which is a first for me with her books); and a guy enters the picture almost immediately. I quickly learned that I don’t want to read Dessen books for original formulas and characters that drastically change from book to book, because that’s clearly something I’m not going to get from her.
And yet – I didn’t mind it with this book. Yes, Annabel is shy, but she also models, which changes her personality slightly, as least in my opinion. Yes, her best friend was outgoing and boy crazy and everything that Annabel didn’t seem to be, but there were obvious problems from the beginning and Annabel did have former friends and casual friends who were more similar to her. Yes, there’s family drama, but her two older sisters seemed like individual people to me and I was genuinely interested to read about them and know what would happen (I was actually a bit more interested in her family’s story than Annabel’s story, but that’s not important).
And, yes, there is indeed a guy (what book, contemporary or otherwise, doesn’t seem to have a love interest in the YA world?), but even he seemed different. He was a bit of a loner, but rather than being the extremely hot guy that all (and I mean all – apparently gay girls don’t go out in public, because all the girls always seem to look at the love interest, who obviously only has eyes for the protagonist and doesn’t even notice anything) girls gawk at and that you wonder why he’s even considered a loner, he actually seems like a loner. He’s very big, obsessed with music (to the point where he seems annoying and know-it-all-y but it also makes me seem like a real person), and he seems slightly awkward but unconcerned with that awkwardness. He seems real, like many other characters.
So, overall, I really liked this book. I read it all in one day (well, technically two, since I finished around 1:30 or 2ish in the morning), and while that was partly to do with sharing a hotel room with a snoring father and being unable to fall asleep unless I’m about ready to collapse from fatigue, it was also because I just wanted to know what was going to happen to these characters. While the secondary characters were more interesting to me, I cared about all of the characters in general. A new favorite from Dessen, which was a relief after some alright-reads from her.
I haven’t had the greatest track record with Sarah Ockler’s books, so I was quite nervous coming into it. Really, I didn’t know why I gave her another chance, even though her earlier, and also more family focused, Fixing Delilah ended up working out pretty well, but I am glad I did.
This is going to be a long review. I don’t plan on making it long, but I know that there’s a lot that I want to talk about regarding this book, so prepare for a long review. If you want to just get a short summary of this review, then pop on down to the last paragraph and then be on your merry way. If you want a much longer explanation, sit down with a beverage of your choice and get ready for lots of words.
OK, first of all, I’m going to talk about the reasons this book lost a star. The main reason: slutshaming. Or should I say Rosette-shaming. You see, Rosette is a small character, yet I really, really feel bad for her. She’s apparently a childhood friend of Emilio, the love interest. Now, from the little we’ve seen of her, she isn’t the nicest character – very jealous of Jude just because Emilio seems to like her and unable to see that Emilio likes her only as a friend – but I feel like that’s more a failure on the author’s part in writing the character than Rosette. She never gets fleshed out beyond the clingy childhood friend who comes on much too strong to ever get the boy. Then there’s the slutshaming. Rosette is called a “skankalicious skank” (p. 185) and “some crazy Catholic school girl” (p. 188) in the span of less than five pages. There are other negative terms used to describe her, but I can’t remember any instance where Jude even considers the fact that there might be more to Rosette.
It doesn’t help that the whole Catholic school girl stereotype gets applied to Rosette. Now, I don’t think I’ve ever said this here, but I attended a Catholic school for twelve years (K-12). Sure, things were often weird and a bit crazy, both in funny and bad ways, and there were girls and boys who might be classified as “crazy” (I tried to think of a different word to use since I’ve been seeing and agreeing with a lot of people complain about ablest language – and that might be the wrong title, sorry – so if you can think of a better term, feel free to suggest one), but it wasn’t because we were Catholic school students. It was because we were kids and middle schoolers and high schoolers and teenagers and adolescents and other various synonyms. It really pisses me off when people suggest that Catholic school students (normally girls) are crazy and wild and slutty and unwillingly repressed and all of those other negative words just because of the school they attend. If you can’t think of a better reasoning, that’s your writing failure, not my problem that I went to a school where we had to wear (very non-sexualized) uniforms and stand up every morning to hear a pray as well as do the pledge. Other than that throwaway line, the whole Catholic school girl thing isn’t brought up again which makes me wonder if it was just a stereotype or if she really does attend a Catholic school (still a stereotype, but at least one part would be true).
OK, sorry for the Catholic school rant. Moving on to my other problem.
Jude’s friends. I know the fact that Jude and her friends are growing apart is another source of tension and an effect of her father’s early onset Alzheimer’s, but I had trouble getting into that subplot. Now, I’ve never known anyone with close relatives that had or have Alzheimer’s. My mother’s father had Alzheimer’s, so I feel like it’s a big part of my family, but he died nearly a year before I was even born. Therefore, I can’t really judge, but it really irritated me that they were so willing to drop Jude just because her father was sick. Yes, Jude contributed to the problem because she kept pushing them away, but that only seemed to happen because they made it clear they were uncomfortable. It was frustrating that the only one who accepted her father and his illness was Emilio, the love interest; sure, I loved Emilio, he was a great guy, but her friends should be there for her no matter what. It just felt like yet another case of YA friends disappearing in favour of the love interest, even if that wasn’t exactly what happened. It really, really annoyed me when the friend subplot popped up, not necessarily because it was unrealistic or bad, but because I wanted to yell at her friends. Which might have been the point, but whatever.
If you just like reading happy stuff about books, you’ll be happy, because now begins the portion of the review where I reassure you that I did, in fact, enjoy this book, despite my long rants about my two problems.
I wasn’t a big fan of Jude initially – she kept going on and on about her Official Biker Chick outfit and the fact that her shorts were too short and kept riding up or something, which some people might funny but I don’t; however, after I got to know her better, I started liking her. Sure, sometimes she seemed a little over the top, she was too pro-Rosette-shaming, and I thought she took the vow she made with her sisters when 12 a bit too seriously (but I’m the oldest of two girls, so who knows – maybe my sister would identify with her). I especially felt for her when she was dealing with her father and his deteriorating condition. She’s trying to get the motorcycle fixed in order to prevent her father from forgetting everything, and while I know some might think this is too idealistic and even bad if she gets her father’s hopes, and her own, up too much, but I think I would have done the exact same thing in her place. I just wanted to give her a hug throughout most of the book. And, for once, when the love interest declared her funny, I actually didn’t have too much trouble agreeing (sometimes MCs who are supposed to be really funny and quirky, as told to us by other characters, end up not working for me).
Then there’s the romance. I expected to roll my eyes over and over again about the whole bad boy and naïve little good girl. However, Emilio is no bad boy and Jude might not be the most experienced (most of her past romantic involvements seem to come from acting and kissing boys in plays), but she doesn’t seem like the little good girl just waiting for the uber-hot boy to sweep in and corrupt her. Yes, Emilio might have some classic bad boy traits – a motorcycle, a killer smile, overly-flirty comments – but he also seemed like a genuinely good guy, which you really don’t see enough of in YA. Jude is more than she seems, and she deserves a guy who’s more than he seems. It’s also nice that he does have various traits that could point to one type of character, but he’s not a stereotype. He’s just a guy.
I think a big reason I liked this book is because it has a pretty big focus on family. Sure, there’s the romance that I really enjoyed (also, there didn’t seem to be too much drama involving the romance, which is always great in my mind), but this book is also about Jude’s relationship with her father and her older sisters.
First up, her father. He’s the catalyst for this whole story. He’s only about fifty, yet he has a disease normally associated with elderly people. He has moments where he seems completely normal and moments when he doesn’t know where or when he is, times that he freaks out himself and those around him, especially Jude. He’s a tough guy yet a weak man when it comes to this disease that he can’t control. I thought his character was interesting and dynamic and I loved his relationship with his youngest daughter, his last baby who ends up taking care of him like he’s the child. (And with that line, for the first time ever, I tear up while writing a review. I don’t like crying, you darn and emotional book!)
Then there’s Jude’s relationship with her sisters. Her older sister is about twelve years older, the middle is probably about ten, and the youngest is eight years older. Maybe in another twenty or thirty years, the age difference won’t feel as big, but for Jude, her sisters are literally from a different generation and childhood. Her sisters grew up in the late ’80s and the ’90s, while Jude was mostly the product of the mid ’90s to early ’00s. Yet again, this felt personal to me. My sister and I are the youngest cousins on both sides of our family, and most of our cousins are much, much older. We have some cousins who are only a few, more normal, years older than us, but we have cousins who were already married and starting families of their own when we were born. Sure, having much older cousins isn’t the same as living in the same house with much older sisters, but the whole dynamic seemed quite familiar to me while reading this book. I really felt for poor Jude, who just wanted to be a part of her sisters’ Official Sisterhood, part of the memories that came before she did or when she was too young to remember or participate. One thing that nearly broke my heart was when she was remembering the titular Book of Broken Hearts and the fact that her sisters promised to initiate her into their official Sisterhood or whatever when she was old enough – but once she reached the magical age, they were all alone and Jude was the lone sister left.
OK, if you stuck around for this nearly 2,000 word-long review, then BRAVO! If you just skipped down to see my wrap-up paragraph, then congrats for scrolling for so long! Anyway, I had some problems with this book that kept me from giving it more than 4 stars, but ultimately this book really affected me. There were many things about it that felt personal to me and I really connected with most of the characters. I’m sure I could write even more about this book, but I should probably stop now so that you can get read it yourself. This definitely opens me up for more books from Sarah Ockler in the future, which is something I didn’t expect.
In the time between reading Shadow and Bone and Siege and Storm, I think the former book began to build itself up in my mind. I enjoyed it the first time I read it, but it didn’t blow me away. The longer it took to get my hands on the sequel, though I think the first book got bigger and better in my mind. I started to worry that I would read the second book and wonder how I could ever possibly enjoy the first book because my own expectations would be too high, especially after seeing plenty of praise for the book.
Luckily, though, this book was just as enjoyable as the first; it had a few small problems, but I read it fairly quickly and was excited to get my hands on the third and final book as soon as I finished (of course, that’ll be a while).
Before I talk about the good things, though, I’m going to touch on the things that I most often see in the less-glowing reviews. First of all, Alina is often accused of being very obsessed with appearance. While I do see that, it just doesn’t seem to be such a big factor for me; it’s something I’ll notice every once and a while, but not every single time it shows up like I would with slutshaming or girlshaming. Alina often gripes about her appearance, that’s for sure, but it didn’t bother me as much as it has others.
The angsty-ness of Alina and Mal’s relationship annoyed me more. Things start out good betwee them, but they quickly go downhill for various reasons. Both Alina and Mal seem quite angsty and broody about the whole thing and it gets quite tiresome after a while. It especially bugs me when the awesome Sturmhond (I was a bit sceptical with all the hype he got before I read the book, but after reading it I think he deserves it all and more – an awesome and entertaining guy who needs his own story) would tease them and do other things that made Alina and Mal flip out. Seriously, they could not take a joke. It reminded me of Adam and Juliette in Unravel Me, another case of taking everything the awesome character (in this case, Kenji) says way too seriously. Not everyone is out to ruin your relationship you know!
OK, but enough of the bad stuff. I obviously enjoyed this book enough to rate it with 4 stars, so it can’t be all bad, can it? And it really wasn’t. The story started off a little slowly but picked up almost right away (right around the time a certain privateer came into the picture – hmm…) and I read it as much as possible, opting to stay inside in the air conditioning to read while my parents and sister went on a college tour in the heat (we really picked a bad week to go on college tours). The story was interesting, new characters and old characters that seemed to get fleshed out at least a little more were interesting, and the ending was crazy. Just when I thought the book was going to end without a big battle (which I would have been okay with just because it should mean that the last book will end with an over-the-top battle to end all battles), the world explodes. Not literally, but you’ll see what I mean if you read it.
So, while I can see why the Grisha trilogy isn’t for everyone, I did enjoy this very solid sequel and look forward to the third and final book next year, even if it means Alina and Mal angst some more before ending up happily ever after together.
Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me trilogy, with its very purple prose and unhinged protagonist, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Luckily for me, I love the crazy metaphorical-and-imagery-heavy writing and am quite interested in the controversial relationship between Warner and Juliette.
Before I talk about the good things, though, I’ll focus on the problems I had with this book. Namely, Juliette and Adam. Either I forgot or they weren’t quite so annoying in the first book. I get that Juliette is a very angsty person, so I can’t be surprised when she spends much of the book brooding about the problems in her relationship with Adam, but I was surprised to see how angsty Adam was as well. I didn’t think he was so bad in the first book, but in this book he can’t even take joking from Kenji without blowing up at him. He freaks out over their relationship as much as Juliette does, which doesn’t really feel like in character for him. Then again, maybe the near year between reading the first and the second books made me forget that about him.
I really feel for poor Kenji. I think I liked him in the first book as well, but I didn’t remember liking him this much. Definitely my favorite character. Warner is pretty interesting, but he’s a bit too obsessed and believes-he’s-in-love with Juliette, so Kenji easily wins the much coveted award of My Favorite Character in the Shatter Me Trilogy (a very prestigous award for sure). Poor Kenji keeps getting knocked down, though, from the physical attacks he has to deal with (mostly as the accidents from his own allies) to all the yelling he gets from the much-too-serious pairing of Juliette and Adam. Come on, Kenji is awesome and so damn entertaining – why don’t the love-struck main characters see this?!
As for the story itself, it kind of started off slow for me, but I read the second half/last two thirds of it fairly quickly. This was partially due to being stuck in the car for most of the time, but my interest in the story also played a big part in it. When Juliette wasn’t angsting about Adam or the fact that she thinks she’s an awful person (two things she kept harping on to the point where it got quite annoying), the story was quite interesting. There were twists I didn’t see coming, questions I wanted answered, and fun not-broody secondary characters who I cared about. Well, I cared about the broody characters too, but sometimes it was hard to remember that.
Before I read this book, I had already heard about the infamous Chapter 62, which was a huge Warner chapter. When reading this, I couldn’t remember for sure if it was 52 or 62, so when I read 52 and it had a Juliette and Warner scene, I was a bit disappointed because it didn’t seem like a big deal. Then I got to 62 and happily saw that it was the chapter that I had heard about. Now, I know plenty of people don’t like Warner. For all his interesting traits, he is still a very bad person and killer. He really shouldn’t be a viable love interest and I’m sure Tahereh Mafi is going to end the third book by breaking the hearts of Warner-and-Juliette fans by reminding them that Warner is a cold-blooded killer and not-a-nice-guy. I don’t like Warner and Juliette together because he’s the best guy for her – I like him because he’s interesting and I like their scenes together. If they did actually get together, I would probably think a little less of Juliette. But, based on Warner’s speech reminding Juliette that he’s not a nice guy and that he doesn’t want to change, either he’s not going to get Juliette or he’s going to really, really change.
Wow, that turned into a much longer review than I originally planned. Oh well, if you just want to scan it and read the final paragraph to get the gist of the whole thing, this is all you need to know: Juliette and Adam are much too angsty for my taste, but there are many entertaining secondary characters (especially Kenji!), a pretty interesting and twisty story, and the third person in the triangle who is really interesting even though he’s a bad guy. A solid sequel that has me excited for the third and final book in the trilogy.