Plenty of Paper

Sweethearts by Sara Zarr (a review in which Caroline... is back).

2009-07-08T00:33:00.002-04:00

At the age of nine, social outcasts Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick are best friends. What begins as a companionship of necessity soon becomes an inseparable bond. Cameron is Jennifer’s only friend, the one person who understands her. Until she goes over to Cam’s house the first time, and sees what his life at home is really like. Until he disappears. Until a kid at school tells Jennifer that Cameron is dead. Until she goes home crying and tells her mother… who doesn’t contradict her.

Eight years later, Jennifer Harris is dead too, reincarnated as Jenna Vaughn- pretty, popular, dating, and happy. Cameron Quick has been an overwhelming presence in her memory, but that’s all he is to her. A memory. Impossible to let go of, but hard to recall entirely, also. Until, that is, a very much alive Cameron re-enters Jenna’s life, intent on resolving the unfinished business between them.

I’ve long held a fascination with the concept of childhood sweethearts. It’s one of the few clichés that never gets old with me (be honest, you know you love some of them too). Admittedly, there are personal reasons for my fixation with kid romance, but I also just think there’s something pure and sweet about love existing before hormones. Plus, come on, it’s adorable. So that is why I initially picked this story up. But while Sweethearts is not the fluffy romance I was expecting, it did not disappoint me in the slightest. Upon turning the last page, I was surprised and refreshed and longing for more.

Sara Zarr has some serious skills in the areas of dialogue and imagery. The descriptions are astute, well-worded, and downright pretty without ever being ornate. Above all, it is fluid and continuous; the words never become stilted or awkward. Zarr’s prose does an excellent job of moving the story foreword; despite the fact that the plot is simple and not incredibly fast-paced, I read this book in one sitting and never felt compelled to put it down.

I’m a character girl, and I had mixed feelings about the cast of Sweethearts. Jenna and Cameron are both incredibly well-developed, but most of the supporting characters were two-dimensional at best. Jenna’s friends and family were entertaining and for the most part likable (or dislikable, depending on which they were meant to be), but they fell a little flat to me. But the best fiction teacher I’ve ever had once said that you only need two characters to make a story, and Jenna and Cameron are characters in the best sense of the word. The supporting cast just could have been a little bit deeper, especially considering how often they appear in the book.

Sweethearts is not a romance, but it is very much a love story. The poignant, beautiful, frustrating thing about Cameron and Jenna’s connection (for both characters as well as for the reader) is that it is too much. It’s the kind of love that no “relationship” can fulfill. Being friends is not enough, being like brother and sister is not enough, and being together wouldn’t be enough either. It’s incomplete; paradoxically overwhelming and insufficient.

Reading the book has a similar effect on me. It’s unfinished business. I flipped the last page both longing for more and feeling completely overwhelmed. That had something to do with the frustratingly open ending, but it was more the book as a whole. I had a lot to read, but I didn’t want to leave the world of Jenna and Cameron for anyone else’s- I was too wrapped up to move on. I wanted more of the story. I literally sat in my room and thought about the characters and what happened to them and what continues to happen to them for hours. And that’s why I wrote this review. I haven’t written one in quite some time, not because I haven’t been reading or because I haven’t read anything worth reviewing, but because I have not been this caught up in a book in a very long time.

4.5 cups for Sweethearts.
Caroline

Ballads of Suburbia by Stephanie Kuehnert

2009-07-06T16:18:00.005-04:00

Ballads. Truly genuine, gut retching ballads of punk that convey emotions of love and loss. Songs that tell a story through music and lyrics. These are the kind that Kara McNaughton likes. So when she comes across a notebook deemed "Stories of Suburbia" that holds newspaper clippings of strange and sometimes tragic events from suburbs across the country as well as personal stories of the moments her friends' lives changed, she gives them the ever-appropriate name of "ballads" and later becomes the keeper of the book. The one rule: don't read someone else's ballad until you've written your own. The problem is, Kara never could figure out what her song was about before she left at the end of her junior year to escape the problems she'd been facing in Oak Park, Chicago.

It all starts with an epilogue that serves as the prologue, set four years later when Kara returns for the first time to face the music and see her best friend Stacey, who started it all unknowingly at the beginning of her freshman year of high school. Kara finally tells the tale of her first three years of high school, and what happened with her and her friends. She talks about Stacey, who tries to win the affection of many guys, hoping to find one who will take care of her the way her parents never did; Maya, an eccentric redhead who has a theory about everything, including what type of cigarettes people smoke, and is very outgoing but who has problems talking about her mother's suicide; Cass, Maya's cousin, who drops acid in the hopes that it will help her deal with her brother's abandonment and her mother's depression; Adrian, who started the notebook and has issues with being adopted and how his birth parents react to him; Christian, who seems like a generally nice guy but is still torn up about his mother's death and his father sleeping around; and Liam, Kara's little brother, who idolized Johnny Cash until he was made fun of for it, and used to idolize his big sister until she let him down too many times. And there's even Quentin, whose ballad we never read, but who plays a crucial role in Kara's relationships.

Kara's story wouldn't be the same without all these people around her. Stacey, who moves to a different school right before their freshman year starts Kara's downward spiral. Kara feels abandoned and begins high school as a loner, spending her time on the couch with Liam, watching music videos and going to the occasional concert in between cutting herself when things get too hard to bear. Maya, who takes Kara out of this slump and introduces her to Scoville Park and the "misfit" kids that hang there. From that moment on, Kara spends the summer and school year going to parties, drinking, taking hits, and eventually winding up in the park, puking from a heroin overdose and almost dying right there. She survives and is able to realize this is the time for leaving Oak Park and all her problems behind in order to get clean.

Reading this spectacular second novel from Stephanie Kuehnert, I remembered what it's like for a novel to capture you tightly and to not let go. I fell, instantly, back into the poetic and sharp writing that I loved so much the first go around with I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone. The language is not wasted. Not a single word is superfluous and every sentence has its role. Stephanie is a wordsmith if I ever met one.

Besides the writing and language, there were many other things I enjoyed about Ballads. The characters--harsh, honest, eccentric--resonated and their ballads were poignant. Even the littler characters were fully developed and oustandingly and brilliantly written. Cass was the strongest of them all. She deals not only with her problems, but with those of her cousin Maya, her mother, her friends, and Quentin, who she becomes really close to throughout the novel. Wes, her brother, tells her before he leaves to take care of everyone for him because she is a guardian angel. So she tries. Even through her failures, she keeps going. Even when she's at her most vulnerable and she's collapsed in front of a friend strung out on heroin, she fights through it. Her character is powerful and provides a constant throughout.

I also enjoyed Stephanie's use of editing and restraint. She didn't "clean up" the novel and remove the profanities or the truths of the drugs, but she didn't put more than was necessary. There are so many tales of teendom and experiments with drugs that overdo it, the writers believing that, to make the story real, they have to include every profanity they can come up with and make every other scene one of teens shooting up or downing a jack and coke. The difference here is that Stephanie knows what makes a story real. It's in her. You can tell that when you read Ballads. She didn't have to live Kara's life to write it honestly.

Ballads of Suburbia is angsty, severe, mesmerizing, and incisive. I stayed up hours into the night, becoming myself a nocturnal creature, because I couldn't bear to put it down. I wanted to at so many moments, but I couldn't. That's what makes this novel so spectacularly hypnotizing and captivating--there are ballads that you just don't want to read because they're too real and you feel like it's your friend you're reading about, but you just can't stop because they are so real and honest. I admit to shedding tears multiple times, feeling as if I was a part of it all, just as I admit to smiling when things were going well.

It's hard to part ways with this novel, but I'm sure I'll come back to it later. I almost did already. I turned the last page and thought to myself "I want to read this again. Right now." I could have just then. Ballads of Suburbia deserves the full 5 out of 5, though I didn't expect any less from Stephanie Kuehnert.

Heather

p.s. You should pre-order this book if you're interested. Or go out an buy it asap. It's set to be released July 21. You can get it at your local bookstore (order it now or wait until it's released), or pre-order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, or Borders. Also, to get a taste, you can read the first chapter here!

Our book club? Surely you must have the wrong one?

2009-07-02T12:07:00.004-04:00

Caroline and I just recently became co-presidents of our school book club. The "torch" (an imaginary one, I might add, to make it easier to split in two) was passed to us in the last weeks of school by the current and graduating president who just happened to be a friend as well. She picked us because we were the only ones who came to meetings (when we had them) and because we're just awesome.

This is exciting enough in itself (we have control!!! mwahahahaha!), but even more exciting is the news I received when I got home today from spending a few days at a friend's house. Apparently, this guy is interested in writing about our book club in an article he's doing about book clubs in the area and he wants to ask me a few questions. I'm really hyped about this but completely nervous. I don't know what I'll say or what he'll ask. Besides the fact that our book club isn't the best. This past year, we bought one book, ran out of money, and had to use the school's supply of books. This didn't last long and no one read them. The president even forgot the name of one of the books because none of us bothered to read it. Not even her. At meetings, we didn't talk about the books, just discussed what we would do next and what we were doing in drama club (she also happened to be the drama club president which held meetings the same day as book club). So Caroline and I have no idea how to run the club. We just know we want it to be better. We don't even have the books picked out for this year yet.

I'm calling him later today to set up a time to talk, but I'm hoping to have an idea of the books we'll be reading this year when he interviews me. If you have any suggestions, please put them in comments. Keep in mind they have to be appropriate for school (though we did read It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini last year, which includes attempted suicide and drugs so it doesn't have to be too clean, just no explicit scenes) and not be too focused on religion as we go to public shool. But please do leave suggestions. There are too many books out there for us to just choose a few without help.

Thanks,
Heather

p.s. Also, maybe we could make this a public thing, where we set up a chat at the end of the month and members of the book club from our school and anyone else who wants to join via the internet (you'd have to buy the book yourself or have read it, of course) could talk about it. We'll see when school starts back up in August if this is a good idea.

Giving It Away For Free (the only time Momma would approve)

2009-06-21T13:19:00.004-04:00

Serena Robar is giving it away for free the entire month of June. That’s right. A book a day, every day in honor of her latest book release Giving Up the V. All you have to do to is sign up for her newsletter and you are entered to win. Enter once and you are in the running to win a YA book every day the entire month of June.

Summary of Giving Up the V by Serena Robar, available June 9 from Simon Pulse:

What's So Wrong With Waiting?
Spencer Davis just turned sixteen. But unlike most hormonal teenagers who seem obsessed with sex -- like her entire crew of friends -- Spencer just doesn't get it. She'd rather wait for the right guy and the right moment. But that moment may be arriving sooner than she'd thought. Enter Benjamin Hopkins, a new transfer student who seems to have his eyes on our V-card-carrying heroine. He's gorgeous, funny, suave, athletic, and capable of making Spencer's knees wobble with a single glance. Spencer has never felt this way about anyone before, but is Ben truly V-worthy?

Sounds good, right? No wonder she's celebrating by giving away free books every day. So sign up and get ready to win.

Heather

Along for the Ride--Sarah Dessen

2009-06-10T12:00:00.001-04:00

You might call what Auden has a sleeping disorder, or you might call it insomnia. Whatever it is, it's been years since Auden slept at night. It all started when her parents starting fighting daily. It was a habit she began to prevent the fighting (thinking that if she stayed up, they wouldn't fight) and that continued past their divorce. She lives with her mom in Lakeview, while her brother travels through Europe and her father lives in the charming beach town Colby with his new wife and baby. But the summer before she goes off to the nicest college in North Carolina, she's going to live in Colby.

All she plans to do is stay in the house and prepare for her college courses--especially Econ. However, when Heidi, her stepmom, offers her a job in her clothes boutique, Auden is suddenly dumped into teenage life. She never experienced that on her own, never had a real childhood, as she was too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. When she meets Eli, however, that all changes. To the other teens in Colby, Eli is a quiet, sad guy mourning the loss of his best friend. But he's also an insomniac which allows for Auden to see the real Eli as he introduces her to all the things you can do in the middle of the night, and takes her on her Quest for childhood.

Slowly, Auden realizes there's more to everyone than there appears to be on first sight. Even her mother, whom she's known all her life, has another side that Auden has never seen. Her brother Hollis is a completely different person than she once knew. And her father is so drastically different. He's someone she doesn't recall existing before, and all she needed was to see him with his new wife and daughter to realize he's not the best father, and never has been.

My first instinct, when nearing the end of the book, was to say that I felt nothing for it. It neither disappointed nor impressed me. But then, when trying to explain this to Caroline, I figured out exactly what I was trying to say. It didn't have the impact a great novel usually does. It didn't make me sad to see it end. I wasn't overjoyed, by any means, but I wasn't upset that I turned the last page and closed the pink polka-dotted back cover.

Auden is a great narrator and tells the story well, but for being the main character, she's just not strong enough. I mean, let's face it--she's no Remy. And I don't mean to compare two Dessen books (because I prefer to judge a book by what it consists of, not by what another book is), but it's true. She's not a stick-up-for-herself kind of girl. She bends to others when her heart is stronger than that. You can tell she has the power to stand up and speak for herself, but she doesn't. Besides that, though, it doesn't feel like her story. She tells it well, and she's in the center of it all, but more of what happens seems like it belongs to the other characters, even though it really is her story. Her narrative allows Dessen to make her point that all people aren't what they first appear to be, and there is always something more to them, but it would do just as well to spin the story a bit and give Auden a larger part in it all. She seems like a bystander in this crazy, mixed up world, when really, she's the heart of it all.

Despite all this, Auden is completely relatable. To me, at least. While everyone in high school doesn't experience the academic and lose the social, it is easier to identify with that than a character that is fully social, and less academic. It's a blatant stab at self-conciousness that everyone experiences, if not in the full amount that Auden does. She's completely aware of her bumbling ways and not falsely confident, as many YA narrators can be. This is surely Dessen's strong point: Creating a narrator that can be related to by many. And even if, by some odd chance, the reader doesn't identify in some way to Auden, they have many well-developed characters to choose from. No name is thrown about lightly in this book (with the exclusion of some necessary minor characters that even have a little interesting story themselves, if you look hard enough).

Plus, it's a huge help that Eli makes me squeal like a little girl. I mean, SA-WOON! He's not present through many of the scenes, but when he is, he just...has a commanding presence. He's not loud, not angry, and not exciting (in that caught-in-the-moment way), but his personality is huge. You can feel his pain and guilt, but also how he has moved on and is happy again. He has all these feelings mixed up in one massive ball of amazing-ness. And I like how he's very Norman (for fellow Dessen fans who have read Keeping the Moon) in the way that he's not the leading man throughout the book. Auden doesn't fall for him wholeheartedly and their romance isn't played up to be the largest part of the book. She has other options and she goes for them. He's not introduced on the first page and her boyfriend all the way throught the last. It's a progressive thing.

I, of course seeing as it was written by Sarah Dessen, read this novel like a speedy reading demon, but it still lasts, if you know what I mean. I haven't thought about it much since setting it back on my shelf, and I haven't wondered what happens next, but everytime I do think of it now, I feel a bit of nostalgia. It's one of those stories that feels like a personal memory, and I like that.

A 3.98 out of 5 for this one (I can't bring myself to give it a three point anything, really, because that three just holds so much weight, but I don't want to give it quite as high as a four, either. So this was my best compromise.)

Heather

P.S. For those of you that have read all the other Sarah Dessen books, I rate this one after Just Listen, This Lullaby, and The Truth About Forever, but before the others. It's about fourth on my list (and only barely better than Lock and Key. Almost tied with it, actually.)

How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson

2009-06-02T16:27:00.003-04:00

To Carley Wells, words are the enemy. Her tutor's innumerable SAT flashcards. Here personal trainer's "fifty-seven pounds overweight" assessment. And the endless assignments from her English teacher, Mr. Nagel. When Nagel reports to her parents that she has answered the question "What is your favorite book?" with "Never met one I liked," they decide to fix what he calls her "intellectual impoverishment." They will commission a book to be written just for her--one she'll have to love--that will impress her teacher and the whole town of Fox Glen with their family's devotion to the arts. They will be patrons--the Medicis of Long Island. They will buy their daughter the love of reading.

Impossible though it is for Carley to imagine loving books, she is in love iwht a young bibliophile who cares about them more than anything. Anything, that is, but a good bottle of scotch. Hunter Cay, Carley's best friend and Fox Glen's resident golden boy, is becoming a stranger to her lately as he drowns himself in F. Scott Fitzgerald, booze, and Vicodin.

When the Wellses move writer Bree McEnroy--author of a failed meta-novel about Odysseus's journey home through the Internet--into their mansion to write Carley's book, Carley's sole interest in the project is to distract Hunter from drinking and give them something to share. But as Hunter's behavior becomes erratic and dangerous, she finds herself increasingly drawn into the fictional world Bree has created, and begins to understand for the first time the power of stories--those we read, those we want to believe in, and most of all, those we tell ourselves about ourselves. Stories powerful enough to destroy a person. Or save her.

This book is just--wow. The eloquence of the language, the syntax of the sentences, and the indirectness and honesty of the dialogue all come together to make is novel astounding and spectacular. Undeniably unique is this remarkable debut by Tanya Egan Gibson, who I'm sure to continue reading for her enchanting style, with and refreshing voice. She also has the ability to create a character, Mr. Nagel, who fully embodies wit, charm, and malignity all in one and creates, in his own, indirect way, Carley Wells herself. For, without Nagel, there would be no book and a change in character could not happen. He is never once present throughout the entire 389-page book, but his presence is overwhelming. Because this book is told in many points of view, the reader gains insight into nearly every important character's thoughts. When the story is told from Carley's point of view, you see how much Mr. Nagel has influenced her. She is constantly saying he did this, he said that, and questioning herself, believing she will always be wrong because she almost always is around him. This second-guessing girl is just trying to become what Hunter wants, and since he is an avid reader, she believes that literature and understanding Nagel will help her become that.

Gibson has the ability to become her characters (or, rather, her characters become her, according to the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote at the beginning of Part III: Devices) and write from their mind. When reading Carley's point of view, the reader understands her yearning and desire, and how much she truly doesn't understand or doesn't want to. When reading from Bree's point of view, the reader understands how out of place she feels and how she doesn't care to fit in if she has to be like these people. The best however, is Hunter's point of view. It resonates, it's poignant, and it reveals to the reader all the self-loathing he has felt throughout his life, his need for the drugs, and his worry about how he appears to others.

It is the characters that make this book, as the plot couldn't stand on its own. Not much really happens except for a change in the characters. And because of the change in them, their lives change. But mostly, Bree writes a book, Carley critiques it, Hunter drinks, and families have issues. I'm not saying this is bad. I actually liked this refreshing way of handling things. It's as if Gibson was trying to prove her own character, Bree, wrong by writing a book for the characters, not the plot or detail (which, actually, probably was her point. Funnily enough, you'll know why when you reach the end--which is really good, by the way).

It took longer than usual to finish How to Buy A Love of Reading and not only because I was busy. I was so immersed in every every section, every chapter, every sentence that I didn't want it to end. I could have sat in my room for hours, reading and rereading one page and constantly finding new meaning to some things and the same meaning to others and never get tired of it. I got half way through and wanted to slow down, not wanting it to end, but I wanted to keep reading--quickly, as if taking a long time would make it disappear.

This wasn't the best book I've ever read, and there were some issues I had with the fluidity of a few paragraphs, but mostly, this was thoroughly enjoyable, and it gives me an obsession with F. Scott Fitzgerald in quote form--he is a smart man. I'm ready for the next book by Tanya Egan Gibson.

4/5 cups of sobering coffee.

Heather

This is not really a review of Slipping--Cathleen Davitt Bell

2009-05-17T10:17:00.002-04:00

I got this book in the mail a really long time ago. I didn't really know it was coming, so I hadn't promised anyone a review to come soon. So I put it near the end of my TBR list. This was a good decision on my part, as I read many books before it that were really great and amazing. This one, not so much.

Michael will be the first to tell you: he barely knew his grandpa Kimmel when he was alive. And he didn't know the details about the big fight between his dad and his grandpa that made the whole family stop visiting seven years ago. And if you never really knew someone, and nobody ever talks about him, then you probably won't miss him when he's gone, right?

But when his grandpa dies, Michael's gut tells him that the cold, detached way his dad is acting isn't normal. Just as Michael recognizes that his own bizarre cravings for things like oatmeal and creamed spinach and a nice big cigar aren't normal either. Michael suspects that his grandpa Kimmel might be reaching out to him--or through him. But figuring out what his grandpa wants is a scary though, since it will require getting to know a man who was impossible to talk to when he was alive. As Michael begins to slip with his grandpa into the mysterious river between the living and the dead, an even scarier thought occurs: if Michael can't get out again, will anyone miss him?

Well, I know I won't.

I barely even made it half-way through this book before I had to set it down and stop reading (this is why this is NOT REALLY A REVIEW). It was slightly unbearable. It wasn't that the writing itself was that awful, or that the story was an uninteresting concept--in fact, the premise alone intrigued me when I first read the summary on the cover flap. It was that there were many minor things wrong that really, in the long run, aren't minor and are the first things a writer should check when editing.

One of these things was that the setting was completely unclear. I assume Slipping is set in New York City, but there are many allusions made to it being set in London, possibly, and it is never specifically stated that it is set in New York, but I just came to assume that that is the city Bell writes of. But you know what they say when you assume. I could be completely wrong. Another thing is that the main character is not defined enough by the time he accepts oatmeal as a breakfast food for you to realize that this is a strange occurrence. All you know by that time is that he didn't know his grandpa Kimmel (alright, we get it! Stop telling us that!), he loves video games, and that his father is absent during the days and works late (And the last doesn't even have to do with Michael himself, just his father and the way his family behaves).

I can give Bell this: She knows how to withhold information. The only reason I got even as far as I did was because the one thing I was even remotely interested in learning about this situation was why Michael's father and grandpa didn't speak anymore. Of course, I didn't even learn that before I closed the book for good.

I'm not the fastest reader ever, sometimes I'm even a little slow because I want to pace myself, but it took me nearly two weeks to even get through eight chapters of this book, and that is less than 100 pages. That shows how uninterested I was in this short-lived novel that is soon to be erased from my memory. That is, if I can get it off my bookshelf without feeling terrible about peddling it off to some poor reader who will have to endure it like I tried to. Of course, some might enjoy this book. I just didn't.

Based on what I read, a single cup of coffee for this one, but that isn't an entirely educated rating, since I didn't finish. Because I didn't finish, you can completely ignore everything I just said and formulate your own opinion. This is just mine.

Heather

Read I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone? Looking for the newest by Stephanie Kuehnert?

2009-04-21T19:31:00.004-04:00

Just three months from now, and you can get your copy of the latest by Stephanie Kuehnert: Ballads of Suburbia. Here's the summary:

There are so many ballads. Achy breaky country songs. Mournful pop songs. Then there’s the rare punk ballad, the ballad of suburbia: louder, faster, angrier . . . till it drowns out the silence.

Kara hasn’t been back to Oak Park since the end of junior year, when a heroin overdose nearly killed her and sirens heralded her exit. Four years later, she returns to face the music. Her life changed forever back in high school: her family disintegrated, she ran around with a whole new crowd of friends, she partied a little too hard, and she fell in love with gorgeous bad boy Adrian, who left her to die that day in Scoville Park. . . .

Amidst the music, the booze, the drugs, and the drama, her friends filled a notebook with heartbreakingly honest confessions of the moments that defined and shattered their young lives. Now, finally, Kara is ready to write her own.

Sounds good, doesn't it? I, personally, can't wait. Her debut novel, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone was just fantastic. I don't think I've read any other novel as...well, if you want to know what I think, you can go to my review of it here. But anyway, I definitely think you should either run out the day it's released (July 21) or preorder now (this is actually better for the book biz, so go to any online retailer: Amazon, Books-A-Million (there's no cover there, but it's the right book, promise), Barnes and Noble, Borders, or from the nearest local indie store or I think you can actually go to the store--I've done so with BAM a few times before--and preorder it there. They'll usually give you a voucher, but they may not have one for this book).

To go ahead and get a look at the book, you can read the first chapter. And for other awesome stuff like a soundtrack, reviews, and all about the real-life setting, just hit up Stephanie's newly re-designed web site at http://www.stephaniekuehnert.com

Also, to keep getting updates on all the latest news with Stephanie, become a member of her street team. (And could you please let me know, either by comment or email if you join? Please and thank you!)

And here's a widget you can put on your blog or somewhere, if you like (there are more on her site):

Definitely, though, go out and get this book ASAP. It's sure to be spectacular!

Heather

p.s. review of Wake by Lisa McMann below. Comment please!

Wake by Lisa McMann

2009-04-17T18:48:00.004-04:00

For seventeen-year-old Janie, spending her nights in someone else's dream is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-in-public dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie has learned more than she wants to about her friends--and even people she barely knows and doesn't want to.

She knows that she can't really tell anyone--not even her best friend--about what she can do. They'd either not believe her or think she's a freak and she already has enough to worry about with her detached, alcoholic mother and trying to earn enough money from her job at the nursing home for college tuition. So instead, she tries to avoid sleepovers*, the rooms at the home in which the patients are asleep**, and overnight school field trips***.

When the dreams become worse and the nightmares keep her up all night, Janie tries to learn how to control the curse and use it to help people. The worst, though, is the gruesome nightmare she falls into while driving down a street in her neighborhood. This is the first time that she is more than just a witness to someone else's psyche. She is now a participant.

I may be a horrible friend (I don't really think so, though) for reading this book. You might wonder why and I guess I should say: I bought this book as a sweet sixteen present for one of my friends the night before her birthday and I hadn't read it yet. I really wanted to, though, so I decided to read it before I gave it to her. Does that make me a bad friend? I read all but 20 pages that night, and then went to bed, planning on finishing it in the morning. I had to hide it in my bag from her before school, but soon I finished it and didn't have to worry. The reason I was able to read this book so quickly was not only because it's so short; it is a fast-paced novel that seems to sweep you up into the action and leave you there long after it ends.

While it was kind of difficult to relate to Janie because she was a character that didn't let people in, I deeply enjoyed her style of narrative, especially Lisa McMann's decision to tell the story in present tense. This kept the pace at a heightened level and made the nightmares much more intense. The story came alive and seemed more realistic--despite its fantastic ideas and magical elements.

The major criticism I have for this book is Cabel's role in the story. Because the narrative offers scenes from Janie's past, the reader is shown the change in Cabel's personality from when he's a young teenager to the present, but despite this vantage point, it seems as if Cabel is just thrown into the story because he dreams at night. Not because he's in any way important, and not because Janie has feelings for him. He is and she does, but that doesn't seem to be the reason he's there. It feels like Janie is using his dreams to practice taking control because they are the most difficult to have control in. I like his character, so I hope that in Fade he'll have a larger personality and stronger presence.

Also, I'm not fond of the mother's role either. Is she just there to be mean, detached, and unaware? Is her only job to drink and not buy groceries? There has to be something more there and a reason why Janie lets her treat her the way she does. Janie has to be stronger than that. She goes through worse in other people's nightmares but she can't stand up to her mother? C'mon!

I liked this book a lot, but mostly for the plot, not the characters and some of you may know by now that I'm a character girl--I love the ones that are real but amazing, too. So that takes away a lot from Wake. Overall a 3.5 for this one, and holding out for a chance to get Fade soon to see if the character develop more.

Heather

*Yeah, after her first encounter with the disturbing dreams of her not-so-much-a-friend and her neighbor, she thinks she's done with these. Yet another thing that puts her on the fringe with just a single friend--as if poverty and freakish behavior wasn't enough to put her down on herself. It's okay, though. Who needs more than one best friend?
**She doesn't want to experience any more dreams about war, so lets keep those doors closed during naps, okay?
***Yet another thing she doesn't really manage to avoid. The bus ride up is the worst, though, with all those teenagers who had to wake up at five in the morning.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

2009-02-22T19:53:00.005-05:00

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

I thought, while tiny, this description from the back of the book was okay to use, instead of creating my own. It's what caught my attention in the first place, so I figured it would catch yours. Well, that, and the cover and title. And I'm so thankful it did, because I really really really loved this book.

It doesn't blatantly tell you in the novel, but Christopher has Asperger's Syndrome, which is very similar to autism. This made the narrative unbelievably interesting, as he can't comprehend emotions. There aren't any unnecessary descriptions that many novels have. Everything was simple and plain as day written there on the page. I like the simplicity of the narrative and how there were tons of interesting facts throughout. Plus, Christopher, besides being a good narrator, is a great, dynamic character. At the beginning, he's never walked farther than the shop down the street by himself, and he's never really gone anywhere other than school, home, the shop, and France. And he hates strangers. But in his search to find Wellington's killer, he brings himself to question people he's never talked to, and when he discovers the truth, it pushes him to travelling all the way from Swindon to London. By himself. This change makes his character so strong, which is a great change. His character develops really well throughout the novel.

I also enjoyed the illustrations in the book, which make it really interesting. And there are aspects of it that make it almost like a mix of Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines (and not in a copyright suing kind of way. Just in the capitals of countries, and the maths parts), which, of course, is the opposite of a negative comment. There are footnotes, an aspect of some books that makes them clever, and an appendix (all about math, and that I surprisingly understood all of). It's a witty, charming novel that I won't forget until I'm old and have dementia and can't even remember if I put on my shoes.

Plus, I'm very partial to British novels, because I love the style of writing and the language. I enjoyed Mark Haddon's writing and hope to be able to buy his other novel, A Spot of Bother.

Definitely 5 out of 5 delicious steaming cups of coffee. In little red mugs.

Heather

Pay it Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde

2009-01-16T12:08:00.004-05:00

After quickly finishing off Chasing Windmills las year, I knew I had to find as many copies of Catherine Ryan Hyde's books as possible. Unfortunately, this was a hard thing to do, as Books-A-Million only ever has Pay it Forward, if even that, and Barnes and Noble never seems to have a single one in stock, and if so, it is only one copy of Pay it Forward. But I didn't want to read this one, because I had already seen the movie when I was a lot younger. I vaguely remembered details, but distinctly recalled the plot of the story, and didn't think I would enjoy reading it after already knowing it. I was wrong.

It all started with the social studies teacher's extra-credit assignment: "Think of an idea for world change, and put it into action." Twelve-year-old Trevor McKinney just knew he liked this man, and just knew he would do a great job on the assignment. He began by doing something good for three people. The first he helped was a random stranger, the second a lovely neighbor he would sit and talk with on his paper routes, and the third someone inside his own life, someone who needed help not in any measurable way, but in a way that is infinite and can never be pinned down to a point. But instead of paying him back, he asked them to "pay it forward" by doing a favor for three more people, and those nine would each help three others, and those twenty-seven would help three each, and so on, each act a link in a chain of human kindness.

And no one--not his teacher, his mom, or anyone else in his small California town--could ever have dreamed of how far Trevor's plan would go. Not even Trevor thought that it made it outside the three people he helped. When so many things went wrong, Trevor didn't know if he should even try anymore, but he knew he could change the world, so he gave it all he had. On the day the assignment was due, Trevor walked up to the front of the class to tell them all it hadn't worked, hadn't made it past the first few, and that his idea had failed.

What he didn't know, was that it had gone farther than he thought, spanning across the country unseen, spread by many who didn't even know why they did it.

All I can say about this books is...wow. I lost it, just shortly after starting to read it, and feared I left it on a plane, or in an airport, on in a different state, and completely freaked out. I had gotten about sixty pages in, and was so deep into the characters that the thought of losing the entire book shook my insides outside and my outsides inside. I was so mixed up and sad. But by some incredible miracle, the tiny little yellow book fell out of the sky and onto my bed one day. When I asked my mom if she had put it there she said, "Well, no. But I saw it somewhere the other day and thought it was yours. I made it halfway to your room, but never got to your bed with it. I wonder how it got there..."

Now, I'm not saying I believe her. I think she may have sneaked a look at it, and secretly horded it from me for weeks. Even though she doesn't really read. And it would have taken her longer than that to read it. But I still believe it was a miracle it ended up on my bed (or, well, that's a lie. It was on my bed, but I came home late-ish one night and was too tired to turn on the light so I just went and fell asleep and sometime between awake and sleep, I kicked it off of my bed and it landed near my bookshelf). But I was unbelievably ecstatic to see it the next morning.

So I went deeper into the characters and came out wanting more. Trevor's belief in the world is astonishing, as he has little belief in his own father, but still completely true and real. Reuben and Arlene make the perfect pair as two people that fit so well into each others personality frames that they feel like a puzzle--so hard to figure out at first, but once it's all solved, it feels like one whole instead of tiny little pieces of fragmented images. And for once, I loved that the movie was drastically different in some ways, because it allowed me to picture the scenes and characters on my own, as I so love to do. The images of every single one of these fictional people are etched into my mind as if they're real memories of people standing before me. Catherine Ryan Hyde can just do that--just make the words become real events and real people right before your eyes.

Once again, she does not fail to astonish, and I one-hundred-percent suggest this novel--even if you've seen the movie, even if you haven't. I think the Mr. Coffee made 5/5 cups for this one. Can't wait to buy some of her others--probably off Amazon.

Heather

GIRL WEEK

2008-12-18T17:42:00.002-05:00

Over at Reviewer X's most amazing blog, she is doing something SUPER-
AWESOME!! As she usually is. Right now, she is doing this thing called Girl Week, which is basically a whirlwind of reviews and author interviews and guest blogs and contests, all relating to feminism. I think this rocks. A lot.

Girl Week also features some really really incredible contests. Such as two of my very favorite series(es? what is the plural of series? any grammer nazis out there?), complete, and SIGNED. Yes. SIGNED.

Go! GO! I direct you to the nifty table of contents.
http://reviewerx.blogspot.com/2008/12/girl-week-table-of-contents.html

I'm off to read an interview with Megan McCafferty.
:)))

The Whirlwinds Return!

2008-11-30T12:13:00.003-05:00

The Maelstroms are back at their old home!

And to celebrate a year of reviewing, they're having a really amazing contest, where, should you win, you get A LOT OF STUFF.
A lot of awesome stuff, including:

TWO books, which you pick from lists of each reviewer's favorites.
A mix of music compiled by the Maelstrom.
A random bookmark from Ireland
and a UK copy of Artemis Fowl.

So go! Contest! Rules here. (I mean, there------>)http://www.maelstrombooks.blogspot.com

Love,
Caroline

Lost It- Kristin Tracy

2008-11-23T10:35:00.004-05:00

I could respond to what my dear cohort said in her last post, but since I am so delightfully selective about the reality I choose to accept, I'm doing a review instead.

---------------------------------------------------

At the start of her junior year, Tess Whistle is a fairly sheltered girl. Her parents are strict (she's not allowed to get a driver's license, even though she lives in Idaho, where permits are handed out at fourteen), she's got a portrait of (a mysteriously blond) Jesus hanging in her living room, and she's absolutely set on saving herself for Serious Engagement. Also, she's terrified of nature (or, more to the point, terrified of the unknown). Of course, this is all before her kitchen is set on fire, her mother becomes 'born again', and both of her parents take off for an Outward Bound-type camp in the desert. This is before her best friend becomes detirmined to blow up a neighborhood poodle. This is before Ben Easter. Sheltered is soon to be the last word that could describe Tess with any accuracy.

I think that anyone who has read any substantial amount of YA fiction has read plenty of books that, upon first inspection, seem very similar to this one. The "innocent girl loses her virginity to her first boyfriend and gets her heartbroken" storyline is a familiar one, to be sure. And I was kind of hesitant to read this for that reason. However, I was really pleasantly surprised. This book actually broke down a lot of cliches, and handled a common concept in a new, intriguing way. The relationship between Ben and Tess was done beautifully. One of my favorite things about it was the way Tess wasn't totally enchanted by Ben- she actually recognized when he said something cheesy, which almost never happens in books. It's such a nice thing to see, because it's realistic. He had faults; he seemed like an actual guy, not a perfect and beautiful and witty and never-lame-ever-at-all type that I read about most of the time, and I loved him all the more for it. Also, I was overjoyed that this book strayed away from making Ben the skeezy skirt chaser who bolts after getting to the girl's pants. That made me very happy.

This book would have been pretty good if it had stuck to the Ben and Tess storyline, but the subplots were what really made it great for me. I loved Tess's crazy grandmother (who gives Tess boy-wisdom she learned from her pet monkey) and adored Zena, Tess's best friend, who is blunt and crazy and weird and awesome. I love a book with a good best friend. The writing was really nice in this as well. I can't wait to read whatever Kristin Tracy puts out there next!

4.5 cups for this one.

Love,

Caroline

PS: comments make me so so so so so so happy and i need all the happy i can get right now.

so tired of being the one

2008-11-18T16:32:00.003-05:00

to tell you that I'm sorry. For not being active. The issue is, I'm, personally, not sure if I have the time to keep up with this blog anymore. I barely keep up with my personal blog, and that isn't as difficult. I'm thinking about reviewing a few more books this month (one for Discordia is actually in the process of being written) and then taking December off. I've been planning to take December off for a while, since I'll be gone for half of it, and I'm going to try to realize during Christmas break, maybe re-read some books that I really love and read a few more that aren't reviewing material. Some things I just want to get out of the way. After that--and I haven't even talked to Caroline about this-- I think I'll decide if I want to continue anymore. Probably not, since we are performing Emma for Drama Club next semester and that's going to be an insane amount of rehearsals, and long ones at that. So I'll be just as busy next semester (well, more probably) and that will make it harder. I'm sad that if I decide not to that I won't have even lasted a year.

And there are so many things about being in the YA reviewing world that I love. I love talking to authors and all of our readers. I love receiving books in the mail, which doesn't happen otherwise. I love the opportunities I receive by reviewing. And I love books and talking about them. But I don't love the work that I have to put into keeping this blog up-to-date, or pausing and writing a review between books, or ignoring school work so I can do this stuff. But if there's a reviewing team out there that I can join part-time coming January, I'll be perfectly happy with that. So if there's anyone out there that wouldn't mind me coming to their team in January, let me know, please.

Heather, your long lost reviewer

as simple as snow- gregory galloway

2008-10-22T16:16:00.006-04:00

caution: this is not a short review.

________________________

Anna Cayne had moved here in August, just before our sophomore year in high school, but by February she had, one by one, killed everyone in town. So begins this beautiful, tragic, maddening novel. If I've ever come across a better first line, it currently escapes me. And, believe it or not, the novel gets even better than this. But, to give you a bit of back story before I leap into my unending praise:

It is said that Anna Cayne was born in a thunderstorm. A slightly spooky and complicated high school girl with a penchant for riddles, short wave radios, Houdini tricks, and ghost stories, Anna spends much of her time writing obituaries for every living person in town. She is unlike anyone the narrator has ever been with, and they make an unlikely, though happy, pair.*

Until Anna disappears, a week before Valentine's day. There is no evidence left behind except for a neatly placed dress near a hole in the frozen river, and no one is certain what's happened to Anna- murder, suicide, runaway- but the narrator is desperate to find out, especially as anonymous packages and coded messages continue to reach him. As Simple As Snow is a tale of love, of mystery, of ghosts, and of codes.

So much of this story is a mystery that it's a bit hard to write about. Anna, to start with the obvious, is the most enigmatic character I have ever encountered- not only in her disappearance, but in everything that precedes it- her bruises, her peculiar habits, her postcards and packages and notes, her riddles and her on again/off again tattoo. As she puzzles the narrator, the reader is left hopelessly confused as well- but hooked, captivated from their first conversation. Of course, Anna isn't the the only mystery here by a long shot. The narrator is never named, for one thing, which is even more infuriating here then it is in Rebecca, because of Anna's tantalizing hints. And actually figuring the name out posed even more questions- and more crazy theories. Even the acknowledgements are written in a code, mentioned earlier as belonging to Houdini and his wife (with the author's apologies to Harry and Bess). But while all of this makes me mad in both senses of the word, I love it. All of this is what makes the book impossible to put down, at least with obsessing over it for every second it's not in your hand. This is a book that you (I, anyway) stay up until 1:30 in the morning finishing, have nightmares about, and start thinking about again as soon as the alarm clock goes off 5 hours later.

Well. That's, at least, one of the things that make this novel so amazing.

The characters are multifaceted and fascinating. Anna- impossible, enigmatic, twisted Anna- is more compelling than any character I've ever read about. Her riddles, her lies, her answered questions; she has no equal in the worlds of any of the other books I've read. And Anna is only the beginning. There's Claire, the girl who is too sweet to be a Goth; Carl, the most popular guy in school, a drug dealer, and the narrator's only friend; Bryce Druit, Mr. Devon, and their inexplicable relationships with Anna; the complex and utterly screwed-up parents of Carl, Anna, and the narrator. Our storyteller himself, who very early on assures us that he is 'bland as milk- or, worse, water' establishes himself otherwise almost immediately.

And, of course, I can't resist a good love story. What I like about Ana and the narrator's relationship, first of all, is that it starts nearly right away- there is a minimal amount of the whole pining and chasing and ridiculousness that is seen in nearly every book out there. Everything about their courtship is so straightforward, so to the point. So simple. The contrast between this and the complexities of the novel and the relationship itself is brilliant. Also, there is nothing gushy or cutesy about Anna and the narrator's interactions,and yet they are an incredibly endearing couple. Their intelligent banter, their twisted manner of flirting- there is an intimacy to the way they talk, and it though neither of them once say it, it is undeniable that they love each other. And you- or, I, anyway, once again- find yourself thinking: this is what matters. This is what perfect is: not roses, not getting on an airplane with someone at a moment's notice, not landing the gorgeous guy or the most romantic first kiss or the biggest engagement ring. This. Conversations like those. That is perfect. That is love. And it is utterly devastating when it comes to an end.

The writing is exceptional. I regretted checking this book out of the library as soon as I started it- there is something on practically every page that merits annotation, hearts and underlines and scribbled thoughts. I will definitely be needing my own copy of this. Galloway writes with skill, with feeling, with beauty. As clever and as well thought out as the story clearly is, it never seems contrived. It feels so real, in fact, that I have to wonder whether I'm so sure it's not.

Yet another mystery.

But Anna sums that up better than I could if I tried to re-write this review for a lifetime:

"It's almost more fun not knowing," she said, "if you knew what it all meant, then it might not be as interesting or compelling. That's probably half the fun, not knowing. Sometimes there's more in the mystery of things than anything else."

Five overflowing cups of coffee could not bring me the same sense of euphoria as this book. No lie.

Go. Read this book.

And if you already have, uh... please email me or something so we can chat about it because I need to discuss this with someone.

ever so glad to be making her comeback,

Caroline

I feel as if a part of me is gone

2008-10-20T17:26:00.004-04:00

How long's it been? Nearly a month now?

Sorry about the lack of reviews. I have no excuse for myself, and the only excuse I can think of for Caroline is that she is always slack like this. And that she has books I lent her months ago still on a shelf dedicated to me, unread (oh, how I love it). But I can tell you the reason is one-hundred-percent NOT becuase of a lack of books. No, we have plenty to read. In fact, I feel as if my life has been engulfed in books. Not a bad thing, I tell you. I've been moving from book to book and not giving myself time to review them. I'm sort of planning on just shoving myself back into the literary world and forcing myself to review Becoming Chloe by Catherine Ryan Hyde (amazing, if I do say so myself). But...I don't know. It's a very high possibility that shoving won't occur for some time. I've read many books since I seemingly abandoned Plenty of Paper, just having made myself review them. I will, though, soon (I hope).

I also hope that Caroline will bring forth a review of the many books she has read, too, because I just love reading what she has to say. I'm sure you do, too, don't you? She has a way with words I've yet to master, and I'm hoping she'll grace us here with her presence once more in the near future (and I'll be sure to tell her that either tonight or tomorrow at school).

So thanks for those of you who still read our lovely blog. Thanks for your patience, your loyalty, and most of all, your bookwormness.

Heather, your long lost reviewer.

Also, is anyone else just a tad bit sad that the Paper Towns Countdown has been completed? I mean, I'm happy the wait is over (even though mine was over a little while ago) but really? It's like the end of an era.

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

2008-09-27T14:04:00.004-04:00

Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan’s Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. So with single-minded determination, Craig works night and day to ace the entrance exam. Once he does that, he gains admission to this elite school. That’s when everything starts to unravel.

Once Craig starts at the new school he realizes a shocking truth. He is just one of the many brilliant kids who attend the school. In fact, he isn’t even brilliant, he's just average. Craig soon starts to see his once-perfect future crumbling away. He begins to have trouble eating, sleeping doing the routine things that used to be simple everyday activities. He eventually realizes he is clinically depressed.

So begins Craig’s battle with depression- which involves seeing a myriad of specialists, taking medication, and, at his most desperate, checking himself into a psychiatric hospital. There, Criag meets a motley crew of patients- his roommate, who is afraid to leave their room, a girl who has scarred her own face with a pair of scissors, and a transsexual sex addict. But somehow this odd cast of characters start to seem more like real friends to Craig than anyone he has ever known. At the hospital, Craig is finally able to come to terms with the overwhelming pressures that come from the school, his friends and most of all, himself.

The dynamic characters interwoven into every part of this witty novel were themselves witty, interesting, and personal. Craig is the main character, depressed and unstable, and learning hist story was a great way to spend my time, but he wasn't the only one with an intersting history. When he goes to the psychiatic hospital, Craig makes many friends, and they all have heartbreaking pasts and hopeful futures. You want each of them to succeed and this connection to the story sucks you in until you get lost in the map of It's Kind of a Funny Story.

Ned Vizzini's writing is clever and has a unique voice which transcends the gap between writer and character. There's no other novel about a messed up teenager that is this good. He makes something that is as sad as depression, into something heavy with dry wit. No matter how much you think you should be upset, or tearing up, or feeling bad for these people, he can make you crack up at a single action, until you realize you shouldn't feel bad for the people in the psychiatric hospital, you should be laughing along with them.

Ned Vizzini himself spent five days in the same hospital Craig spends his time in. He gives you a look inside the mind of a depressed teen, and all his friends that are likewise screwed up.

5/5 cups of coffee.

♥Heather

Is it just me...

2008-09-21T16:34:00.003-04:00

or does it seem like you go through phases with books? The whole summer, I picked up very few novels that I thought were worth my time (and money), and then even less that I thought deserved much praise.

But then, just a couple weeks ago, I recieved Paper Towns by John Green (review directly below) and my whole reading life turned around. I've read so many spectacular--or at the very least well-written and executed--novels. These include The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright (review in progress), It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini (also a review in the near future), and The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima. So now that I'm on a roll, I'm almost fearful of continuing, in case I break the streak. But that still won't stop me. =)

So I've got a questions for all the readers out there:

1) Do you hit periods of highs or lows when reading a continuous supply of books? Times when all you read is bad, or everything you pick up is good?
2) When you do hit those, do you ever think of stopping because you give up trying to find something good? Or because you're afraid the next one will be bad?
3) What have you read recently that's worth mentioning?

♥Heather

the much-anticipated Paper Towns by John Green

2008-09-06T12:26:00.007-04:00

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life--dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge--he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues--and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew.

When entering this novel, my expectations were high for a favorite author and vlogger John Green. After reading Steph's review I was even more expectant of a major wow-ing.

And I wasn't completely disappointed. This novel comes in three parts (I was actually just imagining John saying that in my head as he does for his videos) and the first of which is astoundingly resonating. Margo Roth Spiegelman is the most dynamic character ever presented by John or any other author and as she leads Quentin through a whirlwind of adventures throughout this part and the rest of the novel, pieces of her start to form together, creating a whole new person no one ever knew.

I can't deny that Paper Towns shows resemblance to Looking for Alaska, John's first novel, but I can't deny, either that it is a book of it's own and should be judged so. Not only Margo, but every other character in this world has his or her own role (just as is pointed out near the end of the story). Quentin's two best friends are Ben, a tragically confident band geek that can't live up to his own hype, and Radar, a computer whiz who spends all his time editing Omnictionary articles on his handheld. And then you have Quentin himself, a regular high school guy on the bottom of the food chain, whose only friends are in band when he has no apparent talent at all and enjoys boredom.

John Green has yet to put together a cast so familiar of a high school and yet so spectacular as he has now done with Paper Towns.

And while the middle drags a bit, as Quentin follows Margo's trail, John's writing transcends this pause in action as he ponders poetry, metaphors, the human nature, and how we're all connected. He uses his brilliance (because John Green has a brilliant mind) to ask questions that reach far beyond the simple mind-set of a typical YA novel.

I can't tell you if Paper Towns is any better than John's other novels because it sits on a different plane. It doesn't have the same hilarity of An Abundance of Katherines, nor the pain and sadness of Looking for Alaska, but it does have it's own unique in between story of a girl and a boy whose lives run parallel for the longest time and finally intersect one night, leaving them both changed forever.

5 large cups of bookstore coffee.

Heather

To pre-order your own copy of Paper Towns online, you can go to Amazon, Books-A-Million, or Barnes and Noble.

just a few and a little

2008-08-23T20:23:00.003-04:00

Updates and explanation, that is.

To explain: The whole being AWOL thing isn't because we're giving up on this or reviewing. I've been asked that a few times and I'm just clearing things up. My reasoning for my lack of presence is partially--and ironically--because of summer reading. The books I have to read are tedious, boring, and demand most of my attention. Plus, I fear that if I pick up another book, I'll keep picking up books after that and never get around to giving in to the dark presence that is summer reading. The test(s) are in four days and I'm only half-way through my first book (of two). This is, to say the least, abnormal for me, usually I'm done at least 5 days before the tests. =)

So that's part of the reasoning. My absence is primarily do to that, but I have to give credit also to the fact that I'm slack, lazy, and always procrastinating. I've put off writing my review for How To Build a House by Dana Reinhardt (a fantastic book, btw) for months. Now I've almost forgotten the specifics and my review will probably be lame. Eh, what can you do? Oh, wait, I know. Review a book right after you read it. Alas, this probably will not happen in the near future with school starting and writing other things before certain dates in January and all other busy stuff that may involve getting a job. But I will try.

To update: I'm hoping to keep the contest bar updated better than I have, so please, please, please let me know if you're hosting a contest of any sort or you know about one that isn't already listed in the sidebar. The easiest way for me to recieve the information (prize, how to enter, link to the post about it, link to your blog--I occasionally forget the urls--the end date, and anything else you think I should add in) is through email (plentyofpaper234@aol.com). You can send a message to me on myspace (link to our page in the blog roll), but I prefer email.

Also, the poll feature of our blog is hard to keep up if we don't have anything to ask. If you have a suggestion, please let us know in an email what it is. The last couple months have been late because we haven't been able to think up a question, but we want to keep it going. I think it's interesting to know what our readers think, what they like, and what they read. So please, if you have an idea, suggest it. We would be forevor indebted to you (okay, maybe not forever. There is an expiration date, I'm just not sure how long it'll last).

Thanks so much,

Heather

The Elite by Jennifer Banash

2008-08-10T13:49:00.006-04:00

When Casey McCloy steps into The Bramford, she's overwhelmed by the sophistication and elegance of it all. Fresh from the Midwest [a town called Normal, fittingly], she's moved to New York City to live with her grandmother and attend the prestigious Meadowlark Academy. Here, all that matters is who you know. The designer to know is Zac Posen. The girl to know is Madison Macallister: popular, pretty, and platinum blond. She's not just Casey's new classmate and neighbor; she's an icon. So Casey aims to get in with Madison and her gorgeous gal pals from the start. As the reigning queen of coolness, Madison is capable of destroying reputations with one well-timed whisper. Better to be on her good side.

After a haute makeover from her new frenemy Madison, Casey is wearing [some of] the right clothes, saying [on occasion] the right things, and meeting the right people. Including Drew, the boy-about-town Madison thinks belongs to her and her alone...

When I first picked up this book, I was expecting to be awed or disappointed. I wasn't anticipating an odd combination of the both. But, for reviewing purposes, I'll point out both bad and good.

I was disappointed that this was what I expected it to be. The Elite was yet another story of a poor girl from the Midwest in a rich neighborhood in the northeast, going to an elite school that her family had to pull strings for her to even get into, and trying to befriend the richest, most popular, and nastiest girl she can find. Casey was yet another girl who was smart back home, but isn't now that she's moved to a new state, with new classmates, and new rules. She had a crush on the rich frenemy's not-boyfriend, and he liked her back. He was different from all those other guys. She was different from all those other girls. It had all the elements needed to be yet another one of those books--the ones I typically try to avoid. I could have run off a checklist and it would have met if not all then 99% of the criteria to be one of them.

This, I think, was the error. Having such a well-known plot won't bring recognition. I'm sure in a few months or a year, I'd forget I even read this book if it wouldn't be sitting on the top shelf of my bookcase. Even then, it's packed so tightly between more memorable books with more original plot lines that it might slip through the cracks and be lost to my memory forever.

But then, it also had some of the criteria needed for a good book, or at least one with potential, and maybe, I will remember it months or years from now. Jennifer Banash's style of writing was slightly different from the a-typical YA novel, using phrases, even if rare, that brought out the light behind the pages. And the characters have more depth than usual, each of them with a story. You even start to feel something for the girl you want to hate, which is an element key to a good story. If you don't like the characters, you can't like the book. But telling the individual stories of Madison, Sophie, Pheobe, Drew, and Casey, Jennifer Banash made a good decision. I liked to hear about their families, and how they really felt about everything. It made them more real and less of the typical mold that they fit. The only character I didn't think deserved any feeling at all (whether it be hatred or sympathy or something in the middle) was Casey. She was annoyingly self-conscious, a kiss-up, too clueless for her own good, and easily manipulated. I felt like she got what she deserved in Madison's horrid treatment of her. She wasn't anything more than the mold.

The most annoying thing about The Elite, though, was not the plot, was not Casey, and had nothing to do with the actual story. When reading it, I thought it surely must be a well-edited ARC, since the only other option is a poorly-edited finished novel. There were many mistakes I noted, the most obvious of which is the confusion of the school's name. I assume the correct title is Meadowlark, as that is what it's called on the back of the book, Casey says it's Meadow...something, and I counted 17 of those spellings, but I also counted 8 misspellings that name the school Meadlowlark, with an l. That is just one of many errors that I came across. [If you're reading this, Ms. Banash, I would be happy to point out every error that I actually marked so that they can be fixed for the next printing. I feel I have a very successful career as an editor, as I'm a total grammar freak--I've been called a Super Rambo Grammar Nazi, in fact, but don't ask me what that means.]

While there were many aspects of The Elite I didn't enjoy, I still feel like the next book in the series, In Too Deep, is one to look forward to, as most series only get better with time. This novel has potential, I guarantee, and I definitely wouldn't tell someone not to read it. I wouldn't tell anyone to jump up an buy it this instant, either, though. I give the first book in what seems to be a possibly promising series, just a 3.5, nothing too harsh, nothing to kind.

Heather

(a positive review from me can be expected soon, which I'm sure some of you will be waiting for, as my last few reviews have been mostly negative)

Hacking Harvard- Robin Wasserman

2008-07-22T15:18:00.003-04:00

Eric Roth, Max Kim, and Isaac Schwarzbaum have been hacking for, more or less, their entire lives. Always fairly little things- taking down teachers, bullies, people who deserve it. The trio fervently insists that their misdeeds are not 'pranks', but it's hard to find another word for the things that Max, Eric, and Schwarz do. Jokes, involving break-ins and a lot of computers. Small things.

Until Max is offered a position at a hacking company that pays in stocks. Until his father threatens to cut him off and leave him penniless if he doesn't follow the path that's been laid out for him since his father's college days. Until Max makes a bet. Until the trio embarks on a mission to take down America's most acclaimed, competitive university.

Eric, Max, and Schwarz are hacking into Harvard. They'll play the system, step by step, until the biggest slacker in their school is holding a thick envelope edged in crimson.

Only, Lex, our narrarator, is kind of in the way.

Hacking Harvard is a very good book.

The writing is exceptional. Lex's voice is a very strong one, even in those scenes in which she seems to be nothing more than an omniscient narrarator. That's actually one of the many interesting facets of this novel- it's told in first person, but Lex is absent for the vast majority of the story. The prose is also very elegantly spun, while still managing to be humorous. The writing definitely made me want to read more- all!- of Robin Wasserman's other books.

The concept was so original, too. It was actually the first thing that sold me on this book, the writing being the second.

And third?

The characters.

As a major and long time nerd-lover, a book about three guys who HACK into an Ivy League school is, no lie, seriously appealing to me.
And the three of them were excellent.

Schwarz, the prodigy who is adorable. Not my crush of the novel by a long-shot (he has a Playboy fixtation but is scared of normal girls), but very lovable. He lets Max and Eric and the girl he's crushing on boss him around to no end, and he's a sixteen-year-old Harvard freshman. He promotes many feelings of 'aww'.

Max, the relatively reckless ringleader (Wow, that alliteration was completely unintentional. That is scary), with the out-there schemes and great sense of humor. He's the least nerdy-acting of them all, which proudly defies the whole smart-asian-guy stereotype. (Eric and Schwarz are Jewish).

Finally, there's Eric. Oh, Eric. Eric, the righteous moral compass who wears tee-shirts to advertise his causes and sticks to the Hacker's Code at all costs. He takes Lex to a planetarium on a non-date. He's wonderful.

Lex is cool, too, at least towards the end of the novel.

The only problem with this novel is a bit of under-developement. In the beginning chapters, Max and Eric are both given colorful family situations, but, save for the looming threat of Max's father's financial cut-off and a few appearences by Eric's younger sister, they fade away completely as the novel progresses. There is also the fascinating Alice Morgenthal, who went insane after receiving rejection letters from every college she applied to and had some sort of thing with Eric. Her story is so poignant and interesting, and yet it's totally neglected. I would have loved to see more of her in the novel.

Regardless, this is an awesome book. The ending, in particular, is satisfying without tying everything up in a big red bow. Depsite Lex's early allusions to several children's stories, it's no fairy tale. (thank the lord).

Also, an awesome fact that was, strangely enough, absent in the 'About the Author'? Robin Wasserman WENT TO HARVARD.

Can we say amazing?
We can indeed.

4.5 stars for Hacking Harvard!

-Caroline

Alpha Dog by Jennifer Ziegler

2008-07-16T11:15:00.002-04:00

Seventeen-year old Katie isn’t used to being in control. She lets everybody boss her around. Her mother drives her crazy with her constant criticism and advice, and her boyfriend of two years just destroyed her whole world by dumping her on her birthday. Yeah, he's just such a nice guy, especially since the reason he dumped her is because he was already cheating on her.

It’s just as well that Katie’s headed to a summer program at the University of Texas in Austin–at least there, she can get over Chuck at her own pace. But Austin holds its own challenges–like Christine, a cooler-than-thou roommate whose rocker boyfriend is permanently camped out on the couch. Along with all his rocker band-mates. They never seem to leave, and they're always eating Katie's food.

Christine drags Katie to the city pound to check out a potential pet, being that she totally loves wiener dogs. It’s Katie, though who ends up falling in love with a pair of brown doggie eyes. Before she can think it through, she’s standing out on the curb with her adorable new dog, Seamus.

There’s only one problem: Seamus is a holy terror. He chews up the apartment, barks maniacally, terrorizes their landlady’s cat, and seems destined to keep Elevator Guy, the cutest guy in their building, far away. Soon enough, Katie is being threatened by her landlady to be evicted, and by her roommate, who hates Seamus after he tears up the apartment.

Finally, Katie takes Seamus in for obedience training, where she’s told, “You have to be the alpha dog.”

The alpha dog. The head of the pack. Katie has never wielded much power before, but she finds that being top dog can be addictive. Soon she’s acting the alpha dog in every phase of her life, standing up to Christine and her boyfriend, taking control of her own life and actually talking to and nothing will ever be the same.

I have to say that I fully appreciate winning this copy from the late Page Flipper's blog because, while not my favorite book ever, it was rather entertaining. The writing was clever and captivating--even when the plot and characters weren't. I haven't read Jennifer Ziegler's other novel, How Not To Be Popular, but the concept seemed much more appealing to me when I first heard about either of these books. The concept behind Alpha Dog is a weak plot with morals. That's it. There's nothing about it that may appeal to any reader when first picked up (unless, of course, you are a huge dog-lover) but once you start reading, the writing makes up for that.

Alpha Dog was one of those stories with characters that you don't particularly like, and a plot that isn't the best, but you can't take your head out of. I don't know what it is with characters named Katie but I just have a problem with them (see my review for Perfect You). This specific Katie had too many problems with self-esteem, let people boss her around too much, and made everything a bigger deal than it was.

I'm kind of getting tired of the typical low self-esteem main character of books. I'd like to see something more original (I, myself, am guilty of this, so I don't mean this to be harsh) because most readers, while they may relate to the main character, won't really like her. I don't mean that I would prefer her to be a perfect snob, but Katie just conforms to whatever someone wants her to. She lets Christine take over the apartment, she lets the guys in the band eat her food and sleep on her couch, and she lets her mother treat her like a five-year-old. Not to mention she lets her boyfriend of two years walk all over her and then gets very, very upset when he breaks up with her after cheating.

That is too much of a self-esteem issue.

And I realize that was the center for the plot. Taking charge. Becoming the alpha dog in her own life, but that's what I think made it so weak. If having those issues makes a character weak, they're going to make a plot weak. It was a good message, and a good life lesson, but I don't think it needed to be the main point of the plot.

There were some good parts to Alpha Dog, though! I feel like I need to point those out so as not to put you too down on this book.

Jennifer Ziegler is a great writer. There had to be something to suck me in, right? Well, that was it. Like I said before, I haven't read How Not To Be Popular, so I have not other judging standpoints, but I was impressed with Alpha Dog. She took the opportunity to be a writer when it arose. She's not the best I've read, but this was her first novel. Not every author starts out as great as they can be. And from what I've read of reviews for HNTBP this is the case with her.

There were many times when I thought she found the perfect line, or the best word to fit into a situation.

And then, there was Matt. Matt was the perfect addition to the novel, as I think he saved it from being lost to my memory forever. He had depth, a past, complexity. He, I think, was the most developed character of the whole story--and the most vulnerable. At times, he appeared to be a Knight in Shining Armor, and others, you didn't know what to make of him. But as he moved in next door to Katie and Christine, Katie kept running into him in the elevator. Hence, Elevator Guy.

Unfortunately, this was his name for over half the book. She didn't even know his actual name was Matt until a little over halfway when Christine through a party. And then he was sort of absent for a while, and came back later--and somehow as a big part of the story? I think Jennifer Ziegler worked too hard to try to squeeze him in the end when it should have been effortless to work him into the whole story. He fits with Katie. They have chemistry. Why wait till the end to show it?

Though it may not seem like it, I did enjoy this book. I think that if you're a dog lover, you should definitely pick it up, and if not, then put it on your list for later. You may find you like it--a lot.

3.5 cups of java for this one.

Heather

moving from the sidebar to the center!--Contests Around the Blogosphere!

2008-07-11T16:02:00.004-04:00

Our main contest creator is The Story Siren, who at the moment has 3, count 'em, THREE contests going on.

The first is her monthly contest. All you have to do to enter the monthly contests each month is comment on the Author Tales posts every Thursday, simple as that. The second is her COLOSSAL 20,000 hits contest (can you believe it? 20,000 hits!). To see the information for this contest, just go to this post. All you have to do is fill out a survey!

But the third (and the best) is a Mega, ENORMOUS contest to celebrate the new book in the Twilight saga, Breaking Dawn. There are tons of prizes for this one, so head on over here. There are tons of ways to gain extra entries, so go on and get started!

The Book Muncher is also having an amazing contest to win three books. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn, When It Happens by Susane Colasanti, and This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen. One winner will recieve all three of these. To enter, click here.

Do you want to win a copy of The Elite by Jennifer Banash? Well you can either stop by Reviewer X's blog or Harmony Book Reviews, because they're both giving away two copies each! But guess what. Harmony Book Reviews is also giving away two copies of mixed cds of songs that inspired the writing of The Elite. Wanna enter to win at Reviewer X? Then go to this post. To enter at Harmony Book Reviews, go here.

Last but not least is a birthday celebration contest over at And Another Book Read. Tasha is giving away 2, maybe 3 books. Go ahead and enter! It's real easy.

Remember, we're always updating our sidebar with new contests, so check back there frequently. All of these are still there for easy access to links and end dates.

Heather

One Small Step by P.B. Kerr (thanks to Chelsea for the book)

2008-07-08T12:41:00.007-04:00

It's 1969, and thirteen-year-old Scott is doing all the things that normal boys do--and also flying airplanes with his Air Force flight-instructor father. When Scott successfully crash-lands a training plane (that he wasn't even supposed to be flying), NASA recruits him for their secret space program. NASA is planning a test flight with chimps before the real lunar landing, but when one chimp must be dismissed, they need a quick substitute--and who better than a boy aviator who can fly a jet at age 13? Just as long as he can keep it a secret from his overprotective mother.

Soon Scott is on his way to the NASA training facility, after having weeks worth of tests to make sure he's healthy enough for it. There he discovers just how clever the chimps are--able to control the flight simulators like regular astronauts. They're more like humans than he'd ever have imagined, so why, then, did one of them go crazy? Is there something about his mission and the way they treat the chimps that NASA isn't telling him? If so, he's going to find out.

Before long, he's up in space with two chimps for company, only communicating with them through sign language. He's going to stay in orbit while the two of them go down in the Lunar Module to land on the moon, and then they'll, hopefully, fly back home. But there's something he's not telling NASA, now.

This book was astoundingly well-written, for being told in a thirteen-year-old's perspective. It was almost unbelievable at some points, but then I began thinking...Maybe this is retrospective and he's writing this at an older age. And then, that's completely believable and incredible.

The whole story was simplisticly written, but that is a good thing, since it was already complicated with technical terms. I guess writing a book about NASA comes with a territory, and those technical terms are needed. I even learned a few things I didn't know.

Okay, so I'm not doing a very good job with describing this book or why I liked it, but I can tell you that I did. There was something about it that amazed me. It took me forever to read, because I was so busy when I was, but it never once became a tedious task. I enjoyed picking up this novel and finding out more about space missions, and following Scott as he makes his way to the moon. It was a good book to read before bed.

And I especially enjoyed the way the chapters were titled. First, it starts of counting down from ten, like counting down till blastoff. After that, it started counting the days that he was in space. But I really loved how it counted down. That was very clever.

The only thing I can pinpoint that I didn't like was how the epilogue was like a giant, red, neat Christmas bow, tying up the package. Everything was so resolved and perfectly polished. The whole epilogue felt like the conclusion to an essay. State the thesis. Recount your points. Have a concluding sentence. I've only ever once before encountered an ending to a book that felt that much like the final paragraph of one of my english class essays. And I sure didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. I mean, I don't want a huge cliffhanger, but sticking me inside a perfectly wrapped package and slapping a bow on it keeps me from feeling like the characters were real. It's like, if that's their end, then they don't have actual lives and therefore never really existed. I'd like to think the characters I'm reading about are real people, even if I know it's not true.So basically, I can sum it all up by giving this book a 4 out of 5 cups of coffe. A really extravagant cup of coffee with tons of hard-to-pronounce ingredients that end up being counterproductive as the coffee turns out to be a little below par. That's the kind I'm talking about.

Heather

(sorry about the bad review, I just can't seem to make it good.)

Hiatus Tour Contest Winner!

2008-07-04T11:18:00.004-04:00

So I know I said I would announce the winner yesterday, but it took longer to tally up the entries than I thought it would. But I finished that up this morning (before the festivities of the fourth begin) and the winner is...

Anilee!!!!

So email us your address Anilee, and we'll try to get your copy of How To Be Bad sent out sometime next week.

If you don't send an email within the next two days, and don't reply to a message we send you (or comment), then we'll pick another winner. But that probably won't happen. Thanks for entering, everybody! We had tons of entries. It was a huge success for our first contest (besides all the glitches, of course).

We'll be having another one soon to win a copy of Farworld: Water Keep by J. Scott Savage. I just hope it runs better than this one =).

Off to read on the dock,

Heather

and end and a beginning

2008-07-02T20:36:00.003-04:00

So, we're wrapping up June a little late, because I hadn't even realized that it was over! It traveled like trouble! (that is something you will understand with the beginning of a new three songs)

So the winner of the "Favorite Algorithm of Worditude Emporium (Bookstore)" poll was Barnes and Noble. There were a few votes scattered here and there, but second place was a tie between Borders (something we don't have around here) and Library. I understand the library. I don't go there often, but usually I don't want to return the books. Unless they're terrible, of course, which they are on occasion. Third place went to Books-A-Million, which is the Emporium I frequent more often than not, because it's closer than my personal favorite which is Barnes and Noble.

So the new poll won't be up for a few more days--until we think of a new one--but the music is going up with this post.

Also, you may have noticed that there are six more reviews today. Those are all the ones we reviewed for the Hiatus Tour (the winner of that announced tomorrow), so if you missed them, scroll on down and read (and comment, too =D, that would be much appreciated).

I'm in the middle of a reading frenzy, so a few reviews should be coming your way soon. Look out! (plus an interview with a favorite author should be here...soon? sometime? in a few weeks? I'm not sure, but it will come!)

Heather

How To Be Bad

2008-07-02T19:29:00.002-04:00

Mels, Vicks, and Jesse don't really have much in common. Vicks is the rebel with the dyed-black hair, cursing complex, and boyfriend who has just gone off to college and apparently forgotton her (one text. Stay cool). Jesse is an uber-Christian whose mother has just been diagnosed with cancer: breast cancer, after winning a wet tee-shirt contest. Clearly, a punishment from God. Mel is the new rich girl from Canada who nobody really likes. The only things that these girls are sharing? A weekend, a car, a hotel room, Mel's mom's credit card, and the road trip of their lives.

They will visit landmarks (the world's tiniest police station). They will meet a boy (sexy Marco). They will engage in several illegal activities. They'll fight and bond and get attacked by an alligator and learn, each in their own ways, how to be bad. And at the end of it all, they just might be best friends.

This book is a really great read. I was curious about getting my hands on it becasue of the multiple authors: I'm a huge fan of E. Lockhart's, but I had mixed feelings about Sarah Mlynoski's Bras and Broomsticks and I despise chatspeak far too much to have enjoyed Lauren Myracle's TTYL series. The writing here was excellent, though. The voices were distinct, but they blended together nicely. The styles of the three authors meshed very well.

How To Be Bad is very much a character story, and it's an extremely good one. Jesse, Mel, and Vicks were all believable characters with distinct personalities. I loved how none of them were stereotypical, despite any implications given by their immediate labels. Jesse, for instance, is the Christian girl, but she's also the meanest and cattiest of the trio. One of my favorite things about the book was that each of the characters had tons of their own struggles and problems to worry about, but the story continued to center around the girls as a whole, and their journey together.

Also, it was completely hilarious. All three of the authors worked in plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, even within the most tense parts of the story. There was a lot of verbal comedy, but much of the humor was situational as well.

My only complaint about this book? The drawbacks of carrying around a novel entitled How To Be Bad. Why that gets seven questions per day and my "Free Alan Rickman" tee-shirt gets none is beyond me, but it did. Go figure.

Four cups and a half for How to Be Bad!

Caroline

Masquerade by Melissa De La Cruz

2008-07-02T19:26:00.001-04:00

Schuyler Van Alen wants an explanation for the mysterious deaths of young vampires. With her best friend, Oliver, Schuyler travels to Italy in the hope of finding the one man who can help—her grandfather. Meanwhile, back in New York, preparations are feverishly under way for the Four Hundred Ball, an exclusive gala hosted by the city’s wealthy, powerful, and unhuman—a true Blue Blood affair.

But it’s at the after-party, a masquerade ball thrown by the cunning Mimi Force, that the real danger lurks. Hidden behind the masks is a revelation that will forever change the course of a young vampire’s destiny. [description from inside cover]

After taking months to get into the first book in this series, Blue Bloods, I jumped right in to Masquerade. The new plot developments were much more interesting in comparison, and the suspense was built up to extremes. Not only did the characters become more developed and have stronger emotions, but the vampire lore became more developed and had a past. Everything about the Blue Bloods that you couldn’t figure out in the first novel was very well explained in the second.

For example:

Once Schuyler finds her grandfather, he decides she needs to be trained to use her powers—something The Committee is no longer doing with new vampires. In his training, he teaches Schuyler about the four factors of the glom, or mind control. This is just one of the many new introductions to vampire lore in Masquerade.

Despite the lack of many Silver Blood attacks in this novel, it is surprisingly more suspenseful than the first. I was flipping pages fervently as it got later and later into the night—I just couldn’t put it down. The romance between Schuyler and Jack (and Oliver) becomes part of the story, as does the romance between Jack and Mimi, Bliss and a new character, Kingsley, and Charles and Allegra.

If you’ve read the first and are skeptic about the second, I encourage you to go pick it up now. It will not disappoint.

Or even if you haven’t read the series at all, I encourage you to start it—and don’t worry, if you can’t get into Blue Bloods, it ends up turning into a great series.

4 cups of coffee for this one.

Heather

Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz

2008-07-02T19:24:00.001-04:00

Schuyler Van Alen is an outcast. She dresses funny. She lives in a creepy old house. She's too shy to talk to anyone except for her best friend Oliver. Oliver is: sweet, skinny, brown hair, dorky glasses. A very intelligent nerd type with good taste in music and movies, who is- you guessed it- hopelessly in love with Schuyler. And get this: she has no idea.

On the night that our story begins, Schuyler is on her way to a club with Oliver when she witnesses a should-have-been suicide: a boy throws himself under a cab, but is perfectly fine when he walks away, just minutes later. As he walks away from the cab, Schuyler recognizes this boy, who is no less than Jack Force, the (blond, charming, and athletic, but deep down, really sensitive) most popular boy in school. He proceeds to actually speak to her. Flirt, even! Schuyler is shocked. Reader is not.

At this point, I was a little bit skeptical. I mean, the author's other titles didn't appeal to me at all, so I couldn't really decide whether or not this book would either. So the generic beginning was a bit of a let-down, and made me even more wary than before. But, other than a certain fixation with semi-colons, Melissa de la Cruz's writing was good, so I continued.

Brilliant decision, on my part.

As it turns out, the love triangle between Schuyler, Oliver, and Jack was where the predictability ended, and where the story shifted into one of the most original takes on vampires I've ever read (second only to Scott Westerfeld's Peeps). Manhattan's elite 'Blue Bloods' have been being reborn since they came over on the Mayflower- the same people in the same place, over and over, for two hundred years- and Schulyer is one of them.

Blue Bloods is a fast-paced page turner, full of interesting twists and suspense. My only complaint is that, as I said before, the characters are kind of typical. Schulyer, Jack, Mimi (Jack's twin sister, the blonde, bitchy popular girl) and Oliver, anyway. Great, but not very unique. Maybe all of de la Cruz's creative energy was spent on the fantastic plot, but more interesting characters would have been good.

All in all, Stephenie Meyer keeps her Queen of the Fictional Vampires crown (Scott being the king), but Blue Bloods is great if you want a new take on the bloodsucking creatures, as well as a quick and thrilling read that will keep you guessing until the end (and after!). The sequel, Masquerade, is even better than the first.

Blue Bloods gets three and a half cups of coffee. :)

Caroline

When It Happens by Susane Colasanti

2008-07-02T19:19:00.002-04:00

Sara and Tobey couldn’t be more different as they start their senior year in high school. She is focused on getting into her first-choice college—NYU. She sure has the grades for it, but she’s still stressing out. Tobey, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about college. He just wants to become a famous rock star, win Battle of the Bands, and tour the world with his friends. But this becomes increasingly difficult as he realizes that the other two-thirds of his band are planning on going to college. And where does that leave Tobey?

At the beginning of each year, Sarah and her friends list their goals for the school year. This year, Sarah’s goal is to find true love. And when Dave, a popular guy she’s been crushing on since he moved to their school at the end of last year, asks her out, she’s sure she’s reached her goal. But for some reason, even though she’s going out with Dave, Tobey keeps popping into her head. He’s sweet, has amazing blue eyes, and has great arms from playing guitar and working out.

And it just so happens that one of Tobey’s goals is to make Sara fall in love with him.

This review comes in 5 parts, Part One--Writing Style:

From the start of When It Happens, I loved the writing style of Susane Colasanti. The first chapter was very reminiscent of R. A. Nelson (circa Breathe My Name), in that it was random, relatable, and very much like the inside of a teenager’s mind. She writes like a teenager, using language, actions, and emotions familiar to our every day to tell the story. Tobey, Sara, and all of their friends act like students in high school, like students I’ve met.

Added to that is the fact that Colasanti can write. I mean really write. She can write with so much conviction and emotion that it puts you there in the story, rooting for the relationships, hating the teachers, feeling uncomfortable during awkward moments. This is actually some of the best YA writing I’ve come across in a while, as it doesn’t sound like an adult trying to sound like a teenager. Many can succeed in making the character sound like a teenager, but there’s also that little bit that sounds like an adult pretending to be a teen. Only some, however, can master the art of a full-fledged teenaged narrator (R. A. Nelson, Sarah Dessen, Maureen Johnson, and now Susane Colasanti). Welcome to the ranks of amazing YA authors, Mrs. Colasanti.

Part Two—Character Development:

When It Happens began as if you’d known the characters forever and were just being reintroduced. They didn’t bore you with tedious introductions, but at the same time, you learned the story of every single one of the characters, main and minor. You learned about each girl’s family and history. In just the first chapter you learn so much about Sara’s friends as they tell each other their goals for the year, an annual ritual they do before school starts. Also, the book isn’t just about Sara and Tobey. Their best friends also go through some things. Maggie’s parents separate, and Laila falls for one of Tobey’s friends—no matter how much she denies it, it’s true. All the characters are dynamic and depicted really well.

Part Three—Plot:

The plot of When It Happens is just as believable as the characters. I don’t want to give away anything, but I will tell you this: events like these are sure to happen in real life. Nothing unrealistic or exaggerated happens to these characters. They go through their senior year like any other students, the fall in love like any other teenagers, and they experience some rough times like any other person.

Part Four—Font/Changing POV:

A very unique characteristic of this book is that it was written in both points of view, Sarah’s and Tobey’s. Every other chapter was Sarah, and the rest were Tobey. I, personally, enjoy books that give both sides of the story because then both characters are loud, dynamic, and truthful. You don’t just get an impression of one or the other—you get their whole story.

And the best part about the switching POV? The fonts changed also. This was the coolest idea on behalf of Susane Colasanti or her editors. By making Sarah and Tobey have different fonts, they made it easier to keep up with who was speaking, because once you get into this book, it can be easy to just speed right through and not think about it. The different fonts made it possible to notice. Also, the different fonts added a touch of originality to the story that wasn’t there otherwise.

Part Five—My Opinions:

Personally, I couldn’t get enough of this book. Parts 1-4 can give you the best reasons why—or at least the ones I could pinpoint. Besides those things, there was something else that made me love this book so much, but I can’t figure out exactly what it was. It was just…something. Something incredible. My friends may tell you that I’m obsessed with this book (we actually just had a discussion about this a few nights ago), and maybe I am. I could read this book many times over and never get sick of it. There’s something in the depth of the characters that is alluring, something in the every day plot that is so relatable, and something in the writing that makes it re-readable.

As you can probably tell, this book comes highly recommended from me. 5 caramel macchiato espressos for this spectacular work of fiction.

Heather

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter

2008-07-02T19:17:00.001-04:00

After a semester of sneaking out of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women to see her first boyfriend, Josh, and getting in a massive amount of trouble for it (and for a spy like her, that means a debriefing by the CIA and having Josh’s memory erased), Cammie Morgan is not ready for the new guest at her school. She’s not ready for boys.

No one at the Gallagher Academy , the best spy school in the world, ever suspected that there might be another school out there like theirs…for boys.

As soon as the guests get there, things start to go mysteriously wrong. The school has its first Code Black in years, the boys’ rooms are surprisingly spotless, Mr. Soloman (the Cover Operations teacher) is acting really strange, there’s a mysterious picture in Cammie’s mom’s office, and worst of all, genius Cammie is confused and may be falling for one of the boys.

So why is all this happening? Who are these boys really? And what’s going on behind closed doors at Gallagher?

I have yet to read the first in the Gallagher Girl series, I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You, but it’s not really necessary—even though it may make Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy a better book.* So I recommend doing the obvious and reading the first one…first. The character development begins slowly but quickly speeds up until you’re introduced to each of the main characters in a small way. There’s, of course, Cammie Morgan (known as Chameleon because of her way of hiding in the shadows, blending in), her mother (also the headmistress of Gallagher), and Cammie’s friends and teachers. The problem is: there are barely any descriptions of them, nothing but names and dialogue. What little description there is creates vapid, unrealistic characters, anyway.

And then the writing itself…uh…? The writing was a self-centered (and spy-centered). Nearly all the words in the entire book (besides dialogue) are Cammie’s thoughts. Personally, I believe that good writing has descriptions about the surroundings and the characters. And it should actually tell you who’s speaking. Sadly, this book had none of the above.

What it did have, was an obtuse amount of parenthesis and inside these parenthesis, there were far too many cheesy afterthoughts to force the reader to remember—as if you’d forgotten—that you were reading a book about spies. For example:

‘She cut me a look that could kill (and will—just as soon as our head scientist, Dr. Fibs, perfects his looks-can-kill technology).’**

Eventually, though, comes a light at the end of the tunnel. Finally we were introduced to Zach, the first character to actually develop into someone with a past, a life—one that didn’t surround everything Cammie did—and strangely enough, he was supposed to be portrayed as the character Cammie knew nothing about.

As the book continues, the writing gets a little better, the plot becomes bearable, and the dialogue more believable.

I give Ally Carter’s Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy just 3 cups of coffee (hazelnut at that, because some people like it, but it’s just not my flavor).

Heather

* maybe that’s why the character development wasn’t there for me, so please excuse that if you thought it was good.

** this was one of the worst throughout the book, not only because it was a terrible play on a popular figure of speech, but also because Ally Carter couldn’t be creative enough to come up with a better name than ‘looks-can-kill technology’???

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

2008-07-02T19:01:00.004-04:00

So my first author infatuation (other than the amazing JK Rowling*) came about some time last December when Caroline and I started discussing one Sarah Dessen’s books and I said I’d like to read it (more specifically This Lullaby**). Jessica, a friend and fellow book-lover jumped in the conversation and said “Oh! I have that book! You want to borrow it?” And, of course, I said yes. So I borrowed This Lullaby. Then, one random day during winter break, Jess walks into my room carrying about five books, three of which are Sarah Dessen books. She just sets them on my bed and says “Here are some more books.” So there’s where the infatuation began. It flooded into January, ran into February, flew into March, and ended up in April for the release of Sarah Dessen’s newest book Lock and Key. Admittedly, this is June, and I read the book over a month ago, but you should be happy this review came at all.

Ask twenty different people the definition of family, and you’ll get twenty different answers. Ruby’s definition of family is slightly askew, and when she’s assigned a project in a new school where she has to find the meaning of family, she discovers that it’s not just you relatives. It’s not just your siblings and parents.

“Ruby, where is your mother?”

Ruby knows that the game is up. For the past few months, she’s been on her own in the yellow house, managing somehow. She knows that her mother has left, and that there’s no guarantee of her coming back. Ever. But she’s still living there on her own, fending for herself.

Until the landlords stop by and find her living in a mess of a house, with dishes piled in the sink, clothes hanging in the kitchen to dry, and drugs left on the living room table.

That’s how she comes to live with Cora, the sister she hasn’t seen in ten years, and Cora’s husband Jamie, whose down-to-earth demeanor makes it hard for Ruby to believe he founded the most popular networking Web site around. Going from dirt-poor, delivering lost luggage as a job, and living in a run down house to living in a rich and luxurious neighborhood, going to a new private school, not having to work at all when your brother-in-law gives you hundreds of dollars a week for spending money, and having a huge bedroom to yourself (with its own bathroom) is a major change. Especially for Ruby who has never been able to experience something like this. Even if it is a dream come true.

But after not having contact with her sister for ten years, it’s weird living with her again. And now she has a new neighbor, Nate, who may just have as many problems as Ruby does. But as soon as she learns to help him out, he’s not willing to accept it. Somehow, in this new world so far from the one she knows, Ruby makes new friends and understands the meaning of family.

After finishing this book, I sat down and thought about all the characters. Ruby is strong and defiant. Nate is kind, funny, and complicated. Jamie is hilarious and sweet. Cora is tough and caring. But each of these characters is real. Every single one of them has a past, a present, and a future. They have stories, emotions, and their own thoughts. I’m a character girl, and Sarah Dessen never fails to satisfy in that department.

Ruby’s story is both tough and wonderful. She goes through hardships before coming to live with Cora that many people couldn’t even imagine, and even once she gets there, to that world of luxury, she has difficult obstacles to face. She may just relapse and end up back in her old habit of drinking and drugs, she may just fall for the boy next door, or she may wind up going to college—something she never thought would happen. Her struggle is depicted very well as the story stretches over almost an entire school year.

This is yet another great book of Sarah Dessen’s. Not my favorite, but it comes in a close fourth. I give it 4.5 cups of delicious coffee.

Heather

* she may be amazing, but we still want Alan back!
** The best of the eight
*** It’s very weird, but it’s like Sarah Dessen knows me. She put a character in Lock and Key name Heather who is strangely like me. She likes coffee, she’s a good student, and she’s blonde. It’s very odd…hmm…

Wrapping it up

2008-06-28T20:05:00.006-04:00

The following are all the books we reviewed for our Hiatus Tour (in no particular order):

You may have noticed there are only six. This is because we are slack, and were a bit unorganized with the creating of the contest. There was an issue with getting out the review to Book~Adorer This brings me to my next point: Aella (the Maelstrom) was right in saying that there was a glitch with the process or something and she didn't get the hint or phrase or whatever. So scratch number four on the ways to gain entries into the contest.

Also, we've decided what the prize will be if you win (we still have to count all the entries and draw the winner, but that will be done within the next few days). The prize is a copy of How To Be Bad by E. Lockhart, Lauren Myracle, and Sarah Mylnowski, which was the last book we reviewed for the Hiatus Tour.

If you've already read this book or own it, you can just send an email to plentyofpaper234@aol.com with the subject line How To Be Bad and let us know that you would like for your entries to not count. If you still want a copy of the book (even if you have read it or own it), the email isn't necessary.

Thanks for you patience with this contest, all of you.

Heather

Update on Hiatus Tour!!!!!

2008-06-19T12:12:00.003-04:00

Hey, guys. We're having issues with email and stuff so there was no post on the 17th, unfortunately. We'll try to have it up when we get back, though.

We'll just forget the clue that leads to today's post and go ahead and tell you who it is.

The post for today, Thursday the 19th can be found at The Page Flipper.

Sorry for the problems, hopefully everything will work out fine, but if you're one of the reviewers and there's something your missing, contact us on myspace, please. I'm pretty sure we're friends with all of you.

Heather

Hiatus Tour (and contest)

2008-06-13T19:33:00.006-04:00

Hey guys! It's our first contest! yay!

So here's the basic idea:

Both Caroline and I will be leaving on Sunday to go to a creative writing program for two weeks, which means we won't be here. But don't worry! We're going to be doing a fun special feature/contest called the Hiatus Tour. (Thanks Chelsea for unawarely helping us name this!)

During this tour, we will have a review every other day at different locations around the blogging community--that means seven reviews and seven locations. The days of posting will be the 15th, 17th, 19th, 21st, 23rd, 25th, and 27th.

Maybe your asking yourself right now, "But what makes this fun?" Well I'm answering you by saying that we aren't going to tell you where these reviews will be. The only way you'll be able to find them is if you follow the clues at the end of each post that leads to the next location. Got it? Good, here are the rules for entering the contest:

1) You must comment on the post (1 entry).
2) To gain a second entry you can copy/paste the clue from the previous review in the comment. For example: If you read the post on the 17th and followed that clue to the next location on the 19th, you would put the clue from the 17th in your comment on the 19th post. (I realize this is a bit confusing so if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments or send an email to plentyofpaper234@aol.com and we'll try to answer them before we leave)
3) These methods of obtaining entries can be used on all 7 posts in all 7 locations, for a total of 14 entries in the end.
4) At the end of the last post (on the 27th) instead of a clue, there will be a phrase. The first person to copy/paste that phrase into a comment on this post will get an extra two entries.

Note to review hosts: You guys will automatically get two entries since you won't be eligible for comment on your own post or on the next person's post.

The prize for the winner has not yet been decided, but it will be a book and some bookmarks--we're just not sure which book yet, so go ahead an enter. The day we get back we will announce what the winning prize will be and if you already have it and would like to opt out of the drawing, just let us know and we'll take out your entries.

You guys got it? Okay, then. Get started! Here's the first clue:

mysterious, without a name is she,
she provides us with YA updates weekly,
her multi-tasking blog is sure to be fun,
her lair is location number one.

Heather

p.s. Sorry about the cheesy rhyming hints, but it's the best we could do at the last minute *shrug*
p.p.s. Another note to review hosts, if we haven't sent you your review, please email us. We're pretty sure of the ones we haven't gotten sent out, but we want to make sure. Also, the day you're hosting is a secret--even the fact that you are hosting is a sekrit, so don't let anyone know!

Updates

2008-06-10T11:29:00.003-04:00

Sorry about the lack of reviews of the late, but we're trying to get a special feature set up for the next two weeks when we'll both be off to a summer program. (A post about that on Friday! It's really exciting!).

But right now, you can check out thepageflipper.com where Chelsea's back to having Monthly Contests instead of Fun Fridays.

And there are a few new contests in the sidebar <--, one of which is a contest to win a book by Tina Ferraro over at Words Speak Volumes so check that out.

The Story Siren is out of town (In Disney World!!! Fun!) so there won't be any reviews by her for the next couple of days, but the Author Tales is still on for Thursday as Regina Scott stops by. Also, you should go to her blog to read the post on all this so you can be filled in on an a contest that is soon to come from her. (Also, she now has a domain, thestorysiren.com)

So that's it for now,
Heather

Belated Birthday Wishes!

2008-06-07T16:23:00.013-04:00

We'd like to send out a Happy Birthday wish to a favorite author, Sarah Dessen, who's birthday was yesterday. Despite repeatedly saying we were going to do this post yesterday, apparantly both of us forgot. But here it is, just a day late. Here are Sarah Dessen's novels:

You can go to her LJ at writergrl.livejournal.com
Her website at sarahdessen.com
Or her myspace at myspace.com/sarahdessen

Go wish her a Happy Belated Birthday!!!!!

Frenemies, by Alexa Young: A review in which Caroline regrets her nasty habit of being honest.

2008-06-05T13:57:00.003-04:00

The rule, to be techinical, is that you should never judge a book by it's cover. And you know, if you take that phrase the way you're supposed to, figuratively, it works. Because people aren't always what they look like, and that is what the mysterious they* meant when they started saying that. But when it comes to actual, literal book... a lot of the time, the cover happens to be right. Frenemies, sadly, is an example of this.

If you haven't already read any of the reviews about this book (doubtful), here's the story: Halley and Avalon** have been best friends and fashion mavens ever since they were wearing [insert impressive name here] onesies and spitting up together***. They're inseperable. In fact, as will become clear later on in the book, they are more or less each other's only friends. (But they're popular. They're the most popular girls in school. They're just each other's only friends.) But it all changes when Halley returns from art camp and- eh. ma. gawd. Suddenly, Halley is wearing clothes that (while still being expensive and label-whorific) are the tiniest bit less pretentious than the things that she and Avalon would normally choose. And then, there's the fact that Avalon's chest grew (to a slightly larger A-cup) and Halley keeps making snarky comments about it. And-now- here's the real deal breaker- Halley has a crush on a boy.

Um, hello? Doesn't she know that they've all got cooties?

Soon, Halvalon is no more. They're at war. They're insulting each other, making fun! They're suggesting that there may have actually been something wrong with their friendship in the first place! There is mocking going on, and I'm not talking about the mocking being done by Caroline while reading and trying not to slam her head against the wall. I'm serious! It's like they're both Ben Afflect in this one!**** Although, shockingly enough, none of their greivences are related to being incesscantly referred to as Halvalon. Because, honestly, that would be my first complaint. Halvalon is worst than Brangelina or Tomkat or even Dramione!*****

I don't think I have to tell you that I didn't like this book.

And, before you start with me, it has nothing to do with the fashion name-dropping. I actually have no major issue with fashion name-dropping. In fact, I went through this whole phase once where I was obsessed with it. In that terrifying six month period, I probably read more books about popular rich kids than most popular rich kids will read anything in their lifetime. I even went as far as trying to write my own popular rich kid book. (There was a boarding school involved.) I'm not even joking. I spent an hour a day on the Bergdorf Goodman website. ******

I've read The Clique, Gossip Girl, and It Girl novels- and while I have very few great things to say about any of them, I liked them all better than Frenemies.

I'm not going to go into all of the issues that I had with this book, though I will say that I had issues with almost every facet of it. I will touch on my biggest problem, though, which was the relationship between Halley and Avalon.

I think the reason I hated it so much was that I know what it's like to have that one best friend who knows everything about you, who you've been friends with basically all your life. I know what it's like when that person is the only real friend you have. And it's not suddenly hating each other because of wardrobe choices. I read in one review that this book was unlike anything that Poppy publishes because of Halley and Avalon's friendship, and how deep it runs, and I can't help but laugh at that. Because, like I said, I have read Gossip Girl- and even Blair and Serena, the biggest frenemies of them all, have pretty damn good reasons for ending their lifelong friendship. They do not include new clothes or boob jokes.

There was no backstory about their friendship, either. I mean, if they've been friends all their lives, you'd think that they'd at least have a few fond memories to struggle with. The story starts where the book starts, and it ends when it stops. (Only not, because there will be a sequel.)

On a slightly graver note: I really am sorry to give this book a bad review, because it was so nice of the author to send it to us. And I really wanted to like it. I was all prepared to say that Alexa Young was a super-awesome-amazing writer with an unfortunate publicist. She probably is a super-awesome-amazing writer with an unfortunate storyline. The writing itself wasn't bad. But, as mentioned in the title, I'm dedicated to being honest. And we must be prepared to sacrifice things for our principals. Like, for instance, the luxury of not having people cyber-attack you. (If you do want to cyber-attack somebody, really, I want you to know that I'm actually Heather, pulling an Avalon so that Caroline will be the one punished for the bad review. I just feel to guilty to go through with it.)

1 cup of coffee for Frenemies.

WORD TO YOUR BOOKSHELF*******
Caroline********

* The They that make up all of the cliches. I've always been curious about the They. There have been many rants inspired by They. Especially becasue thinking about They angers me, since it inevetiably leads to getting this really cheesy Hilary Duff song from the Cinderella Story soundtrack I bought when I was eleven stuck in my head.
** Her name was my favorite part of this book. I don't mean this as an insult. I'm saying it seriusly. If everything else was wrong, as it often was, I remembered how much I love the name Avalon and how awesome and creative it is.
***Do babies who wear designer onesies still spit up like normal mortal babies.
****If you don't know waht I'm talking about... where were you in 2004? Clearly, not in the grocery store.
*****Sorry. Had to throw in a Harry Potter dork name. All the celebrity was starting to nauseate me. Of course,the idea of Hermione and Malfoy nauseates me as well, but differently.
******That's my atonement for writing this mean review. Writing something really embarrassing about myself. If you want to read more embarrassing things abou me, check out Steph's contest for How Not To Be Popular. My comment will provide you with ten years of embarrassing stories. (Yes, that is literal.)
*******For those of you who have read Frenemies: What did that mean???
********Or maybe Heather. You never know...

PS: If MJFAN or anyone similarily minded still lurks around, I included the asterixes because there were way too many parenthesis to begin with, and I am html challengd and I have no clue how to do actual footnotes. I am in no way trying to "rip off Maureen Johnson" by using an asterix. Trust me.

Author MeMe! (we just can't get enough, can we?)

2008-06-03T17:32:00.005-04:00

So, once again, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do another MeMe. And since it's book-related like the last one, I don't feel too bad putting it up here. (that and we were tagged three times, so I felt obligated).

We/I/Whoever you want it to be were/was tagged by Ambeen (The Ravenous Reader), Jordyn (a new discovery! Man I love meeting new people! haha), and Hope.

Here are the rules (well, they're more like boundaries than actual rules): Link to the person that tagged you (check!), post the rules somewhere in your meme (that's what I'm doing here!), answer the questions (I'm getting to it!), tag six people in your post (picked them already), let the tagees know they’ve been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog (will do), let the tagger know your entry is posted (if I must...).

**********

1. Who’s your all-time favorite author, and why?

Well, that's actually a very difficult question, because I like different authors for different reasons. JK Rowling is an obvious choice because of how she created an entire world from her own mind, with names of creatures, places, and characters that fit perfectly. Maureen Johnson because along with extravagant books such as The Bermudez Triangle and Suite Scarlett (my two favorites), she writes an astoundingly hilarious blog--and that is a very good quality, my dears, that I feel I must attribute to Libba Bray as well. Which reminds me, I enjoy her work because it's written incredibly well, with characters, descriptions, and dialogue that feel real, familiar, and perfectly flawed (that's an oxymoron for you!). Last, I feel I must mention John Green, who has the qualities of both the last two (a funny blog, incredible writing), and he has a brother named Hank (who the eff is Hank?) with which he creates the most fascinating and hilarious videos I've ever seen on youtube. Plus, he is the creator and god of Nerdfighters.

Long-winded enough for you?

2. Who was your first favorite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favorites?

I think my first favorite author was either Roald Dahl, or JK Rowling. I can't be positive, because I've been reading since I was 2 and...a half? Three quarters? Something like that, and can't pinpoint every amazing children's author out there. But as a child, I did completely envelope myself into books like Matilda, Witches, and The BFG, all of which I still believe I own today...somewhere...*goes off to search for them* Well, those, and the Harry Potter series which I didn't start until sometime after the third had already come out, but I remember as being the first time I'd decide 'Hey, here's a great series, here's a great author, here's some of the best written work I've ever read.' So, yes, one of them I still do consider among my favorites. (Don't worry Roald, I still love you, but I don't read you anymore, not really).

3. Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favorite authors, and why?

Most recent is probably either R. A. Nelson, or John Green. I just began my infatuation with John and his books in January, after reading Looking For Alaska and discovery Brotherhood 2.0, so I guess he's the most recent as far as when I first read his books. I first read an R. A. Nelson book (Breathe My Name) in November, I think, so I guess that means he comes before John Green, but I didn't decide he was one of my favorites until I just recently (as in about two or three weeks ago) read Teach Me, so that makes him after John Green, too. They're tied. That's my final decision.

4. If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?

JK Rowling
Sarah Dessen
Maureen Johnson
John Green
R. A. Nelson
Lemony Snicket
Libba Bray
Jodi Picoult

upon further reflection (my, that mirror is shiny!):

James Patterson
Catherine Ryan Hyde (not sure, because I've only read one of hers, but it was amazing)
Stephenie Meyer
Sara Shepard
E. Lockhart
Elizabeth Scott (just after one, I'm hooked)

So now for the tagging part of this mission...
uno: Tasha (And Another Book Read)
dos: Steph (Reviewer X)
tres: Aella
cuatro: The Opinioned Reader
cinco: Teen Troves
seis: Sam (Words Speak Volumes)

That was really difficult, because everyone's done it already!

So now, I shall commence in the last two parts of the rules.

Heather

EDIT: Reviewer X is having a contest for How NOT to Be Popular!!! Check it out!

M or F?-- Lisa Papademetriou and Chris Tebbetts

2008-06-02T16:11:00.003-04:00

The issue of book reccomendations is a very tricky one indeed. I mean, we book reviewers do our best to steer readers in the right direction, but good for me isn't always good for other people, and vise-versa. I'm currently reading a book that comes very highly reccomended by the blog-reviewing community, but which makes me want to re-enact the Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets diary-killing scene. Because I do think that it's entirely plausible that this book is posessed with the spirit of Lord Voldemort. But anyway. That's not today's review and that's not the point, either. The point is that a recommendation can sometimes be really helpful and great, but can sometimes not mean much at all.

Sadly, this proved true in the case of M or F? by Chris Tebbetts and Lisa Papademetriou. My friend Allison told me to read this book several months ago, and I got about halfway through before losing interest and getting better books to read. She reminded me about it last week, so I picked it back up... and soon felt the need to put it back down again.

M or F? is the tale of Marcus and Frannie, best friends and brain twins, looking for love. Between Frannie's terrible taste and Marcus's lack of oppertunity, neither of them have any boyfriend prospects. Until, that is, Frannie admits to her crush on Jeffery Osbourne, who is the perfect guy for her.

Or, perhaps, for Marcus??

When Frannie is too shy to talk to Jeffery on her own in the school's on-line chat room, she lets Marcus take the reins. He tells her what to say to Jeffery, and soon she has a date with him, which leads to several dates, which leads to a maybe-kind-of relationship. Things are going great- so why hasn't he tried to kiss her yet?

But while Frannie and Jeffery are bonding in real life, Marcus and Jeffery are connecting on-line: and Marcus continues to opperate under the alias of Frannie. At first, Marcus is only interested in helping his friend, so it doesn't really matter- after all, Frannie and Marcus are brain twins. But there is the tricky little detail of Frannie not knowing about any of it. And the more Marcus talks to Jeffery, the closer he feels to him.

Add a few slightly questionable habits on Jeffery's part, and soon Frannie and Marcus are both wondering: what's his preference? M or F?

Whatever the answer, it will test their friendship- and maybe even end it for good.

Now, you know, that isn't such a bad concept. It's a decent idea, and this book had potential. It could have been cute, fun, entertaining. It is, to some extent. M or F? does not have the makings of a great work of literature, but it does sound enjoyable.

Only, for me, it wasn't.

The whole book was kind of trying-too-hard. Frannie and Marcus are believable enough characters, but the conversation was stilted. It seemed fake and shallow and somehow off, for two people who are best friends. It's obvious that the authors were trying to be clever- and it wasn't really working. There were many stabs at both situational and verbal irony (M or F?) and all of them were so contrived. The characterization itself was kind of spotty as well- Frannie is too shy to talk to Jeffery in a chat room, but has no problem flirting with him face-to-face? Marcus won't talk to someone he thinks is cute, and Frannie is the one who isn't outgoing? Almost every characteristic and detail seemed like a plot device, so I guess it's not surprising that my biggest issue with this book was the plot.

The ending of M or F? is referred to as a 'twist' and is clearly meant to be surprising- but I had it figured out before I reached the end. Before I reached the middle. And I am terrible at predicting the end of books. This one, however, was impossible not to solve.

M or F? isn't a great book, but it could certainly be worse. Sadly, the two books that I'm reading now are worse. Both of them. I'm on a bad-book roll, so expect some scathing reviews in the near future.

I would not suggest that you put M or F? at the top of your TBR pile, but you shouldn't neccessarily throw it away either. If you're looking for something kind of similar(but better), I'll give you a reccomendation of my own: Pretty Things, by Sara Manning.

Two Frappichinos for this one!

In need of better books to read,

Caroline

it's a new month

2008-06-01T14:10:00.002-04:00

So May is finally over. That means a new poll and new music.

The winner of May's poll is...(not that this comes as a surprise to any of you, but) Bookmarkers! Those who bookmark won with an overwhelming 52% and 42 votes. Congrats! (you are the better people, lol). I myself am a bookmarker. I can't stand when people dog-ear my books. It's just awful, but I do have to give credit to those that do dog-ear for coming in second place with 25% of the votes. 20 people voted dog-ear, one of them, obviously, being Caroline/totally unbiased civilian. And those smarty-pants page-memorizers came in third with 18 votes and only 22%. Sorry, guys.

But now we get to have a new poll! Exciting! It will be up soon...just as soon as we actually think of one. If you have any suggestions, leave them in comments and we may use them for later months.

Also, the three songs from May (Frame by Frame by The Honorary Title, We Can Be Heroes by The Wallflowers, and One Week by Barenaked Ladies) are done with. The new songs for June are Money Honey by State of Shock, Dance Hall Drug by BoysLikeGirls, and Keep Your Hands Off My Girl by Good Charlotte. (the second two are in preperation for a concert with BoysLikeGirls, Good Charlotte, Metro Station, and The Maine that we're going to in August, the first is a song we were recently introduced to by our friend Allison).

So there you go, the month of June.

Also, The Page Flipper is officially opening her website (thepageflipper.com). Go on over for tons of exciting contests, reviews, interviews (I forget exactly what, but lots of awesome stuff). New contests and things will likewise begin on other blogs, so right now, the contest information in the sidebar<-- will be blank (exculding Rachel Caine's contest which ends in a few days, hurry and enter!).

Yours,
Heather

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart

2008-05-27T19:19:00.003-04:00

A year ago, Frankie Landau-Banks was her father's bunny rabbit. Sweet. Unassuming. Mildly dorky. She was a debate team member; regarded by the fellow students of Alabaster Prep as Zada's little sister. She went relatively unnoticed- and she was okay with that.

But in the summer before her sophmore year, Frankie goes from slight and gawky to majorly devleloped- and even more majorly overprotected than before. Of one thing Frankie is certain: she is sick of being her daddy's bunny rabbit.

When the newly sexy Frankie returns to school for the year, it is no surprise that the boys (namely her adorable, hilarious, word-obsessed crush, Matthew Livingston) take note of her new appearence. Several run-ins and a secret golf-course party later, Frankie Landau-Banks is the Girlfriend of Matthew, and suddenly privy to a fascinating realm of boy interaction. She adores Matthew, and Matthew adores her, and Matthew has wonderfully entertaining friends who seem to like her as well. Which is why, when Matthew starts lying to her (and not doing a very good job of it), Frankie is first, confused. And second, angry. Suddenly, all Frankie's hearing is no.

Can she keep her date with Matthew if his friends call five minutes before?
No.

Can she touch the silly basset hound statue in his dorm room.

No.

Can she join the illustrious secret society of which Matthew is King and with which Frankie has quickly become obsessed?
No.

But Frankie Landau-Banks is not your typical YA heroine, and she is not taking no for an answer.

Instead, Frankie will infiltrate the Loyal Order of the Basset Hound. She'll get through from the outside, and under her clever manipulation, the Loyal Order's pranks are better than ever before. Surely, when Matthew sees that, he'll realize that she's more than just a silly girlfriend. Surely, they'll let her join after that.

Or, you know, not.

I know that every book and every review claims to have a different sort of lead character. There are certain traits that are very popular in YA fiction- probably in fiction of any sort- that are listed in the book's opening pages, but are not always demonstrated. Intelligence, for instance, is one of these qualities. Every heroine these days is shrewd, observant, clever.

Frankie is one of the few who has full right to all of those things. It's less of an issue of her mental capacity, though, and more of what she does with her mind. Frankie has a driving force behind her intelligence, and she uses her wit to get what she wants. She is practical, she is clever. She understands what she needs to do to achieve the things that she is after. Frankie pulls off expertly imagined and executed pranks, finds something that generations of impassioned boys have been searching for. This is all because she knows what she wants, and she is going to get it. There is definately something to be said for her reasoning behind her relationship with Matthew- she loves him, but she isn't willing to sacrifice her wants and needs to be the cute girlfriend who is never any trouble. She refuses to be the cute girlfriend, however cute she may be.

On the topic of being cute, the Basset Hounds themselves were fascinating- both the history of the society and the current members. The book was full of information about secret societies that never became bothersome or boring; E. Lockhart included anecdotes related to several real-life societies as well as the Basset Hounds. The interaction between Matthew and Alpha was endlessly amusing; they had a cunning, snappy, peculiar way of talking to each other, a specialized dialogue that only results from years of being best friends (or, you know, really fabulous writing on E. Lockhart's part). Matthew himself was not greatly appealing to me- I liked the idea of him, but he came off as very condescending, which was bad. I ended up being much more a fan of Alpha's.

The narrarator was very interesting in that he/she seemed to be somehow linked to the story. It's impossible to tell where exactly he/she fits in, but bits of first-person and chapters dedictated to the neglected positive gave the novel a bit of a Lemony Snicket*-esque feel, which was awesome.

What I perhaps loved most about the novel was it's views and approaches on gender discrimination. The things that Frankie does with the Loyal Order are not merely pranks; they are political statements for feminisim, which is a topic that has been vastly ignored in the novels that I have read recently. Frankie is not your stereotypical feminist: she is girly and attractive, she has crushes on boys and she wears cute clothes and reads In Touch. But one of the major points of the novel, I think, is that these qualities do not make you less important, less intelligent, less worthy of equal regard. Frankie fights for this idea. And Frankie, readers will quickly learn, is quite the force to be reckoned with.

Five cups of coffee with as much sugar as you want, because that just makes it better:

Caroline

*For the ignorant: A Series of Unfortunate Events

PS: Snappy enough for you, Steph? :)

MeMe TiMe

2008-05-25T12:54:00.004-04:00

All right, then. Here comes more MEME-age. The book meme, for starters, which I was tagged for by Abby O. If you read the blog regularly and are thinking... woah... DeJa Vu!... think again. Heather did it a few weeks ago and now it is my turn.

The Rules, in case you do not know them, are as follows:
Pick up the book closest to you.
Turn to page 123.
Find sentence number five.
Post sentences numbers five, six, and seven.
Tag.

The book closest to me is My Friend Leonard, by James Frey. Actually, that is a lie. Kind of. It is the book closest to me now, because it's in my lap, but when I decided to post the Meme, the closest book to me was my mother's Joyce Meyer book. So I went for the book closest to the door of my bedroom.

Without having ordered, coffee arrives. I take a sip, it's hot, strong. I
feel it immediately, my heart starts racing.
Time for the serious talk, my son.
I haven't started reading this book yet, but I'm going to today. It is a
memoir about the author's post-imprisonment experiences with his best friend, a mafia member named Leonard. It looks very interesting, and I do like sentences five, six, and seven of page 123.
My second order of business is to inform you of something that you may have already noticed. We have a lot of books on our to-be-reviewed icon. And the sad thing is that those are not the only books that I have read and am
planning
to review. So, I'm going to give you a list of books that I
have
read and am planning to review, and I am going to request that
you leave a comment, telling me which book you would most like
to read a review about
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Lock and Key, Sarah Dessen
The Key to the Golden Firebird, Maureen Johnson
Suite Scarlett, Maureen Johnson
Blue Bloods/Masquerade, Melissa De la Cruz
Impulse, Ellen Hopkins
Sandpiper, Ellen Wittlinger
The Dispreputable History of Frankie Landeau-Banks, E. Lockhart
How To Be Bad, E. Lockhart, Lauren Myracle, Sarah
Mlynowski
That's all that I can recall at the moment, but I've read most of the ones that hang out in the sidebar, fighting for attention.
You're it.
Caroline

Interview with Catherine Ryan Hyde

2008-05-19T19:15:00.020-04:00

Hey readers! This is our first interview!!! Yay! We're definitely excited about this. Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of Chasing Windmills, (see the review below) among many, many others (just wait until question #12 for the full list). Since we've recently read that one, we'll start off with some questions concerning that:

1) In Chasing Windmills Maria gives Sebastian the nickname Tony and continues to call him that for the rest of the book. Which do you call him: Tony or Sebastian?

I call him Sebastian. Because I think the "Tony era" had a sense of unreality about it. When two people fall in love, especially when they do it suddenly, they tend to try to remake each other. In the end, I think he continues to be sebastian.

2) When you came up with the idea for Chasing Windmills did you know you were going to connect it so much to West Side Story? Or was the story an idea first and then you added that piece in?

Neither, I think. I didn't have it in mind in advance. But I didn't purposely find a place for it. The story just seemed to develop in that direction.

3) Which do you prefer: Romeo and Juliet or West Side Story?

I'm not a big Shakespeare fan. He's a bit obtuse for me. West Side story I can at least understand, since I was alive during that era.

4) Who is your favorite character in Chasing Windmills?

I'd have a hard time deciding between Sebastian and Maria. I think Sebastian would be an easier person to know in real life. But my heart goes out equally to both of them. Also, I'd love to meet Delilah in real life if such a thing were possible.

Now--since some of you haven't read Chasing Windmills (you definitely should)--there are some general questions:

5) Do you prefer to type or handwrite the first draft?

I always work on a computer. At all phases.

6) Do you use a system of organizing the books on your bookshelf? What is it?

Organization? What's that?

7) If you could team up to write a book with anyone, who would it be?

Maybe Kurt Vonnegut, if it weren't already too late.

8) When did you first realize that you wanted to write?

My sophomore year of High School. Thank you Mr. Horowitz.

9) Where is your favorite place to write?

In my studio, overlooking the coast.

10) Is there one book in the world that you wish you had written? What is it?

There are many. I guess Flowers for Algernon might top the list.

11) What's your answer to our May poll? Bookmark, dog-ear, or memorize the page number?

Definitely bookmark! It drives me crazy to watch people dog-ear pages of a book on purpose.

And last is the best question ever:

12) What is your favorite question to be asked during an interview? What would be your answer?

I like to be asked about the total body of my work. So many people know about Pay It Forward and maybe one or two others. I like a chance to say that I have ten published books (and one fothcoming as of this writing). They are: Funerals for Horses (adult), Earthquake Weather (story collection), Pay It Forward, Electric God (adult), Walter's Purple Heart (adult), Becoming Chloe (YA but strong adult crossover), Love in the Present Tense (adult), The Year of my Miraculous Reappearance (YA), Chasing Windmills (adult but strong YA cross-over), and The Day I Killed James (YA but suitable for grownups). Forthcoming is the YA novel Diary of a Witness.

Thanks again to Catherine Ryan Hyde for providing us with our first interview! It was a lot of fun! And thanks to all of you out there reading this.

♥Heather and Caroline

(p.s. Add Catherine on myspace here)

The Year of Secret Assignments, Jacyln Moriarty

2008-05-18T12:51:00.003-04:00

The Brookfield/Ashbury penfriend project has long been a source of woe and misery for the students of both schools. Last year, in fact, as Lydia Jaackson-Oberman writes in her Notebook, last year, many students ended up dead(or, at least, very unhappy). Lydia, Cassie, and Emily are best friends and Ashbury girls with lawyer parents, and none of them have any interest in writing to the sure-to-be druggies, muderers, and theives of Brookfield.

Reluctantly, each of the three girls write their first letters and mail them off, each in their own styles- Emily in a girly babble that doesn't speak wonders for her intelligent, Cassie as a project set by her counselor to tell her 'life story' to a stranger, and Lydia, claiming to be a fish and proposing a drug-trafficking scheme.

Against all odds, their new male penfriends manage to surprise them as well. Charlie Taylor scrutinizes Emily's misuse of words and idiotic-sounding prose, Seb Mantegna begs Lydia to earn his trust by setting off the fire alarms at Brookfield, and Matthew Dunlop sends Cassie a... death threat.

Desptie these rough beginnings, the penfriends begin to connect, and somehow, remarkably enough, fall in love.

Or so it seems.

But Matthew Dunlop has a nasty surprise for Cassie, and his betrayal sets Lydia, Emily, Seb, and Charlie on a mission for revenge. Chaos, kissing, assignments, and some seriously excellent writing ensues.

The Year of Secret Assignments is written entirely in penfriend letters, emails, Notebook entries, and, of course, Lydia's Secret Assignments. I immensely enjoyed the similar format in another book by Jaclyn Moriarty(The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie) so I was excited to see it again, and I loved it even more this time.

Each of the characters had a unique personality with complicated problems; and yet each was extremely original. Cassie, Emily and Lydia are the sort of friends that everyone wants to have, the group of girls who adore each other unconditionally. They are quirky, fun, needy, supportive, sweet, cynical, and a whole variety of other wonderful contradictions. Because of the format, the story is fast-paced. A little too fast paced, because it flew by and was over much, much, much sooner than I wanted it to be. I was miserable to see it go. But fast-pacedness is a good thing, technically.

The only thing that I didn't like about The Year of Secret Assignments was how... matchy everything was. If Lydia and Seb were flirting and falling in love, than Charlie and Emily were falling in love; if Charlie and Emily weren't talking, Lydia and Sebastian would fight. Not because their friends were fighting. They just happened to argue at the exact same time. It struck me as an odd and somewhat lazy move on the author's part. That aspect just didn't feel very realistic to me.

However, that's not too likely to bother anyone who isn't me and therefore insane, and it doesn't take too much away from the supreme gloriousness that is The Year of Secret Assignments. Though a somewhat light, funny book, it managed to be touching and poignant at the same time, and I loved that about it. I would recommend this book heavily to anyone, and I'm dying to read more by Jaclyn Moriarty. Btw, I read somewhere that she has a blog, but I cannot find it. Does anybody happen to read it or have the URL? If so, please leave it in a comment.

In love with Charlie, Seb, and Aussie slang,
Caroline

PS: DOG-EARERS UNITE! WE HAVE ONLY TEN SHORT DAYS, AND WHILE WE HAVE LITTLE HOPE IN TAKING DOWN THOSE NASTY BOOK-MARKERS, WE CANNOT BE DEFEATED BY THE SMARTY-PANTS PAGE MEMORIZERS. CAST YOUR VOTE TODAY.
It's an affectionate gesture, gosh darnit.

Chasing Windmills by Catherine Ryan Hyde

2008-05-05T19:17:00.007-04:00

Sebastian is 17 and isn't allowed to leave his house all because of an overprotective father. The only times he escapes are when he goes running (only allowed because of doctor's orders) and when he sneaks out in the middle of the night. Maria is 23, with two children and an abusive boyfriend who happens to be the father of the two children and the only boyfriend Maria's ever had. She's terrified of what he'd do to her if he found out she lost her job and isn't going to work those nights she leaves the house.

So when they meet on the subway during their secret nightly rides, they instantly get caught up in a romance that could either leave both of them with nothing--and possibly dead--or have them whisked away to something more, something sudden, something forbidden.

It's dangerous to plot, but one night Sebastion (aka Tony, courtesy of Maria) asks Maria to go away with him, run away to the Mojave desert where he recently found out his grandmother lives. To the windmills he so desperately misses and she so desperately longs for. Where they both can be safe and happy. Fearless.

But in a story known as a modern-day rendering of West Side Story, nothing can be perfect. They fight to get there, and when they do can they stay? Can they really start over and forget everything? Can they really build a new life on their love?

Chasing Windmills isn't West Side Story. It is--in my opinion--infinitely better than that, as classically told as the original, Romeo and Juliet. But one of the best elements about Chasing Windmills is the similarity to both of those stories; the ultimate tale of love and pain. It's an interesting evolution, especially as we come to the end: Romeo and Juliet leaves both lovers dead, West Side Story spares only Maria, and in Chasing Windmills, both survive- but love depends on more than just survival.

Catherine Ryan Hyde writes with raw, strong, realistic feeling. The writing captivated me immediatly, with it's graceful style and incredible word choice. The style is very characteristic of the inside of a teenager or 23-year-old's head. Short, incomplete sentences, contradicting thoughts, flaring emotions.The relationships in the story were fascinating: the bonds between Sebastian and his controlling father, Maria and her abusive boyfriend, as well as the less central relationships, like Sebastian and his friend Delilah's.The romance between Maria and Sebastion turned out to be the best fictional relationship I've yet to read about. The Bella/Edward romance is sweet because it's dangerous and forbidden, but the Tony/Maria romance is even more dangerous and forbidden--not to mention illegal--because it's real. It's happening. It could happen.

It's scary. It's well-told. It's perfect. In every sense of that impossible word, it's perfect.

Like I said, I'm getting a bit tired of the constant fives, but there is no way I can't give this amazing work of literature the full 5/5 cups of coffee. The new Folgers my sister brought home that enables me to drink coffee every Saturday and Sunday which I couldn't do before because all we had was hazelnut and I hate hazelnut.

♥Heather (with pieces and parts of Caroline)

btw, this is our first ever collaboration review where we actually incorporate both our reviews together. could you tell?

oh yeah, and there will be an interview with Catherine Ryan Hyde herself in a day or two. Look for it!

Perfect You--Elizabeth Scott

2008-05-05T18:05:00.005-04:00

I actually got this book so I could enter a contest. Don't get me wrong--I'd wanted to read it in the first place, but this contest was just more incentive to buy it at that particular time, that particular moment. So there I was in Book-a-Iillion, and I picked up this book (after searching for some time because for inexplicable reasons, I kept missing it). I'd liked the cover already, but seeing it in person was better. I turned the book over and read:

Kate Brown's life has gone downhill fast. Her father has quit his job to sell vitamins at the mall, and Kate is forced to work with him. Her best friend has become popular, and now she acts like Kate's invisible.

And then there's Will. Gorgeous, unattainable Will, whom Kate acts like she can't stand even though she can't stop thinking about him. When Will starts acting interested, Kate hates herself for wanting him when she's sure she's just his latest conquest.

Kate figures that the only way things will ever stop hurting so much is if she keeps to herself and stops caring about anyone or anything. What she doesn't realize is that while life may not always be perfect, good things can happen -- but only if she lets them....

Now, I must say, that's a pretty good summary, except for the terribly cheesy third paragraph that seems to be one every book...but I'd still like to elaborate.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Kate's dad doesn't just quit his job to sell vitamins, he quits because his desk broke in half. Steve Brown has a dream of selling Perfect You vitamins and when he walks into his office late one morning and his desk is broken, everything on it as well except for the single bottle of Perfect You, he decides it's time to go after that dream, leaving his family with financial issues.

Also, there's Anna, her ex-best friend who ignores Kate for no reason. That sucks. Especially because Kate is left with no one to talk to about her problems. But she does have somebody she seems to want to talk to:

Will. I think the second paragraph captures Will in a nutshell, except for a few vital opinions on him, which I'll gladly add--in just a second.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book--and Elizabeth Scott's style in itself. I felt connected to some of what was happening--even though I've never experienced any of it.

And I felt strongly about each character. With Will, those feelings were positively directed. His character was dynamic, witty, smart, and personal; he wasn't a distant crush or a brother or just a friend of a friend. He was always there. His actions were played out in the best ways, making him a bit confusing and entertaining but all the while you knew exactly who he was and what he was thinking. He was real and funny and undeniably awesome.

As for Kate, not so much. My thoughts about her were negative--with the exception of laughing at her and Will's witty banter. I thought she was selfish, whiny, masochistic, oblivious, a jerk, stupid, and egotistical. I absolutely hated her. All this horrible stuff was happening in her family and all she could think was that she wished Anna would talk to her (aww, poor Kate, her overly-ambitious friend won't talk to her anymore and that's more important than her family), that she hated Will but couldn't stop thinking about making out with him, that she had "the worst life ever."

It just annoyed me so much. so much that I'm giving this book--this book that I actually liked--only 3.5 cups of coffee--albeit delicious, strong coffee with two extra shots, caramel, cinnamon, and chocolate in it. I'm deducting the 1.5 just for how much I dislike Kate.

Not a remarkable novel, but definitely a worthy read.

having the sudden urge to eat tacos in the park and wishing the title had come from something better than the name of the pills,
♥Heather

p.s. there are so many post scripts that I'm not even going to bother with the multiple posts, I'm just going to number them:

1) Happy Birthday to Hank Green who turned 28 today!!!! Who coincidentally has the same birthday as
2) Scott Westerfeld who we are also wishing a Happy Birthday towards and
3) There will soon be a review of Chasing Windmills by Catherine Ryan Hyde plus
4) An author interview with the same so
5) Look out for those to come soon!

The Pact by Jodi Picoult

2008-05-04T12:51:00.003-04:00

The Golds and the Hartes have been like family for nearly eitheen years. Melanie and Michael Gold movied in next door to Gus (short for Augusta) and James Harte when each of the women were pregnant. Gus and Melanie nearly instantly became best friends, taking James and Michael along for the ride. Not long after, Chris Harte was born, and just six months after that came Emily Gold.

Within hours of her birth, she and Chris were sleeping in the same bassenet, holding hands.

Now, eitheen years later Emily is dead, Chris is in jail for killing her, and their parents don't agree on whether he's guilt or not. Melanie just knows Chris did it, Michael doesn't believe he could have, James appears to think his son killed Emily, and as much as Gus doesn't want to believe that Chris was suicidal--that would mean believing his story of a suicide pact--she knows he's not guilty. Who is right? Is Chris lying when he says they were both suicidal? Did he really kill the love of his life? Or did something else happen?

As is with all Jodi Picoult books, The Pact was sad, beautiful, and completely wonderful. There wasn't a moment where I wasn't trying to figure it all out--wanting to trust Chris the whole time. And also as is with Jodi Picoult books, it involved flashbacks and the judicial system.

Each and every flashback was perfect, revealing just a little piece of the characters until they were whole human being with feeling and reactions and pain. In Part I: The Boy Next Door, you got to know Chris Harte and what he went through as a child. You learn how he went from being inseperable friends with Emily to being something more than that. In Part II: The Girl Next Door, you learn all about Emily's pain. You get to see a part of her that is contradictory and sad, but still undeniably gorgeous. In the very last part The Truth, you find out what really happened that night, and it's a great story.

After finishing this book, I don't think I could have shed another tear. I was indifferent as I read the last word because I don't think I had enough sadness in me after letting it all out. This is a heartbreaking, melancholy book that I suggest you read--there are happy parts to it, and funny parts, and parts that will make you smile just thinking about how sweet Emily and Chris' relationship is. There will be no book to make you think like a Jodi Picoult novel can.

I give this 5/5 cups of cheerful steaming coffee on a dismal, dreary, gray day.

♥Heather

p.s. I'm starting to think that their last names were Harte and Gold because each and every character had a heart of gold (except, maybe Melanie, but that's just becuase she was kind of a jerk to Gus)

the boyfriend list- e. lockhart

2008-05-03T09:38:00.003-04:00

So picture this:
Me. Sitting on the floor at Books-a-Million (YA section, more sprawled across the floor than actually sitting upright)... laughing hysterically.

This is not, "oh, that's so funny," laughter. This was crazy laughter. Doubled over laughter. Way past reasonable limits on laugh amount allotted for girl sitting all alone anywhere, much less for a girl sitting all alone on the floor of a bookstore. Way past.

This is me, reading the first 70 pages of The Boyfriend List, by e. lockhart. (I can't bring myself to spell her name with capital letters. It reminds me of e. e. cummings.) Anyway, that is another topic for another time. This is The Boyfriend List.

Ruby Oliver is having a bad week, which is turning into a bad month, which could very well lead to a bad year, or, most likely, a bad life. In the last ten days, Roo has: lost all of her friends, lost her boyfriend, lost a lacrosse game, experienced a massive amount of public humiliation relating to a list, become a leper, and had many interactions with many boys.

It is a combination of these events that leads to a panic attack, which leads to a parental attack, which leads to the office of a psychiatrist named Dr. Z. After listening to Ruby's rantings, which include a lot of the word 'just' and, of course, a lot of boys, Dr. Z asks Ruby to write the Boyfriend list.

What follows is a charming, funny, sweet, wonderful novel, as well as several lists(which, you know, are a total weakness of mine.) The chapters of this book are divided into each of the 15 boys on the list. But these are not, you must understand, all boyfriends. This is a list of every boy who has ever entered Ruby Oliver's mind as a maybe-kinda-possible romantic interest. These boys include Adam, who she used to play mermaid with; Micheal, who was the first kiss that she NEVER wanted to have; Gideon, her friend's older brother; Tommy, Ruby and Kim's imagined version of Prince Charming; and Jackson Clarke. Jackson who has been her boyfriend for six wonderful months, until he broke up with her, only to move on to her best friend two days later.

This book had so many incredible aspects that I couldn't possibly list all of them, but here is it's very best attribute, at least in my humble opinion: our heroine, Ruby Oliver. I realize that every single back-of-the-book says that the heroine is so true-to-life and so relateable, but that is usually not the case. In Ruby Oliver, however, e. lockhart has created the most life-like, relatable, and likeable heroine that I've seen in a long time and a lot of books. Why? Because Ruby is intelligent but still makes idiotic mistakes- and the same idiotic mistakes that every teenage girl is making today. (Tossing an un-labeled list of boys into a school trashcan when everyone is out to get her anyway?). She is spunky but she still allows the people she cares about to walk all over her, if it will keep them by her side. She has hopeless crushes and embarrasses herself and overthinks to no end. She doesn't want to give up on the people she loves, even if they've let her down, even if they don't deserve her loyalty. I identified with Ruby in a way that made me wonder if perhaps e. lockhart had written her especially with me in mind.

The other characters in the book are excellent as well. I immensly enjoyed Ruby's dynamic with her close friends; I loved nearly every boy to grace Ruby's list. (Not Jackson, though.)

This book is the most accurate description of a teenage girl's mind out there today. I would reccomend it to anyone who has a teenage girl's mind, who has ever had a teenage girl's mind, or whoever has ever wondered what exactly goes on in a teenage girl's mind. It's a made-of-awesome book with delicious characters and excellent writing and debacles.(and lists.) (and FOOTNOTES!) I can't wait to read the next two books, as well as e. lockhart's others!

Five cups of coffee, straight from the coffee capital of the United States! (Seattle, which is where the book is set.)

Perusing her own mental 'boyfriend' list,
wanting some coffee from seattle,
appreciating her much-more loyal friends,
still waiting for Tommy Hazzard(even though Gideon was my favorite),
Caroline

Special BOOK-related Meme That I Just Couldn't Pass Up

2008-05-02T22:45:00.002-04:00

So that was a long title. I might as well have called it supercalifragilisticsexpialidocious (sp?) and called it a day. I'm sure you didn't read the whole title, did you? You just saw the words 'BOOK' and 'MEME' and jumped for joy. I know you. That's exactly what you did.

I was not-so-much tagged by Heather (haha, that's me!) Brewer.

So, here are the rules for this spectacular heap of brilliance:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to the person who tagged you once you've posted your three sentences.

Got it? Good.

Nearest book to me that I can open to page 123 and the plot wouldn't be wrongfully revealed to me is...The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray!! Weird that I should have this in the computer room...I don't normally. Normally this large hunk of awesome sits in my room, on my bookshelf...hmmm....that's odd. But, ANYWAY, back to the meme. Let's see...pg 123...sentence five...

"A lady I've seen in my dreams before. She's a magician's assistant or a medium of some sort, for I see her with a Dr. Van Ripple, an illusionist. She writes on a slate as if in a trance--a very odd message."

Wow, those lines are so suspenseful. Gemma says them, btw, if you couldn't tell. I mean, it's obvious, but, you know...

This is an awesome meme.

Who do I tag? I tag The Story Siren, Reviewer X, The Ravenous Reader (ambeen), The Book Muncher, and Aella from the Maelstrom. That is five, right? I haven't been very good at counting today...

♥Heather

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac- Gabrielle Zevin

2008-04-26T14:42:00.003-04:00

If only Naomi had picked tails.

Oh-no. Wait. If only Naomi had allowed her partner in coin toss to pick heads. If only she had allowed Will to stick with heads, she would remember the last four years of her life. But Naomi picked heads, and that is what lands her in an ambulence with a mysterious boy named James, who tells Naomi that he wants to kiss her, but doesn't. He also tells the EMTs that he is her boyfriend, but unfortunately, he is not. Her real boyfriend, Ace, is one of the many things that have been wiped from Naomi's mind. One of the more fortunate things, because that boy is certainly nothing special. This is the story of Naomi, teenage amnesiac.

For six months, Naomi is catapulted into a world of classes she can't understand, a best friend who calls her by a questionable nickname, a family that has fallen into irreparable damage, classmates who hate her for reasons she could never comprehend, nad the tortured, utterly screwed-up and undeniably beautiful James, with whom she begins a remarkable but painful romance.

Gabrielle Zevin writes an original, stunning novel. It's humor is bittersweet, every joke laced with poignancy. It's a sad book, which I wouldn't have expected had I not read Zevin's debut novel, Elsewhere. The characters in Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac are real and beautiful, flawed and human. Naomi's voice rings true and strong; she's somehow relatable despite her incredible situation. After all, who among us can say that they've never wondered how their life ended up the way it is, or hated the person that they've become? This book is a quick and rewarding read, funny in parts but also heartbreaking- (James's "Forget Me" postcard brought me to tears.)

The story reminds us of family: and that even though mistakes can shatter a relationship, there's always duck tape around somewhere. It also shows that the people who we love can torture us, intentionally or not, and sometimes the most intense relationship isn't always the one that is best for our general sanity. Above all, Naomi's is a love story- and not necessarily with the obvious candidate.

Zevin's wonderful storytelling masterpiece reads like a personal mix CD, compiled by the person who knows each of us the best. Which, as Will would tell us, is no easy feat.

Five cups of coffee for this one; just don't spill them down any staircases!

Updates

2008-04-24T16:01:00.003-04:00

Okay, so there are a few contests floating around here, including one to win a copy of The Day of My Miraculous Reappearance by Catherine Ryan Hyde. Details for this can be found on Reviewer X's blog. This contest ends on Saturday, the 26th, so go ahead and enter!

Elizabeth Scott, author of Perfect You, is also having a contest (where you have a chance of winning a copy of Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key). Here are the rules (copied straight from her myspace bulleting):

1.Buy a copy of Perfect You and save the receipt.

2. Take a photo of the receipt with your cell phone, digital camera, etc., and then send the picture to me at elizabethscottcontest@gmail.com

Please make sure to include your name, as well as the email address it's best to contact you at.

3. Once I get the picture of your receipt, you'll be entered into the PERFECT YOU contest drawing.

Here are the prizes:

One person will receive an iPod nano OR a $200 gift certificate to the bookstore of their choice

Twenty people (yep, TWENTY) will each receive a $20 gift certificate to the bookstore of their choice

So, there's actually a total of twenty-one prizes (!) to be given away, and again, all you have to do to enter is buy Perfect You, and send a picture of your receipt to elizabethscottcontest@gmail.com The contest will run through May 2nd, and I'll announce the winners on May 5th

Also! Everyone who enters the contest between now and May 2nd will also be entered into a drawing to win a copy of Sarah Dessen's new book, Lock and Key. I have ten copies to give away, and winners will be picked at random and notified on May 3rd.

Also, in other news, we haven't been able to get the links up yet to the sites we promised we'd trade links with, but they will be up soon enough (even if I have to go over to Caroline's house and do it myself).

I'm also thinking about a contest idea for us. We need books or items to give away before we can hold the contest, though, so if there are any authors reading this that would like to help out, please contact me at ManiacMonkey47@aol.com

♥Heather

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert

2008-04-16T16:06:00.009-04:00

Emily Black did nothate Louisa, her mother, for leaving her as a baby. She wasn't affected when Louisa left to 'follow the music.' She doesn't act the way she does in hopes her mother will come back one day. She doesn't start a band of her own to bring Louisa back with music.

At least, that's what she tells everyone--even herself. That's what she tells her father. That's what she tells Regan, her best friend, and Regan's mother Molly--who also happens to have been Louisa's best friend, still is. She hides behind it all--the punk music, the drinking, the drugs, the sex.

Emily grew up around music. Her first steps were taken to the Beatles. Her mom and dad met while he was playing onstage. Her favorite thing to do after dinner is go down to the musty basement, pick out one of her father's records, and listen to it, eyes closed, head nodding. Music touches something in Emily. To her, there's no feeling in the world like being on stage, fingers strumming out and extraordinary riff, voice belting to the back wall. The adrenaline sucks her in, leaving nothing but hope, elation, fast pumping blood.

But there are things that can stand in her way. Mostly people--some 'rock gods.' At a young age, Emily becomes obsessed with scoring a rock god. Each one, though, turns out worse than she imagined. Through all these obstacles, Emily and Regan form their band and follow the scene.

Stephanie Kuehnert portrays this story magnificently well with perfect descriptions of the surroundings. Each new character she introduces, either it be from Louisa's point of view or Emily's, fits spectacularly into the story. She also writes truthfully of what Emily's life is like, including the aforementioned drugs, sex, and drinking.

I'm usually not fond of books with a small amount of dialogue, but I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone is a huge exception, because all the words that are used instead are picked and manipulated in wonderful ways.

I--I'm nearly at a loss for words trying to express how much I enjoyed this book. None of what I've said so far has conveyed the message. At times, it could be heartbreaking, hilarious, touching, exciting, upsetting, elating and exhilarating. I loved this book 15 pages in and that feeling continued to grow the more I read, the closer I got to the end. In fact, the end was one of the best endings I've read in a very long time. It was a perfect close.

I don't think there could be any ill-words said about IWBYJR. I didn't have any complaints or disagreements with a thing (and that I can tell you, is very odd when I read a novel--very, very odd).

I guess, to sum it all up, I'm going to try to do it in one blurb. That blurb would say: "A miraculously well-written tale of a girl, her family, and the music that connects them. Flashback-filled. Astounding."

I know, good for a first try, right? Right? I hope so; I'm practicing for the blurbing book club.

I give it the full 5 cups, one each for the writing, plot, amazing heroine, incorporation of music, and the last for blowing me away with the 100% unique characters that I thoroughly enjoyed and will remember always.

(I'm working on finding a picture of five cups of coffee all in the same picture, but I'm not having very much luck. If any of you would like to take one, or find one for our benefit, please do and send it to ManiacMonkey47@aol.com. Thank you)

♥Heather

p.s. You can preorder I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert at Amazon, Books-a-Million, Barnes and Noble, or Borders, whichever is your preference.

(oh yeah, and like Caroline, I appreciate the comments =D)

City of Ashes- Cassandra Clare

2008-04-11T18:15:00.004-04:00

It's probably safe to say that you're a bad person when you buy a book for your friend's birthday and finish reading the copy two hours before her party. I can't argue with that. But, in my defense, there were two very extreme circumstances that lead to this decision. First, my friend Courtney is quite possibly the slowest reader ever. I mean, aside from small children and people who aren't fluent in the language that they're reading, of course. Second, though, is really important to this anecdote- you'll surely emphasize with me now. Second, the book happened to be the next installment in Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments trilogy. See? You understand.

Clary Fray didn't want any of this to happen. She ddin't want her mother to land in a coma. She didn't want to lose her home. She didn't want things to be wierd with her best friend Simon. She did want to find an amazingly hot guy to fall for her-- but she definatley did not want to find out that he was a close blood relation. Above all, Clary really didn't have a strong desire to be pulled into the collapsing world of demons and angels that she never even knew existed.

But all of these things did happen, and unlike Simon and her father figure Luke, Clary isn't willing to pretend that they didn't. Even if the things she encounters in this new spectrum are terrifying and hideous. Even if her lingering feelings for Jace are unescapable and horribly uncomfortable for both of them. Clary has entered the Shadowhunter universe for good, and she is detirmined to help in the fight against Valentine, especially when he murders the Silent Brothers and steals the second Mortal Instrument- a sword that forces Nephilim to tell the truth. Clary and the rest embark on a mission to get the sword back and defeat Valentine, but it's no easy task when Jace is accused of being in alliance with his father- and who can say with all certainty that he isn't?

The second installment in Cassandra Clare's breathtakingly gorgeous trilogy, City of Ashes won't disappoint. It's a beautifully written book, full of adventure, danger, mythical creatures, plot twists, and romance- forbidden romance, which you should all know is my favorite kind.

The characters that we all adored in City of Bones are back, as well as some intruiging new additions. Jace, I feel I should assure you, is still as sexy as ever, which we all know is crucial.

As for his relationship with Clary... remarkably, not so gross. It just isn't. The author doesn't ignore their feelings for each other or the discovery of their blood relationship- instead, she deals with it in a heartbreaking and beautiful fashion. There's something, though, that leaves you with utter disbelief, just as there was in City of Bones. There's got to be a loophole, right? There has to be.

I also feel I must inform you that romantic scenes between Clary and Simon were far more gag-making than anything between Clary and Jace. Not a fan of those two at all.

But I'm getting off topic. City of Ashes is spectacular amazing greatness. Many, many pages of it. My only complaint about this novel? That City of Glass won't be available until next March.

Five cups of steaming hot, delicious caffeine!

Caroline

P.S: I feel the need to do one more thing- remind you that comments are always appreciated. Unless, of course, you are the little nasty who is harrassing all of my companions in book reviewing. In this case, we are perfectly happy with the contents of our blog and do not want to hear from you. Otherwise, please tell me what you think of this review. Please?

Tantalize (a very rare book)

2008-04-09T15:42:00.011-04:00

A couple of you may have read my review for The Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti a while back. Actually, most of probably haven't, but in that review and this one, some similarities can be noted. In both, you would expect a completely different rating at the end. In both, I complain, the turn around with a whole new take on the novel at hand. Prepare yourselves for a fickle review.

CLASSIFIED ADS: RESTAURANTS

Sanguini's: A Very Rare Restaurant

is hiring a chef de cuisine. Dinners

only. Apply in person between 2:00

and 4:00 P.M.

Quincie Morris (in the words of Libba Bray) is a heroine in cowboy boots, living in Austin, Texas with her Uncle D after her parents' death. Life here can prove difficult and trying for Quincie. Her hybrid-werewolf best friend, Kieren, could possibly be leaving her. The chef at her family's restaurant is brutally murdered while she's in the next room. Her uncle is dating a horrendous vampire-wannabe named Ruby. And, on top of that, people are continuously going missing around Austin--and the ones that turn up have been attacked a killed.

As Quincie tries to get Sanguini's (the only restaurant in Austin centered around a vampire theme) ready for opening night, her suspicions, as well as those of the rest of the city, sway here and there. She can't help but think it was Kieren, who found Vaggio, the murdered chef, dead and was covered in his blood. But Kieren feels otherwise. He thinks it was a vampire or vampires that tried to make it appear to be done by Wolves. Quincie has no idea what to believe and puts it out of her mind as she tries to transform the new chef, Henry Johnson, in the the Vampire Chef she needs to present on opening night.

When I first opened Tantalize, I was instantly worried. The font was just that huge. And, before I go any further, I should probably stop and explain. I, as well as Caroline, feel that large font is patronizing, condescending, and annoying. When I open a book and the font is large, I'm instantly on my guard, preparing for the worst. Needless to say, that was my first issue: the font was huge.

But then, I started reading, and the font became background, hidden beneath other, worse things. For starters, it was a tad confusing. There were tidbits of information with little to no explanation. There was no background story. There was nothing to support the present, the start of it all I assume, since apparently there was no past. There were inside jokes with no story, things I didn't and couldn't get. Complaint 2.

My third and final complaint, is that everyone seems to be something. No one is a nice, enchanting, entertaining character. Everyone has a crucial role. And those who are minor characters are included in the mythology. Small characters are were-people, a completely redundant phrase that literally translates into man-people, but is used to refer to any person that can transform themselves into a specific animal. There are, of course, the werewolves, but then you also have the werecats, the wereopossums, the werearmodillos, the (possibly nonexistent) weregators, the werevultures, and whatever other were___ you can think of. There are so many of these.

But, not matter how much I gripe and complain about his book, in the end, there's only one conclusion. I can only make one opinion. I really, really enjoyed Tantalize. It was fantastic. Cynthia Leitich Smith created an astounding plot line that, at some moments, was predictable, but at others exciting and interesting. She developed believable characters that could exist in real life as ordinary humans, not vampires and werepeople. I don't know how to express my favorite parts of this book without first quoting Libba Bray to help me along: "Looking for something to read that will make your TV jealous? Tantalize has it all--hot vampires and wolf-boys, a super-cool heroine in cowboy boots, nail-biting suspense, romance, chills 'n' thrills, and Austin, Texas. What more could you want?"

My answer? Nothing.

Tantalize even made me think. Because there were so many little things that were a tad irritating, I had to wonder if I like it or not. Turns out I loved it, only deducting one cup of coffee for my three complaints.

4 out of 5 cups of coffee for Cynthia Leitich Smith's Tantalize.

Waiting for the second installment to come out already, loving the perfect ending to the first, and moving on to the rest of my books waiting to be reviewed,

♥Heather

New Contest

2008-04-05T16:09:00.014-04:00

The Page Flipper is having another monthly Prize Pack contest for April!

This months books are:

Class Favorite by Taylor MorrisSara Thurman has never considered herself part of the popular crowd - she's got her best friend Arlene and that seems like enough. But when Sara's mom sends a special Valentine's Day delivery (PERIOD FLOWERS!) to her class, all of a sudden Sara is very famous - only for a horribly embarrassing reason! It seems everyone at Bowie Junior High knows something about Sara that she'd rather keep to herself and the harder Sara tries to blend in the more she ends up sticking out. Not only that, but it suddenly seems that Arlene doesn't have time for her anymore, and she has an unbearable crush on Jason who doesn't have any idea who she is (until now, that is). Worst of all, nothing's felt the same since Sara's dad left home. It all has Sara wondering if things will ever return to normal -- especially if she can't even remember what normal feels like. Sara can't figure out why it seems that everyone else has it easier than she does - would things be better if she were popular? Sara decides that if she can't beat 'em then she'll join 'em -- and she hatches a top secret mission to become....Class Favorite.

Totally Joe by James HoweJoe's teacher asks his seventh-grade class to write an alphabiography throughout the year, presenting themselves and their lives in entries from A to Z. Joe's essays begin and end with friends, from Addie, a long-time pal and confidant, to Zachary, a new student who, like Joe, has a unique approach to life. Throughout, Joe demonstrates that he truly is a one-of-a-kind kid, mostly comfortable with himself but still struggling with common adolescent issues. It's difficult for him to relate to his athletic brother, and he misses his much-loved Aunt Pam, who moves to New York City. He also comes to grips with his sexuality, questioning gender expectations and traditional roles as he realizes he is gay. Because he is different, he is tormented by Kevin, who calls him a girl and faggot and falsely accuses him of kissing his friend Colin (a jock not yet ready to come out).

Hershey Herself by Cecilia GalanteWhen twelve-year-old Hershey must run away with her mother to a women's shelter, she wonders how, among other things, she'll compete in the town talent show with her best friend, Phoebe; who will take care of her cat, Augustus Gloop; and if she'll survive being on a new bus route with her sworn enemy.

Shug by Jenny HanTall, freckled, gawky seventh-grader Annemarie Wilcox (whose family calls her Shug) has a beautiful, popular older sister; a gorgeous, alcoholic mother who doesn't fit in their small Georgia town; and a father who's always away on business. She also has a huge crush on Mark, the neighborhood boy who has always been her best friend. As the school year starts, Shug must deal with Mark's rejection, her parents' bitter fights, and a falling out with her closest girlfriend.

Dumped by Popular Demand by P.G. KainDorie Dilts has just moved from California to New Jersey. For most kids this would be horrendous, but for Dorie it's the chance to conduct the most important research of her young life. She is determined to pour all of her scientific knowledge into an experiment that will, once and for all, make her popular! Dorie's first discovery is easy enough: She determines that the Holly Trinity -- led by class president Holly McAdams -- is the hottest clique. The one thing the three girls have in common? They all dated and got dumped by Grant Bradish, the cutest and most obnoxious boy in school. Getting dumped is one thing, but even if Dorie finds a way to get Grant to go out with her, will she want to date a total jerk?

For the rules and details go to The Page Flipper's Blog

Also, head on over to Free Alan Rickman for a T-shirt contest where you can enter a design for a T-shirt relating to Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson or Freeing Alan Rickman, and, if you win, you will get a FREEBIE of your own design. You can also buy any of the T-shirt's created as other entrees and all commissions will go back into the contest and any profit will go to The Freedom to Read Foundation (http://www.ftrf.org/). Head on over and enter! (to go directly to the contest rules, click here)

♥heather

(see review for Devilish by Maureen Johnson below)

Devilish- Maureen Johnson

2008-04-05T15:39:00.007-04:00

When you're done reading this review, type something into your address bar for me. Type, "Maureenjohnsonbooks.com." Press Go. Wait. Explore.

When you enter Maureen Johnson's website, you find yourself in an entrancing universe where reality serves little purpose. You pause on almost every FAQ and wonder. Every detail of Johnson's lifre causes a frown of confusion followed by a smile of delight; a whirlwind of adventures through blog entries. The line between fiction and nonfiction is so slippery that it's cast aside. You foret to say, "Really?", forget to reread a particularily unbelievable passage. You become a part of the craziness, and "Really?" becomes irrelevant.

Reading her books is a similar experience.

Devlish is the tail of Jane Jarvis, a bona fide genius with a mouth as smart as she is. A series of misdemeanors have led her to the edge of expulsion and prohibited her from popularity, but she doesn't mind- she'll always have her best friend Allison, an adorably awkward girl, whose social screw-ups aren't quite so cute in everyone else's eyes.

Until Little-Big day.

Allison reaches a new high on the humiliation scale when she throws up on a freshman during the most important event of the year. Hysterical in a bathroom scale, Allison meets Lanalee, a cool, sophisticated sugar-addict, who somehow changes everything.

Gone is the Allison that Jane has always known. The girl who has replaced her is well-dressed and intelligent; she posesses a social grace that neither Allison nor herself have ever come close to before. And it's not just Allison. Strange people are showing up all over Providence- a creepy but charming man who seems to be everywhere Jane is, peppering her with questions and seemingly useless trivia; a cute (but much too young) freshman stalker named Owen. Everything familiar to Jane has shifted- her old life is unrecognizable, and the line between fantasy and reality is becoming more blurred by the second.

Allison confesses to Jane that she has sold her soul to the devil. Jane, who attends Catholic high school but is far from secure in her faith, is skeptical to say the least. But when a series of unbelievable events unfold, Jane is forced to accept the reality of the situation- and put her life on the line for a possibly backstabbing friend.

Devilish is a brilliant novel that has everything you could ask for in a book: romance, friendship, adventure, perfume bottles, dead people, demons, nuns, and... (if you weren't sold by now, here's the kicker...) CAKE! I read Devilish in an hour and a half, and I couldn't put it down the entire time. Maureen Johnson expertly builds suspense while keeping the plot well-developed and intact. The concepts presented about hell and the devil are original and ingenius. The writing itself is spectacular, as previous readers have learned to expect from the

whimsical brilliance that is Maureen Johnson.

If you haven't read this or Johnson's other five novels, you are definately missing out on a whole lot of wonderful. Each of the books that I've read have been funny, intelligent, sparkly creations that I took more delight in than almost any of the hundreds of books that I've read. I'm seriously psyched for her very first series, Suite Scarlett, which is on sale NOW! Just from the first chapter, I'm hooked, so that will definately be amazing! (If anyone wants to buy me this book, I shall love you for all of eternity.) But go out and buy it yourself, as well as Maureen Johnson's other books.

Devilish recieves five cups of coffee(and a cupcake on the side.) :D

Lovely graphics, aren't they?

More memeage.(Caroline, because she knows that Heather thinks it's cute to cover up her posts with posts that have the SAME TITLE to confuse her.)

2008-03-27T11:56:00.005-04:00

We have been Memed. Again. This time by Aislinn Ai of that trio of malicious relatives. Different Meme this time. Either way, though, we're never going to escape this vicious cycle of memes. We should change our name. We are no longer Plenty of Paper. We are now known as "Plenty of Cyber Surveys".
Here are the rules for the Mutating Meme.
-Copy and paste the questions, then fill in your answers. Post this on your blog, livejournal, etc. There’s a catch, though. You have to change/add a question from the meme you were tagged with.
- Post the rules.
-Link to the person who tagged you.
-Tag 3 people, by commenting on their blog.
-Link back to the original (http://maelstrommedeia.blogspot.com/2008/03/mutating-meme.html) to see how much it has mutated.
And so, for the questions:

1) If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
I would change my last name to Swan, so that I could have adventures.
2) What is your least favorite food?
Hard tacos... *flinches in disgust*
3) Are there any songs that get stuck in your head really easily? How do you get them out?
Yes. There are. Love Song. The one that says, "I'm not going to write you a love song." Several times. Which is dumb, because the song is a love song. So obviously you have written this person a love song, so HE WINS. And Caroline loses, because she hates that song and is forced to sing it at a really loud volume to make it go away, which doesn't work. For songs I actually like, I usually write the lyrics down.
4.) If you could be (or are) a mythical creature, what would it be (or what are you)?
You caught me. I'm actually a shadowhunter. That's why I've been to New York twice in the span of three months. I was kicking ass in Cassandra Clare's fictional universe. I am the fourth to the love square in City of Ashes; Jace has fallen madly in love with me. It's really difficult, trying to fight off his persistant advances, especially with those golden and luminous eyes of his.
5.) What do colors taste like?
Skittles, obviously... Taste the rainbow, anyone?
6.) Name three (or more if you like) fawesome words.
Wonderaculous, a word that I coined myself and that Heather has no legal rights to. I'm thinking of getting a patent. Blurbing. Abyss. I also think that fawesome is a pretty fawesome word. Any word made up by Scott Westerfeld rocks, in my book.
7) What kind of toothpaste do you use?
Crest Whitening Expressions Vanilla Mint.

I tag http://thepageflipper.blogspot.com, theravenousreaderreviews.blogspot.com, and The Story Siren.

<3 Caroline

We have been MEMED!! (except this time it's Heather)

2008-03-26T12:28:00.006-04:00

Well, Caroline has basically covered this part in the post below, but I have some additional memers to add to the list. We've been memed by Ambeen/the Ravenous Reader, the lovely Maelstroms (yes, you're still lovely), the Story Siren, and just like any others who read her meme Chelsea/the Page Flipper. Thanks for meming us guys! Now, down to business. The rules:

The Rules For The Meme:
1. You link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry.
5. Let the tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Random, Unsystematic of Heather:

1. Two days ago, me, Caroline, and one of our friends bowled with a completely random stranger. Some guy named Joe who was one of the most amazing bowlers I've ever met. Now, when I say we bowled with a stranger, I mean that we were out of money for games and Courtney walked up to a guy setting up his game to bowl by himself and asked him if she and her friends could join his game. And for some odd reason, he agreed. And we bowled. He got 180, none of us breached 70. Wow.
2. Me and one of my friends, Lorena, have this thing about Daniel Radcliffe. We both think he's ugly and appears gay on occasion, but we always talk about him. We tell stories, watch videos, and read interviews surrounded around Dan (that's how he likes to be referred to...weird isnt it? I would much rather Daniel.)
3. I absolutely hate mayonnaise, but there's one instance in which I will eat it. And that is: a bananamayo sandwich. I know that sounds disgusting, but for some odd reason, it's delicious. Everyone in my family eats them.
4. I'm really bad about checking my mail. Mail of any sort, actually. I'm waiting on a book to get here and I've already checked the mail three times today and it's only 3:00. I also compulsively check my email, facebook messages, myspace messages, and Ning (DFTBA) messages. I have to have contact with the rest of the world or I completely fall apart.
5. When I buy the books in a series, they have to look the same. Meaning that if the first one I buy is paperback the rest have to be paperback. The same with hardcover. I actually have the entire Series of Unfortunate Events book collection, but 5 of them are paperback and the rest hardcover (the paperbacks were donated and I couldn't just say no). Whenever I get enough money, I'm going to replace the paperbacks with my own hardcover books. I'm also waiting for Perfect by Sara Shepard to come out in paperback just because the first two are paperback. And it's making me mad this waiting.
6. This may seem kind of redundant, but it's another fact about book serieses (what is the plural of series????). When I put a series on my book shelf, I don't put them left to right (i. e. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone being on the far left and Deathly Hallows on the far right). I put them right to left. I figure that, if you turn a book around so the spine is facing out, the order of the pages goes right to left. Therefore the books should go right to left to continue the flow. Also, if you took the books off the shelf and stacked them one on top of the other you'd want the first book on the top. And, in order for the first book to be on top and to be able to read the titles and have the books right-side-up, they would have to be stacked the same way they are ordered when put on the shelf right to left. Maybe I'm confusing you right now, maybe not. To make things simpler, my 6th fact is that I place a book series on my bookshelf in an order of right to left.

Okay, so that's it really. Oh yeah! I tag...hmmm....who do I tag?? How about...I don't know. Every one has been tagged already. But I think I tag the 3 Evil Cousins!

Read Caroline's Six below!

♥Heather, your neighborhood Book Reviewer! (like Spiderman! Yay!)

We have been MEMED!!!

2008-03-20T20:58:00.002-04:00

I've done something like this before, but there were eight random things instead of six. Anyway. We were memed by Ambeen/The Ravenous Reader. We were later memed by the lovely Maelstroms, who lied to us and said that we were being memed as never memed before, when in fact, this was the same meme that we had recieved the previous day. Here are the MEME rules:

The Rules For The Meme:
1. You link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry.
5. Let the tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Okay, so:

The Random Six of Caroline-
1. I get the most ridiculously insane, loud, hilarious hiccups. They've been compared to many animal sounds. Most common simile associated with me is: Caroline's hiccups are like a dying parrot/frog/small Paris Hilton dog.
2. I can't write in pencil. It drives me absolutely insane. I have not written a word in pencil since mid-January, and the words written in pencil leading up to then were only written in pencil because my Algebra teacher refused to grade things that were written in pen and since I have already told you that I am no math genius, my grade could not take the hit. Anyway, I only write in pen now. Or marker. Or Sharpie. Because, yes, I would rather have my pages run through, wasting large amounts of paper, than simply write it down in pencil.
3. Throughout elementary school, I was only ever reprimanded for reading. I used to get in trouble for reading a lot. I still do, actually, except for now I also get reprimanded for my hiccups and occasionally for being too chatty or a smart-ass.
4. I'm not really a picky eater, but the foods that I hate most passionately seem to be the ones that everyone else loves. Two examples: bacon and tacos.
5. I am a NERDFIGHTER! I will not FTBA!!
6. I couldn't think of a six, so I asked Courtney, because she has been one of my best friends since second grade, so if anyone has a bunch of random information about me on hand, it would probably be her. Courtney says, among other things, that I wear a lot of purple. I do like purple, but I don't feel that I wear a particularily large amount of it. Her other random fact is that I like to give advice, which I am good at. This random fact is actually really, really, really funny coming out of Courtney's mouth, because she asks me for advice a lot, but she never actually takes it. Like, if you offered her a choice between death by spontanious combustion or doing something that I suggested, she would be dust by now.

Look out for Heather's random six, which will make it's appearence... eventually... I think.

It would appear that all of our contacts have already been tagged, so if you are reading this and have not been tagged, consider this your tag.

An Abundance of Katherines-John Green

2008-03-19T17:40:00.007-04:00

Let it be said, dear reader, that I am not fond of math.

Perhaps I should have let Heather write the first review, for this one, because she does, actually, enjoy math. I mean, she doesn't do it for fun, or anything, but it is up there on her list of favorite school subjects. Also, she has a much larger mental capacity for math. (Heather is the smart one, in case you had wondered.) Anyway, it might have been wise to allow Heather to review first, so that my own review could be short and non-descript, because this book includes a lot of math. An abundance, you might say.

Maybe, though, it's better that I write it, so that you'll know: even though I despise equations and formulas and got a C for two quarters of Algebra II, I adored this book. Even- no- especially the math parts.

Colin Singleton has been dumped nineteen times, each time being by a girl named Katherine. (Some part of this statement is actually a lie, but it's what Colin tells us.) The abundance of Katherines dated by Colin is no coincidence, by the way. He hasn't just fallen for nineteen girls who happened to be named Katherine. Girls named Katherine just happen to be Colin's type.

You might think that after being dumped eighteen other times by Katherines, Colin would have learned to expect the break-up, maybe accept with good humor, even. The end of Colin's relationship with Katherine XIX, however, is not expected. K-19 had broken Colin's heart like no
Katherine has ever broken it before. He doesn't cry. He does, however, throw up.

Colin's best friend Hassan, an overweight and Judge Judy obsessed but delightful Muslim boy, has seen the phenomenon of the Colin/Katherine break up many-a-time, and proposes a ROAD TRIP to ease Colin's suffering.

They end up in Gutshot, Tennessee; there they meet Lindsey Lee Wells and her mother, Hollis, who offers Colin and Hassan a position of employment interviewing older residents about Gutshot's major employer- a factory that produces tampon strings.

Despite many very interesting distractions, including the lovely Lindsey, Colin remains totally heartbroken over Katherine XIX. To understand what follows, you must know this- Colin is a prodigy. Or was, anyway, until he became a teenager. He's not a genius- he's very adament about that- but he is very, very, very intelligent. So instead of wallowing around in more self-pity, our little ex-prodigy has his very own Eureka moment.

Colin develops a formula. A formula to calculate relationships, or more specifically, how they will end. Will he dump her, or (more likely) will she dump him? And- here's what we're all really wondering- how long will it last?

Now, despite all of my intense math hatred, I was pretty darn fascinated, at this point. When I thought about it, it made perfect sense, why Colin would turn to a formula after a break up. When I do come across the are person who actually likes math, I usually ask why, just because the idea of liking math, frankly, baffles me.

And here is their answer: Math is dependable, and numbers, if nothing else in life, are always black and white.

So why not apply them to life's most huge and frustrating gray area?

This book is amusing, amazing, and abundant with awesome. When picking up An Abundance of Katherines, reader, be prepared for: anagrams, footnotes, foreign languages(Colin is quite good at eleven), the history of 'fug', dingleberries, a cast of hilarious and wonderful characters, more quirk than I've seen since the cancellation of Gilmore Girls, and another brilliant novel by John Green.

I have two little tiny complaints, though.

The first isn't so much a complaint as a... comparison. I love a book that makes me laugh, but what I really love is something that makes me cry. I realize that this is masochistic and all that, but it's just how I am. Now, this doesn't take anything away from the wonderful philisophical comedy that is An Abundance of Katherine's- all it means is that I liked Looking for Alaska better. Because it broke my heart in every way possible. But I also liked this book for making my crack up incesscantly and supplying me with an endless supply of useless information.

My only real complaint would be(take one guess...) the ending.

The book with an ending that completely satisfies me shall win a prize. A place in a frame, a shiny medal, etc. This particular ending was just... so... happy. Like, wierdly happy, considering that it didn't really fit the situation. I don't know. It could have been better. But this is still a wonderaculous book, and I highly reccomend reading it.

Just, piece of advice? Don't read it when distracted by personal matters. Trust me.
Katherine's get four cups of coffee.

Wondering why the amazing man who wrote this could have possibly been dumped 53 times,

trying to anagram,
dying for Paper Towns,
fugtastically yours,

Caroline

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I, as much as I hate to do this, concur. With almost everything. I liked Looking for Alaska better too, I like a book that makes me cry, and I love the hilarity of An Abundance of Katherines.

The footnotes in this book were particularly great. Except the ones about math. As Caroline has said, I do like math. I am good at it. But the footnotes were a little confusing. The Appendix, however, made perfect sense to me. The footnotes, I guess, were too short (except the one about the first 99 digits of pi). But all other footnotes were informative as well as funny.

The only problem I had with the book, was the ending, as well. Like Caroline said, it was weirdly happy. It was an incomplete happiness. You don't know everything. You don't know where this is going. There are so many things that could go wrong in the next second, but right now, everything is peaceful. Not even exactly happy. Just kind of peaceful. I would rather someone die (not in this book, because that wouldn't fit the plot at all, but in most cases I prefer upset over peaceful).

Other than that, no issues. Katherines is great.

John Green is a genious. He is no prodigy. He isn't very very very intelligent. He's a genius.

That being said, I give this book 4 out of five cups of coffee(I'm hoping to find a book I hate soon so that I can stop giving such high ratings)

wishing that she could make up complicated equations like that, likewise wondering about being dumped 53 times, trying very hard to work the anagrams out, failing miserably

DFTBA,

♥Heather

(excited about I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, a novel by Stephanie Kuehnert. It comes out July 2008)

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson

2008-03-16T19:49:00.010-04:00

When I first picked up Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment, I literally squealed in delight. I had been dying to get my hands on this elusive book. But after the first moment of sheer joy, I became...well, not skeptical, but...disturbed. This is one of those blurb books. One of those highly recommended, #1 bestseller types. And I've found, in my years of reading books, that those little, pocket-sized (Actually, not really pocket-sized. I don't know why they call them that, they can't fit in my pockets...I'll call it compact) novels with the raised, shiny titles and the blurbs all over their front and back cover tend to fall just a tad short of my expectations.

Don't get me wrong, I usually like them, sometimes lurve them, but never really love them. Especially the ones with the bad, cheesy, pun-filled blurbs on the front. The cheesy pun of today is: "Buckle up. This is a ride that starts fast and gets faster." --CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

But this, this is one very huge, 134-chaptered (plus and epilogue) and 413-paged (with extras at the end) exception to that particular rule of thumb. I find that CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER is right. This ride does start fast and get faster.

The first book in the Maximum Ride series tells the story of six unforgettable, unique kids living together with no parents, no homes, no families. They are their families. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel are running and fighting for their lives.

Their one advantage? They can fly. They have wings.

Being chased by Erasers and facing being put back in a cage--a place no child should ever be--is not easy when you have no idea what you're doing, what you're facing, who you can trust. They don't know where they came from, so how should they know where to go? The one place they won't go is back to the School (not if Max can help it).

But their perilous journey becomes more difficult and confusing as they develop new powers and learn new secrets.

I don't think a single book has pulled me in harder with the first sentence, the first word than Maximum Ride did. And, by sentence five, I knew it would be one of my favorite books forever.

There is definitely a reason that, in the book alone, there are 31 positive book reviews, and that it was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for twelve straight weeks. James Patterson describes the story of Max and her friends--her family-- with fantastic imagery, compelling suspense, insane action (like a video game or movie except...better) and outstanding dialogue. I fell in love with each and all of these believable characters from the start. The plot is realistic enough to be believable, but fantastical enough to force it into a state of unique where it can never be touched. There could be billions of spin-offs of this series, and they would never come close to even .0000000001% of this novel's pure perfection. Patterson's writing is excellence.

I give this book 10 out of 5 delectable cups of coffee (I would, in fact, give it more if I didn't think that would be overdoing it and I think get the picture with just the 10)

trying to keep herself from reading the excerpt from the next book in the series until she has her hands on it, falling (ok, I fell at his first mention) for a certain blog-writing, angel-like, made of awesome guy,

♥Heather

Nineteen Minutes-Jodie Piccoult (Caroline returns to her nice girl self.)

2008-03-14T16:59:00.002-04:00

About a month ago, I was on a school trip. A couple of my friends and I were in a room together, so after we were reprimanded for our rowdiness, and after I had sufficiently injured myself jumping on the bed, and after Courtney had tricked our guy friends into thinking that someone had left alcohol in our room, we started to read. I was reading Pretty Little Devils, a book about murder and a high school clique. Allison was reading Nineteen Minutes. Because of the nature of my book, I was doing a lot of exaggerated gasping, and sometimes nervous around-the-room-glancing (hotel rooms creep me out). Allison, however, kept saying, "Aww."

Courtney, who had nothing to read, had been locked in a very loud silence. She was waiting for us to acknowledge the fact that she wasn't speaking and felt left out because she wasn't reading either. We were too caught up in the books, and plus didn't want to give her the satisfaction. But finally, after about the sixtieth "Aww", she asks. And Allison gets the huge sad/scary eyes that she likes to do in pictures a lot, and says, "Well, I know that he's a murderer, and he shot all these people, and he bombed this guy's car... but he's so cute!"

At the time, I was seriously baffled as to how a school shooter could possibly be cute, and doubted that it was anything except for Allison's tendency to believe that anything male at least has cute potential. It certainly sparked my interest, though, so when I finally got the book, I finally got... it.

Peter Houghton, disputably the main character of Nineteen Minutes, is a killer. Peter has been pushed, threatened, abused, called a fag and homo constantly since the sixth grade. He's been bullied at school by his own brother. He's been knocked to the ground for talking to another guy's girlfriend in a purely friendly way. He's lost his only best friend to the popular crowd. He's had a private email sent to the girl he likes(who is also the best friend and the other guy's girlfriend) spammed out to the entire school. And after seventeen years of this, Peter Houghton has had enough.

Peter walks into school on March 6th with four guns and a car bomb. He has enough ammunition to kill 198 people. He does kill 10, and wounds another 19, all in the course of nineteen minutes. In nineteen minutes, ten lives are over. Hundreds are altered forever. One of those altered lives belongs to Josie Cormier.

Josie, who was the the girl Peter loved; the other guy's girlfriend. The other guy, Matt Roysten, was killed in the shooting. He was the only victim shot twice: once in the stomach, one in the head. Josie, as you'll recall, was also Peter's best friend.

This is where the cute comes in. The book is not organized into chapters; it is organized into time periods. So lots of flashback. Hundred page sections of flashback. One of the flashbacks takes place twelve years before the shooting, when Josie and Peter were in kindergarden, and when Peter's Spiderman lunch box was stolen everyday and thrown out of the bus. There are many other tale's of Peter's struggles with bullying, even at such a young age, and I see now what Allison meant.

Peter Houghton is not cute in the way that I would usually call a book character cute. He's not sexy-cute, or crush-cute. He's lost puppy cute. Sweet little kid cute. Baby cousin cute. Peter Houghton is just so... sad.

Throughout the book, you get to know him as a child, as a younger teenager, and you forget that he is a murderer. You remember that Peter is a human being who went through school without being treated as one. You begin to see Peter as someone who wasn't evil or terrible or corrupt- he was someone who finally took a stand.

This is where Piccoult is trying to take you with this novel- and it's a scary place. A place no one wants to go. No one wants to think about school shootings, much less sympathise with the shooter. We see things in the news about these people and we shudder. How horrible, we think. What a monster.

The issue of judgement is one of the many things that the author addresses beautifully in this novel, without preaching in the slightest, and while effectively giving you every side of the story. You get to choose your own opinion in this novel- nothing is forced on you.

Some other things I love about the book: the cast of characters was completely brilliant, rich, and wonderful. Each character was unique and beautiful and flawed, and I found myself hating and loving and sympathising with each of the six perspectives that the book offered. I stepped into the heart, mind, and soul of each character and loved it, even if it was a disturbing place to be.
The plot in the book was excellent, and the climax- oh, God, the climax.

I also fell in love with Jodi Piccoult's style. Her emotion is heartwrenching, her voice is unique and perfectly adapted to each character. Her language is insanely gorgeous but never overdone. The entire thing was very realistic, which is one of the things that makes it so scary.
I've been vaguely uneasy walking down empty hallways, sitting in unlocked classrooms. The book was just... nervewracking, which was one of the things that I loved also. I like books that scare me.

The only complaint I had was the ending: for all of the emotion in the book, I think that it was kind of a disappointment. Everything was accepted a bit too calmly, which I wasn't crazy about.
All in all, though, this book scared me to death and made me think. It broke my heart and made me smile. And above all, it made me want to read more Jodie Piccoult.

Four and a half cups for this one, just because I hated the ending.

Caroline

Birthday Best Wishes!

2008-03-11T17:27:00.003-04:00

Sorry to all our frequent readers that there hasn't been a review lately. There will be soon, I promise. Most likely it will be on Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz, but there is a slight possibility of it being on An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. Either way, look out for those two reviews coming soon.

But for today, all we have for you is a little bit of Birthday Best Wishes! (you probably gathered that from the title). We'd like to give a huge, ginormous, 819-paged Happy Birthday to one of our favorite authors, Libba Bray!

I meant to get this posted sooner, but had play practice so, Happy Birthday Libba Bray! (even though not many people will actually read this today, unless of course you are in a different time zone, which Libba is not, she's in the same time zone as me and apparently treating herself to a spa day, but I'm getting off topic).

If you'd like to give her her Birthday Best Wishes! yourself, got to her LJ at http://www.libba-bray.livejournal.com

And I'm kind of doing an in-post survey here. Who has read Libba Bray's books? The 'Gemma Doyle Trilogy' (ugh I hate that title! It's just so awful and doesn't fit the series well enough even though it is a whole lot shorter than the rambling 'A Great and Terrible Beauty Trilogy' That there is a mouthful)?

And of those, or of the ones currently reading Libba's awesome skills in the literarea (new word! dibs!), are you really really looking forward to Going Bovine, her work in progress? I know I am.

Well, thanks for holding out this long and finishing reading my babblings. Birthday Best Wishes! to you Libba! And all others out there who's birthday it is!

staring at The Sweet Far Thing and debating rereading it again,
♥Heather

It's not your space!

2008-03-01T15:17:00.003-05:00

It's mine.

I've just created a myspace for the blog, so please, check it out at http://profile.myspace.com/plentyofpaperreviews

comment or add me or whatever!

Thanks!

♥Heather

Sweet, sweet contest!

2008-02-29T16:25:00.003-05:00

Well, because the Page Flipper is so amazingly amazing, there is a contest to win books!

The books are:

The Unspoken by Thomas Farly
Fake Boyfriend by Kate Brian
Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Here, There be Dragons by James A. Owen and it's sequel, In Search for the Red Dragon
and Tweak by Nic Sheff

I personally am entering the contest to win these amazing six books. They all sound pretty-really good!

Go over to thepageflipper.blogspot.com to check it out and for more info!

entering as we speak, thinking of a topic, and loving the page flipper,
♥Heather

A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotsen (A review in which Caroline sheds her nice-girl image)

2008-02-25T20:08:00.003-05:00

In my last review, I warned you that I would, eventually, review a book that I didn't like. I made certain to write this warning because I feared my previous reviews had gave me the facade of being too... charitable. Too kind. Sucking up to whoever likes or reads or writes the books, maybe. Just one of those happy, bunny-loving, "I HEART everything I read, even if it is utter crap!" types.
Au contrare, mes amis. I don't bullshit. It's not in my genetic code. I am honest, especially when it comes to books and writing. And, as was proved in my first ever book review (A seventh grade critical essay on my opinion of Carl Hiassen's Hoot) I enjoy being malicious.
A Countess Below Stairs looks like a good book. It has a nice-looking cover, at least, featuring pretty lettering and a girl with half-a-head. This, admittedly, is a bit ambiguous. I mean, an alarming amount of YA novels feature girls with half-of-heads, and they vary tremendously in quality. On one side of the spectrum, you have Maureen Johnson, and on the other side you have Gossip Girl.
Still, though. I was confident that A Countess Below Stairs would be closer to the Maureen Johnson end. It has that good book look. The description is good, utilizing phrases such as instant attraction and forbidden romance. I like that stuff. It's a bit overused, sure, but if it's written well then it never gets old with me. That stuff sucks me in.
So, I bought it. I bought it with eight dollars and ninety-nine cents that I so expertly weasled out of my mother, and- because I still do have a bit of that naive 7th grader in me- I just assumed it would be good. I'd read several good reviews. It looked good. It sounded good.
As it turns out, however, all of this suppossed goodness was a mere facade; perhaps even a conspiracy! I am here to warn you, dear reader, that "A Countess Below Stairs" is not a good book.
I should have realized this as soon as I opened the book to find the largest print I have had the misfortune of glimpsing since my last babysitting job- and the boys I sit for are six and four years old. This may sound nitpicky, I know, but I hate large print. It's so... patronizing. It inspires the same sort of feeling as being talked down to by people of lesser intelligence than yourself. I can handle large print, though. What I can't handle is the rest of "A Countess Below Stairs."
Anna, the main character of this monstrosity, embodies the most vexing of heroine stereotypes: the perfect girl. Anna is beautiful, intelligent, good-humored, graceful, charming, and loved by everyone. Everyone, of course, but me. Personally, I find Anna intolerably irritating. She's so sweet, you see, becoming a maid after fleeing her beautiful home in Russia. She's fascinated with Selina Strickland, the queen of the horrible maid, who somehow managed to publish a book. The other half of this couple is Rupert- who, like Anna, is beautiful, intelligent, good-humored, charming, graceful, and loved by all except for me. The saddest thing about A Countess Below Stairs is that I don't feel any sort of anything towards Rupert. This, above all, is a warning sign. I fall in love with book characters so often that I'd be likely to invent a way for me to transport myself into the fictional universe so that I could actually be with one. I've developed several plans regarding how to do so. But for Rupert? Eh, no. Give me flaws! I like flaws! Rupert and Anna's only flaws are that they are flat, stupid, poorly written characters in a flat, stupid, poorly written novel!
Poorly-written. See, what really annoys me are the run-on sentances. The comma splices. I'm talking eight participles in one sentence here. There is no way that this is grammatically correct! No way whatsoever! No way AT ALL!
Then, of course, there are the blatant lies on the back of the book. There is no 'instant attraction'. Anything but. Don't get your hopes up, though: there is no Darcy and Elizabeth reminiscent clashing, either. There are just two idiotic characters who spend an extremely minimal amount of time together througout the novel, and who are most certainly not in love. I'll give them 'mutual affection of flat, one-sided, horrifically perfect characters', but not love. They do not deserve love.
The one thing that I cannot stand in reading is being bored. Please, writers. Disgust me, or anger me, or make me want to throw your books across the room in frustration. Depress me, make me cry, make me scream, or make me throw up. Make me love you or hate you, but at least make me feel something. I felt nothing, reading this book, except for annoyance and regret because I actually spent $8.99 on it.
I wonder if I could scrounge up that gift receit from Books-A-Million and convince them that I have a profound fear of historical fiction and that I recieved this book from an evil cousin who knows about this fear and bought it for me just to terrify me out of my wits, thus recieving store credits and buying another book that hopefully doesn't completely suck?
I give "A Duchess Under Stars"(I couldn't even manage to remember the title, the entire time I was reading it. I mangled it so badly whenever anyone asked what I was reading. And yes, I did actually say, "A Duchess Under Stars" once or twice.) one-half cup of cold, broken-coffee-pot, black coffee with wierd plastic aftertaste.
And that's being charitable.

Caroline

Looking For Alaska-(Caroline defends her new favorite author's honor)

2008-02-17T18:23:00.006-05:00

John Green is NOT a pornographer...

But he is:

A nerdfighter, a list-maker, a possible genuis, a hilarious vlogger, made of awesome, the owner of a completely amazing library that is featured in all of his vlogs for fellow nerds to stare at in envy, and the writer of my new favorite book- Looking For Alaska.

In my review for the Bermudez Triangle, I mentioned my intense adoration for all things banned, especially if they happen to be over 200 book-scented pages of novel-ly goodness. And while I've read plenty of banned books that were called "disgusting", or "objectional", or "morally corrupt", I'd never tried one that had actually been referred to as "pornagraphic." That is hard core bannage, people. So, as soon as I saw the story on Maureen Johnson's blog and saw the video in which John Green defended his book, I knew. I had to read this book.

One unfortunate factor in the life of an unemployed teenaer is that vexing 'lack of regular income' factor. Oh, how I hate that. It is because of that that I did not get Looking For Alaska straight away from the local Books-a-IIllion, but from Amazon. For 2.57, plus 3.99 of shipping and handling. With my mom's money. In three to five business days. (Which actually means seven.)

But when I did, finally, lay my hands on the book yesterday, I was pysched. I had not been so excited to read one certain book since the most highly anticipated book... ever.... came out. Which, yeah, I know, was this July, but still. It was the most highly anticipated book ever.

For me, though, Looking For Alaska was a close second- and, unlike the first, it didn't dissapoint me in the slightest.

Looking For Alaska is about a guy named Miles Halter, but he's nicknamed Pudge 14 pages in and is referred to as Miles all of about six times throughout the book, so for all intents and purposes he is Pudge. The story opens at Pudge's very ill-attended going away party. He's going to his father's alma mater, Culver Creek, which is a boarding school. He's going not to please his father or because he has no friends. He, like the poet Francois Rabelais, goes to seek a great perhaps. Unlike Rabelais, Pudge will not be dying before he finds it. Pudge is completely fascinated by last words. He reads alot, but never fiction. He only reads biographies, and mostly for the last words. This is how he came across his reason for leaving Florida for Culver Creek.

Culver Creek is not one of those luxurious boarding schools that are featured in every other boarding school book ever in YA history- ahem. Sorry. But it isn't. It's one of those linoleum floored, slightly grungy, sucky shower kind of boarding school- it vaguely reminds me of Governor's School, only it's not pretty on the outside either. Anyway, it all strikes me as being very realistic and cool. But maybe it's only Southern boarding schools that are like that, I guess.

He meets his roomate Chip/Colonel who memorizes things on maps. He's in a towel for this meeting. He also meets Alaska who named herself and who rambles and who has the most incredible library in the entire world. I. Want. Her. Books. Anyway, Alaska is gorgeous and charming and Pudge is hopeless. Only, she has a boyfriend who she adores and he soon has a girlfriend who he... um, likes. Things happen. Things Fall Apart. And Pudge is catapulted into the Great Perhaps that he's been searching for.

Until everything crashes.

Looking for Alaska is gorgeously written, heartwrenching, hilarious, and it's remarkable in that it doesn't underestimate the intelligence of teenagers. It's pure amazing goodness, and if you don't go out and buy and read this book then I will send the swan and the Eagle after you.

I give it five cups of artisty, hardcore coffee. (eventually, there will be another book that I don't absolutely love. But this one is beyond the scale.)

Caroline

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

If it's possible to agree one million percent, I do. I really, honestly do.No, wait. Scratch that. If it's possible, I agree infinity percent. With everything.

John Green creates a magnificently superb illustration of the labyrinth, of the Great Perhaps. Looking for Alaska explores and creates questions of philosophy, while simultaneously entertaining the reader to no end.

I warn you against reading this book in a public area. And by public, I mean anywher, anywhere that people are, I don't know, hanging out, talking, doing anything. You will be thought crazy for all the hysterical laughter you'll be doing. And, if you have a heart, and are the type to do so, you might even cry. I did. Honestly. For happy reasons, for sad. I cried.

Pudge, the Colonel, Alaska and Takumi (the four main characters) will entertain. They are the best character cast I've stumbled upon in a very long time.Pudge memorizes last words. He searches for the Great Perhaps.The Colonel memorizes evything. He's a genius (don't believe me, just ask him the population and capital of Azerbaijan)Alaska reads books; she's collected a 'life's library.' She searches for a way out of the labyrinth.

Takumi makes a great fox (;D). He provides constant hilarity.Together, these four make up what is now my favorite book.I concur and give it 5+ steaming cups of coffee (with a little vodka, or maybe Strawberry Hill in them)

Wanting a sexy fox hat, searching for the the Great Perhaps and a way out of this labyrinth, and wondering where 'there' is,

Heather

Heather is...

2008-02-16T15:54:00.005-05:00

wishing a happy, spectacular, fantasmic birthday to Maureen Johnson. Happy B-day!

Clearly, today is her birthday, February 16th.

I've decided this is gonna be a new thing. You know, wishing authors happy birthday? Yeah, I'm going to do that from now on, so if you know any authors birthday, let me know. I'll compile a list, mark them on my calendar, and create a post for each and every one. :D

And thanks to Libba Bray (being of awesome), I know that she loves cake, ice cream, party hats, confetti, pinatas, diamonds, unicorns, zombies, books, music, t-shirts that read, "Feel the power of my MOJO!", cash, credit cards, museum passes, real English tea, vegetarian goodies, M&Ms, bad eighties songs, dance videos, toe socks, monkeys, amusing air fresheners, mod bands, shoes, and sugar.

But no eggs. She doesn't like eggs.

Please go to MJ's blog @ maureenjohnson.blogspot.com and wish her a Happy Birthday! :D

♥Heather

Jinx (giggles 'pinch poke!')

2008-02-08T21:29:00.000-05:00

You know those ridiculous handshakes you made up as a kid? The ones to get rid of jinxes and curses and such? You remember playing Jinx? And 'pinch poke, you owe me a coke'? This was all a joke. No one in this world needs those luck games. Or, at least, not as much as Jean Honeychurch.

She's lived her life with nothing but bad luck. It started on the day she was born. Not minutes of being in this world, something bad happened to Jean.* As her mother was giving birth (or right after, I'm not positive on the timing) the power went out in the hospital. A storm cell had passed over and caused a blackout so huge that people had to be airlifted from the hospital to the next county to be treated. If that wasn't bad enough, it resulted in one of the worst nicknames ever. One that she hates even more than her normal, boring name. Jinx.

Through her life, everyone in her family has come to know her as Jinx. Nothing else. Growing up a preacher's daughter, in a house-hold of 7, in Hancock, Iowa, Jean never has the best of luck. She breaks everything she comes into contact with.**

Her bad luck gets so extreme she has to move to New York City to live with her Aunt and Uncle--and her three cousins. One of which, Tory*** has changed an awful lot since the last time she saw her... five years ago. She enters into a new school, and, typical of her luck, things go wrong. All but one thing, that is: Her new friendship with the cute, adorable neighbor, Zach (who enjoys seals).

(At the risk of sounding cheesy) Through all this, Jinx learns to accept her bad luck and live with a secret she's been hiding. The secret that is the reason she left Iowa in the first place. And it comes back after her anyway...(ooh, being all cryptic and evil. Mwahahahaha!)

As is typical of Meg Cabot books (or at least from the extent of my knowledge) this story is written very well. Meg Cabot's ability to relate to teens (or teen girls, that is) still amazes me. The one thing I must criticize, however, is the lack of intelligence the main character always seems to hold. The whole way through the book, I just wanted to reach in and rip Jinx's hair out.

The plot starts out a bit sketchy (mimicking that of other Cabot books I've read) but quickly develops into a page-turning, can't-put-it-down novel. I found myself, more than once, verbalizing my opinion out loud. I became part of the story. I had to keep reading. The characters drew me in and held me. They are dynamic and entertaining, but sometimes quite predictable. You just can't help falling in love with them, though. They are your friends, family, neighbors. Just on a whole new level you never thought they could be on. They are realistically, unbelievably...wonderful.

But, this book may not be everyone's cup of tea...

Who am I kidding? How can you not love this book?

As I've said before, a good cover is usually (and here I emphasize the word 'usually') a sign of a good book. And I, for one, love the cover. It's beautiful and etherial. It fits the writing and plot of Jinx very well.

And that's why I give this book 4 perfectly hot, deliciously sweet Cups of Coffee--with just the right amount of that foamy milk.****

♥Heather

*Not Jean Marie, or Jeanine, or Jeanette, or even Jeanne. Just Jean.

**As her cousin Teddy so blatantly points out

***Or as she prefers, Torrance (*dramatic sigh*)

****Hey, not everybody likes the foamy milk...

The Bermudez Triangle

2008-01-30T19:17:00.000-05:00

Something that has never been scientifically proven but is most definately true is the fact that things are so much better when they're forbidden. Seriously. Who doesn't love forbidden things? Forbidden love- much more romantic, right? Forbidden cookies, too, taste twice as good as the cookies your mom throws in your lunch box. Forbidden movies, forbidden trips, forbidden food- all awesome. All way more enjoyable than they would be if they were actually allowed. On top of the quality of whatever the forbidden thing is, there's that rush, that knowledge that you are doing something that is FORBIDDEN.

This love for all things not-allowed is one of the many reasons I loved The Bermudez Triangle. If you're familiar with Maureen Johnson, you might know that the book in question has been banned from one school library, placed on a Parental-Consent-Only shelf that, I'm sure, just screams "forbidden". So, in other words, it screams, "READ ME!". Because banned books, I've learned, are always the best books. Let's face it- they don't ban just anything. If the library in question even vaguely resembles any middle or high school library I've ever been to, I'm sure that there are tons of books that are much more offensive than this one- but these are books that are "bad" for the sake of trashiness. These books don't scare people like the mother who brought the Bermudez Triangle up for questioning. This book, clearly, was banned not because of any actual content, but because of the message that it sends- the message that is so terrifying to close minded people such as this woman.

The Bermudez Triange opens with the going-away party of Nina Bermudez, thrown by her two best friends, Mel and Avery. The three main characters are introduced through this scene with dialogue and anecdotes, rather than the typical listing of characteristics. Nina is the intelligent leader, off to Stanford for three months; Avery is amusing and talkative, hyper-observant and snarky; and Mel is somewhat of a shrinking violet, remaining quiet and getting teary eyed over Nina's impending departure. The three have clearly been friends for a long while, though a precise date or year is not named. As friends, the three are very relatable- full of inside jokes, making fun of each other incesscently, and not at all reserved about making fools of themselves. They have a quality that reminds you of your own best friends, comfortable and amusing and somewhat ridiculous; and this might scare you, later on.

In the ten weeks that follow, each member of the Triangle falls in love- two of them with each other. Contrary to the impression that you might have recieved from the title, the description, and the back of the book, the point of view is not limited to Nina, nor is she the undisputed main character (am I the only one who thought that was the case?). The book, which is divided into ten parts, marked by holidays, switches third person focus according to chapter. During "Independence Day", while Nina is still away at leadership camp falling for an adorable nature boy, Mel and Avery share their first kiss. What follows is an exquisite tale of sexual identity- a story of friendship, love, and the difference between the two. It's clear, reading this book, why it would scare some people.

In today's society, few people are willing to admit to predjudices of any kind, even to themselves. Teenagers especially are more "accepting" of homosexuality- or, perhaps, still sticking to the status quo by refusing to voice other opinions. Because, honestly, it's cooler in most people's eyes today to be gay than to be homophobic.

The cruel treatment of Mel and Avery later on in the novel are a perfect example of the fact that nomatter how accepting today's society claims to be, predjudice still exists. Unfortunately, it probably always will. This book could not only help a person come to terms with sexuality- it's also a reminder that no matter how far we've come, there's still a long way to go. How many people can honestly say that they are completely, totally, unwaveringly accepting of everyone's beliefs and habits? I can't. I have no problem with people's decisions to be gay; I believe in equal rights for everyone, and I think that gay marriage should be legalized- but I can't watch a same sex kiss on TV without squirming and changing the channel. Predjudice is something I still have to work through and resolve- something that everyone has to work through and resolve.

Therefore, The Bermudez Triangle is a book that every teenager should read. It's a book that should be allowed on every shelf, no matter how fun banned books are to read. Besides sending a powerful message, The Bermudez Triangle is entertaining, made of awesome, and! Involves a completely adorable boy-two, if you like the whole Birkenstocks thing- who is beyond sweet and amazing despite his name, which holds a negative connotation for me. :D

As Kirkus Reviews sums it up, The Bermudez Triangle is, "Warm, humorous, and smoothly readable story... tender even when painful."

I give it five cups of steaming hot, delicious coffee. Caramel Mocchiato from Starbucks! I'd give it six, if that was an option.

Caroline

The Amber Spyglass- Philip Pullman(a review in which Caroline cannot stop using the word "fierce")

2008-01-19T16:39:00.000-05:00

There are many things that can be said about the final installment in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series- many things that have been said, actually. The trilogy, which has been questioned by many (most of whom have never opened one of the books, as far as I can tell) has sprung quite a controversy in the past few months, sparked by the release of a movie adaptation of The Golden Compass.

Anti-Christian themes definately reach their peak in The Amber Spyglass, making it the most controversial of the three novels, but the quotes presented on the novel demonstrate the fact that there are much more important things in the Amber Spylass.

These quotes praise Pullman's storytelling ability, language, and his use of fantasy to tell of the universal expierence of growing up. One declares His Dark Materials to be the last great fantasy masterpiece of the twentieth century.

All of this is true. Lyra and Will's adventure is well-thought out and breathtaking. It's full of incredible new characters, creatures and universes, all awesome and creative, as is everything that Pullman has created in this series. Aside from these new additions, old characters who had previously been one-sided labels of people become deliciously three-dimensional and real. Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel are desperately confusing and confused, abandoning their previous personells of evil heartless bitch and slightly less evil murderer. The stunning character development is the first thing that truly sets The Amber Spyglass apart from the other novels. The second thing, though, is so much more wonderful. The second thing is what carries it above and beyond, takes a somewhat flat story to soaring heights.

The second thing is love, something that had only been shown in brief flashes of the first two novels. Pullman's brilliance at capturing emotion is surprising and goes unnoticed most of the time in The Golden Compass and the Subtle Knife, but it does make it's appearences- the best example is in Lyra's relationship with Pantalaimon. Those are some of the best moments, writing wise, in the first book; Lyra's fierce dedication and devotion to Pan, Roger, Iorek, and, truly, everyone she gets close to. There are also more subtle bits, in Will's love for his parents, Serephina's love for Lee, even, at the ending of the first book, Asriel and Marisa. But these are merely glances at the author's true capability as it is shown in the final novel. All of a sudden, there's Mrs. Coulter's fierce, impossible motherly love, which I would have never guessed existed. But it does, in this book. Though she is certainly not a heroine, Mrs. Coulter loves her daughter, however unexpected and twisted that love is. The fierce, ultimate love between the angels Balthamos and Baruch is gorgeous and heartbreaking. Every character in The Amber Spyglass loves fiercely, no matter what their other flaws. Love is so prominent in this book- through friendship, through family, through souls, and finally, beautifully, through ROMANCE.

The romance of the two main characters in this book is the best kind, in my opinion. It's romance of the fierce, aching, desperate, sad, beautiful variety. It's the sort of romance that makes me sob. Because, yeah, I did. I sobbed. Usually, it takes death to make me sob. I'll get a bit teary-eyed, sure, but this was not "a bit teary-eyed". This was like, lay your head down on the book, leave permanent water stains. There are only two other works of fiction that have ever given me such a strong reaction without killing anyone: the "Both Sides of Time" series by Caroline B. Cooney(there were moments in all three...), and the movie Becoming Jane.

This is some seriously beautiful stuff. It's easily the best of the three books, just for the final chapters. The rest, of course, is incredible as well. My only complaint would be that I was somewhat irritated by any section that did not include Will or Lyra, which is a complaint I've had throughout the series. Actually, the bits with Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel are more interesting this time around, so I was mainly annoyed by the adventures of Mary Malone and her bike/animal friends. I must confess to skimming those sections.

I award this book the full five stars(we do need to come up with something better than stars, btw)

Caroline

The Nature of Jade

2008-01-19T11:52:00.000-05:00

'Master storyteller Deb Caletti has once again created characters so real you will be breathless with anticipation as their riveting story unfolds'

Quoted from the inside fold of The Nature of Jade. Not altogether true, but not a lie either. I've never read her other books (which include The Queen of Everything, Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, and Wild Roses) so I would have no idea if she has created real characters before, making this time a 'once again' moment. And the story wasn't exactly 'riveting' either. But that just means that the truthful 'breathless anticipation' was all the better because it came from reading an outstanding book, not just one with a can't-put-it-down-must-read interesting plot line. It wasn't 'riveting', it was good.

I don't even know why I like it--love it. I'm not even particularly fond of the way Deb Caletti writes. I don't like her style. It almost seems (I hope I'm not offending anyone) too...amateur, raw, unedited.

She won't become a favorite author. Don't expect me to start gushing about how much I love her. I don't. At all. The way she writes is ridiculously annoying to me.

But that doesn't keep me from coming back to this amazing book I've just read. This book with its good cover which is usually a sign of a good book (don't give me that 'don't judge a book by its cover' crap. In the case of books its mostly true. With humans, not so much, as Jade finds out in this book. But I'm getting ahead of myself...) I do have to agree with that person, whoever it was, that said the characters were real.

They are. They are in that since that they're nothing like your friends but still exactly like them.

Jade DeLuna, star of it all, has Panic Disorder. She's prone to anxiety attacks. There's two things that seem to help her most with this. The first is going to the zoo. Volunteering after school, between Calculus and all her AP classes, she becomes attached to the Elephants. Bamboo, Tombi, Flora, Chai, baby Hansa, and Onyx. All with their different personalities, just like humans. The second is him. The boy in the red jacket and the baby on his back. Sebastian. He has his own story and she gets caught up in it.

All the while, her family goes through rough patches. Horrible spells. Tsunamis, Hurricanes, and Doors Flying off Airplanes bad moments.

Jade lives through it and (at the risk of sounding horribly cheesy and cliche) learns about herself.

And it's not just a girl book. Right now, I'm trying to imagine any one of my guy friends reading it and can't, but it could be a guy's book. If guys can read Twilight and be completely in love with it...It's told in female perspective, but definitely not girly.

I give it 4 stars (just stars for now until I can think of some cooler object to label it with).

Yours Truly,

Heather♥

(first review, how did I do?)

<3xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox<3

And now for Caroline's imput:

I had several issues with The Nature of Jade- the writing style, of course, was really annoying at times. That didn't bother me quite as much as I thought it would, but I wasn't crazy about it by any means. Surprisingly, though, it wasn't my biggest problem with the book.

Sebastian, the boy in the red jacket, is introduced within the first chapter- maybe even the first few pages. The way Jade reacts to him makes things clear: he's going to be important; he's going to be "THE BOY". If the overly revealing jacket description hadn't already declared him "THE BOY", there is still no question about it. Jade hasn't even met him yet, but you know. It's him.

The fact that Jade hasn't met him yet begins as a cool sort of spin on the whole thing, but soon becomes annoying. She just happens to go on the day he stops coming? Not just the day he missed, but the day he gives up altogether? This is very frustrating, because, clearly, he is THE BOY. He'll be important eventually, gosh darn it, and I'm a bit of an impatient reader. I want him to be important NOW.

But that can be forgiven, on it's own. He finally shows up, asks her out after two meetings(thank the Lord, they didn't drag out THAT process)- and they become a sort of something. I like Sebastian- I like his sweet charm and his bookstore employment and his hot chocolate and his son- but I don't like the way it takes forever to get to know him.

Another complaint(Wow, I have quite a few of those today...) was that the conversation was kind of... I don't know. Fake. Contrived? I mean, quite alot of it was good. But some... some was sort of annoying. Like, it would be great, it'd be like listening in on actual peoples conversations, yes, yes, go on- Ouch. No. Stop. Nobody would really say that.

Finally-(yes, I'll move on to the nice things after this)- I didn't like how big, huge, important things were more or less ignored, only to be brought up in wierd ways and then NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. For instance, here is a quote from the book; part of a scene in which Jade is talking to her psycologist.

"Some things aren't their business."

"Agreed."

"Like sleeping with him."

-The Nature of Jade, Deb Caletti, etc...

Ahem. Yeah. Has their intimacy been previously mentioned? No. Do they ever bring it up again? Ha. No. Too easy. That would be predictable, or something.

They do this again, with something else in the book. Something huge and terrible; something that should have been addressed. Things like this get on my nerves to no end- and there were alot of things like that in this book. It really annoyed me, alot of the time. But somehow, inexplicably, I really liked this book.

I might even love it, oddly enough. Because, despite the many logistical problems and grammatical errors, it was a good book, a sweet read, and my only comfort on this awful day.

The only element that I can honestly say I loved were the characters. Despite occassional dialogue problems, they were so real; so unstereotyped and lovely. Every character felt like a close friend, or at least someone I knew very well. I found Jade completely fascinating, adored Sebastian and Bo and Tess, and knew all of Jade's friends.

I have to say, though, the character who I loved the most was Jade's little brother, Oliver. Their relationship completely fascinated me. I've always wanted a little brother. Or a big brother, even, but a little brother would be great. Oliver, with his endearing Narnia obsession and love for Jade and horror at the thought of divorce, is the sweetest thing; all I would ever want in a sibling. So he was my favorite character, but they were all pretty amazing.

I give the nature of Jade three cups of delicious, smoking hot coffee- plus another one that I spilled half of on the floor.

Yours (or, actually, Sebastian's),

Caroline

In way of an explaination(and because the page looks so sad and empty...)

2008-01-17T19:05:00.000-05:00

So, because we've decided to be cryptic and put song lyrics as our blog description (albeit extremely awesome ones)- here's an explanation for you.

In short, we are girls who read. Alot. You've all seen us- we're the ones in the back of the classroom, ignoring the teacher and everyone else, caught up in a different planet. Maybe you've even heard us- because this is largely what we talk about.

Books.

Talking about books is what we're here to do, and if you're reading this and you'd like to read something better, we'll give you advice on which ones you should. And, of course, rag on the ones you shouldn't. Because life is just not fun if you don't get to whine, occasionally.

So we'll read the books, discuss the books, and log in and review the books for your (hopeful!) enjoyment and use. And perhaps we'll get lucky and score an interview?!?! Hey, it happened to those evil cousins. Now they're selling t-shirts and everything, big shots.

On that note... enjoy the reviews!

<3 Caroline

Anything you want to add to that?

Plenty of Paper

Sweethearts by Sara Zarr (a review in which Caroline... is back).

Ballads of Suburbia by Stephanie Kuehnert

Our book club? Surely you must have the wrong one?

Giving It Away For Free (the only time Momma would approve)

Along for the Ride--Sarah Dessen

How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson

This is not really a review of Slipping--Cathleen Davitt Bell

Read I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone? Looking for the newest by Stephanie Kuehnert?

Wake by Lisa McMann

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Pay it Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde

GIRL WEEK

The Whirlwinds Return!

Lost It- Kristin Tracy

so tired of being the one

as simple as snow- gregory galloway

I feel as if a part of me is gone

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

Is it just me...

the much-anticipated Paper Towns by John Green

just a few and a little

The Elite by Jennifer Banash

Hacking Harvard- Robin Wasserman

Alpha Dog by Jennifer Ziegler

moving from the sidebar to the center!--Contests Around the Blogosphere!

One Small Step by P.B. Kerr (thanks to Chelsea for the book)

Hiatus Tour Contest Winner!

and end and a beginning

How To Be Bad

Masquerade by Melissa De La Cruz

Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz

When It Happens by Susane Colasanti

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

Wrapping it up

Update on Hiatus Tour!!!!!

Hiatus Tour (and contest)

Updates

Belated Birthday Wishes!

Frenemies, by Alexa Young: A review in which Caroline regrets her nasty habit of being honest.

Author MeMe! (we just can't get enough, can we?)

M or F?-- Lisa Papademetriou and Chris Tebbetts

it's a new month

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart

MeMe TiMe

Interview with Catherine Ryan Hyde

The Year of Secret Assignments, Jacyln Moriarty

Chasing Windmills by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Perfect You--Elizabeth Scott

The Pact by Jodi Picoult

the boyfriend list- e. lockhart

Special BOOK-related Meme That I Just Couldn't Pass Up

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac- Gabrielle Zevin

Updates

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert

City of Ashes- Cassandra Clare

Tantalize (a very rare book)

New Contest

Devilish- Maureen Johnson

More memeage.(Caroline, because she knows that Heather thinks it's cute to cover up her posts with posts that have the SAME TITLE to confuse her.)

We have been MEMED!! (except this time it's Heather)

We have been MEMED!!!

An Abundance of Katherines-John Green

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson

Nineteen Minutes-Jodie Piccoult (Caroline returns to her nice girl self.)

Birthday Best Wishes!

It's not your space!

Sweet, sweet contest!

A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotsen (A review in which Caroline sheds her nice-girl image)

Looking For Alaska-(Caroline defends her new favorite author's honor)

Heather is...

Jinx (*giggles* 'pinch poke!')

The Bermudez Triangle

The Amber Spyglass- Philip Pullman(a review in which Caroline cannot stop using the word "fierce")

The Nature of Jade

In way of an explaination(and because the page looks so sad and empty...)

Jinx (giggles 'pinch poke!')