Eleven Hours by Pamela Erens

Title: Eleven Hours
Author: Pamela Erens
Publisher: Tin House
Publication date: May 2, 2016
Rating: ★★★★

Summary (via Goodreads):
Lore arrives at the hospital alone—no husband, no partner, no friends. Her birth plan is explicit: she wants no fetal monitor, no IV, no epidural. Franckline, a nurse in the maternity ward—herself on the verge of showing—is patient with the young woman. She knows what it’s like to worry that something might go wrong, and she understands the pain when it does. She knows as well as anyone the severe challenge of childbirth, what it does to the mind and the body.

Eleven Hours is the story of two soon-to-be mothers who, in the midst of a difficult labor, are forced to reckon with their pasts and re-create their futures. Lore must disentangle herself from a love triangle; Franckline must move beyond past traumas to accept the life that’s waiting for her. Pamela Erens moves seamlessly between their begrudging friendship and the memories evoked by so intense an experience. At turns urgent and lyrical, Erens’s novel is a visceral portrait of childbirth, and a vivid rendering of the way we approach motherhood—with fear and joy, anguish and awe.

Many thanks to the publisher for sending me this electronic copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This book is SO "literary." It feels like a grad school writing prompt gone wild. But in a good way. (Really, what else would you expect from a publisher like Tin House?)

I requested Eleven Hours on NetGalley because I recognized the author, Pamela Erens. (Someone had recommended her previous book, The Virgins, as a better (less racist? - my words, not theirs) version of Eleanor & Park.) I haven't yet read The Virgins, but suffice it to say I was interested in her work.

The story is told from a third person perspective, following two characters - Lore Tannenbaum and her midwife Franckline. For me, Lore is the more compelling of the two, so I will focus on her here.

At the onset, Lore is not the most likable character. She is demanding and cool - perhaps too outwardly emotionless and independent for her own good. It's not easy to empathize with her, and the story's slightly detached point of view doesn't make it any easier. As the book progresses, we find out more about her relationships and the emotional pain she has experienced - all of the things that have led her to where she is at that moment - and though it doesn't exactly make us like her any better, it feels like we slowly come to understand her.

On a personal level, I found myself fiercely rooting for her. I understood her - I understood her compulsion to push people away in order to protect herself. I understood her need for control. I understood her seemingly cold nature and unwillingness to let herself get attached. It was fascinating to experience her journey through pregnancy, as well as her shifting attitudes toward this child that she carried.

My investment in Lore's wellbeing surprised even myself - I am not one for books about motherhood. I can barely stomach mommy blogs. A story about a woman giving birth? The miracle of life? Ummm. Thanks but no thanks. And yet I found Eleven Hours to be a surprisingly gripping read - there's just enough suspense to keep you turning the pages. For those of you who think books about birth are boring, THINK AGAIN. Birth is freaking terrifying and gory. It's like voluntarily turning your life into a horror film. Women are badass.

But I digress.

The book goes back and forth between past and present, shifting from a focus on Lore's life to Franckline's. The story seems to wander leisurely, the tension slowly building as Lore gets closer and closer to birth.

The writing really is something. Ideas are expressed so articulately - you'll read something and think, "Yes, exactly. That's exactly what it feels like." In some ways, I feel the writing is much stronger than the story. And in fact, Eleven Hours feels like less of a "story" and more like an exercise in empathy - it's like the author wanted to take a not-particularly-likable character and make the reader want to fight for her by the end of the story, whether or not you've experienced motherhood or pregnancy yourself. Whatever the intention, it worked for me. I am much more conscious and simultaneously in a state of awe and fear of pregnancy after reading this book. Lore Tannenbaum is certainly not someone I'll forget in a jiffy.

Fever at Dawn by Péter Gárdos

Title: Fever at Dawn
Author: Péter Gárdos, Elizabeth Szász (translation)
Publisher: Anansi International
Publication date: April 30, 2016
Rating: ★★★

Summary (via Goodreads):

Twenty-five-year-old Holocaust survivor Miklós is being shipped from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to Gotland, Sweden, to receive treatment at the Larbro Hospital. Here he is sentenced to death again: he is diagnosed with tuberculosis and his doctors inform him that he has six months to live. But Miklós decides to wage war on his own fate: he writes 117 letters to 117 Hungarian girls, all of whom are being treated in the Swedish camps, with the aim of eventually choosing a wife from among them.

Two hundred kilometres away, in another Swedish rehabilitation camp, nineteen-year-old Lili receives Miklós’s letter. Since she is bedridden for three weeks due to a serious kidney problem, out of boredom — and curiosity — she decides to write back.

The slightly formal exchange of letters becomes increasingly intimate. When the two finally manage to meet, they fall in love and are determined to marry, despite the odds that are against them.

Based on the original letters written by Miklós and Lili (ninety-six altogether), Fever at Dawn is a tale of passion, striving, and betrayal; true and false friendships; doubt and faith; and the redeeming power of love.

Many thanks to the publisher for sending me this electronic copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The synopsis of Fever at Dawn is far more compelling than the book itself. My problem is this: the storyline meanders on and on, with far too many loose ends left behind. By the time you reach the end of the book, you're left wondering why you even bothered to read the thing you just read.

Fever at Dawn is based on the real life story of the Jewish-Hungarian author/director Péter Gárdos's parents, which perhaps makes the story more interesting than it would be otherwise, but it also makes me wonder if the author just took bits and pieces of real life, added in a weak backstory, and called it a day. There were moments that stood out to me, but there was not enough "plot" or momentum to really hold everything together. In some ways, it felt like I was reading a fictionalized account of someone's daily journal - some things were interesting, but on the whole, it was missing a roadmap. If you were to ask me, I don't think I could even tell you what the real point of the story was - the plot structure was unclear and really lacking.

Like I said, the description of Fever at Dawn oversells the book for me - the themes mentioned (betrayal, friendship, striving, love...) are all there, but they feel like afterthoughts - somehow disjointed from the essence of the story. But I do have to say that the writing is lovely and well-translated by Eliabeth Szász. The characters are also interesting - particularly Miklós, the optimistic and quirky and ever-hopeful protagonist. I only wish the storyline itself had been more carefully thought through.

The Longest Night by Andria Williams – Like Playing a Sad Song on Repeat

Title: The Longest Night
Author: Andria Williams
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: January 12, 2016
Rating: ★★★★

Summary (via Goodreads):

In 1959, Nat Collier moves with her husband, Paul, and their two young daughters to Idaho Falls, a remote military town. An Army Specialist, Paul is stationed there to help oversee one of the country’s first nuclear reactors – an assignment that seems full of opportunity.

Then, on his rounds, Paul discovers that the reactor is compromised, placing his family and the entire community in danger. Worse, his superiors set out to cover up the problem rather than fix it. Paul can’t bring himself to tell Nat the truth, but his lies only widen a growing gulf between them.

Lonely and restless, Nat is having trouble adjusting to their new life. She struggles to fit into her role as a housewife and longs for a real friend. When she meets a rancher, Esrom, she finds herself drawn to him, comforted by his kindness and company. But as rumors spread, the secrets between Nat and Paul build and threaten to reach a breaking point.

Based on a true story of the only fatal nuclear accident to occur in America, The Longest Night is a deeply moving novel that explores the intricate makeup of a marriage, the shifting nature of trust, and the ways we try to protect the ones we love.

Many thanks to Random House for sending me this electronic copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Andria Williams makes a gorgeous authorial debut with The Longest Night, a story that explores one family's complex, tangled relationships with neighbors, with friends, and with each other. Williams throws us into a sleepy town where much of life revolves around the presence of one of the country's earliest nuclear reactors. From the start, we know that something's not quite right with the ol' CR-1, and this feeling of unease grows and grows until we reach a tipping point. It's hard to imagine that The Longest Night is based on a true story: the events feel like they're straight out of a science fiction plot, and the 1950s have never felt so iconic yet, strangely, so unimaginable.

The high tension setting provides the perfect backdrop for the messy interpersonal dynamics in the story. Interactions between Nat and Paul, husband and wife, feel more loaded somehow – as though the two are dancing on shaky ground. Every observation feels sharper, more significant, more pressing. Paul reflects on his life before Nat, while Nat reflects on who she was then and who she is now; and meanwhile you're sitting there thinking about the complexity of marriage and love and friendship – how we sometimes fall into things and how, for better or for worse, time turns relationships into something you had never expected.

And so, when Nat is presented with a choice, a fork in the road, it's difficult to say which way she should go. There's no black and white answer – Williams develops the story and these characters in a way that makes it so easy to understand and justify their actions and thoughts, even if you know that they're walking a fine line, teetering somewhere between status quo and free-fall. Throughout the book, you feel as though these characters are forever playing with something, some force, that is beyond them – whether it's the nuclear reactor, or the institution of marriage, or the expectations of society in the 50s... And maybe you know what they should do, how they should respond, but if you're being totally honest with yourself, you find that mostly you just want them to shirk the responsibilities and obligations, and instead choose the path that will give them the greatest happiness.

As I reflect on Williams' story, I'm realizing that this entire book is a study in character – in people, in who we are and who we become and how people affect us and shape us over time. At its heart, this is a story of life and desire and the values we carry with us. The characters in The Longest Night are fascinating: flawed and fucked up, and still there's something that keeps you turning the pages, wanting to know more about them, even if you can't.

And isn't that just so true to life? You can never know a person's entire story. All you can do is watch and observe and make sense of actions and try to draw out meanings from things and people that are unknowable. And there's something sacred about that. Andria Williams puts it brilliantly, this pleasure of not quite knowing:

I wanted to keep that moment where he was so grown-up and so perfect that I wasn’t quite sure it was really him. I wanted to keep it like I could have it forever and ever, over and over, that feeling of recognizing.

That's what this book is. It's not knowing. It's ambiguous. It's disturbing. It's unfair. It doesn't have a perfectly happily ever after ending – but it's okay, because this book is a reflection of life and there's no such thing as a neat resolution. And by the time you get to the last page, you don't really want the disingenuous fairytale ending anyway. What you want is something that feels real – and that real-ness is what you get. The Longest Night feels a little bit like a sad song, but it's a song you want to play over and over again.

Waiting on Wednesday: A Moment of Truth(witch)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

I wanted to have a weekly feature on this blog where I talk about all the new releases I'm looking forward to reading – I had the best/worst name for it too: Worked Up Wednesday!!? But then I discovered there is a far more legitimate weekly feature that already exists in the book blogging world, and that feature is the less charmingly named but more universally recognized "Waiting On Wednesday." So, officially, this feature will be called that – but just know that I'm still referring to it as Worked Up Wednesday in my head.

This week, I'm talking about TRUTHWITCH by Susan Dennard.

Title: Truthwitch (The Witchlands #1)
Author: Susan Dennard
Publisher: Tor Teen
Publication date: January 5, 2016

Summary (via Goodreads):

On a continent ruled by three empires, some are born with a “witchery”, a magical skill that sets them apart from others.

In the Witchlands, there are almost as many types of magic as there are ways to get in trouble – as two desperate young women know all too well.

Safiya is a Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lie. It’s a powerful magic that many would kill to have on their side, especially amongst the nobility to which Safi was born. So Safi must keep her gift hidden, lest she be used as a pawn in the struggle between empires.

Iseult, a Threadwitch, can see the invisible ties that bind and entangle the lives around her—but she cannot see the bonds that touch her own heart. Her unlikely friendship with Safi has taken her from life as an outcast into one of reckless adventure, where she is a cool, wary balance to Safi’s hotheaded impulsiveness.

Safi and Iseult just want to be free to live their own lives, but war is coming to the Witchlands. With the help of the cunning Prince Merik (a Windwitch and ship’s captain) and the hindrance of a Bloodwitch bent on revenge, the friends must fight emperors, princes, and mercenaries alike, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch.

I've had the opportunity to read a preview of the book, and I think this one is going to be really good (and not just because I'm on the street team, hah!). In the 15 chapters I've read, I've noticed a few things...

1. Susan Dennard puts so much care into crafting a story.

She knows every single thing about the world she's built – the history, the magic, the language, the political strife... even the best (and worst) place to grab a cup of coffee. And she knows each of her characters like the back of her hand: Iseult and Safi and Merik and Aeduan and Uncle Eron and Prince Leopold and Alma – their backgrounds, their insecurities, their joys... It's very clear to the reader that there's more to each of these people than what's printed on the page – that they're all complex and multi-faceted and just compelling. It's impossible not to turn the page.

2. Susan Dennard has said that she loves a slow burn romance, and it shows.

I cannot wait to read more about Iseult and Safi and Merik and Aeduan as they get to know each other – they're all fascinating in their own right, and I want to see how they (and their relationships, whether romantic or not) grow and change over the course of this book. Susan Dennard is good at writing moments and interactions that feel powerful and intense and a little bit steamy and a little heartbreaky, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of that in Truthwitch.

3. Characters with diverse backgrounds and stories!

I am particularly excited about this!!! Listen, you've got a main character who is an outcast, part of a nomadic group that represents the lowest rung of society; another main character who comes from nobility but has a dangerous secret and shirks expectations through her bravery and love of adventure (and trouble); a handsome hot-tempered prince whose nation is in poverty; and a monk and assassin with questionable morals... And those are just the main characters! Let's not forget Safi's alcoholic military strategist uncle, or Iseult's annoyingly perfect but unexpectedly fierce childhood friend!

So many interesting pieces to this story and so many things to anticipate. And here's a bonus for you – if you preorder by January 4, you're eligible to receive a free signed bookplate and double-sided poster with your order. (First 2000 preorders and available in US/Canada and UK only, though.) You can read up on all the details at TheWitchlands.com.

Review: Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

Title: Wolf by Wolf (Wolf by Wolf #1)
Author: Ryan Graudin
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date: October 20, 2015
Rating: ★★★★½

Summary (via Goodreads):

Code Name Verity meets Inglourious Basterds in this fast-paced novel from the author of The Walled City.

The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule the world. To commemorate their Great Victory over Britain and Russia, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The victor is awarded an audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor's ball.

Yael, who escaped from a death camp, has one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year's only female victor, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele twin's brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael's every move. But as Yael begins to get closer to the other competitors, can she bring herself to be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and complete her mission?

Many thanks to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (and NOVL) for sending me this electronic copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Holy Scheisse!!! What a book. And what a thing to write about: a world in which Hitler won the war.

Let me start with my favorite thing about this book (a challenge, for sure, given the number of things I love about this book), and that is Ryan Graudin's writing, which is nothing short of remarkable. The subject of this novel is not, I imagine, an easy thing to write about – the events were ugly enough the first time around. To imagine some alternate universe in which those events only get amplified? Unthinkable. And yet, Graudin does an incredible job representing not only those events but also the internal thoughts and feelings of those who live them.

The writing is wild when it needs to be – a rhythmic beat that makes you feel primal and crazy and aligns perfectly with the savageness of this version of 1956. She writes about the human experience in such an accessible way, but it leaves you feeling raw and wondering how such ordinary words could make you feel so much. It's poetry, stark and brutal, and it makes you want to chant the words and stomp your feet on the ground.

Beyond the writing is the story itself: one girl's mission to get into the Axis Tour, win the race, and kill Hitler. Which is easier said than done, of course. And is layered with even more complexity when we discover the results of the Nazis' human experimentation and the main character Yael's ability to "skinshift" and take on other appearances. We get to watch as Yael fights against all odds to win the game. It's an exhilarating ride, and the story just propels forward.

This is a character-driven novel, and it's not. There isn't character development so much as character revelation, especially since we start from a place of unknowing. We meet Yael and right off the bat we can tell she's a tough one, a girl who has gone through unspeakable horrors and has somehow lived to tell the story, but we learn more and more about her – her weaknesses and insecurities, her self-perceived identity (or lack thereof), her history and the people who have made a mark in it (and upon in her skin in the form of a tattoo of wolves) and what has become of them. Wolf(e) by wolf(e), we discover all these things that make her human, even while she sees herself as a tool.

And the discovery starts with Yael, but it doesn't stop there. We realize that Felix Wolfe (twin brother of Adele Wolfe, last year's winner and the first and only female victor of the Axis Tour) is perhaps more than just an overprotective brother, and that Luka (Adele's former love interest and Yael's competitor) carries his own complicated and intriguing secrets. Even with Hitler and the Third Reich, there is more than meets the eye.

They're definitely not joking around when they say it's Code Name Verity meets Inglourious Basterds. Wolf by Wolf is brilliant and exciting and suspenseful and mind-blowing, and I already can't wait to get my hands on the sequel (Fall 2016!) that concludes this duology.

Review: The Seventh Most Important Thing by Shelley Pearsall

Title: The Seventh Most Important Thing
Author: Shelley Pearsall
Publisher: Random House Children's
Publication date: September 8, 2015
Rating: ★★★

Summary (via Goodreads):

It was a bitterly cold day when Arthur T. Owens grabbed a brick and hurled it at the trash picker. Arthur had his reasons, and the brick hit the Junk Man in the arm, not the head. But none of that matters to the judge—he is ready to send Arthur to juvie for the foreseeable future. Amazingly, it’s the Junk Man himself who offers an alternative: 120 hours of community service . . . working for him.

Arthur is given a rickety shopping cart and a list of the Seven Most Important Things: glass bottles, foil, cardboard, pieces of wood, lightbulbs, coffee cans, and mirrors. He can’t believe it—is he really supposed to rummage through people’s trash? But it isn’t long before Arthur realizes there’s more to the Junk Man than meets the eye, and the “trash” he’s collecting is being transformed into something more precious than anyone could imagine. . . .

Inspired by the work of American folk artist James Hampton, award-winning author Shelley Pearsall has crafted an affecting and redemptive novel about discovering what shines within us all, even when life seems full of darkness.

Many thanks to Random House Children's for sending me this electronic copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The Seventh Most Important Thing caught my attention as soon as I read the description. A middle-grade story about a kid who befriends a guy known as the Junk Man who has a secret project that involves garbage? Sign me up. Seriously. I'm all about trash-to-treasure transformations. (And alliteration, apparently. Say that ten times fast.)

Inspired by the real life story of real life artist James Hampton, the concept of the book was fascinating (I mean, look up the guy on Google – he is inscrutable, and his work is completely mesmerizing!), but unfortunately, I found the execution to be lacking.

Sadly, the character development in The Seventh Most Important Thing is disappointingly weak. Shelley Pearsall really only teases at each character's story, and it seems as though there are a lot of blanket statements that are used to describe a character and that we are supposed to somehow take at face value. For example: the carpenter boyfriend who is a little too nice all the time; the alcoholic father who is loved but not a great dad; James Hampton who is an enigma at the beginning of the novel, and an enigma at the end. It feels like a sketch of a novel, and you're sort of left asking yourself, "…And?" It's like a thread on a sweater – you want to keep pulling and pulling, except there's nothing left to grab.

The one other thing that really stands out to me in a negative way is the voice. The Seventh Most Important Thing is written in the third person perspective but from what sounds like a child's voice. The language feels very juvenile, as though the author has made a point to be particularly accessible to younger audiences. It's a bit of an odd place to be, given that the main character himself is a 14-year-old boy whose childhood and family life are less rosy than the childhood and family lives of most other 14-year-old boys represented in fiction. I feel like the author maybe deliberately dumbed down the writing specifically to accommodate a younger crowd – it felt a little bit disingenuous and unnecessary to me, like she was self-consciously trying to write children's fiction and shielding her readers in the process.

On the flip side, there are definitely some very abstract, sophisticated themes in the book – like the seven most important things that Shelley Pearsall loosely and subtly explores throughout the course of the story – so I can understand why she might have wanted to take on a younger voice here. It's a very conceptual story, and at times the seven most important things get shrouded in too much symbolism, so in that sense, the language choice does make it a little bit easier to follow. And as much as I'm harping on the way the story was told, I found that the voice did grow on me a bit – the juxtaposition of concept art and youthful narrative was interesting and charming and kind of precious at times. It kept the book from feeling too heavy or philosophical or academic.

It's hard for me to come up with a really solid opinion of this book. The idea of it is fresh and interesting and unexpected, but between the way it is written and the story the author decided to tell, I have to say that it's just not my cup of tea. I actually think The Seventh Most Important Thing could've been a stronger book had it been written as an adult novel. The quirkiness of the story would have been more successful, and the narrative jump from Arthur's teen years to adulthood would have felt perhaps less jarring. I'm interested to see what others think though – maybe I'm too idealistic about what middle-grade books should be!

Review: Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Title: Everything, Everything
Author: Nicola Yoon
Publisher: Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers
Publication date: September 1, 2015
Rating: ★★★★

Summary (via Goodreads):

My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in seventeen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla.

But then one day, a moving truck arrives next door. I look out my window, and I see him. He’s tall, lean and wearing all black – black T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly.

Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.

Many thanks to Delacorte Press for sending me this electronic copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I read somewhere that Everything, Everything is what you wish The Fault in Our Stars could have been. Both books explore rare illnesses, impossible love, intelligent characters with little quirks – but Everything, Everything is decidedly more hopeful, fortunately less pretentious (sorry, Augustus Waters), and appreciably more diverse. The story itself is written from Maddy's perspective, but it feels like a mixed media art project with Maddy's one-line book reviews (on Tumblr, of course), doctor's notes, illustrations (drawn by Nicola's husband!), chat logs, screenshots of Maddy's email inbox, even the chapter titles… all of which provide an interesting subtext to the story. In Everything, Everything we get to take a look at Maddy's world, where repetition, predictability, and structure are forever the big themes of the day, until Olly moves in next door and changes all of that.

For me, the storyline is what really makes me like the book – surprising, given that I'm always going on about characters and character development. (But I actually find Maddy to be perhaps too perfect, too likable, in this story. Even when she registers that her actions are hurtful, it's still always easy for the reader to justify and make sense of what she's doing. It's hard for me to actively root for her, and I think part of it is that I never fully get the impression that she truly "earns" the good things that happen to her. They just sort of… happen to her. I don't know. It is a feeling I cannot clearly explain or substantiate.)

I do love seeing Maddy fall in love for the first time. There is an element of insta-love here, but it's not wrong in and of itself, or out of place either – especially when you think about the amount of interaction Maddy has had with the outside world (read: practically none). No wonder Olly feels like a bolt of lightning. I actually find it strangely comforting to experience Maddy's feelings for him. It reminds me of all the intense crushes I had throughout high school and college, of things moving too fast, how your heart can swell with affection and infatuation in such a short period of time, how someone can creep into your thoughts without you even realizing.

Without spoiling the book, I'll just say that the ending is somewhat convenient. In some ways, it diminishes the story and resolves the conflict too easily. But that could just be my penchant for angst and for putting characters through hell to see if they can cope. I do appreciate that the "twist" adds a different kind of depth to the book by pulling other things to the surface: deep-seated issues in Maddy's relationship with her mother; the question of what it means to be alive and whether it is different from living; the futility in wondering how our lives might be different if only this had happened or if that had turned out differently; the realization that every little thing we experience, for better or for worse, brings us to who and where we are today.

All in all, despite my slight objections, Everything, Everything is a strong debut from Nicola Yoon and it totally deserves its Kirkus starred review. It's a well-crafted book (I wasn't exaggerating when I said it was a mixed media work of art), and it's such a delight to see things come full circle. You'll know what I mean when you get to the last page. Even if you do feel similarly about some of the issues I've called out, maybe you'll still sigh and marvel, like I did, at how brilliantly the story comes together all the same.

Review: This Raging Light by Estelle Laure

Title: This Raging Light
Author: Estelle Laure
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group
Publication date: December 22, 2015
Rating: ★★★★★

Summary (via Goodreads):

Can the best thing happen at the worst time?

Her dad went crazy. Her mom left town. She has bills to pay and a little sister to look after. Now is not the time for level-headed seventeen-year-old Lucille to fall in love. But love – messy, inconvenient love – is what she's about to experience when she falls for Digby Jones, her best friend's brother. With blazing longing that builds to a fever pitch, Estelle Laure's soulful debut will keep readers hooked and hoping until the very last page.

Many thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for sending me this electronic copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

How do you talk about a book that strikes you like lightning? It takes away all of your words and you're just left with marks across your skin. But they stay there on you, and maybe eventually you stop noticing them – maybe they become par for the course – but still you know that something about you has changed forever.

That's what this book felt like to me. A story filled with heart and attitude and sass. One minute, the writing is wild and heavy enough to smother you – the next, we're slinging yo mama jokes and mooning over gangly boys with sharp green eyes.

This Raging Light is a story that reminds us that the secrets we carry are sometimes better off shared; that relationships are only as broken as you allow them to be; that we are far less alone than we think, and stronger than we give ourselves credit for. It's about learning to let go, to trust. It's realizing that family comes in all shapes and sizes, and it's not limited to whose blood runs through your veins. It's about people who are flawed, who are doing the best they can, and sometimes they mess up and they hurt you without even trying – but it's about understanding that life is messy and thrilling and always filled with hope, or at least the vaguely bright possibility of tomorrow.

Oh, this book is not perfect by any means. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered (what about Lucille's mom!) and could stand to be fifty pages longer (tell me more about Eden!, tell me more about Fred's!). But I loved this book in a way I haven't loved a book in a long, long time, and I will sing praises of it – and Estelle Laure – to anyone who asks (and also to anyone who doesn't). I will show them all my underlined passages on every other page. I will tell them about this girl, Lucille, and her crazybrains voice and how she is realer than most people are, and how her sister Wren is what all adults should aspire to be, and I will even point to Digby as a shining – or at least semi-luminous – beacon of boyhood.

I will shout from the rooftops:

"This is what all books should be!"

"I can't believe this is a debut novel!"

"What hope do the rest of us have!"

This is a story I want to read again and again. Loud and quiet, intricate and simple, big enough to swallow you whole.

Review: Sugar by Deirdre Riordan Hall

Title: Sugar
Author: Deirdre Riordan Hall
Publisher: Skyscape
Publication date: June 1, 2015
Rating: ★

Summary (via Goodreads):

Sugar Legowski-Gracia wasn’t always fat, but fat is what she is now at age seventeen. Not as fat as her mama, who is so big she hasn’t gotten out of bed in months. Not as heavy as her brother, Skunk, who has more meanness in him than fat, which is saying something. But she’s large enough to be the object of ridicule wherever she is: at the grocery store, walking down the street, at school. Sugar’s life is dictated by taking care of Mama in their run-down home – cooking, shopping, and, well, eating. A lot of eating, which Sugar hates as much as she loves.

When Sugar meets Even (not Evan – his nearly illiterate father misspelled his name on the birth certificate), she has the new experience of someone seeing her and not her body. As their unlikely friendship builds, Sugar allows herself to think about the future for the first time, a future not weighed down by her body or her mother.

Soon Sugar will have to decide whether to become the girl that Even helps her see within herself or to sink into the darkness of the skin-deep role her family and her life have created for her.

Many thanks to Skyscape for sending me this electronic copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This is the first time in a long time I've actively disliked a book. Like, gave it a 1-star review and added it to my BAD BOOKS shelf on Goodreads. Let me just cut to the chase: Sugar was not a good read.

The story drags because it's just the same events on repeat: Sugar hangs out with her new friend Even. Even validates her self-worth. Sugar goes home where she is emotionally and physically abused by her mother and brother. Sugar binges on junk food to dull the pain. Then it starts all over again. When major events do finally happen, they seem to come out of nowhere because there's no build-up. It's very perplexing.

Sugar's narration is so self-loathing that it becomes almost unbearable. We are constantly reminded of all the times Sugar has been bullied, all the ways she hates herself. After a while, it gets redundant and makes the story feel stagnant. Yes, it's important to establish that this is what her life is like, but I don't want to sit there and recap all the bad days she's had. I want to know what she's going to do about it. And we never really get to a point where she is self-empowered because she's too busy hating her life and her body. I didn't like Sugar's personality and after a while I just couldn't sympathize with her.

Insta-love doesn't bother me the way it might for others, but here the insta-love between Even and Sugar is cringeworthy. Even is full of lines that are supposed to make you swoon but end up sounding cheesy because, well, it's insta-love. Their relationship feels forced. And problematic. Isn't it weird that Sugar only starts taking care of herself once she meets Even? Why is her self-love conditional upon his interest? (Why does she only start to love her body once she starts to slim down? Why can't she develop a sense of body positivity in spite of how she looks?)

And don't get me started on the other characters. So many one-dimensional characters who are nothing more than plot devices. Abusive alcoholic father who is supposed to make Even look like the underdog? Check. (By the way, how has an illiterate person managed to afford the mortgage on coastal New England property for so long?) Allie, who has no personality and serves as the obligatory mean girl? Check. Jesús the janitor, who has apparently known Sugar all her life, who shows up in the last twenty pages of the book and reveals a plot twist? Check. Fat Henry, who explains away key plot points in clunky monologues? Check and check.

You guys. I don't even know. I was so taken by the description of this book – I thought it was going to be profound. And meaningful. And empowering. This book came nowhere close to that. I believe it's an author's job to earn their readers' mental and emotional investment, whether it's through strong writing or strong characterization or a strong story, but I found the storyline to be senseless and the writing stilted at best. I seem to be in the minority here, but for me, Sugar fell short.

Review: Fragile Bones by Lorna Schultz Nicholson

Title: Fragile Bones
Author: Lorna Schultz Nicholson
Publisher: Clockwise Press
Publication date: March 15, 2015
Rating: ★★★

Summary (via Goodreads):

Meet Harrison and Anna.

One is a fifteen-year-old boy with an uncanny ability to recite every bone in the skeletal system whenever he gets anxious – and that happens a lot. The meaning of "appropriate behavior" mystifies him: he doesn’t understand most people and they certainly don’t understand him.

The other is a graduating senior with the world at her feet. Joining the Best Buddies club at her school and pairing up with a boy with high-functioning autism is the perfect addition to her med school applications. Plus, the president of the club is a rather attractive, if mysterious, added attraction.

Told in the alternating voices of Harrison and Anna, Fragile Bones is the story of two teens whose lives intertwine in unexpected ways.

Many thanks to Clockwise Press for sending me this electronic copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I've been sitting here for a while now, just staring blankly at my computer screen. I'll start typing words and then DELETE DELETE DELETE. And then I'll stare some more and try to start again. I'm just not sure how to approach this book.

Fragile Bones, by Lorna Schultz Nicholson, is the first in a conceptual series of books that revolve around the Best Buddies program, which exists to provide opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disorders and to help them foster relationships. This book follows the journey of Harrison, who has high-functioning autism, and Anna, a high school student and overachiever whose goal in life is to get into med school (I guess?).

Fragile Bones was confusing. It was confusing because, as a character, Harrison was so captivating while everyone else in the story was just… not.

Whether the story was being told from his own perspective or from Anna's, I had such a clear picture in my mind of who Harrison was. It's clear that the author did her research on how a high-functioning autistic person might interact with the world. His speech patterns, his coping mechanisms, his behaviors – and how all of these things are construed to other people – felt very well-written.

Although it happened at a slow pace, you could see Harrison adjusting to new experiences and developing the ability to relate to other people. His growth was incremental, for sure, but it felt realistic, and I was glad (and relieved) that Schultz Nicholson didn't press the "easy" button and turn Anna into a magical cure-all for Harrison. She created a realistic representation of what it's like to interact with someone like Harrison, and she showed us a picture of what it's like to be on the other side of autism, managing all of these thought processes and coping mechanisms and rituals.

I loved Harrison's voice, which is why I was so disappointed that Anna's did not seem to be written at the same standard. She felt like a Mary Sue – empty, a shell of a person, with no real interests or flaws or meaningful struggles. I loved how aware, respectful, and patient she was with Harrison, but it just seemed like there was nothing else to her. And I felt the same way about all of the others characters in the book: Harrison's brother Joel, Harrison's parents, Anna's mother. Even Justin, the leader of the Best Buddies program, was completely flat on the page, despite his rocky family history and pseudo-mysterious background. They all just felt like one-dimensional people with canned dialogue and shallow character and plot development.

Still… although Fragile Bones may have had its share of weaknesses, I do think these kinds of books are really important in the world of YA fiction. They help us develop empathy for people who are unlike us, and if we're lucky, they teach us something important about these otherwise typically underrepresented groups.

Review: Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper

Title: Etta and Otto and Russell and James
Author: Emma Hooper
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: January 20, 2015
Rating: ★★★★★

Summary (via Goodreads):

Eighty-two-year-old Etta has never seen the ocean. So early one morning she takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots, and begins walking the 3,232 kilometers from rural Canada eastward to the coast.

As Etta walks further toward the ocean, accompanied by a coyote named James, the lines among memory, illusion, and reality blur. Rocking back and forth with the pull of the waves, Etta and Otto and Russell and James moves from the hot and dry present of a quiet Canadian farm to a dusty burnt past of hunger, war, passion, and hope; from trying to remember to trying to forget; and inspires each of its characters to visit the sites they’ve longed to see and say the things they’ve longed to say. This is dazzling literary fiction about the rediscovery and care of the soul, and the idea it’s never too late for a great adventure.

I'm in the progress of finishing up a bunch of very belated book reviews, but this is the one I'm going to start with, because it's the best book I've read in 2015 so far.

I received an ARC copy of Etta and Otto and Russell and James back in September 2014 and made it to page 3 before putting it aside until April 2015 (I KNOW). Frankly, this book is slow, but it is slow in a measured way. It feels like you're taking a deep breath and holding it.

As its title might suggest, E&O&R&J is filled with compelling characters and fascinatingly complex relationships that span generations. There’s Etta and Otto, who’ve known each other since they were kids, who weren’t really supposed to fall in love but did. There’s Otto and Russell, friends since boyhood, nearly brothers, with their own secrets that are impossible to share. There’s Etta and Russell, whose entire relationship feels a lot like a What if? or a Maybe or If only... (There’s also Etta and Alma, and Etta and Bryony, and Bryony and her brother, among others.)

And of course, there’s Etta and James, the coyote who Etta encounters along her journey. My favorite chapters in the book involve Etta and James. Yes, it’s magical realism, and sure, maybe it does feel a little bit out of place relative to the rest of the story, but it adds a certain richness, a sparkle, to Etta’s journey. It makes it easier to step aside, away from the doubts and criticisms (“An eighty-two-year-old woman trekking across Canada?”), and towards acceptance of her purpose and what she wants to accomplish.

And that’s a big part of this book, too: finding yourself, finding what drives you when the status quo is gone. Otto has an incredible path of self-discovery in particular. From collecting all the newspapers that mention Etta, to turning all of that paper into art – it blows my mind to think about how Emma Hooper tied it all together.

Perhaps my biggest qualm with E&O&R&J is that Russell’s presence seems the least important relative to the others. His story plays a significant role in the flashbacks that somehow still merge seamlessly with the present, but at times, he feels like little more than a plot device made to create tension between Etta and Otto. I would have liked a closer look at him and at what makes him tick, since Emma Hooper has done that so well for the other characters in this story.

This book is about journeys – journeys across land, journeys through life, journeys to find, remember, and reveal oneself. Some of these journeys are stark and upsetting; some are vague and dreamy and surreal. Etta and Otto and Russell and James is filled with fascinating characters and an ambiguous ending, and it ends in a good place – it ends in the only place that could ever make sense – but still I can't help but wish there were more.