Once, in a Town Called Moth ~ Trilby Kent (earc) review [@trilbykent @TundraBooks]

Once, in a Town Called Moth
Tundra Books
September 06, 2016
224 pages
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A gun in a lake. A Missing mother. Ana is on the run. But from who? For fans of The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly.

Ana is not your typical teenager. She grew up in a tiny Mennonite colony in Bolivia, and her mother fled the colony when Ana was a young girl. Now Ana and her father have also fled, and Ana doesn’t know why. She only knows that something was amiss in their tight-knit community. Arriving in Toronto, Ana has to fend for herself in this alien environment, completely isolated in a big city with no help and no idea where to even begin. But begin she does: she makes a friend, then two. She goes to school and tries to understand the myriad unspoken codes and rules. She is befriended by a teacher. She goes to the library, the mall, parties. And all the while, she searches for the mother who left so long ago, and tries to understand her father—also a stranger in a strange land, with secrets of his own.

This is a beautifully told story that will resonate with readers who have struggled with being new and unsure in a strange place, even if that place is in a classroom full of people they know. Ana’s story is unique but universal; strange but familiar; extraordinary but ordinary: a fish out of water tale that speaks to us all.

Once, in a Town Called Moth is told both from Ana's time in Toronto and her time in Bolivia, living as part of the Colony Felicidad community. The parts of her story in Toronto are told in the third person while those in Bolivia use first person narration. The difference is interesting and gives a different feel for the different locations.

I enjoyed that Ana's time in Colony Felicidad, her Mennonite upbringing and their separation from modern, everyday  society played into the story in the ways they did. It was not all good, or all bad - her introduction to and feelings about Toronto and being a (more) regular teenager, or her feelings about their life in Bolivia. There's a nice balance between what she chooses to change or adapt to, what she has to change and what she does not change.

The setting of this book does a really good job not  having a particular when. It' is one of those books that feels in turns both set in the modern, present day and set maybe a decade or two ago. It's the best sort of timeless. You know because o the presence of smartphones, the internet, iPods that it'scurrent but there's nothing dating beyond that. I really enjoy when books can do this.

I really like that, in many ways, it felt like there were not big, giant monumental things occurring as we followed Ana's everyday life (with one or tow obvious exceptions). Yet, when we reach the end of the book, it is abundantly clear that she is not the same girl who began the story. There have been a lot of changes in Ana, a lot of growth, a lot of growing up. It's only once many of those things have happened that you realize how instrumental they were in her development.

Trilby Kent does a fantastic job showing up Ana's everyday life, with its everday issues (and, again, some giant ones, of course) but making the sum of those days something exponentially greater.








digital copy received for review, from publisher via NetGalley

Flirting With Fame ~ Samantha Joyce (earc) review [@SamJoyceBooks @simonschuster @Pocket_Books]

Flirting With Fame
Pocket Star/Simon & Schuster
February 29, 2016
352 pages
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Elise Jameson is the secret author behind the bestselling, cult hit Viking Moon series. But when a stranger poses as Elise, the painfully shy, deaf nineteen-year-old starts to see how much she’s missing. Can she really hide in the shadows forever? This clever, coming-of-age debut is for anyone who has ever felt unsure in their own skin.

After a freak childhood accident leaves her deaf and physically scarred, nineteen-year-old Elise Jameson retreats into a world of vibrant characters she creates on her laptop. She is shocked when her coping mechanism turns into a career as a phenomenal bestselling novelist. Fans are obsessed with Elise’s Viking Moon series and its author—a striking girl with zero resemblance to Elise who appears on the back covers. Elise sent the randomly Googled photo to her editor following a minor panic attack. Now, horrified to learn she is expected on set of the television pilot based on her novels, Elise tracks down her anonymous stand-in. To Elise’s surprise, Veronica Wilde has been taking credit for Viking Moon for years. She eagerly agrees to keep up the charade if Elise will pose as her assistant.

It’s hard for Elise to watch a stranger take credit for her work and get all the perks she desires, including admiration from the show’s heartthrob star. Edged onto the sidelines of her own life, Elise reconsiders her choice to stay anonymous. Is she ready to come to terms with her true identity—and with the long-buried secrets that could cost her her career, her fans, and the few precious friendships she’s made?

What other authors are saying:

"A charming story of learning to embrace and love those things about ourselves that set us apart from others. I don’t think I stopped smiling once throughout Elise's journey except during the moments that squeezed painfully at my chest."
- Molly McAdams, New York Times bestselling author of To the Stars

"With a sprinkle of book fandom and dash of yummy romance, Flirting with Fame is the perfect story for every book lover."
- USA Today bestselling author, Tiffany King

"A sweet and poignant story about finding yourself and falling in love along the way, Flirting with Fame will steal your heart."
-Chanel Cleeton, author of Flirting with Scandal

Flirting With Fame is a pretty cute blend of Young Adult and New Adult. Some of the content does bump up into NA but most of the book, the characters and the relationships felt more YA. The idea of a bestselling author, a teen one at that, who is, by choice, still very unknown to the public was very intriguing. Add in the parts about the television show and its filming and I really couldn't pass this one up.

It was not, however, a great read for me. Mostly - if not entirely - my problem was with Elise. I do think that the author had a compelling setup for her character: a character left deaf and scarred by an accident years before who is now the author of a bestselling teen series. Unable to bear the idea of everyone seeing what she looks like, Elise took a picture off of Google for her book's author photo.

The general plausibility of Elise picking a random person's picture off of Google. using hit on her book jacket and nothing ever coming of it until several years later was questionable to me from the beginning. The idea - of Elise's decision, Veronica, the choices Elise would have to make how she's have to grapple with who she is - was absolutely something I wanted to read.

There were just too many bad decisions on Elise's part (Like Veronica's condition for doing what Elise wants and how quickly she agreed to it. That she agreed to it at all) and too much of the other characters saying how wonderful she was, how she deserved so much, so much better.

I'm not sure if there wasn't enough character development, for me, early on or if Elise's character was just not a good fit for me. It might have worked if there had been more (or, really, any) repercussions for all of her lies, charades. For a coming-of-age story I was expecting more personal growth (and consequences) for Elise.

I did think that the romance was cute and, especially once we learned more about them, the characters were a good fit and brought out good things in each other. Elise's best friend, Jin, was a great character and I really liked their friendship.

Elise was really just not my kind of character but the premise of Flirting with Fame, the plot and the side characters are enough that I look forward to what Samantha Joyce publishes next.








review copy received thanks to publisher, via NetGalley

My Second Life ~ Faye Bird (earc) review [@faye_bird @fsgbooks]

My Second Life
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
January 19, 2016
304 pages
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A pacy pageturner that asks: Can you be held responsible now for something you did in a previous life?

Fifteen-year-old Ana has a good life--she has friends and a boy she likes and a kind mother--but still, she's haunted by her past; she knows that she lived once before as a girl named Emma, and she still misses her old family. When, by chance in her life now, Ana meets a woman she knew in her previous life, a terrifying memory flashes through her mind of a young girl drowning. Was Emma responsible? And should Ana pay the price? Consumed by guilt, Ana sets out to find out as much as possible about the person she was before and what she had done, only to discover that the family she misses so deeply had dark secrets of its own. To come to terms with her life now, Ana must figure out how to let go of the past.

I love that My Second Life is about Ana, who believes she was Emma in a (very recent) past life. Past lives can make for really fun books. Yet, what I love most about My Second Life (which is mentioned in 'A Note from the Author' at the end of the book), this is not a book about a girl who was a queen in a past life or a famous poet. She was a girl.

A girl who may have done something terribly wrong.

Now, it is up to Ana to explore who Emma was, try to find out what happened and decipher what it all means for Ana now.

I really like that this novel is almost a contemporary, coming-of-age tale . . . except the main character is aware of and remembers some of a past life. Her memories of - or at least knowledge of - her life as Emma has always been a part of Ana's life. It has shaped her relationships and her interactions with the world.

The mystery of My Second Life -- what happened when the little girl drowned and what Emma (now Ana's) role in it all was -- really heightens the more Ana tries to uncover the truth.

The relationship between Ana and Jamie was sweet. It was hard to really see their attraction because it felt like so much of it was based on the friendship that took place before the book started. The times we do see them together in the book, though, are cute and work well.

Ana's mother, Rachel, was a character I could not help but feel so, so, so sorry for. By Ana's own admission, she is a great mother and you can really see that she loves Ana. You can also see the pain Ana's distance causes her and how she tries to understand it all. I wasn't sure I understood Ana still thinking only of Emma's mom as her mother, not Rachel. (Really, even kidnap victims and hostages can develop Stockholm syndrome and this was Ana's whole life.)

The relationships between the adults, their interactions with Ana, the secrets they were keeping, who they were then, who they were now and just all of the different dynamics between their characters (past and present) and with Ana (and Emma) were the strongest part of the novel. Especially towards the end when we start to learn more of what Emma did, what everyone else did that day. Ana did seem to understand things, sometimes, a ways after I thought it had been revealed but all that she is dealing with, the stress, the uncertainty and the guilt from her time as Emma - coupled with some hope and joy now, as Ana, was nicely done.

I look forward to what Faye Bird publishes next (and am adding her to my mental list of YA authors I would definitely read an adult title from, as well).

(That cover is even better now that I've read the book.)






digital copy received, for review, from publisher, via NetGalley

Firsts~ Laurie Elizabeth Flynn (erac) review [@StMartinsPress @laurellizabeth]

Firsts
St Martin's Griffin
January 6, 2016
320 pages
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Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but only if the guy fulfills a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin. Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward, fumbling first times over with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the perfect first time- the kind Mercedes never had herself.

Keeping what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy- so far. Her absentee mother isn’t home nearly enough to know about Mercedes’ extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela, won’t even say the word “sex” until she gets married. But Mercedes doesn’t bank on Angela’s boyfriend finding out about her services and wanting a turn- or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what she can do in bed.

When Mercedes’ perfect system falls apart, she has to find a way to salvage her reputation and figure out where her heart really belongs in the process. Funny, smart, and true-to-life, FIRSTS is a one-of-a-kind young adult novel about growing up.

Firsts was one of those books that I loved the description of, but where I was also a little nervous about just how it was all going to go. There was a lot that could have gone wrong with Firsts - but ti didn't.

Mercedes character and her 'extracurricular activities' did push what I was comfortable with more than I expected. The summary and even the cover had me prepared, almost unbelievably, for a lighter read. Mercedes is a complicated character with her own reasons for doing what she does. I was surprised just how much reasoning there was behind her decision, how her past, her family and her relationships all played into it. Author Laurie Elizabeth Flynn did a brilliant job with Mercedes.

Some of what Mercedes does - with who, why, when, how, etc - did make me wish she wouldn't. Because of what is 'acceptable' or how I feared it would end for her, or both.

The reason, I think, Firsts worked so well is that it avoids the usual 'virgin' and 'slut' archetypes. In and of itself, a character choosing to have sex, or not to have sex or to have sex with numerous people, or to eschew relationships does not make them good or bad. It is more of the 'why' they are (or are not) doing it that decides if it's 'good' or not.

That's not to say that everyone in the book sees it that way. Of course, in high school, there are going to be judgments made about someone who sleeps with other girls' boyfriends. Even as Mercedes does all she can to keep her secret a secret, you know something is going to happen.

Mercedes and Firsts have stories you may not be completely okay with, but there are real reasons there and, in the end, characters you can't help but feel for. The author and the novel don't make sweeping judgments on the characters or their actions, but still let the other characters react in realistic, judge-y ways. It all works.


(Also, Faye made me think of Eliza Dushku's character in Bring It On.)

egalley read thanks to publisher and NetGalley, for review

This Raging Light ~ Estelle Laure (earc) review [@starlaure @HMHKids]

This Raging Light
HMH Books for Young Readers
December 22, 2015
288 pages
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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.

I love when, whatever the why, I am not that sure I want to read a book but then I do . . . and I love it! It is such a fantastic surprise. This Raging Light was definitely a surprise to me.

I think a lot of that was that the summary bills the novel as a romance, promising Lucille falling for Diby is a main focus. Really, though, so much more is about Lucille, her little sister Wren and how they, Lucille, especially, must cope when their mother's 'vacation' goes on longer than anticipated.

Lucille has to figure out not only getting herself ready for senior year, but also Wren's first day of fourth grade, keeping their mother's absence secret from the adults around them, knowing what to tell her sister, and how to keep them both fed and okay. It is a lot for one teenage girl to handle, even with the help of her best friend Eden and form some unexpected sources.

While the circumstances are extraordinary, I enjoyed that Lucille's character - her friendship with Eden, her crush on Digby, her relationship, worries and care for Wren, her own doubts and questions -- was so real and easy to relate to. She wasn't someone with super powers, she didn't have all of the answers or always do the smartest thing. But she was trying. What she did do, her feelings, thoughts and decisions made sense.

Even when it seemed she wasn't quite keeping it all together, when things were just about to fall apart, you have to admire how well she is doing and you hope for things to work out. Whether or not the 'how' of that is easily discernible.

The romance is present, not nearly as central as the summary would make it seem, but it is there. While I enjoyed it - how the characters were with each other, the difficulties they faced, how things evolved, it is not what I am going to remember This Raging Light for. Rather, it is Lucille's strength, her love for her family, and all that she finds out about herself that I will keep with me.











review copy received, via NetGalley, from publisher

Instructions for the End of the World ~ Jamie Kain (earc) review [@StMartinsPress @jamiekainauthor]

Instructions for the End of the World
St Martin's Griffin
December 8, 2015
224 pages
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From the author of The Good Sister comes a gripping novel about two sisters who learn that there are things in life—love, loss, and self-discovery—that you simply can't prepare for.

He prepared their family for every natural disaster known to man—except for the one that struck.

When Nicole Reed’s father forces her family to move to a remote area of the Sierra Foothills, one without any modern conveniences, it's too much too handle for her mother, who abandons them in the middle of the night. Heading out to track her down, Nicole’s father leaves her in charge of taking care of the house and her younger sister, Izzy. For a while, Nicole is doing just fine running things on her own. But then the food begins to run out, the pipes crack, and forest fires start slowly inching their way closer every day. Wolf, a handsome boy from the neighboring community, offers to help her when she needs it most, but when she starts to develop feelings for him, feelings she knows she will never be allowed to act on once her father returns, she must make a decision. With her family falling apart, will she choose to continue preparing for tomorrow’s disasters, or will she take a chance and really start living for today?

Instructions for the End of the World is a gripping, young adult novel that explores family, friendship, and love in the midst of the most difficult and dangerous circumstances.

This is one of those books where I understand what people that did not much care for it are saying - and yet I like the book. There are a lot of reviews (at least on Goodreads) that talk about 'nothing happening' in Instructions for the End of the World and in a lot of ways, not much does. If you're looking for action or actual world ending, his isn't that book.

Quite a bit happens within the characters, though.

While most teens would hate the idea of leaving their life of modern conveniences behind and moving to an old, rundown cabin in the middle of nowhere because their prepper father said so, Nicole is remarkably okay with it. (Her younger sister falls firmly into the, 'Are you crazy? I hate this!' camp.) It may not be ideal, but she thinks they can make it work.

Until her mother leaves in the middle of the night and, then, her father leaves to bring her back.

With only Izzy who hates the setup, wants to leave immediately and refuses to assist with chores as company, things quickly go (even more) downhill for Nicole. It seems doable at first, but as both the length of their parents' absence and the list of problems multiply, Nicole begins to question things.

She knows what her father expects of her, knows what he would think of Wolf, the boy she's been spending more and more time with . . . only she may not be so ready to do what's  expected.

I really like that we got to see Wolf's life at home (atypical and different as it was) and to learn about his past and relationships, including with his mother, in addition to seeing Nicole and Izzy's family. They were each living lives outside of the norm and the confusing, complicated relationships with their parents paralleled nicely.

It is true that there was not a lot of action in Instructions for the End of the World but the characters, their lives and minds, the decisions they faced and how their unique circumstances played into everything was really well done. We do not get big flashbacks of life before the book starts, but the glimpses we do get, the things remembered or said, really paint the picture of what the characters and their lives were like.

The choice of a 2002 setting was unexpected but the novel seemed to fit really well into what had (and had not) happened at that point and to match the characters' mindsets to it.







received from publisher, via NetGalley, for an honest review

The Lake House ~ Kate Morton (earc) review [@AtraiBooks #KateMorton]

The Lake House
Atria Books
October 20, 2015
512 pages
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One of People magazine’s Best Books of Fall—“Morton's moody, suspenseful latest is the perfect page-turner for a chilly night.”

From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Secret Keeper and The Distant Hours, an intricately plotted, spellbinding new novel of heartstopping suspense and uncovered secrets.

Living on her family’s idyllic lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, inquisitive, innocent, and precociously talented sixteen-year-old who loves to write stories. But the mysteries she pens are no match for the one her family is about to endure…

One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest child, eleven-month-old Theo, has vanished without a trace. What follows is a tragedy that tears the family apart in ways they never imagined.

Decades later, Alice is living in London, having enjoyed a long successful career as an author. Theo’s case has never been solved, though Alice still harbors a suspicion as to the culprit. Miles away, Sadie Sparrow, a young detective in the London police force, is staying at her grandfather’s house in Cornwall. While out walking one day, she stumbles upon the old estate—now crumbling and covered with vines, clearly abandoned long ago. Her curiosity is sparked, setting off a series of events that will bring her and Alice together and reveal shocking truths about a past long gone...yet more present than ever.

A lush, atmospheric tale of intertwined destinies, this latest novel from a masterful storyteller is an enthralling, thoroughly satisfying read.

The Lake House is a stunning blend of a whodunnit, a tale of family secrets and portrait of women through the decades. I have been intending to read one of Kate Morton's novels and am so thrilled this is the one I started with.

I was expecting the tale to alternate between Alice and Sadie, between the 1933 and 2003. Though it does stay in those two time periods - give or take a year or so - I was pleasantly surprised that the storytelling is much less limited than that. Along with Alice, we meet the other women in her family -her sisters Clementine and Deborah, her mother and her grandmother. Through a few characters' flashbacks, we get to see what some of them were like as girls or younger women.

Having not even expected to learn any more of Alice's mother, Eleanor, other than through Alice's perceptions, she ended up being my favorite character. The differences in the Eleanor of the past and Eleanor of the (then) present, is marked. More than that, is that she level of the difference and who is - or is not - aware of it. I really came to love, appreciate and sympathize with her character. She was a true standout and someone I was not anticipating.

The Lake House, in addition to its fantastic characters and the changes in their selves and relationships - especially those between mothers and their daughters - over the years, is a fantastic mystery. Through the different characters and time periods, clues are revealed - or, rather, things that seem to be clues. When something is revealed through a character's thoughts or actions, it is not a big aha moment at least not for the character. As a reader you feel the weight of the information, though.

As the novel progresses, through the Edevane's life leading up to and after the Midsummer party and the investigation of Sadie Sparrow, we see that some of those clues may be false. Not intentionally. Though the characters may think they know what happened to the youngest Edevane family member, they may not be correct.

As Sadie does her best to uncover the truth, to name the culprit and explain the crime, we learn more about the Edevane family and about Sadie herself. The characters themselves are quick to discount the idea of coincidences, but it seems some parts of how their stories all work together could be nothing but.

I loved The Lake House from the mystery that kept you guessing to the very complex and very real characters we're introduced to and get to know. For Sadie to unravel the mystery of what happened at the Lake House that Midsummer night, we have to learn of the Edevane family, the public perception as well as the things they kept hidden. We also get to know Sadie and what it is - both the immediate events as well as their historic foundation - that brought her to Cornwall and the Loeanneth estate in the first place.

Who these characters are, what caused them to be that way, whether who they are is who they truly wish to be and who they are in secret, and the secrets and the promises they keep, are magical. How the characters, their lives, secrets and promises play into the mystery - and possible crime - make for a novel you do not want to miss!





NB: And this is not directly related to the book, but I have decided Sadie is somehow related to Sally Sparrow. (They call her 'Sadie Sparrow' quite a few times, not just Sadie so I couldn't help but think it!) Even the "Blink" and The Lake House plots work together . . . a bit.






digital copy received, for review, from publisher, via NetGalley

Between Us & the Moon ~ Rebecca Maizel review [@EpicReads @HarperTeen]

Between Us and the Moon
Harper Teen
June 30, 2015
384 pages
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A luminous young adult novel that evokes Judy Blume’s Forever for a new generation.

Ever since Sarah was born, she’s lived in the shadow of her beautiful older sister, Scarlett. But this summer on Cape Cod, she’s determined to finally grow up. Then she meets gorgeous college boy Andrew. He sees her as the girl she wants to be. A girl who’s older than she is. A girl like Scarlett.

Before she knows what’s happened, one little lie has transformed into something real. And by the end of August, she might have to choose between falling in love, and finding herself.

Fans of Jenny Han and Stephanie Perkins are destined to fall for this story about how life and love are impossible to predict.

I am still a little bit confused just how I feel about Between Us and the Moon. It is a sweet summer romance but it is also a poignant coming-of-age story.

Reading about Sarah's  summer - her journey, her growth, her mistakes, her love, her life - is what made the coming-of-age tale so engrossing. It's also what ruined the romance, for me. She lies to Andrew, when they first meet, about her age. Fifteen (sixteen in a few weeks) year-old Sarah tells nineteen (almost twenty) year-old Andrew that she's eighteen and going to college in the fall.

When a is not just a chance encounter, but a romance begins between the two, she keeps up her lie - e even embellishing it at points to fit college-girl-Sarah with reality-Sarah and her life. There are times when it seemed strange that they were all believing she was really an eighteen-year-old, headed to MIT in just a few months.

I have no problem with characters acting their age and at (only just) sixteen, Sarah acted that age. She made some stupid, selfish decisions, she didn't have a lot of things figured out and realized things she thought about others may have been wrong. I loved that for her own, personal, growth and because it fit with her story (and age).

It was strange that characters who were older, even, than her fictional age, never seemed to question it.

Now, Andrew Andrew I loved - loved, loved, loved. I wanted, so badly, to love his relationship with Sarah, but I couldn't. If it had been less serious or if he had seemed less invested in it, I think I could have. (Yet, at the same time, I recognize that would have made the coming-of-age parts not work as well.)

It is a relationship started on a lie. As things progress, he is so heartbreakingly honest with Sarah - about his self, his past, his future, his own issues - and she keeps lying. There was such an imbalance between what Andrew was giving Sarah and what she was giving him in return that you really hurt for Andrew.

Sarah was selfish and, at times, immature while Andrew's pretty close to perfect (with his pain and problems). Though it was impossible, I somehow wanted Sarah's coming-of-age story told and a sweet, healing romance for Andrew - but the two told together leave me unsure what I think. There needs to be another book with a new girl for Andrew.







finished copy received, for possible review, from publisher

Hold Me Like a Breath ~ Tiffany Schmidt (earc) review [@bloomsburykids @tiffanyschmidt]

Hold Me Like a Breath (Once Upon a Crime Family #1)
Blooomsbury
May 19, 2015
400 pages
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Penelope Landlow has grown up with the knowledge that almost anything can be bought or sold—including body parts. She’s the daughter of one of the three crime families that control the black market for organ transplants.

Penelope’s surrounded by all the suffocating privilege and protection her family can provide, but they can't protect her from the autoimmune disorder that causes her to bruise so easily.

And in her family's line of work no one can be safe forever.

All Penelope has ever wanted is freedom and independence. But when she’s caught in the crossfire as rival families scramble for prominence, she learns that her wishes come with casualties, that betrayal hurts worse than bruises, that love is a risk worth taking . . . and maybe she’s not as fragile as everyone thinks.

I really enjoyed Tiffany Schmidt's Send Me a Sign, so I was excited when I realized Hold Me Like a Breath was by the same author. In Send Me a Sign, Mia's cancer battle was well written and I thought Penelope's disorder was also well done. There is a knowledge of what Penelope has underlying everything - knowledge by the author, by the characters and then by the reader, as well - that not only gives yous a fuller understanding of what she is dealing with, but feels real, too.

Penelope bruises (extremely, absurdly) easily and precautions have to be taken to keep her safe. From work on their home (or, estate) to limiting her activities and routine blood tests, the ITP impacts how Pen lives her life.

A life that is as the daughter of a crime family.

I think I was expecting Hold Me Like a Breath to be more about Penelope's family, about the crime family and the rivalry of the different families. I loved the beginning of the book, the setting, Penelope, Cater, and Garrett, the relationship between them and how they were with each other one on one.

When the story changed course - and tone - partway through, I did keep hoping it would get back to how things were in the beginning. There were some changes in Penelope's thinking and feelings that seemed too sudden, too baseless.

Towards the end, why so much had changed became apparent. I did get more into the story, again, then and could also understand why everything that had happened needed to. I still don't know that I actually like what happened or that I wouldn't have preferred what I was expecting, but I understand it.

Penelope remains pretty immature throughout the novel. It's easy to see how being as sheltered (and spoiled) as she was could lead to that. I liked her quite a bit more towards the very end and like where the book left her.

I did not know until I finished it that Hold Me Like a Breath was a retelling of the Princess and the Pea story. The story I expected going in would have been different had I known, but I definitely still would have read it. It's a good story with interesting developments and a nice character at the center of things. I think I just liked the beginning (the premise, the setting, the characters, their relationships) too much to also love when things changed.

I am looking forward to Book 2, Break Me Like a Promise due in 2016 and I hope it will get me to love the new(er) characters as much as I did this books early ones.

The Secrets We Keep ~ Trisha Leaver (earc) review [@tleaver @fsgbooks]

The Secrets We Keep
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
April 28, 2015
304 pages
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A girl takes over her twin sister's identity in this emotionally charged page-turner about the complicated bond between sisters.

Ella and Maddy Lawton are identical twins. Ella has spent her high school years living in popular Maddy's shadows, but she has never been envious of Maddy. In fact, she's chosen the quiet, safe confines of her sketchbook over the constant battle for attention that has defined Maddy's world.

When—after a heated argument—Maddy and Ella get into a tragic accident that leaves her sister dead, Ella wakes up in the hospital surrounded by loved ones who believe she is Maddy. Feeling responsible for Maddy's death and everyone's grief, Ella makes a split-second decision to pretend to be Maddy. Soon, Ella realizes that Maddy's life was full of secrets. Caught in a web of lies, Ella is faced with two options—confess her deception or live her sister's life.

Ella and Maddy are identical twins but Maddy is the popular, beautiful one with the long term, loving boyfriend. It's Maddy who has all of the friends. It even seems their parents prefer Maddy - or, at least, are more proud of her.

Then an argument between the girls is followed by a tragic accident leaving one of them dead. When Ella wakes up in the hostpial everyone thinks she's Maddy. Even if it doesn't feel correct, feeling guilty, she goes with it. After all, Maddy was the better sister, wasn't she?

It doesn't take Ella long to realize, though, that Maddy's seemingly perfect life may not have been quite so perfect. She soon finds out that Maddy was keeping more secrets from her than Ella knew.

As she discovers more about her sister, her life, Ella has to decide if she can - or should - continue Maddy's life.


The longer she pretends to be Maddy the more she discover not just about her sister and the secrets she was keeping, but about her own life, as well.

Was she really correct that Maddy was the more loved sister? Is everyone really happier Maddy survived? Can Ella take back her decision? Should she?

The Secrets We Keep dealt with some weighty issues without feeling too heavy or dark but also not being superficial, either. Ella's adjustment to Maddy's life, to her sister's death, is handled very well. It is a good mystery, both in whether Ella can be Maddy but also what all it was Maddy was hiding. Yet, it's Ella's character and her decisions and emotion that really made for a terrific read.

I liked that we got a small introduction to Ella and Maddy before the accident, that we saw who and how Ella was, as herself. At first I wished we had more of a chance to 'meet' Maddy but I changed my mind as the novel progressed. We only have Ella's (and later her boyfriend and classmates') view of Maddy. Maddy remains a bit of an unknown, a mystery to readers as well.

We discover who she was along with Ella.

For a very well done contemporary YA read, with a bit of mystery making it better, pick up Trisha Leaver's The Secrets We Keep.





Other books you may also enjoy: All We Know of Heaven by Jacquelyn Mitchard, Six Months Later by Natalie D Richards and The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne





digital copy received for review, thanks to publisher, via NetGalley

Walking on Trampolines ~ Frances Whiting (earc) review [@franceswhiting @GalleryBooks]

Walking on Trampolines
Gallery Books
February 3, 2015
368 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from TBD/or Amazon

Praised as "a tender exploration of friendship, families, and first love" (Liane Moriarty, New York Times bestselling author of The Husband's Secret), this coming-of-age novel from bestselling author Frances Whiting is equal parts heartwarming, accessible, and thought provoking.

"Tallulah de Longland," she said slowly, letting all the Ls in my name loll about lazily in her mouth before passing judgment. "That," she announced,"is a serious glamorgeous name."

From the day Annabelle Andrews sashays into her classroom, Tallulah 'Lulu' de Longland is bewitched: by Annabelle, by her family, and by their sprawling, crumbling house tumbling down to the river.

Their unlikely friendship intensifies through a secret language where they share confidences about their unusual mothers, first loves, and growing up in the small coastal town of Juniper Bay. But the euphoria of youth rarely lasts, and the implosion that destroys their friendship leaves lasting scars and a legacy of self-doubt that haunts Lulu into adulthood.

Years later, Lulu is presented with a choice: remain the perpetual good girl who misses out, or finally step out from the shadows and do something extraordinary. And possibly unforgivable . . .

It's not how far you fall, but how high you bounce.

Whether it was because I didn't read the summary carefully enough or what, I'm not sure, but I was expecting something different from Walking on Trampolines. Something more solely focused on Lulu and Annabelle's teen and young adult years. Frances Whiting's novel is so much more, though. It's really an astounding read.

The quote, from Liane Moriarty, that's on the front of the book, "a tender exploration of friendship, families, and first love," could not be more true. A lot of ground, a lot of years are covered in the 368 pages: from Annabelle and Tallulah meeting in school, becoming best friends, their teen years together, their interactions with each other's families,  the end of that friendship, and what follows.

Whiting created a really interesting dynamic with Lulu and Annabelle's friendship. Both girls are from families that are, in their own way, not quite conventional; though it's more readily apparent with Annabelle's family. How the two of them fit together, how they fit with each other's families shows us a lot of who the girls are. Their friendship is undeniable.

Their differences (individually and of their families, parents) really show us who the characters are. The involvement of their whole families, of the drama and/or difficulties therein not only fills out the girls' characters, it makes the story that much more engrossing. I like the characters the author's created in their parents. They're different and I loved seeing the different impacts each had on Lulu and Annabelle.

Then when their friendship in ruins, the story continues being great. Whether Lulu and Annabelle want the other in their lives anymore doesn't quite matter. They may be out of sight, but they can never quite be out of mind. Their lives were so intertwined for so many years, there just can't be a clean break.

As enjoyable as it was to read about their friendship, this part was at least as good. We see Lulu on her own, what her life without Annabelle as a best friend looks like. Where things went from here, the new characters introduced, the older characters we really got to know, the growth of Lulu's character, were fantastic.

A lot - a lot - happens after Lulu and Annabelle's friendship implodes. To say much at all of what would be spoilery and no fun, but do know that it's great. I absolutely enjoyed France Whiting's novel and am looking forward to her next one, whatever it may be.




review copy received, via NetGalley, from publisher

The Tragic Age ~ Stephen Metcalfe (earc) review [@GriffinTeen]

The Tragic Age
St Martin's Griffin
March 3, 2015
320 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from TBD/or Amazon

This is the story of Billy Kinsey, heir to a lottery fortune, part genius, part philosopher and social critic, full time insomniac and closeted rock drummer. Billy has decided that the best way to deal with an absurd world is to stay away from it. Do not volunteer. Do not join in. Billy will be the first to tell you it doesn’t always work— not when your twin sister, Dorie, has died, not when your unhappy parents are at war with one another, not when frazzled soccer moms in two ton SUVs are more dangerous than atom bombs, and not when your guidance counselor keeps asking why you haven’t applied to college.　

Billy’s life changes when two people enter his life. Twom Twomey is a charismatic renegade who believes that truly living means going a little outlaw. Twom and Billy become one another’s mutual benefactor and friend. At the same time, Billy is reintroduced to Gretchen Quinn, an old and adored friend of Dorie’s. It is Gretchen who suggests to Billy that the world can be transformed by　creative acts of the soul.　

With Twom, Billy visits the dark side. And with Gretchen, Billy experiences possibilities.Billy knows that one path is leading him toward disaster and the other toward happiness. The problem is—Billy doesn’t trust happiness. It's the age he's at. The tragic age.

Stephen Metcalfe's brilliant, debut coming-of-age novel, The Tragic Age, will teach you to learn to love, trust and truly be alive in an absurd world.

Reading The Tragic Age was interesting for me. I wasn't that sure if I liked the main character and narrator, Billy. Yet, something about this character kept me reading.

His 'sidebar,' 'point of reference' and 'fact's (you'll understand better if you read the book) were incredibly random and/or perfectly relevant. It made him - and his story - really stand out from anything else I've read. Even as he took you away from the story he was telling, you're pulled farther in.

Somehow, breaking into a nice, linear recollection of Billy's sister in the hospital to explain Dresden Dolls and flammability, works. All of these little interruptions also paint a better picture of who Billy is than any sort of omniscient viewpoint, or a sanitized first person narration could hope to.

Even still unsure of if I liked Billy or he annoyed me or what, The Tragic Age is a book I couldn't put down. Besides Billy and his incredibly compelling narration, the other characters are all really well done.  Gretchen, Twom, Ephraim and the other characters who are - or become - part of Billy's life each have things that make them intriguing characters; things that make them a fascinating, unique addition to both Billy's life and the novel. They are complex, well developed characters that don't quite seem like they should fit together, yet they do.

Then, with Billy's observations on the characters, the things he wonders or notices about them, their families, their lives, you have something entirely new to consider. Something about who they are, who Billy is, who they are to each other, etc.

The story in The Tragic Age takes some incredibly wild, crazy and, honestly, strange turns. Through it all, though, the characters stay true, their relationships make more sense, their differences become more apparent, as do their similarities. And it somehow all works - really well. It stays an incredibly readable book you won't want to put down until the end. A book - and character - I was not sure about at first, now that I've read it I know I won't forget either of them.





received, from publisher, through NetGalley for this tour review

The Cure for Dreaming ~ Cat Winters (earc) review [@abramskids @catwinters]

The Cure for Dreaming
Amulet Books
October 14, 2014
368 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depo/or Amazon

Olivia Mead is a headstrong, independent girl—a suffragist—in an age that prefers its girls to be docile. It’s 1900 in Oregon, and Olivia’s father, concerned that she’s headed for trouble, convinces a stage mesmerist to try to hypnotize the rebellion out of her. But the hypnotist, an intriguing young man named Henri Reverie, gives her a terrible gift instead: she’s able to see people’s true natures, manifesting as visions of darkness and goodness, while also unable to speak her true thoughts out loud. These supernatural challenges only make Olivia more determined to speak her mind, and so she’s drawn into a dangerous relationship with the hypnotist and his mysterious motives, all while secretly fighting for the rights of women. Winters breathes new life into history once again with an atmospheric, vividly real story, including archival photos and art from the period throughout.

The Cure for Dreaming is an incredibly unique and enjoyable tale. Blending the coming-of-age tale of seventeen-year-old Olivia Mead, historical fiction set in 1900 and a bit of fantasy could not have worked better than it does here.

Olivia is a teenager living in Portland, Oregon with her overbearing father. The push for women's suffrage is really gaiing momentum and Olivia finds the idea appealing. Her father does not, to say the least.

Young Henri Reverie, a hypnotist, is in town for a run of shows, one attended by Olivia, with friends, on her Halloween birthday. What should have been a one time encounter becomes something more when Olivia's father employs Henri to hypnotize the 'rebellion' out of Olivia.

Instead, Olivia is left seeing the people and the world as they really are - haunting and confusing visions - and unable to put her outrage into words.

What was supposed to be the end of Olivia's defiance proves to only be the beginning when she becomes even more determined, despite the added difficulties, to speak her mind.

With the cries both for and against a woman's right to vote as the backdrop, Olivia tries to be herself. Not the submissive, quiet future housewife her father hopes her to be, but the educated, independent young woman she wishes to be. Reverie, the hypnotist, plays an increasingly interesting role in the story and in Olivia's life.

For what her father has hired him to do, Olivia knows she should despise the young mesmerist, but the more she encounters him and the more she learns of his life,t he harder that is to do.  Olivia's conflicted feelings about Mr Reverie not only make sense they add quite a bit to the story. I really liked that while she does know that she doesn't want to be what most of the time think she should be, she also is not already completely opposed to it all, either. She does not have it all figured out. She has to find where she fits and what it is she really wants for her life.

Olivia's discoveries - about her self and life for women, in general - are propelled wonderfully by both her new acquaintances and the effects of her hypnotism.

While The Cure for Dreaming does not delve as heavily into life for most women in 1900, how the suffragists (and their opposition) are part of Olivia's story and how she is a part of theirs, tells a very well imagined and well constructed story. All of the different elements come together so well and make for a great novel.

The quotes from literature or persons of the period along with photographs from the time add a little bit extra to the story and pull readers more fully into the time.



(After Kate Chopin's The Awakening was quoted and mentioned in The Cure for Dreaming and in Figment's email about underrated books, I really hope more people will read it. It is one of my favorites.)


Other books you may also enjoy: Silent Echoes by Carla Jablonski and The Awakening by Kate Chopin


received for review thanks to publisher, through NetGalley

Providence ~ Liza Colozza Cocca (earc) review [@Merit_Press]

Providence
Merit Press
March 18, 2014
254 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depo/or Amazon

The eldest of ten children on a dirt-poor farm, Becky trudges through life as a full-time babysitter, trying to avoid her father's periodic violent rages. When the family's barn burns down, her father lays the blame on Becky, and her own mother tells her to run for it. Run she does, hopping into an empty freight car. There, in a duffel bag, Becky finds an abandoned baby girl, only hours old. After years of tending to her siblings, sixteen-year-old Becky knows just what a baby needs. This baby needs a mother.

With no mother around, Becky decides, at least temporarily, this baby needs her. When Becky hops off the train in a small Georgia town, it's with baby "Georgia" in her arms. When she meets Rosie, an eccentric thrift-shop owner, who comes to value and love Becky as no one ever has, Becky rashly claims the baby as her own. Not everyone in town is as welcoming as Rosie, though. Many suspect Becky and her baby are not what they seem. Among the doubters is a beautiful, reclusive woman with her own terrible loss and a long history with Rosie.

As Becky's life becomes entangled with the lives of the people in town, including a handsome boy who suspects Becky is hiding something from her past, she finds her secrets more difficult to keep. Becky should grab the baby and run, but her newfound home and job with Rosie have given Becky the family she's never known. Despite her guilt over leaving her mother alone, she is happy for the first time. But it's a happiness not meant to last. When the truth comes out, Becky has the biggest decision of her life to make. Should she run away again? Should she stay--and fight? Or lie? What does the future hold for Becky and Georgia? With a greatness of heart and a stubborn insistence on hope found in few novels of any genre, "Providence" proves that home is where you find it, love is an active verb, and family is more than just a word.

I almost did not request Providence when I saw it on NetGalley; the publication date had passed and it was both an author and publisher with whom I was unfamiliar (Merit Press is the YA imprint Jacquelyn Mitchard started). Not giving it a try would have been a huge mistake.

While reading Providence the word that kept coming to mind was 'quaint'. While the word has almost negative  - ie boring - connotations, that wasn't why. The actual definition of quaint, 'having an old-fashioned or unusual quality or appearance that is usually attractive or appealing' fits the novel very well. While still feeling very modern, current and relevant, it also felt a lot like a novel that had been written twenty years ago.

In some ways it reminded me of the Sharon Creech novels I read in middle school. It isn't a story full of drugs, drinking and sex, instead it's about the characters, their secrets and how the lives in a small town all come together. The premise itself - a girl running away from a neglectful, sometimes abusive family, finding an abandoned baby on a train, becoming her mother, the secrets she's keeping - make it YA novel and not MG, despite the lack of any usual teen exploits.

Becky's story - both her past that we learn about in snippets and her present - draw you in immediately.The story is focused on the present, but we are given enough insight into Becky's past to understand the contrast and how it affects her decisions. It is hard to know just how everything can all work out for Becky and Georgia, yet, the more of Providence you read, the more you want it to.

Becky, Georgia and Rosie become their own little family. In many ways finally giving Becky the life she never got to have back home. The truth is always there, though, in the back of Becky's mind. She is keeping secrets from Rosie and everyone in the town. The question is how long secrets can stay secret . . . and what will happen if or when they are revealed.

I absolutely loved Providence. The characters are amazing - Becky, Rosie and those Becky meets in the town - and the plot is something unique and new. With so much focus on the characters, little mention of technology, the story having romance but it not being a main focus, Providence had a timeless feel to it. It's a book that can be enjoyed by readers of nearly any age.

The only teeny, tiny place I would have liked a bit more was with Becky's family. As the story progressed I did get a better picture of what her life had been like before, but I never got quite the sense of her parent's and siblings I wanted. It would have given a fuller picture of the main character. What we were given did seem to work for the story, however.

I know I'll be paying more attention to Merit Press in the future as well as looking out for future releases from author Liza Colozza Cocca.



Rating: 9.5/10






digital copy received through NetGalley thanks to publisher

The Geography of You and Me ~ Jennifer E Smith (earc) review [@JenESmith @lbkids]

The Geography of You and Me
Poppy
April 15, 2014
352 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depo/or Amazon
free 5 chapter preview

Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.

Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met.

A carefully charted map of a long-distance relationship, Jennifer E. Smith's new novel shows that the center of the world isn't necessarily a place. It can be a person, too.

The Geography of You and Me is another fun, contemporary YA romance from author Jennifer E Smith. While it features different all different characters than her previous novels  This is What Happy Looks Like
and The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, the three are very much in the same vein. (The latter and the new book, especially.)

The two characters, Lucy and Owen, are thrown together in unpredictable, extraordinary circumstances (a blackout in NYC), as in The Statistical Probability, that one meeting, that one night could be all they have. Only, they may not want it to be. Soon separated by great distance - and without much of any foundation to their relationship - the connection they each felt is tested.

Told through dual points-of-view, The Geography of You and Me alternates between chapters told from Lucy's perspective and those from Owen's. For this type of novel, for this story, it is the perfect way for the story to be told. We not only get to know what the narrating character is experiencing, but also how they're feeling about the other character. It adds that bit of tension, of drama, of hope and of frustration when one character misinterprets something or makes a decision that the other cannot understand.

Readers have all the benefits of a first person narration, yet there's almost a sense of an omnipotent narration when the second character's telling happens. It's great to see things from both sides.

The novel takes place over the course of a year. As Lucy and Owen are taken farther away from each other, they try to keep in contact while also trying to establish their new lives. It's the distance the new beginnings create between them that is both the most realistic and the most frustrating. As readers we're left to wonder if they really did have something that unique, that special . . . and if they did, will they recognize it and be able to make it work.

From the beginning, two teenagers stuck in an elevator in their NYC building, to where the novel ends, after each's geographical exploits, it's really enjoyable to see how each character grows. While you wonder if they will be together after all that's changed, it's still fun to read about their lives and adventures.

Rating: 8/10







egalley received from publisher, through NetGalley, for review

Walter Mitty Short Story & Movie Comparison + Links [@WalterMitty #ProjectMitty @FoxHomeEnt @GooglePlay]

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
short story by James Thurber
add to Gooreads/read it/listen to audio version

film starring Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Sean Penn
20th Century Fox; PG; 115 minutes
April 15, 2014 release
info on IMDb/buy in Digital HD/or BluRay



“Life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Read the short story: "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber on The New Yorker's site

The movie summary:

A day-dreamer escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. When his job along with that of his co-worker are threatened, he takes action in the real world embarking on a global journey that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.

Thanks to Fox and GooglePlay I was able to both read the “Walter Mitty” short story by Walter Thurber and view the 2013 film it inspired, starring Ben Stiller.

Both feature Walter Mitty, a man happy to let his imagination run away, to get lost in his daydreams. He gets so lost in his visions of being someone else, someone great, accomplished and impressive that it hinders his actual life.

However, there are quite a few differences between the story and the movie. The story, first published in The New Yorker in 1939, obviously shorter and focusing on a more select time period, has quite a different tone and different outlook than the movie. Married man, Walter MItty, is a downtrodden character, harangued by his wife who finds refuge in his imagination. His ‘secret lives’ are very much an escape.

In the movie, “The Secret Lives of Walter Mitty,” Walter is still that under appreciated character. Here he is single, with his sister and new boss taking the role of not respecting the man (in the story it was his wife and strangers).

It is here where the movie takes a more optimistic look on Walter's future than did the story. Movie Walter Mitty, is less resigned to his circumstance and trying to change things for himself. He is the guy who's never gone anywhere (literally or figuratively), who hasn't had adventure. Yet, here even if it isn't in his nature, or what he believes to be his nature, he's not going to give up.

Walter Mitty (in the movie) isn't going to accept things as they are and that's when his life really begins.


The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a fun, sometimes kind of wacky movie about a day-dreamer who maybe isn't as satisfied with his life in the doldrums as he thought. Walter's relationships, from those with his mother and sister to the work related and a possible romance, add something both to Walter's journey and the story. When you add in the really beautiful locations and filming, it's a movie you'll want to see.



I watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty on Digital HD, through the Google Play store. While I've watched shorter videos, trailers and clips through the Google Play store, this was the first time I watched a full length film.

I'm, actually, very glad I did and for several reasons. Movies like Walter Mitty available in Digital HD can be purchased and downloaded through several sources: the Play store, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, on Xbox and more. You not only get instant, sometimes early, access to the film but can view it on different devices.

I can watch my copy from Google Play on my Nook HD+ (they have the Play store), through the website or even on my phone if I want. The movie streams on my computer but can be downloaded or played on the Android devices.

The HD of Digital HD looked great both on my Nook HD and when played, through my computer, to the TV. Nooks, Kindles and iPads are, I believe, able to connect to TVs through HDMI ports. While I can't know for sure how image quality would transfer with that method, I am assuming it would be as good.

With the instant access, the streaming or downloading, and ability to view on multiple devices, I am, now, more interested in Fox's Digital HD and the Play store as well.

It's nice being able to read the short story or book that inspires a movie and then, on the same device, watch that movie in such great quality.




If you already have or plan to read the short story and see the movie: Do you think the differences are simply a case of updating, modernizing the tale? Or are they plot, character changes?

Which version do you prefer?

A copy of the film was provided for review and mentions of Google Play and Digital HD; thoughts are my own.