The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle

BookTalk

“Anyone who’s had something truly crappy happen to them will tell you: It’s all about Before and After.” (6, ePub ed.)

So begins this tale of After. Laurel Meisner and her once-friend-turned-bad-boy neighbor David ditch their respective families plans to grab ice cream after a seder dinner. David claimed calculus homework with a friend. But given the fact that he’d practically quit school this past year…his excuse was fooling no one. Laurel, however, was in the middle of an intense round of SAT studying. I.E. unyoke: meaning to separate. During Before her SAT Prep mental image for the word was separating the yoke from the white of an egg. When a police officer appears at Laurel’s home hours later to inform her of the car accident that has killed her family her first thought is that she now has a whole new SAT Prep image for unyoke: to separate.

Now begins the After. The grief, the breakdowns, the breakthroughs, and the survival skills. Laurel’s journey is real and at times it’s not pretty. Best friends don’t always know how to be supportive. Hot guys are just trying their best. And maybe the one person she should not fall for is the one she does. After is a hard place to be…but theres no going back to Before. And Laurel will learn that living her life on her own terms is exactly what she needs.

Review

This story was just so real. I personally lived through a death in my family while I was in High School. Granted it wasn’t the mass casualty situation that Laurel lived through, but losing my sister was more than enough to have me empathizing with the main character. So much of what Castle was writing was exactly how I remember feeling. Laurel was doing things and responding to stuff the same way I did.

I mean I had no major breakdowns in public places. And I didn’t hit the low that Laurel did but some of the little things. The allowing yourself moments of pretending everything was ok…that the people  you loved were still here…just out, or down the hall, or asleep. I got that.

I know that this book has had some mixed reviews. And it’s for sure not everyone’s idea of a pleasant read. But I think that as adults we sometimes forget that teens can feel a need to and/or even enjoy watching a fictional character go through something tragic. It’s what realistic fiction is all about. Watching a person deal with a situation in a true life kind of way. It appeases that voyeuristic need in all of us.

Really, that’s about it. There is no big bang, no perfect coming of age, no white horse to save the day, or paranormal angel to reconnect the family. What I can tell you is that this book is real. So real it makes me feel like Castle must have experienced something similar in her own life. When Laurel’s potential boyfriend hugs her delicately she thinks “Seriously, Joe, you can touch me without breaking me. In fact, you might even put me a little bit back together.” (142, ePub). My own potential boyfriend at the time showed up at my house during my own day After…he gave me the biggest, warmest, most crushing,  bear-hug I’d ever had. It was a hug that touched me so deeply I wrote about it in our wedding vows 9 years later.

In the end this book might not be for everyone. But if you’re a lover of realistic fiction this well written novel will fit like a glove.

Rating: 9/10 One of the best realistic fiction novels I’ve ever done.

Read Full Post »

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Beach Week Book Three! This one is all about spending summers at a beach house and finding yourself old enough for that first love. Told in retrospectives of Belly’s past summers you’ll get to know her and why this summer is so very important…Enjoy the sun, sand, and the love…

BookTalk

Isabel, a.k.a. Belly, a.k.a. Belly Button spends every summer at a beach house with her mom and brother, as well as her mom’s best friend and her two sons. Belly lives for the summer, discounting the rest of the year (and the boys that come with it) in favor of the summer months she spends in Cousin’s Cove. Every previous summer has led Belly to this turning point in her life…The summer she turned pretty. Belly is entering adulthood and is hungry for the adventures and relationships that come with it. Drunk on the pleasure of finally having boys notice her, she focuses all of her attention on her first loves…the Beck boys…to whom she’s been a surrogate little sister. Belly is soon to learn that with the joys of adulthood also come the hardships, First love is not always what it seems, and being self-aware and self-absorbed are not the same thing. Belly is in for one hot summer…the summer that changed everything.

Review

This book should be in the dictionary next to ‘Summer Read’. It’s full of cute guys, first loves, and the dramas of growing up all set in the quintessential beach house. That being said, The Summer I Turned Pretty was not what I was expecting. I read a review of the title on GReads! and put it in my TBR pile. I guess I assumed that this book would be a light beach read about a summer where everything came together. I was expecting a first love story…something simple and sweet.

That is not this book.

I completely agree with Ginger when she says you continue to think about the characters long after this book is over. I felt like the whole point of the book was character development…that by the last page I was really just getting geared up for the story. The story is told alternately from the current summer (the summer she turns pretty) and in flashbacks to previous tween summers. I don’t know that I understood where the book was going in the beginning. I found myself wondering if the title was more appropriate for a tween audience, that it was a little young for my personal taste. What became apparent later in the book was that Han was slowly feeding me a history of this beach-side group. So while this was a Super Summery read…it was turning into a book that was about more than light-summer-fun stuff. What I was learning from the flashbacks soon began to color my understanding of the present time, giving the story depth beyond the surface storyline.

This understanding really helped me see that I was watching Belly mature before my eyes. Be warned, Belly is very much immature for the better part of this novel. She whines, she thinks everything is about her…that the world simultaneously revolves around her and yet is shafting her at the same time. No need to worry, by the end of the book Belly has perspective but because this understanding happens so late in the text, I felt like I was just gearing up for the meat of the story.

This book reads almost like a prequel. You intimately get to know all of the characters but the main plot points of the story are just beginning. Good thing the trilogy is already finished and published…you’ll be ready to move onto book two right away.

Rating: 7/10

Read Full Post »

Moonglass by Jessi Kirby

Beach Week Book 2

I loved this book. The beach setting is so well done you’ll taste the salty air. A perfect read surrounded by sun and sand or your couch…’cause you’ll feel like you’re there…

BookTalk

“I read once that water is a symbol for emotions. And for a while now I’ve thought maybe my mother drowned in both.” (9, ePub)

Anna and her father are moving back to Crystal Cove State Park. Under the guise of a promotion for her father this family of two are really moving back so they can move on with their lives. Nine years after the death of Anna’s mother Anna is returning to the beach-side town where she was born and where her parents fell in love. She’ll learn to see her past in a different light, and finally face the aftermath of her mother’s “accident”. With the help of her perky friend Ashley, running buddy Jillian, poetry quoting Joy, and the beach crawler Joseph, Anna will find her way through emotions she’s been running from for years. Now, if only the cute lifegaurd could just hurry up and kiss her already, life wouldn’t be so bad.

Review

This book was so refreshing, so simple and honest after all of the if not paranormal, then weird stuff I’ve been reading lately. This book is really like slipping into a beach chair and staring at the ocean. It’s calm and turbulent, and the emotion comes in waves. Kirby does a great job with setting, her writing takes the  reader to the beautiful beach Anna and her father live at. That’s what makes this book such a great beach read. Even if you’re stuck on your couch this summer you can experience ocean life through Anna and her lifeguard-ing father and boyfriend.

Another thing that I loved about this book was that the romance was not the center of this story. Sure, Anna has a love interest in Tyler but the whole relationship is so realistic. There is no insta-love and Tyler even waits an exorbitant amout of time casually firting with Anna before he even trys a move. This is how I remember high school relationships starting. Lots of wondering and attempts at giving the guy an opening. It’s a really endearing relationship…one that develops naturally.

But that’s what’s great about Anna as a character. She’s so normal. Yes, she has issues with her mother’s suicide but beyond that…just a great girl. No body issues, normal amount of confidence, some great friends that make for enjoyable supporting characters. This is a book to sink into and enjoy. It doesn’t have any cliff-hangers, it’s not a series, and no one has found a soul mate at age 16. Instead it’s a great novel where plot threads and character actions weave together so effortlessly you’ll just ride a wave to the beautiful moments where tears do come…in the best possible way.

Pick this one up immediatly it was one of the smoothest, well written books I’ve done in a long time.

Rating: 10/10

Read Full Post »

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A. S. King

Review

I’m in the minority. You should probably read Please Ignore Vera Dietz…Everyone else thinks you should…But I didn’t love it. I’m not going to booktalk it. I am disappointed. I could possibly be the only person on the internet brave enough to say so.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz is a Printz Award Honor book. I had such high hopes! I love the Printz, rarely do the picks for this award fail me. On top of its award status, other readers loved this book…five-star-loved this book. And I’m with them to a point…

I did find Vera to be funny. She’s a self-deprecating, dry humored kinda gal and I like that. Right from the start of the book I found her to be realistic and funny. I enjoyed listening to her voice. Vera is a smart kid, intelligent and aware of herself. She’s just lost her best friend Charlie during a night when the local pet store also burned down. And the story centers on Vera’s trouble dealing with life after his death. Charlie has been blamed for the fire and from the beginning of the novel the reader knows, that Vera knows, that Charlie didn’t do it. Charlie asked for Vera’s help, he’s left evidence to reveal the truth to her. Because of this Vera is being chased by her own demons (talking, Charlie shaped demons) to reveal the truth of that night.

This is where I think I lost my enjoyment of the story. Perhaps I misunderstood the point of this novel, I focused too much on the secrets surrounding the death of Charlie. I was distracted with the ‘knowing the truth’ part. I assumed the truth would be worth the wait…a suprise of some kind. It’s Not. The truth surrounding Charlie’s death is not the major break through of this novel. Be warned. When you pick this title up forget about the secret, forget about the thing Vera’s supposed to find in the tree, Save Yourself! Find enjoyment and satisfaction in this book! 

This book is all about Vera growing up and facing her demons. She has more than the ghost of Charlie on her plate. Vera’s mother abandoned her at the age of 12 cutting off almost all contact with Vera. Add to this tragedy the facts that Vera’s parents were teens when they became pregnant and married, her father suffered from alcoholism, and her mother was a stripper at a local joint for the first year of Vera’s life. Much of the emotional play of the novel is due to these filters, even how she handles Charlie’s death and the night of the fire. We watch as Vera basically crashes and burns a few months after Charlie’s death. She’s drinking, dating the wrong type of guy, and attempting to go completely ignored at school. Vera is realistically messed up and realistically finds her way out. This is why the novel is a Printz Honor.

My problem with it all was that the author had me waiting for a big reveal (it never comes), and while I liked Vera in the beginning I found her kinda odd by the end of the story. I’m not sure I’d be friends with her, and I’m not convinced I was totally rooting for her. A lot of people out there connected to this book. I didn’t. I could have stopped halfway through and been just fine. I’d love for someone to convince me otherwise…restore my blind faith in the Printz…but this one just wasn’t my favorite.

Rating: 5/10

Read Full Post »

After by Amy Efaw

BookTalk

What if you did it?…Could you have done it?…This can’t be happening to you…You get good grades, like, really good grades, 4.15 GPA good grades…And you’re the star of the soccer team, like, a super star. You’ve been playing varsity goalie since your freshman year. People stop you in the halls to congratulate you…people you don’t even know. You’re responsible, an indemand babysitter, a tutor, a soccer coach to little kids. This does not happen to people like you.

But now you’re in jail. With girls who have obviously done really bad things to get here. Things someone like you is incapable of doing…right?…But then there was THAT NIGHT…the blood…the pain…it all came from you. IT came out of you. IT was found in a dumpster. Did you do it?…Could you have done it?…What if you really did it?

Review

Oh My God, was the first thing I thought reading this book. As a reader you are just as hazy as the protagonist Devon for the first few pages of this book but long before Devon snaps back to reality the reader realizes the full horror of the situation.

In After Efaw tackles the subject of “Dumpster Babies”. A trend that the Author’s Note explains is nothing new. We’ve all seen the news stories run of women who dump their newborns in the trash after concealing a pregnancy for 9 months. The horror of the situation rarely allows a true look at what the mother may have been going through. No one wants to believe that a woman couldn’t realize that she was pregnant. I’ve sat through a few “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” episodes myself (what can I say, I’m a lover of train-wrecks) and always end up thinking “really, you were using the ‘rhythm method’ as birth control, didn’t have a period for 9 months, gained weight, and seriously never considered pregnancy as an explanation?!” Between trying to reconcile a missed pregnancy and killing a baby it seems almost impossible to understand the actions of these women.

Efaw does a spectacular job of showing the mother’s point of view. What happened during the 9 months leading up to the birth and the birth itself are painstakingly revealed as the character of Devon is able to deal with them. This means that for the first third of the book you are extremely frustrated. After page 5 as the reader you know what has happened and you want the instant knowledge of the details. The beauty of this plot (and the frustration) come from not learning them right away. To know Devon’s whole story immediately would not allow the reader to see Devon’s point of view. Because Devon has issues…issues I ended up understanding…issues I wanted Devon to overcome and rehabilitate. I really didn’t want to see Devon go to jail for life. Amazing but true, by the end you’ll not only feel for Devon, you’ll understand psychologically why some women do things like this.

This is a heavy book, be warned of that. It’s one of those books that’s good, but takes some emotion to get through. Know that it’s worth the journey.

Rating: 9/10

Read Full Post »