Vacations from Hell by Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Claudia Gray, Maureen Johnson, and Sarah Mlynowski

I am on Vacation…So it’s Beach Week here on the blog.

Granted I live less than a mile from the ocean in Southern Florida, so really every week is beach week for me, but there is just something special about being on vacation at a beach. Even if you’re a year round beach bum a week’s worth of no work and all play is still pretty awesome. So in honor of my time at the shore every post this week is vacation or beach related. For those of you grumbling about my beach fortune don’t worry…This week starts with a group of vacation stories you might rather avoid…

BookTalk

“You know that prickly feeling you get on the back of your neck? The one hat makes you scared to turn around? Pay attention to that, Holmes. That is a Me-NO-Likee signal creeping up from the lizard part of your brain – some primal DEFCON center of your gray matter left over from the very first ancestors that hasn’t been destroyed by gated communities, all-night convenience stores…,and a half dozen fake Ghost Chaser shows on late-night cable. I’m just saying that lizard part exists for a reason. I know that now.

“So if you’re walking down that unfamiliar path and the mist rises up out of nowhere and slips its hands over your body, turning you around until you don’t know where you are anymore, and the trees seem to be whispering to you? Or you think you see something in the dark that shouldn’t exist, that you tell yourself can’t possibly exist except in creepy campfire stories? Listen to the lizard, Holmes, and do yourself a favor.

“Run. Run like Hell’s after you.

“Because it just might be.” (pg. 116-117 ePub edition)

Review

This is a collection of short stories about what happens when your vacation goes wrong. Because really, who wants to hear about a trip where someone sat on a beautiful beach? I only want to hear about that trip if I was on the trip, or I’m about to go on that trip. However, if I am sitting on my couch…amongst my laundry and a carpet that needs vacuumed…I want a vacation where something goes wrong. Like, vampires-on-your-cruise wrong, a curse-in-the-French-countryside wrong, spell-gone-wrong, wrong. Types of wrong that will make that summer sunburn look like…well…a day at the beach.

These stories were fluffy and fun. The perfect combination of teeny-bopper hair flipping and sleep with the light on scary. Not all the tales were scary scary stories, but all do contain a twist you may not have seen coming. I was personally taken by surprise in the first story Cruisin’ by Sarah Mlynowski. It’s the perfect tale to start this collection off, seemingly fluffy with a game-changing plot move 3 pages from the end. The story gave me a smile and a chilly surprise. The rest of the collection didn’t disappoint. Law of Suspects by Maureen Johnson in the middle upped the horror factor with a cursed story and a lonely French manor. Then Libba Bray drives it home with the most classically paranormal/scary story Nowhere is Safe. A gothically creepy, superstition-ridden romp in an Eastern European hill town. Very few survive that blood bath…be prepared.

In the end this was a great beach read…or couch read depending on your summer plans. For those choosing a ‘staycation’ over the traditional summer travel, know that you’ll experience very little envy from these travelogues. In fact you may feel a little smug, safe in your house…alive. Now, if only someone could come fold the laundry…

Rating: 7/10

Read Full Post »

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

BookTalk

Willa Jackson left her hometown, Walls of Water, infamous. Revealing herself as the Jokester after 4 years of pranks. Willa left high school in handcuffs, unwittingly inspiring more than a few of her classmates to take more risks in their lives. Unfortunately, after failing out of college and the death of her father, Willa remembers her prankster years as nothing more than a warning to embrace the normal and mundane.

Paxton Osgood is picture perfect. The type of woman who does the work of 3 with not one hair out-of-place and matching shoes. The type of woman normal women hate. But Paxton’s life is not as perfect as it seems. At 30 she’s still living with her parents, the love of her life may or may not be gay, and quite frankly, it’s awful lonely being perfectly alone.

It all started with the renovation of The Madam, that beautiful historic mansion on the hill. It was released that day the peach tree came down. The dead body found buried will unearth secrets women spent their lives keeping. Now there’s magic in the wind and love at the door. Willa and Paxton soon find themselves untangling their shared history and luckily, neither will be the same.

Review

This book was not what I was expecting. It sounded good, I thought it was going to be a lite chick mystery. But this book was far more about friendship than suspense. And the mystery is not traditional. Allen uses magical realism to her advantage playing it both to increase the mystery and at the same time tone it down. All the magic swirling through the air is somewhat comforting, giving the plot threads a sense of inevitability. That the secrets need to come out so everyone can breathe a little eaiser…move on with their lives.

But it’s the friendship that’s the strength of this novel. Two women coming together and not just finding themselves, but each other. Willa and Paxton find themselves reconnecting to the larger web of women, helping and supporting one another. Realizing that when times get tough no one has your back like a girlfriend. Because you know the boyfriend is not going to help you with the dead body. Nope, crisis’ like that are strictly reserved for best friends, the girl you can call no questions asked. This book is heartwarming in that way, I found myself pausing to think of how lucky I am to have a group of women that I can hide my dead bodies with…It’s nice to see Willa and Paxton find the same type of friendship for the first time.

With the friendship, the romance, the magic, and the sweet scent of peaches you’ll find that this book is an easy feast for the senses to be finished in one sitting.

Rating: 7/10

Read Full Post »

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

BookTalk

I used to be someone.

Someone named Jenna Fox.

That’s what they tell me. But I am more than a name. More than they tell me. More than the facts and statistics they fill me with. More than the video clips they make me watch.

More. But I’m not sure what…

Jenna Fox is recovering from a serious accident that left her in a coma. Upon waking, she has little or no memory of who she is. She meets her parents, but has no memories of them. Nothing about her surroundings is familiar, and then she learns that her family has relocated to a new area to have a fresh start after her accident. Despite being fed pieces of her life from her parents and watching countless DVDs that captured her life before the coma, she barely recognizes the girl she sees on the screen. As she explores deeper into who she is and flashes of images begin to appear in her mind, she starts to feel that those closest to her are hiding something…something big.

Review

I. Love. This. Book. But more importantly my students…Love. This. Book.

I booktalked The Adoration of Jenna Fox this year and had to immediately purchase 5 more copies of the book. Yes Librarians, you heard that right, 5 new copies rush-ordered via Amazon. Considering I service a library of about 400 students 6 copies of any book is a lot but I needed them…with a wait list. I personally ate it up in one morning simply dying to find out what happened. This book has it all: mystery, suspense, complex relationships, a discussion of a timely topic, and such a satisfying conclusion to it you’ll wish all YA books were so tidy.

 As the booktalk indicates we meet Jenna Fox after a major accident and she remembers nothing of her former life. Jenna spends her days watching video of her life pre-accident in hopes of triggering a real memory. You see, it all seems vaguely realistic…trying to help an amnesic recoup by replaying memories. But the girl on the tape, supported by a loving family, is not the life Jenna is living. Her mother is stressed, her father is living across the country because their family is in hiding, and her Catholic grandmother seems to dislike her. Just as odd, Jenna can recite poetry passages and history textbooks by heart…but doesn’t know if she had friends.

Jenna does begin to remember snatches of her history. For both the reader and Jenna the story her parents have told begins to wear thin. The logic of the story doesn’t fit together as it should. Momentum builds not just to the final reveal of Jenna’s personal story but to the horrific indications of what followed. By this point in the book the climax you’ve been waiting for only serves to bring other character’s stories into play emotionally. You’ll find satisfaction in Jenna’s full remembrance followed swiftly by emotional turmoil for others. It opens a whole other can of worms the author has been prepping you for without your knowledge. The suspense continues to the final pages of the novel. Asking the reader how far they would go to save a life.

This novel tackles medical ethics as well as a family dealing with an unforeseen tragedy and it’s aftermath. What plays out is realistic and emotional. As in real life hindsight is 20/20 and the characters in this book make their decisions out of love for their child. The chapters of the story are short and intermingled with memory breakthroughs that keep the plot running and the reader engaged.

Rating: 10/10

Read Full Post »

I need a break…A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

I work with teens for roughly 8 hours a day, I read a lot of YA…Believe me, there are times when I can’t listen/read to one more teen-centric drama! They whine, they complain about things that really aren’t all that important in the long run, sometimes they giggle really really loud, they ask stupid questions (yes, they exist).

I hit a wall sometime around last Friday afternoon…NO MORE TEENS. I needed some adult book action. Something vague and twisted, something with big words, something from a section called ‘literature ‘and not ‘paranormal-teen-series’. I was headed up to Annapolis with my husband for a weekend at a B&B and decided to treat myself to A Reliable Wife.

I’ve had this book in queue for almost a year. A good friend said that it was just OK, that she saw the twist coming. Disappointed by the review, A Reliable Wife sat unclicked in my nook for months. Until my recent YA rebellion. On Friday I needed an adult book, and I needed it on the plane. Unwilling to pay for wifi and a new book I chose from what I had on the nook. A Reliable Wife it was.

Review:

I’m sad I waited so long for this book! It was just what I wanted this weekend. Very adult, centered on sex, lies, and longing. A love triangle worthy of a convoluted Oedipus. It was a little twisted, kinda dirty, and lyrically written. VERY anti-teen…no way to book talk this one to students…ahh, the bliss.

The book opens with Ralph Truitt waiting at the train station for his mail order bride. He has asked for “a reliable wife”. Truitt desires the opposite of his first wife. He wants someone modest, plain, and true. Thus he is reasonably shocked when the woman exiting the train is stunningly beautiful, besides her obvious disguise of modest clothing. The reader knows it’s a disguise as we’ve watched Cathrine shed her finery and throw it out the window mere minutes from the station. All is not what it seems.

Truitt is not happy with his life and wishes to start again. He wants to rectify his mistakes with and through Cathrine. Cathrine is not happy with her life either. She is outwardly searching for money and love and inwardly struggling toward something more meaningful than shallow trappings. Both have struggled through lives that did not need to be as difficult as they made them. They’ve reached the middle of their story and both want change. As intriguing as it would be to watch the two simply fall in love and fulfill one another, there is that afore mentioned twist. Truitt has a son by his first marriage. A son to whom he is not the biological father. Truitt desires to find his son and make things right with him, using Cathrine as a mediator.

I’ll agree with my friend in that the twist was not a huge surprise. You’ll see it coming. But it is not the twist that makes for the intrigue of the story. What will have you tearing through the last few pages is how this triangle of characters will choose to live their lives and who they will choose to love.

Rating: 7/10

Read Full Post »