Search

Rainy Day's Books, Video Games and Other Writings

Open Search
Tag

young adult literature

Book Review: A Little Something Different

A Little Something Different Book Cover

Rating: 3 stars

The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out.  

 But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. Their creative writing teacher pushes them together. The baristas at Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner automatically seats them together. Even the squirrel who lives on the college green believes in their relationship. 

Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together….

 A Little Something Different is a cute and easy read, which is one of the things I like about it. It’s a book that doesn’t take too long to read because the writing flows smoothly and the story is very simply told by those surrounding the two main characters.

I also like that the author kept everything so short and simple with all of the characters. While I normally enjoy reading stories with a lot of character development, I feel like that wasn’t needed with this story since everyone else was talking about these characters. Which reminds me, I really like that the author told this story from so many different perspectives. While at times it could be a little annoying because the points of view changed on every other page, I like that Sandy Hall had friends of the two main characters telling their story along with people who saw them and thought they would be cute together. It added something different to the story, let the reader know what people thought of these two characters instead of hearing the characters talk about themselves and their troubles. I especially thought it was cute to have a squirrel’s point of view in the story because you never see that type of perspective in books. And I found the perspective of the bench to be amusing because having a bench talk about the perfect butt just made me giggle.

I especially like Lea and Gabe, who I felt like I could relate to. Both characters are pretty shy and awkward, which is something I completely understand since I’m the same way. I have a hard time interacting with people socially, except for the people I’m closest to, like my friends and family. But I also don’t like people that much, which makes it hard for me to want to socialize with anyone except for the people I care about. They are also like me because I’m also very geeky. They both like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a television show I’ve seen a couple episodes of here and there but haven’t really watched all the way through and both of them are into writing, something else I obviously enjoy. I really liked that Hall had these two awkward college students as the main characters because it was something I could really relate to, and it made me want to find out how their love story would unfold. I also found them as a couple to be really endearing and it wasn’t hard to root for them to end up together.

One of the things I like the most about A Little Something Different is hearing about Gabe’s physical handicap. Not a lot of teenagers have a physical disability like Gabe, and it’s nice to see her acknowledge how this impairment affects his life. I also appreciate that we get to see him struggle with this disability throughout the book, and then see his character once he’s able to do something about it. It shows that the story does have a little character development even though it’s not much, and promotes a positive message about people with physical disabilities.

A Little Something Different is a good read because it’s such a happy book. With the amount of horrible things that happen in the world on a daily basis, it was nice to read this book, and get away from that for a little bit. I also like this book because of the romance aspect of the story. I like romance literature, and reading about this couple was exactly what I needed.

But while this story is cute, there are some aspects of the story I didn’t like too. For one, I didn’t like that the whole focal point of this book was about their romance. Every conversation the characters in the story have is about both of them, and how cute they’d be together. But I felt like the author could’ve had these characters focus on their own lives while also talking about these two characters. It was almost like all of the characters didn’t have lives of their own, like Gabe and Lea were the only thing they had going for them. It was like these people were obsessed with having these two get together, that they couldn’t talk about anything else because of it.

I also hate how hard Hall was using these secondary characters to push Gabe and Lea together instead of letting them get together if it was meant to be. While I think these two characters are cute, I find it annoying how hard the author was pushing for their relationship instead of letting things happen naturally on their own.

I was also frustrated with Lea and Gabe’s characters. I get that both of them are awkward and shy, but I feel like the author used this as too much of an excuse during the course of the story. She had them literally at the same places all the time, yet they had very little physical conversations with each other. They would just awkwardly acknowledge each other with a wave or smile each time they saw each other and that was it. I found this to be frustrating because it’s not completely realistic. I get having a crush on someone and having a difficult time getting the courage to talk to the person you like. But after a certain point, you have to make the decision to make a move or the person is going to believe you don’t like them and move on, which is actually what almost happened. I get that it’s not easy, but I felt like the author told the reader both these characters were shy too much. To the point where it made you as the reader wonder if Lea and Gabe really actually liked each other because there were times were it was hard to tell.

What I also don’t like about A Little Something Different is the way Hillary and Victor’s characters are portrayed in the story. These two characters are the only ones who don’t necessarily want Lea and Gabe together, and everyone else in the story gives them a hard time about it. While these two characters weren’t my favorite (especially Hillary, who I found to be quite annoying), I felt like their treatment was a little unfair. Especially Victor because he really didn’t want anything to do with the two of them, but ended up near them almost every time something happened. I felt sorry for him more than anything else, especially since Gabe was constantly kicking his seat during class.

I overall enjoyed reading A Little Something Different because the story was so cute and happy and it was very easy to read. It was exactly what I needed, but unfortunately had some imperfections that if fixed would’ve made this story even more enjoyable to me. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs a book to read to cheer them up, a book with many different character perspectives, and is a romantic at heart like me.

 

 

 

2

Book Review: All the Rage

All the Rage Book Cover

Rating: 2 stars

The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything—friends, family, and her community.

 Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous. But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out, Romy must decide whether she wants to fight or carry the burden of knowing more girls could get hurt if she doesn’t speak up. Nobody believed her the first time—and they certainly won’t now — but the cost of her silence might be more than she can bear.　

With a shocking conclusion and writing that will absolutely knock you out, All the Rage examines the shame and silence inflicted upon young women after an act of sexual violence, forcing us to ask ourselves: In a culture that refuses to protect its young girls, how can they survive?

This book was a disappointment to me for so many reasons. But before I talk about why I didn’t enjoy this book like everyone else seems to, let me tell you two of the things I did like about it.

What I enjoyed about All the Rage is its realistic portrayal of rape and the culture surrounding it. For those who’ve unfortunately had this horrible experience, what Romy goes through is all too real. Especially what happens after, with the people she thought were her friends turning their back on her. These people are really cruel to her because of her accusations, which they believe to be untrue. It isn’t until the end of the story that any sort of truth is found, even though there’s still no justice for Romy. This is very realistic of our world with regards to rape culture because rape victims are never believed to be telling the truth. Even those closest to them think they are fabricating or believe the victim wanted the person who hurt them. In Romy’s case, this is apparent because before the rape, she really liked her rapist. So when he hurts her, her friends find it difficult to believe her.

Romy’s reaction to her traumatic experience is also very realistic. She feels like she can’t trust anyone in her small town because they’ve betrayed her. It doesn’t help that the accusations are against the sheriff’s son, which plays into diminishing Romy’s chance at getting any justice for what was done to her. But what I like is how real they show Romy’s trauma. She doesn’t hide any of it from the reader throughout. It’s very clear she needs help, that she now has mental health issues because of her trauma. You see this in the story from the way she applies lipstick and nail polish, as if they are her armor she can take with her out into the world. But she also uses them as a way to hide herself. She believes that if she keeps applying these products, she’ll look and be a different person. She won’t be the person who was raped, but someone else entirely. I like that this novel includes her trauma because mental illness is a topic that really needs to be talked about.

Now, what I didn’t like with All the Rage is the characters. While I appreciate Courtney Summers exploring mental illness and rape culture, I felt like she focused so much on that she didn’t create characters with any personality. Romy is the main character, but she has no character development at all during the story. During the whole book, she’s pretty much doom and gloom because she’s so busy building walls around herself that she doesn’t notice how concerned her Mom and Todd are about her. This can also be seen with her “relationship” with Leon, the only character in the book I like besides Romy’s parents and other coworkers. She’s so busy guarding herself around him that she blows any chance of happiness she could’ve had. And when she does act normal around him, she’s using him in order to be a completely different person. The rest of the characters in the story also have flat and boring personalities too because they don’t add anything to the story besides being more tormentors to Romy.

I also had a hard time feeling any sympathy for her because she kept creating more trouble for herself. This can be seen in the story when she and Penny are both missing at the same time, and they find her with no recollection of what happened. These moments keep happening throughout the story, almost like Summers wants to continuously make her character the victim. She continuously makes stupid decisions that get her in trouble, but add nothing to the overall story, which made this book that much harder to continue reading for me. The only characters in this story I feel any sympathy for are Leon and Penny. I feel sorry for Leon for having to put up with Romy while I feel sorry for Penny for sacrificing her life for Romy who I feel didn’t really deserve it.

I didn’t enjoy this book so much I stopped reading it altogether. I stopped reading because I honestly didn’t know if I wanted to find out how everything ended or not. I also stopped because of how confusing the storyline was written. One minute, the story would be in the present, then we’d be back in the past with no warning. I’d stop reading and when I’d come back, I’d be so confused because nothing is explained to us. I also stopped reading because I just couldn’t deal with Romy’s character, which I explain in the previous paragraph. But I came back because I hate leaving books unfinished, and figured I should see this one through to the end. And I wasn’t disappointed because the last half of the book was better than the beginning, though the ending was pretty much a flop.

I also hated that the main antagonist isn’t really a character in this book. Throughout the story, Romy mentions what happened to her, but the person who truly hurt her is never physically present in the book. Yes, you get introduced to his lovely father and friends, but you never meet or deal with him in any way. I think this is a terrible oversight on Summers’s part because people who are raped by someone they know have to deal with seeing that person after the rape happens.

The plot of All the Rage is also horribly written. I hated it because so much was going on along with Romy learning to recover from her trauma. I also just found most of it to be a little pointless too because it didn’t move the story forward, or make Romy come to terms with what happened to her. For example, that scene with the stranger near the end when she finds Penny’s car is completely ridiculous because it really doesn’t add anything to the story.

To be honest, I really wanted to enjoy reading All the Rage, but this book has so many issues for me that I couldn’t. I know a lot of people like this book, and while it did have some moments where I was interested in finding out what happened, there are just too many things with this story that made it hard for me to enjoy. I really badly wanted to feel for Romy and everything she was going through, but her character is too unsympathetic for me to even entertain the notion of pretending to feel that way. So while this book was a powerful read for a lot of people, I just don’t see what makes it so special.

 

 

 

 

0

Book Review: Wintergirls

Rating: 2 stars

“Dead girl walking”, the boys say in the halls.

“Tell us your secret”, the girls whisper, one toilet to another.

I am that girl.

I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.

I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.

Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia’s descent into the powerful vortex of anorexia, and her painful path toward recovery.

I didn’t like this story as much as I’d hoped. Lia’s story of battling anorexia is intense. But the writing and characters made it difficult to enjoy, and I’ll tell you why shortly.

First, I’ll tell you what I do like about Wintergirls. It’s an interesting story about a girl named Lia. Dealing with issues of her own, Lia looses her best friend Cassie who she hasn’t talked to in a long time. As she’s dealing with this loss, Lia continues pushing herself to be skinner until she realizes she needs help. While this is going on, Lia gets regular visits from Cassie’s ghost who wants Lia to join her in the in-between. What I like about the story is seeing all of these different elements emerge together. While at times it doesn’t make sense, the way Laurie Halse Anderson brings it all together makes for an interesting read.

I also like that Anderson doesn’t shy away from serious topics. In her novel Speak, which I absolutely love, she talks about rape but does it in a way where you feel like she’s really bringing awareness to the subject. So while this book is definitely not one of my favorites, I appreciate reading a story about a young girl and her struggle with anorexia. I think it’s a good way for people to become really aware of what it’s like to have an eating disorder. I especially like it because you can see it in Lia’s behavior. She’s always aware of the food she eats before she puts it in her mouth. You also see it in the way Lia’s family deals with her eating disorder. They are worried about her well-being throughout that they are keeping track of her weight, hoping to get her back to health again.

What I also like about Wintergirls is the message Anderson is sending her readers. The whole time Lia is struggling with eating, there’s a message she is trying to tell us. The whole story is basically about how you can’t help someone unless they want help, which is a very powerful message. This is apparent with Lia because when her family weighs her, she deceives them by having the scale fixed to be a higher weight than what she truly is. She does this every time without any sign of remorse. Even when the one person she truly cares about finds her in terrible conditions, she doesn’t want help. It isn’t until the end of the book when she almost dies that Lia realizes she wants to live and gets the help she really needs.

I also really like the cover. It looks intriguing, makes me want to read the book and find out what’s going to happen. But it’s also really pretty because it reminds me of the cold, which I don’t mind quite as much as heat.

But there are so many things about this book I didn’t like. For one, the characters are pretty horrible. I feel like there’s no character development with any of them and I had a difficult time sympathizing with them. All of the characters were really flat to me because I couldn’t get any sense of personality from them. For example, Lia is supposedly shy, but Anderson never gives us an example of how she’s shy or anything. I also had a hard time sympathizing with Lia or her parents because of the way they treated each other. Lia’s biological parents are hardly around and when they are, there so focused on work or obsessed with getting Lia to eat. But Lia doesn’t treat them any better either, especially her mother, who seems like she wants to help. The only parental figure in the story I felt any sympathy for was Jennifer because she acted more responsible than even Lia’s father. She’s the one parent in the story I felt any sympathy for because you can tell she cares about Lia and wants to get her back to health. I also hated Lia because she just wasn’t at all likeable to me. I get she has an eating disorder so she’s going to act extremely selfish, but damn. She’s probably one of the most coldest and unfeeling characters I’ve read in a young adult book. I just felt nothing for her but pity and sad because if her character was more developed, I could’ve liked her.

I also had a hard time enjoying Wintergirls because the writing is terrible. There was nothing that kept me reading this book other than hope it would get better. It was a read I made the decision to keep exploring, but there were many times I wanted to stop and not finish, it was that awful of a read for me. The most interesting thing about it to me was reading all of the crossed out words and seeing how Lia kept count of the amount of calories in the food she ate.  I also didn’t like the writing because it didn’t feel clear to me with certain moments what was going on. For example, I didn’t realize Cassie’s spirit was visiting Lia until she mentioned wanting to make sure Cassie’s body was being put into the ground. This story is so poorly written that I’m still surprised I finished reading this book.

The plot of the book is just as bad to me too. One example is Elijah’s character being in the story. I felt like he didn’t add anything important to the plot or played any sort of purpose that made sense to me. He just happened to have a room in the same motel Cassie stayed in when she died and that’s it. He also calls Lia after Cassie’s death, but you never find out why. There also wasn’t any explanation for anything, like how Lia developed her eating disorder. You know she and Cassie made an oath to each other during the New Year, but there’s no explanation of how this started for either of them. My guess is that their friendship sparked these problems, which would make sense to me. There’s so much in the story that isn’t explained it made the story difficult to read.

I know I’m in the minority when I say I dislike this book. I know a lot of people enjoyed reading this from what I saw on GoodReads, but I’m definitely not one of them. I appreciate it talks about anorexia because eating disorders are a topic that needs to be discussed. But there were so many things with the way it was written and the plot that I had a hard time enjoying it. To me, its just not a good read, as unpopular of an opinion that may be.

0

Book Review: Seven Minutes in Heaven (The Lying Game #6) 

Rating: 4 stars

Warning: This book review may contain spoilers that are pertinent to the overall plot of the story. Read review at your own discretion. 

My sister wants the truth.

But sometimes the truth hurts.
For months, my long-lost twin, Emma, has been living my life and trying to solve my murder. She’s unearthed dark secrets about my friends, my family, and my tangled past. But when it comes to finding my killer, she keeps running into dead ends.

Until my body shows up in Sabino Canyon. Suddenly everyone knows there are two girls who look like Sutton Mercer – and that one of them is dead. At first the police assume the body is Emma’s. But as questions and accusations start flying, it’s harder than ever for Emma to keep playing me. The truth is bound to come out eventually. And when it does, Emma will be suspect number one in my murder investigation. If she can’t find my killer before time runs out, she’ll end up behind bars… or worse.

This book is my favorite overall in The Lying Game series. I enjoyed it because Shepard really picked up the pace of the story. But she did it in a way that didn’t rush the plot forward and made it enticing enough for me to finish reading within a couple hours from when I started. It was to the point where I couldn’t put this book down until I learned who killed Sutton and why. 

Along with being well-written, it was a very emotional book too. As you follow Emma on her journey to discover her twin’s killer, you as the reader begin to feel like you’re a part of their lives. In many ways, the reader is very similar to Sutton because we are also on the sidelines watching all of this unfold and can’t do anything to help Emma find the killer. But we are just as much a part of her journey as Sutton. We experience everything Emma feels and find ourselves feeling emotionally involved in the story. So when all of the pieces finally come together, you are both happy and sad. Happy because Emma is finally getting answers, but sad because the one person she trusted so much since she came to Tucson turns out to be the person who hurt her the most. You experience her pain when the family she’s come to know and love kick her out because they think she’s responsible for Sutton’s death. You feel sympathetic to Emma because she’s had to work for everything she has and it still isn’t always enough. And these emotions make you want to continue reading to see if Emma gets the happy ending she deserves. 

It turns out the person who killed Sutton is the person I suspected from the beginning. This makes me sad because I was really hoping someone else was involved, not the one person she trusted the most and went to when things got really bad. But there are many reasons why I suspected this character. One of the reasons I suspected Ethan’s involvement was because of his reaction to when Emma told him that she wasn’t Sutton. He didn’t seem as surprised as I’d expect, considering all of the information she confided in him through the short period of time they knew each other. I felt like he just accepted her as she was too easily and by being that way with her, he was able to keep his eye on her to make sure she didn’t slip up. I also felt like he was one of the characters in the story who didn’t have a real solid alibi. In the series, Emma suspects everyone around her until she is able to get an alibi from them. Except she never gets one from Ethan, even when she suspected him when they first met. But she doesn’t question him because of the feelings she had for him. It’s because she trusted him that when she discovers Ethan has a file at the hospital in Cross My Heart, Hope to Die, she asks him about it because she thinks he’ll tell her the truth. This file is one of the things that made me suspect him because it shows there’s something wrong with him even though he’s acting rationally. I also suspected him because she conveniently received those notes from the killer when he wasn’t around. He also manipulated himself into her life very easily, which made me question his intentions when I started reading this series. Then, there’s where she wants to look for clues and every time she does, Ethan tells her what she’s doing is dangerous. You think it’s because he wants to protect Emma from harm. But it turns out that’s far from the truth once Sutton finally has a flashback of her last moments. 

I’m sad Ethan killed Sutton because he and Emma were really great together. As a couple, they seemed perfect. Both of them were outcasts with difficult lives, which was why Emma felt like he understood her. He seemed like a great guy who loved Emma very much and was the only person by her side when things really got rough in the series. He was the person she trusted the most to have her back, but turned out to be the person who did her the most harm. Then again, he was the one person she never suspected while she was searching for clues. But I also enjoyed finding out he was the killer because he played the part very well. Emma never doubted Ethan’s love for her because she cared about him so much that she wanted to protect him from being hurt. But it turned out she was the one who needed protection from him. Even though Ethan being the killer is considered a predictable move, I love it because it makes the series come together perfectly. 

The one thing with Seven Minutes in Heaven  I didn’t like was that it ended. I felt emotional after I finished reading this book because it was finally over for Emma. Her real family now knows who she is and she can finally be herself again. It was also really touching to see the tribute Sutton’s friends did for her at her funeral and I was happy to see Emma get the happy ending she deserved. I just enjoyed it so much that I didn’t want it to be over, especially considering the person who killed her sister. But it’s also nice that she’ll finally have a family of her own. 

As a whole, my rating for The Lying Game series is 3.5 stars. I loved the characters, the plot of the story and all of the suspense behind finding out who killed Sutton. I also enjoyed the supernatural element of Sutton being on the sidelines, experiencing flashbacks about the day of her murder because it added a completely different element to the story. But I felt like the set up of each of the books in the series became predictable. I really disliked that in each book, Emma suspected someone of killing her twin only to discover evidence contrary to her suspicions. Then the person she ends up believing to be her killer in the final book is completely innocent and she doesn’t find out until it’s almost too late for her to help herself. Having the books play out this way almost took out the fun of guessing Sutton’s killer, even though I already knew who the killer was and didn’t realize it. It made it that much easier to eliminate people who were just as capable of killing her, which allowed me to continue following my instincts on who I suspected. 

However, I really enjoyed reading this series and am completely glad I stuck with it. I definitely recommend reading it to those who like reading suspenseful stories and people who enjoy young adult literature as much as I do. I know I’ll definitely be reading it again in the future. 

0

Book Review: Cross My Heart, Hope to Die (The Lying Game #5)

Rating: 3 stars

It’s not easy being me.

But my twin sister has no choice.

When I died two months ago, my killer told my twin sister to become me – or else. Now Emma has it down to a T. She tosses her hair with the signature Sutton Mercer flip and can lead a Lying Game prank with the best of them. She’s even repairing my relationship with my adoptive family. The only thing she hasn’t done is solve my murder.

Then our birth mother, the woman who abandoned us, showed up in Tucson. Emma hasn’t seen Becky in twelve years, but Becky recognizes Emma immediately – as Emma. Is it mother’s intuition… or does Becky know I’m already gone?

Out of all of the books in the series so far, I’d have to say this one is my least favorite. Now, it’s not a bad read or anything. I just wasn’t able to immerse myself into it like I could the rest of the books in the series. But before I talk about why I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the rest of the series, I’d like to mention what I did enjoy with Cross My Heart, Hope to Die.

One of the aspects of this series I continue to enjoy is how Shepard develops her characters. In this book in particular, Emma has become close to Sutton’s family. She’s repaired Sutton’s relationship with Laurel to the point where they aren’t arguing anymore. The Mercer family is finally acting like a normal happy family, somewhat. Yes, there are some secrets and lies being told. But they are doing a whole lot better than before. I think the family’s development is important in this book in particular because this book is heavily focused on their family, which is something I do like. When Becky comes to town, you know there’s going to be some trouble. You as the reader just don’t realize how much. 

Along with her character development with regards to Sutton’s family, her friendships also continue to grow and be tested. When Emma allows her twin’s rival to help with a prank, she befriends another person her sister wouldn’t have thought of giving a chance. You’re also introduced to a new girl to the school named Celeste whose character is pretty strange in some ways. She supposedly is very in tune spiritually and warns Emma several times throughout that she’s in serious danger. I really like her character because despite her odd personality, I honestly believe she cares about people even those she’s not friends with. I have a feeling Celeste is going to play a significant role in the final book, though I don’t yet know how that’s going to take shape. 

One of my favorite parts of this book is how it ends. Emma is having a really happy moment with her family when she receives some really bad news, the type of news nobody wants to get. Then the story ends with you wondering how Emma and her family are going to react and how this all plays into what’s going to happen next in the story. I love it because you’re reminded that Sutton’s killer is still out there watching Emma’s every move and that the killer is far from being done with her. 

What I don’t like with Cross My Heart, Hope to Die is that I feel like the plot is really slowing down. Out of all the books in this series, the pace in this book moved too slow for me. It was like Shepard put brakes on this book so that the story wouldn’t move too far along. I didn’t like it because it made me not want to finish this book, even though I really want to know how this all will end. 

But even though the pace was slow, it’s not my least favorite thing in this book. I absolutely hated how mental illness was portrayed through Becky in this book. It’s pretty obvious that she has mental health issues with the way Emma was raised by Becky before she abandoned her. But I feel like the way Becky’s illness is portrayed is really terrible. What made it so awful to me is that she’s never given the help she really needs. In the book, she escapes from the hospital only to find Emma so she can tell her she’s leaving Tucson. She apparently also finds Mr. Mercer to tell him the same thing, yet they are both completely okay with her leaving them despite that she really needs help. Yes, Emma does show more concern for her well-being, but it’s very obvious that neither of them are trying to get her any help. I get with Mr. Mercer that he doesn’t want his wife to know Becky is back, but to me it just seems like he doesn’t care about his daughter’s well-being. He knows she’s very sick, but does very little to really give her the help she needs. 

I also find the portrayal of mental health in this book to be awful because Emma does suspect her mother of killing Sutton at one point. This brings up the stigma that only really sick people with mental health issues are the only ones capable of killing someone, though there’s no way her mother was capable of the crime Emma was suspicious of her committing. And it also uses mental health as an excuse for why people do terrible things, which makes it even harder for people with mental health issues to actually want to get help. This is pretty apparent when Emma finds out Ethan has a file at the hospital and wonders why he kept it secret from her. While I appreciate Shepard writing about mental health, I don’t necessarily think she portrayed it properly. Or in a way where the reader could really sympathize with Becky and understand what she’s going through. 

But despite these problems with Cross My Heart, Hope to Die, I’m still planning on reading the last book in the series. Since the next book in this series is the last one, I’m planning on talking about the series as a whole and give you my thoughts on who I thought could’ve killed Sutton and why. I have a couple people I suspected and really can’t wait to share with you my thoughts on this series as a whole. 

0

Book Review: Hide and Seek (The Lying Game #4)

Rating: 4 stars

My friends and I used to play lying games. Now my twin sister is living one.

When I was alive, my family seemed picture-perfect. My adoptive parents adored me, and my little sister, Laurel, copied my every move. But now that my long-lost twin, Emma, has taken my place to solve my murder, we’re both learning just how flawed my family really is.

Laurel is shooting Emma nasty looks and sneaking around with my ex-boyfriend. And it turns out my parents are keeping a huge secret – could it be the reason I’m dead?

How far would they go to keep the truth buried? No one can harm me now, but Emma is still fair game. And if she’s not careful, she’ll end up buried, too…

Like the rest of the series, I found Hide and Seek to be such an enjoyable read. After ruling out Thayer as Sutton’s killer, some of those she holds dear become the next suspects on Emma’s list. Each has a potential motive for killing Sutton, but when Emma finds out what they’ve been hiding, she learns more about her and her twin than she knew before. But knowing these truths helps her realize there just might be someone she never expected to be behind Sutton’s death. 

I like this book in the series for different reasons than its predecessors. For one, you learn more about Emma and Sutton’s family, secrets you didn’t expect to uncover about their mother and how Sutton’s adoptive parents are connected to her. I like how this is included in this book in the series because we as readers actually don’t know too much about their family at all. I also think it gives this story more character development because Sutton continues to grow as a person when she realizes how little effort she put in to try to connect with her family. I honestly think family is the central theme in Hide and Seek because as Emma begins to bond with Sutton’s parents, she forms a stronger connection with them, which opens up to her being able to have a family to call her own for the first time. I find it to be a part of the story I truly enjoy because family is one of the most important things to me. So I’m rooting for her to finally have a home to call her own. 

Another aspect in this book I enjoyed is that there were a lot of surprising moments I didn’t see coming. These moments in the story made me want to continue reading in order to see Emma and Sutton’s reactions to what was going on. You discover the secret Sutton’s parents are keeping and how it reveals a new suspect to them that we all didn’t expect, someone who plays an important role in this series. 

I find with each page I read how much I love Shepard’s writing. The story is intense, full of mystery whenever it needs to be and she does a wonderful job of bringing detail through the flashbacks we experience. I find them to be interesting because she does a good job using them to bring new information to light. What I do wonder with them though is if Emma experiences them too, or if Sutton is just slowly recalling memories to unlock her murder. From what you read, I don’t think Emma is a part of those moments, since Emma and Sutton can’t communicate on their own right now. It’ll be interesting though as I get closer to the end of the series to see how Shepard decides to end Sutton’s part of the story. 

The one thing with Hide and Seek I don’t like is the same thing I don’t like with the rest of the series. The reason I hate this pattern so much is because I feel like she’s revealing a little too much to us. Because with each person eliminated as a suspect, we have less of a chance in feeling surprised when the suspect is finally revealed to us. It also makes these books a little predictable too because the reader already knows to suspect the person Emma and Sutton are suspicious of to be innocent of the crime committed. However, there is still a good side to this too. We get to know these people a little better, watch their character develop as the story reaches its climax. We get to better understand why this character is important in Sutton’s life while watching Emma learn something new about her lost twin everyday. It also eliminates people she knows, taking us one step closer to the actual killer. So while at times this pattern can be so predictable, it does have its benefits too. 

However, despite this one flaw in this book/series, I’m still enjoying it and can’t wait to see what befalls Emma next. It’s definitely been worth the read to me. 

0

Book Review: Two Truths and a Lie (The Lying Game #3)

Rating: 4 stars

Sutton Mercer watches from the afterlife as her long-lost twin, Emma Paxton, takes over her identity to solve her murder. But after ruling out her early leads, Emma still hasn’t found Sutton’s killer. A lot of people wanted her dead—but one name keeps popping up: Thayer Vega. When the gorgeous and mysterious Thayer returns to town, Emma has to move fast to figure out whether he’s back for revenge…or if he already got it.

When I first started reading this series, I wasn’t sure how I was feeling about it. The Lying Game was an intriguing read, but it lacked direction and character development, making me wonder if deciding to give this series a chance was a mistake. But I continued on anyway, knowing I could call it quits if I felt the need. Never Have I Ever upped the ante, bringing with it stronger writing, the character development The Lying Game was missing, and moving the plot further in ways I wasn’t expecting. As a reader, you finally could see where Shepard wanted the story to go and we’re looking forward to go on the journey. 

With Two Truths and a Lie, I still feel like the story continues to be enthralling. In this book, Madeline’s mysterious brother Thayer returns to town. While Emma doesn’t know too much about him, she’s heard of him and is immediately suspicious of him. She wonders whether he’s involved with her death, doing whatever means necessary to figure out what connection he has with Sutton the night she’s murdered. 

What I like about this book in the series is the reader gets introduced to Thayer and learns more about him. He’s someone we don’t really know too much about so it’s exciting to see him reappear and see how everyone reacts to his return. It’s also good he’s come back because you learn he’s with Sutton briefly on the night she’s killed and that it’s possible he could hold the key to who killed her. I also like his character because he’s the bad boy guy in this series.  You can also tell from the flashbacks that he had a strong connection with Sutton, to where you have a better understanding of his character and all he’s gone through to get to the point where he decides to return. 

I continue to enjoy Sutton’s flashbacks. They provide an interesting perspective on the characters. And when she has one, I always wonder what we’re going to see, what piece of the puzzle that’s Sutton’s death will be revealed. I also like that she’s been going through her own development while these events unfold. While Sutton was alive, it’s clear she didn’t cherish the life she had. But since her death, she seems to realize her own shortcomings and becomes better because of it. 

I also continue to enjoy the plot in this series. I think it’s continuing to move forward in incredible ways, bringing plenty of conflict for the reader to want to read more. It’s also well-written because I’ve yet to truly figure out who killed Sutton. I have a couple potential suspects in mind, but want to wait and see how this series ends before voicing them aloud.

I still don’t like Emma and Sutton’s process of elimination when it comes to who killed her. While it intrigued me because we get to learn more about the people Emma suspects killed Sutton, her suspects are never solid, sure picks. In many ways, suspecting these people has begun to show signs of Emma being paranoid because she feels like she can’t trust anyone around her. But then she finds a small amount of proof, believing she’s cleared someone’s name and everything becomes all right in her universe. Until she stumbles upon more information that makes her paranoid all over again about someone else. I don’t think this is the best way for Emma to find her sister’s killer, though I understand there’s only so much she can do to find this person without putting other’s lives at risk. But I think this is the pattern in this series, from what I’ve read so far. 

Even with this key issue for me, I still really enjoyed reading Two Truths and a Lie. It was a page turner that just kept me going because I want to find out what really happened to her and how this series will ultimately end. 

0

Book Review: Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2)

                                                                

                                               Rating: 3 stars

The longing of dreams draws the dead, and this city holds many dreams.

After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people’s secrets, she’s become a media darling, earning the title “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” Everyone’s in love with the city’s newest It Girl…everyone except the other Diviners.

Piano-playing Henry DuBois and Chinatown resident Ling Chan are two Diviners struggling to keep their powers a secret—for they can walk in dreams. And while Evie is living the high life, victims of a mysterious sleeping sickness are turning up across New York City.

As Henry searches for a lost love and Ling strives to succeed in a world that shuns her, a malevolent force infects their dreams. And at the edges of it all lurks a man in a stovepipe hat who has plans that extend farther than anyone can guess…As the sickness spreads, can the Diviners descend into the dream world to save the city?

Lair of Dreams was a great read for me because the story and characters made me want to find out more. I enjoyed this book because the story centered around the ability for Diviners to walk through dreams. In particular, it centered around my favorite character’s friend Henry and introduced us to Ling, both whom can walk through dreams. I found this part of the story to be interesting because readers found out more about Henry and also learned how the dream world played a role in the events that followed. I also find dreams to be a fascinating subject, which allowed me to enjoy this book even more. Especially when Ling discovered a new ability she could harness in the dream world. I liked learning Henry could walk through dreams because it’s a nice tidbit of information that Libba Bray didn’t include in The Diviners. It also allowed me to learn more about his character before he and Theta had become friends. I also liked learning more about Theta and how she plays an important role in the story. 

I also enjoyed this story because the dream world felt so real. Bray really did a good job of making dreams so powerful that nobody would want to wake up from them. She really made the place Henry and Ling went to feel so real as if I was there myself. But she also did well at showing the dark side of dreaming and how it can affect the mind. This can be seen through Henry who starts visiting the dream world more frequently because the love of his life is there. He then starts staying in the dream world for longer periods of time to the point where it affects his everyday life. You as the reader also see this through the sleeping sickness. This sickness is the main root of our character’s problems as the sickness spreads and affects one of their own. It’s up to them to stop the cause before the sickness can spread through the whole city. 

I also enjoy the mystery of the series surrounding Project Buffalo and Blind Bill. Bray gives us little details about Project Buffalo that make us continue to be invested in the series. I also like the way Blind Bill’s character is portrayed and can’t wait to find out what his main role will be in the rest of the series. 

While I don’t particularly like the ending of Lair of Dreams, it has many more flaws that’ve caught my attention. One of my biggest criticisms of this book is Evie’s character. In The Diviners, I really didn’t mind her character too much. However, I feel like she’s devolved since then. She’s now famous because of her powers and goes on the radio to show off her ability to read objects. She also no longer wants anything to do with her uncle and starts going to parties almost every night because of her celeb status. I feel like all of these things made me like her character less because she becomes shallow, vain and selfish and allows her fame to get to her head. While I understand why she’s doing all of these things, I just had a hard time sympathizing with her and wanting to read her role in this book. She becomes so caught up in city life she fails to realize how much danger she and the people she loves are in, causing her not to play as much of a vital role in the story. 

I also disliked the role Will’s character plays in the story. I hate it because Bray doesn’t really tell us where he’s gone off to and the only time we see his character after he leaves causes the reader quite a bit of confusion. I find this to be a serious flaw in the story because it leaves me with a lot of questions that don’t get answered by the end of the book. It would’ve been nice to have some answers instead of feeling more confused than when I started. 

While I very much enjoyed reading Lair of  Dreams, there were so many issues I had with it that I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I’d hoped. 

0

Book Review: Thirteen Reasons Why

thirteen-reasons-why-book-cover

Rating: 3 stars

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why.

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

I remember being introduced to this book by an old friend of mine when I was in high school. At the time, I remember reading it, becoming so engrossed with Hannah’s character. She was a mysterious girl because when reading, you didn’t really know too much about her. She told you about the things that happened to her during her freshman year of high school and that she wasn’t the type of girl the rumors portrayed her to be. But I also felt a connection to her, having been in high school at the time and understanding the struggles she was going through.

I felt that I could relate to her. Even though I never had rumors like that about me flying around school, I was bullied during my early years of education. So I completely understood where she was coming from and could see how the events that transpired turned her whole world upside down. Even though I’m no longer in high school, reading Thirteen Reasons Why a second time around didn’t change that perception for me.

Hannah Baker is a very sympathetic character. She attends a new high school, trying the best she can to fit in only to find her peers never taking the time to get to know her as a person. They are so busy believing the rumors about her to realize how alone she was and to see that their actions unintentionally lead to her death.

Another reason this story pulls at my heart is because it’s a very sensitive topic. Suicide isn’t something a lot of people feel comfortable talking about, due to people not understanding how the smallest things can have a big impact on a person’s life. Like mental illness, people don’t know how to talk about suicide and don’t understand it as well as people who’ve felt that pain before. Despite how hard suicide as a topic is to discuss about, these discussions need to be had and I appreciate Jay Asher, the author of Thirteen Reasons Why, for writing about it. It makes me hopeful that one day, suicide won’t be such a big stigma.  This book also brought up a lot of other key issues, such as rape and drunk driving, which aren’t heavily talked about either and are just as important to discuss.

I also enjoyed this book because of the way the story is told. The novel is from the perspective of Clay Jensen, who receives cassette tapes one day after school with Hannah’s voice on them explaining why she killed herself, saying the responsibility lies with those who receive the tapes. The people involved also receive a map of their town, marked with stars of locations where the events Hannah mentions take place. I enjoyed reading this book through Clay’s thoughts and actions and Hannah’s voice. It made it seem more in depth and personal. I also liked that Asher used cassette tapes for Hannah’s death note. As a 90s child, I grew up using cassette tapes and a Walkman whenever I wanted to listen to something on the go. It made the story a little nostalgic with those elements, considering how far technology has advanced in today’s day and age.

However, I do have a couple criticisms for Thirteen Reasons Why. While I enjoyed the way this story was told, I felt like Asher had Hannah more telling the story than Clay. Yes, he’s the one who had the tapes and his thoughts about what transpired where pretty clear, but I felt like there was more telling in the story than showing. I also didn’t really see a whole lot of character development in any of the characters in this story. I think part of that is because of hearing from Hannah her thoughts about the people who affected her life made it hard for us to really get a good understanding of the other characters. We knew Hannah didn’t really like them, but I wish we could’ve learned more about them and why they were such terrible people.

I also just didn’t really get how Clay is supposedly a nice guy. He’s included in the tapes and the story is told from his perspective, but you don’t really get to know him as a person outside of him listening to those tapes. Throughout the book, he only interacts with a couple people and even those few interactions didn’t give us a real glimpse of his character. Yes, he did some nice things, helped people out, but that isn’t enough for me to truly believe someone is a nice person. I also didn’t see how this whole thing really changed his life either. I get he had a better understanding of what Hannah was going through after the tapes, but he didn’t seem all that different to me than before. But I did sympathize with him because it was evident in the story how much he cared about Hannah and wanted to help her in any way he could.

I felt like I knew more about where Hannah and the rest of her classmates lived than the characters in this story. Part of that was because of Clay going to some of the locations Hannah mentioned in the tapes and Asher describing those places in perfect detail. While I don’t mind knowing more about the world characters live in, it’s a little frustrating with this story because I wanted to know the characters better other than knowing all the terrible things they did to Hannah.

While I sympathize with Hannah, I sometimes find her character to be very weak. I understand how depression works on a person’s mind, making them feel completely helpless, but I just didn’t always understand some of her actions. For example, the incident with the sign I felt like she could’ve very easily done something about. I know she had called the police, but I felt like she should’ve told them who knocked the stop sign down. I felt this way with some of the other incidents that happened in the book too because they were things she could’ve very easily done something about. Especially all of the things that happened towards the end where she’s still struggling to make up her mind about whether to take her own life. Despite these issues with her character, I understand that she was probably already too far gone at these moments in the story to really do anything about these situations. I feel like that is probably why she didn’t stop certain things from happening and why I feel myself questioning some of her actions.

While I have all of these criticisms for Thirteen Reasons Why, I still enjoyed reading it again. It left me sad knowing the story was over and remembering Hannah being dead, but I still found it as good of a read as the last time I read it. I hope others read it with an open mind and find themselves understanding suicide being a much more complicated issue than it seems. Because even though the reasons Hannah gave seem very small and insignificant, together they created a snowball effect that resulted in her not able to get any help until it was too late.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑