A complicated, rocky look at what it means to be an adolescent that doesn't shy from the chaos of life. Matthew Quick, as always, writes with heart anA complicated, rocky look at what it means to be an adolescent that doesn't shy from the chaos of life. Matthew Quick, as always, writes with heart and honesty showing after the darkness comes the light. Full review to come. ...more
Seen at Bookish Antics! We Are The Ants is one of the craziest books I’ve ever read and it manages to be both a brutally honest coming-of-age tale andSeen at Bookish Antics! We Are The Ants is one of the craziest books I’ve ever read and it manages to be both a brutally honest coming-of-age tale and an odd alien invasion tale. Shaun David Hutchinson interweaves the best aspects of contemporary and sci-fi literature to create one of the most satisfying books I’ve read in years. There’s something so undeniably perfect about this book and I found myself reading this book into the early hours of the morning. When I finally finished this book, I wanted to hug Hutchinson and thank him for writing this all-too-important book.
This could be the end of the world. Henry Denton has been abducted by aliens and they have given him the choice whether or not to avert the apocalypse. All he has to do is press a big red button, but Henry isn’t sure he wants life to go on. His boyfriend Jesse has committed suicide, his grandmother has dementia and he’s bullied at school. Maybe it would just be easier to let everything end…
The life-threatening desperation that Henry feels is extremely clear and I felt my heart break for him constantly. It was hard on me emotionally to read about Henry’s mourning of Jesse because it struck a chord within me. At times, I debated whether or not to put the book aside briefly to compose my emotions because I was just verklempt. I loved Henry so much and his character is easily one of the best depictions of an individual struggling with depression.
I really hoped that he would find the strength in himself to live and carry on. I wanted to just jump into the book and be there for Henry, but I’m glad he had Diego. Diego helps Henry find a will to live and I shipped them so hard because they were adorable together. In some YA books, the romance becomes a cure-all for the character’s depression or mental illness, but that’s not the case. Diego does not fix Henry, but allows him to confront his inner demons and seek the proper help that he needs.
As a work of science fiction, We Are The Ants is a superb, high-stakes adventure. Even though the abductions are frequent, each one manages to be engaging and entertaining. The stakes get higher with each and every abduction and so, readers constantly have an impetus to keep on reading. Not only that, but these aliens are the weirdest, most effed up creatures I’ve seen in YA.
We Are The Ants is Shaun Hutchinson’s best book yet: it’s brilliant, subversive and oh my god, you all need it. If you loved Challenger Deep or Grasshopper Jungle, this novel will totally be up your alley. I will never stop praising We Are The Ants and with good reason, it’s epic in scope and absolutely extraordinary....more
Seen at Bookish Antics! Every once in a while there is a book that you read and it’s all you can think about, All Bright Places is that book. Jennifer Seen at Bookish Antics! Every once in a while there is a book that you read and it’s all you can think about, All Bright Places is that book. Jennifer Niven has written a powerful book that has changed my view of the world and I don’t think I’ll view mental illness the same way ever again. This is a rare novel that has the power to spark something within us and ABP needs to be read.
Theodore Finch is the weird kid, the one that everyone knows of but no one actually knows a single thing about. Violet used to be an outgoing girl with a popular online magazine called Germ, but then her whole world was turned upside down when her sister died. Now Violet is “damaged” and everyone acts like she’s a fragile vase that’s on the edge and is one tremor away from shattering. When these two find each other on the roof of their school, both ready to die, the two decide to save each other. The two are paired upon a school trip to document “the natural wonders of Indiana” and nothing will ever be the same.
Jennifer Niven hasn’t just written characters, she writes people. Finch and Violet are beyond realistic to the point where they are not just words on a page, they practically jump off the page. Finch and Violet aren’t normal, their lives are messed up and a psychologist would probably have a field day labeling them with stigmas and mental disorders. Their lives are beyond complicated, they’ve had more hardships in their lives than anyone (let alone a teenager) should have to deal and yet they find beauty in the simple things in life. It doesn’t matter whether it’s just a pair of sneakers on a tree or a ball with paint on it, Theodore and Violet try to find the beauty in each and every moment of life.
Mental illness is one of the most misunderstood and stigmatized health issues there is because most people don’t understand how severe mental illness is. Depression and other forms of mental illness aren’t just things you “get over” and I think All Bright Places conveys that properly. In one scene in the novel, a character remarks how it’s unfair that people with mental illness are treated much harsher than people with physical illnesses. There was just something so profound and moving about that scene that just stuck with me and it just seemed to capture the theme of this book so well.
The romance in All Bright Places is touching, beautiful and radiant, I love this couple oh so much. Readers will fall in love with Theodore and Finch a hundred times over, desperately hoping this couple will get a chance to be together. The relationship is natural, sweet and it gave me that exhilarating feel that only comes with first love. Separately each character is broken, but together they make each other feel more complete and less lonely.
All Bright Places will fill readers with hope, love, happiness and will ultimately make them cry. The ending for this one is such a tearjerker, making me bawl out my eyes and Niven really knew how to hit me with the feels. After finishing this book, I couldn’t properly function and I just sat and thought about everything that went on. The ending is heartbreaking and painful to read, but it was so well-executed and necessary that Niven definitely deserves props for it.
Novels like this only come along once in a lifetime and All Bright Places is truly the real deal. This is one of the best contemporary novels I’ve ever read, as well as one of the best novels I’ve ever read period. One should expect great things from Jennifer Niven because she’s extremely talented and this is an absolutely perfect YA debut. This is the book that everyone will be talking about and it’s sure to be a popular book club pick....more
Seen at Bookish Antics! Sometimes a book just instantly clicks with you and Belzhar was just that book for me. I was immediately drawn into Jam’s conflSeen at Bookish Antics! Sometimes a book just instantly clicks with you and Belzhar was just that book for me. I was immediately drawn into Jam’s conflicts and her life at The Wooden Barn because of how organic and realistic it felt. Though Belzhar experiments with otherworldly elements, it never loses touch with reality and manages to be extremely touching and captivating. Meg Wolitzer understands teenagers and this translates into genuinely drawn out characters and relationships.
Jam is sent to The Wooden Barn after suffering through the traumatic loss of her British boyfriend. Jam doesn’t think she will ever get through this bump in the road and she is surprised when she is chosen to be apart of an extremely exclusive class called Special Topics. Through this class, she manages to be apart of something far grander than she expected and is transported to a fantasy-like world.
Readers will definitely be divided on Jam’s character, but I will quickly jump to her defense. Jam spends the beginning portion of this novel mourning the loss of her boyfriend and lamenting what could’ve been. It feels like the world is over for Jam and some readers may be annoyed with how her relationship seems to dominate her life. The thing is that Jam is only 16 and that it was her first relationship with a guy, plus she expected him to be the one. Losing the one you love is extremely difficult and I empathized with Jam right from the start.
The Special Topics class was an enigma that I loved to read about and it gave me Breakfast Club feels. Here in this class, misfits from different backgrounds and social standings are united because of a common unifying force. The teacher, Mrs. Quenell was a force to be reckoned with and I loved how Wolitzer shed light on her while still leaving much of her character a mystery. I would’ve loved to learned a bit more about Mrs. Q, but what we did learn about her was fascinating.
The relationships that form between the characters in the Special Topics class was one of my favorite aspects of the book. I always love when outsiders come together and defy society in their own way by just being themselves. Reading about the characters supporting each other and giving each other the courage to face their pasts was something special. Each character has their own unique story and it felt liberating to watch each character make themselves vulnerable in front of their class and face their thorny pasts.
Belzhar is a fantasy world in which the characters live in a state of ecstasy where the past no longer can haunt them. We all crave our own Belzhar and Wolitzer explores how people always want to live out a fantasy and hide from the real world. Though the journals are never fully explained, I think this was the best outcome for this novel. There was something so magical and fantastic about them that explaining them would help destroy their enchanting effect.
One of my sole issues with Belzhar lies in the way this novel is resolved because it felt too good to be true. Wolitzer ties up the loose ends in this novel so quickly that the ending feels like it isn’t incomplete and that it was overly simplified. One of the major conflicts of this novel is solved almost effortlessly and it killed me to see such a clever plot-line being reduced to such ridiculousness.
Belzhar is a clever novel that explores what it takes to put ourselves back together after a tragedy. Meg Wolitzer has impressed me with her YA debut and I’ll definitely be checking out her adult novels. Belzhar is a strange mix of fantasy and coming-of-age elements that surprisingly worked; it’s rare for a novel to live up to my expectations, but Wolitzer’s latest definitely didn’t disappoint....more
We All Looked Up is an excellent coming-of-age novel that evokes John Hughes and is quite simply one of the most compelling contemporary novels I've rWe All Looked Up is an excellent coming-of-age novel that evokes John Hughes and is quite simply one of the most compelling contemporary novels I've read in years. Tommy Wallach writes some of the most realistic, flawed characters out there and he isn't afraid to show what actual teenagers are like. This novel is a beautiful portrait of humanity and it doesn't stray from showing the highs and lows of life. We All Looked Up is an impressive feat of literature that will give readers a glimmer of hope and inspire them to live life to the fullest.
We All Looked Up follows four high school seniors as they try to live with the impending collision of an asteroid called Ardor. No one knows for sure if it will strike the Earth, but what they do know is that life can't go on anymore. Anita is tired of being the perfect child with straight A's, who vies for her father's acceptance. Eliza doesn't want to be the "slut" everyone thinks she is, she doesn't want to be herself. Peter has had the time of his life being a teenager and fears that he'll never experience anything more. Andy doesn't want to be an adult, he just wants to live his life without any sort of responsibility.
This book is extremely character-driven and rides on the emotions and tension that surrounds our cast. WALU reads extremely fast and I couldn't stop reading as Ardor drew closer and closer. Readers will need to find out what happens to each of the four main characters and will love watching them develop and grow all in the matter of a few pages. There's such a sharp difference between who Andy, Eliza, Peter and Anita are at the beginning of this novel and who they are at the end. This novel is an exemplary coming-of-age novel and has pitch-perfect characterization.
WALU follows a group of teens in Seattle and this book features a wide variety of characters with different ethnicities and sexualities. Most of the main characters are Caucasian, but I was pretty happy to see Hispanic, trans* and African American characters in this book. This is a step in the right direction and it was refreshing to see a book where America is shown as the melting pot it truly is. People should see themselves in literature and I think WALU will resonate with countless readers.
I'm usually not a fan of ambiguous endings because I'm a very concrete person who needs to know everything and anything. Tommy Wallach leaves WALU on such a note that is both hopeful and satisfying, I absolutely loved how it ended. This isn't the kind of ending everyone will love, but it's the right ending for this novel; nothing else would've worked so effectively. Wallach lets readers decide for themselves what happens next without giving any hints as to what happens next. It's a ballsy ending for sure and it was a perfect way to wrap up all loose ends in this one.
We All Looked Up is an excellent stand-alone from a promising writer who will enthrall readers from start to finish. Wallach writes excellent prose that hooks readers in like catchy song lyrics so it was no surprise to me that Wallach is also a musician. This novel truly shines and has the most lifelike and flawed characters I've ever read about; We All Looked Up is bound to be a hit with massive cross-over appeal.This review was originally posted on Bookish Antics...more
Check out Scott Reads It for reviews, giveaways & more! Let's Get Lost is the book that people are comparing to Paper Towns and claiming that it's upCheck out Scott Reads It for reviews, giveaways & more! Let's Get Lost is the book that people are comparing to Paper Towns and claiming that it's up to par with John Green's novels. Those are pretty big shoes to fill and though Alsaid definitely gives this book his all, Let's Get Lost just isn't as witty and inspiring like I expected it would be. Let's Get Lost feels like it's trying way too hard to read like a John Green novel, but it comes across more like a cheesy 80's film where the director wants viewers to come out feeling like they've learned some important moral. It's not that I don't love these kinds of films, but Let's Get Lost feels overly sentimental and repetitive.
Leila comes into the lives of Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia by chance, but in doing so she manages to make a difference in each person's life. Leila only means to pass by on her way to the Northern Lights, but she makes a larger impact than she intended. Though Leila gets a little lost lost along the way, she manages to find herself on her journey.
I really enjoyed the first two parts of Let's Get Lost, but then it became apparent to me that each story was extremely predictable and followed a similar formula. Lalia would meet each teen by accident, they would go on an adventure, the teen would learn an important lesson and then Leila would go on her way. It just became too repetitive and I felt like I was reading almost the exact same story 4 different times; there's so much Alsaid could've done with this unique method, but the story of each teen was rather cliche and wasn't fulfilling enough.
I felt like Alsaid was trying to teach readers life lessons in this coming-of-age tale; he had good intentions, but I felt like it was a bit too preachy, cheesy and out of place in this book. Yes, the characters are learning about life, but Alsaid seemed to try to stretch these teachings unnecessarily and make them feel overwhelming. I love finishing a book and feeling as if the author made an impact on my life, but I don't like feeling an author is shoving their philosophies upon on me.
The romance in Let's Gets Lost feels incredibly awkward and misguided because it's all based around insta-love. After meeting Leila for one night, Hudson foolishly decides to throw away his college education and future for some girl he just met. I'm a romantic at heart, but I can't root for a relationship that's so nonsensical and ill-advised. Hudson worked so hard for 17 or so years to get a full-ride to college and then he just throws it away for some one night stand -- this book doesn't send a good message to its readers with the romance between Hudson and Leila . I hoped that Alsaid would display their relationship as teenage lust that could possibly turn into love, but he decided to make it seem like it was true love and was worth costing Hudson his future.
I loved the four teens with their realistic, fascinating personalities, but I couldn't believe in Leila for one second. Leila's character is a ridiculous archetype (the manic pixie girl) and it appears that Alsaid was promoting this stereotype. I would love to believe that there would be someone like Leila who's willing to give up their time to help people and go on adventures at every given opportunity, but it just doesn't feel genuine. I think that Alsaid took the manic pixie girl character a bit too far and never took the time to develop her character beyond the basics. I wasn't really satisfied with the ending to her story and it just didn't feel right to me because it didn't me enough closure.
Let's Get Lost is a well-written book that is definitely quotable, but it failed to impress me with its story-line or characters. Alsaid is definitely a promising author, but I'd like to see him write something that is quite different from Let's Get Lost -- preferably something that isn't intended to read like a John Green novel. I was entertained by Let's Get Lost, but some of the messages in this book about love and life felt unreasonable and ridiculous. ...more
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