review: a face like glass

Hi!

It's been exactly a month since I've written that "rash" post. I really should stop writing posts about posting. Anyway, I've been sitting on a review that I wrote a while back but never posted here. And I figure why not post it here, even if it's kinda convoluted. I just...love...Frances Hardinge? Like I want to be her best friend and read everything she ever writes, and sort of brandish her books at people and smack them on their lil heads until they read them *cough.* We need more Hardinge love around here, is what I meant.

 REVIEW:

 The main character of A FACE LIKE GLASS, Neverfell, lives and works in the cheese tunnels of
the underground city of Caverna. This city is home to masters of craft who make all sort of intricate and exquisite goods and wonders: wine, cheese, chocolate, and desserts. Some of these concoctions are so special they have magic properties. [*Cue Snape’s intonations from Potions Class voice here*]: there are cheeses that can bring back memories, wines that can make you forget, jellies imbued with the song of birds, and perfumes which sway your emotions.

 Neverfell is pretty happy and innocent and lollops* all over the place  and is clumsy and can’t keep still and is pretty likable because she is kind of like a puppy with too-big paws and a too-big tail. She's an apprentice to Grandible who is a Master cheesemaker, so she's got some serious skills with cheese. But she’s not allowed to go outside and has to wear a velvet mask on her face if she answers the door. There aren’t mirrors around, so she just assumes there’s something wrong with her face (such as hideousness)**. She longs to visit outside. She was discovered wandering around the cheese tunnels when she was 5 and that’s how she became an apprentice, but hasn’t left the tunnels since.

The city of Caverna is special in quite a few ways, and that includes its people: they’re born without the ability for fluid expression. Instead, they have to be taught Faces, so a whole system has arisen, a market if you will— sort of the equivalent of fashion or fads or 18th century wigs or etiquette— where Facemakers teach you appropriate faces for each occasion. It’s become an art, the arrangement of a face. Most people have a range of hundreds of faces to express what they’re feeling; they’re numbered and titled sort of like haikus would be. I imagined them to be the equivalent of a slideshow— a succession of still, rippling photos (if regular facial expressions are fluid and like a movie).

 You can imagine the kind of deceit possible with these Faces, and the difficulty of knowing someone if they can wear a kindly face all the time when they’re really actually mean, or look innocent when they’re really guilty. Everyone is prey; everyone can manipulate. This idea of Faces fits in perfectly into the world of Caverna which is full of schemers who have lived far too long and are all vying for control and power in the deadly Court.

 Of course, Neverfell manages to get out of the isolated cheese tunnels (in a Alice-in-Wonderland tradition, she follows a rabbit) and from then on, she’s irreparably out in the wild and the world. She realizes the reason she has to wear a mask and hasn’t been let outside: she’s the only one in Caverna who has a face with live expressions. Any one who looks at her instantly knows she doesn’t belong and is an oddity. She's also unable to lie with such an expressive face. Since she’s been so sheltered and is so completely trusting, she becomes the newest pawn in the wiles and games of the Court, peopled by the heads of clans (who make the True Goods like the wines and chocolates). It really is deadly: you can show up to a feast and expect a number of creative assassination attempts in between each sumptuous course, and that's all part of the fun.

The Grand Steward oversees this court. I'm mentioning the steward because I found his character to be especially imaginative in a book bursting full with fantastical things.  In order to keep track of all the plots and schemes and rule, he has resorted to only keeping either his Left of Right part of his brain awake. One is logical, the other not. One side of his body goes to sleep and the other wakes, and such is the divide he has two different personalities and two different bureaucracies. Neverfell interests him—she interests many courtiers since she is a tool waiting to be used be anyone with dastardly designs on power, which happens to be a good portion of the Court.


 We are awakened to the world Neverfell is living in just as she is. We learn the way the city functions on exploitative labor (just as children will one day realize how our world does too). We find out that people are not always what they seem, and are complex--just because they seem primarily one way or represent a particular way of being does not mean they are not capable of any number of unexpected, opposite things (their appearance as completely one thing is why they can do such opposite things).That sometimes what is decaying must be struck at in order to clear way for the new. Oh, and a lot of important things about friendship. All of which are things that kids should be thinking about or at least introduced to.

 Also, funsie things like trap-lanterns (which light up the dark city, powered with the breaths of humans); a Kleptomancer (grand thief) prancing around the city and pulling off heists; and my favorite element of all: Cartographers who are so mad in their quest to map Caverna (which is a twisty, illogical, impossible maze of ever shifting, ever growing tunnels) they have bent their brains into a madness. You can only talk to them for five minutes because their madness is contagious and starts making sense; they are creating crazed, fragmented, love poetry and art for Caverna with their attempt to map and survey her completely and discuss her peculiar beauty.

 Anyway, this is some smart and quality kid’s lit, and it’s really the best kind of stuff out there. I really especially loved how Neverfell transforms from a naive girl to— well— someone who can hold her own against people in the Court while still retaining her sweet personality.

 I hope you got a sense of how inventive and strange and delightfully weird and whimsical this book is from me trying to say what it’s about; I haven’t read such an intricate and original book for a very long time indeed. Hardinge has playful style with her prose—you can really tell she loves words and that she’s having lots of fun with all her unusual combinations. You can feel her joy in her writing while the words teeter and majestically dance and cavort on the page and do little cartwheels once in while with their tongues stuck out.

I will say that this book has made me sure that she is my favorite living children’s fantasy author**. Physical copies of A Face Like Glass  might be a little hard to find. But if you can get your hands on Fly By Night (her first book, set in an alternate 18th century England and which I like even more than this book, probably) you will be very happy indeed and then we can be happy knowing that we have both read a book, which unread, means your life is a little bit less full of eccentric lively lovely children’s fantasy, which is a sad thing indeed my friends.


* Yes, this is the book where I learned the wonderful word 'lollop.'
** I have to warn you, if excessive use of parentheses make your eyes bleed, this post is going to be unpleasant. Kinda not sorry though,  since I'm a grammar rebel. *ducks*

***Diana Wynne Jones is my favorite children's author of all time, in case you've forgotten.****

****Not that I was expecting you to remember or anything! I love her though.

Review: How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

SUMMARY:

It would be much easier to tell this story if it were all about a chaste and perfect love between Two Children Against the World at an Extreme Time in History. But let's face it, that would be crap.

Daisy is sent from New York to England to spend a summer with cousins she has never met. They are Isaac, Edmond, Osbert and Piper. And two dogs and a goat. She's never met anyone quite like them before - and, as a dreamy English summer progresses, Daisy finds herself caught in a timeless bubble. It seems like the perfect summer. But their lives are about to explode.

Falling in love is just the start of it. War breaks out - a war none of them understands, or really cares about, until it lands on their doorstep. The family is separated. The perfect summer is blown apart. Daisy's life is changed forever - and the world is too.

-from puffin

REVIEW:

First, I hope that this was intentional, as the phrasing is quite distinctive:

"Early the next morning I was strolling around as usual in my unpleasantly populated subconscious..."
-HOW I LIVE NOW (Ch 5, p. 17)

"I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated subconscious..."
— Dodie Smith (I CAPTURE THE CASTLE)

I do hope Rosoff is paying homage to Smith's brilliant I CAPTURE THE CASTLE here. I'd like to think so, because HOW I LIVE NOW otherwise possesses a thoroughly original voice. If I really tried, I could summon up the similarities between these two novels: I CAPTURE THE CASTLE and HOW I LIVE NOW both have main characters whose voice renders them completely real as people, perhaps more than real. Both novels bring the English countryside (a la run down castle/manor) to life with glorious, ecstatic prose and touch on first love, albiet with rather unconventional love interests (bearded older man in love with sister/ cousin).

I first read HOW I LIVE NOW more than a year ago, when it was recommended to me by a friend (thanks, Vee!). I don't know what I was doing at the time, but for some reason, I didn't connect with the book. I barely remember reading it, though I do remember vaguely thinking "this is pretty good."

When I reread it yesterday, the aliveness and the vividness and the connection was there. As if this book had waited for me, patiently, resting in my bookshelf until the day I could pick it up in the right frame of mind and really appreciate it.

I appreciate it now.

HOW I LIVE NOW is one of the voice-iest YA novels I've ever read. The main character Daisy is humorous and LOUD and uninhibited and insightful. She narrates with run on sentences breathless with wit and CAPITALIZED WORDS to emphasize a point. There's not much dialogue, and the book is mostly her telling us what happened and what she thinks, but it works. It more than works.

At first, HOW I LIVE NOW has this sense of peacefulness (although mediated with Daisy's loudness) emanating through the pages. Her cousins, who she comes to live with in England, possess gifts that are related to us in a matter-of-fact tone but are actually quietly magical: Isaac and little Piper talk to animals, and Edmond can feel Daisy's thoughts. There's this light touch of magical realism when it comes to Daisy's interactions with her family, making everything feel sort of strange, but lovelily strange.

Later, Daisy falls in love with cousin Edmond, and though she acknowledges it's wrong, she talks of it as if it's inevitable and natural and effortless. I don't know if I really understood the Edmond/Daisy relationship. Was it just two alone souls reaching across to each other, yearning for love during a time of war? Was it lust? If Daisy is to be believed, this is love, though of an unorthodox kind.

Daisy and cousins spend a few golden months living without parental supervision (thanks to her Dear Aunt being stranded in Norway). They fish and swim and play and it's generally a bit like The Garden of Eden. War interrupts eventually, as it has a habit of doing. Daisy has hinted at it since the beginning. The enemy is unnamed, the public is confused, cites are bombed, people are dying. When war finally catches up, Daisy and her cousins are separated. There's death and violence, without sense or cause, graphic and mindless and sickening to read about. Daisy and her cousin Piper stick together, attempt to survive it all. It's here that Daisy comes into her own, and when I wanted to stand up and APPLAUD because she's so damn strong.

Really, the only problem I had with this book was the ending, and then the six-year jump that acted as an epilogue. The precursor to the time jump was abrupt and Rosoff, for whatever reason, had Daisy tell us about it only after it happened, which was disorienting to me. The six year-jump was interesting, especially since Rosoff matured Daisy's voice beautifully. But the ending almost felt almost like Rosoff laughing at us and saying "hey, these really cool and fascinating things happened, and sorry that you missed it, but here's this situation and ending that will hopefully tie things up for you."

Still, I really liked HOW I LOVE NOW. It's one of those books that's left an impression on me, one that I'll return to reread. Most notably, its narrator managed to escape its pages and become a part of me. I think that's when you know you've read a good book; when you can feel the edges of a character and the dimensions of his/her voice, and they've set up shop in your brain and they're as complete and solid to you as a person you might've talked to in real life.

Yes, I'm glad I reread HOW I LIVE NOW.

RECOMMENDATION: Highly recommended. It's a Printz winner, so I'm not the only one who thinks it's great.

Review: Fighting Ruben Wolfe by Markus Zusak

I haven't posted much in the last week, sigh. But it's about time I did a book review.

Book Summary:

Cameron and Ruben Wolfe, are brothers from a family clinging to the ragged edge of the working class. Initially to make some money, the boys hook up with a sleazy fight promoter who sees something marketable, audience-pleasing in the untrained brothers’ vulnerability.

So they hide the boxing from their long-suffering mother. And Cameron hides what's going on in his head from the girls who come to the matches, the girls he wishes he could reach.

But the Wolfes soon find that they’re fighting for more than tips and pay-off money. It becomes for them a fight for identity, for dignity, and for each other.

The question is, in a fight like that, who makes it out of the ring intact?

My Opinion:

"She smiles pretty, and in that split second, I forget. I forget about Perry Cole and all those future punches. It makes me wonder, Do we spend most of our days trying to remember or forget things? Do we spend most of our time running toward or away from our lives? I don't know."

So wonders Cameron Wolfe, the big-hearted, tender protagonist of Fighting Ruben Wolfe. Passages like the one above--full of a quiet sort of wisdom, almost a ache to it--aren't uncommon in this book. They're plentiful, since in only 200 pages or so, Markus Zusak crafts a heartwarming, coming-of-age story full of beauty and uncanny insight. It' not surprising, given that this is the same author who wrote the magnificent The Book Thief and contemporary must-read I am The Messenger.

Yeah, that Zusak.

I haven't gone on a fangirl spiel about Zusak on this blog for a while, so some of you might not know that I'm, well, an obsessive fangirl about his works, to put it lightly. I've been trying to track down a reasonably priced Fighting Ruben Wolfe for the longest time, and last week, I finally managed to snatch up a cheap copy on Amazon.

It arrived yesterday.

I devoured it instead of breakfast.

This is the second book I've read about Cameron Wolfe, having caved and read Getting the Girl, the sequel, a while back. It doesn't really matter though, since even though this novel is part of a 3-book series, each book is standalone.

I loved it.

I love it because it's like an early sneak-peak of Zusak. If you start with the Cam books, move to I am the Messenger, and finish at The Book Thief, you can see a clear progression. The prose becomes more refined. The subject topic, more serious. The books, longer.

Still, you get the trademark Zusak: the swaggering sentence fragments, the standalone single-sentence paragraphs falling in quick succession down a page, the wonderful writing that steals your breath away, the characters that are so real that you can almost hear their hearts beating in between the pages.

I'm quite convinced that the Wolfe family are real people. Cameron, the main character, has a voice that's memorable. He's the boy who cares too much about everybody, who's scrawny and a little bit like a loser, who yearns for a girl to notice him, who's afraid, but who'll fight for anything, his heart is so big. Ruben is his brother--hungry, wolfish, trying to prove something. Then there's his tired mother, his out-of-work father, older siblings Sarah and Steve, and a house full of unpaid bills and encroaching despair.

When the brothers get their chance at money and a bit of glory by fighting in underground boxing ring, they seize the day. But really, this book isn't just about throwing punches, since all the action is secondary to the character growth. The brothers earn themselves a bit of self-respect, they mature, and their sibling relationship--it just expands, till you can feel the love the two brothers have for each other, till you can feel the love the whole Wolfe family has for each other. The Wolfe brothers' relationship really comes out in the passages at the end of every chapter--short conversations the brothers have before they fall asleep.

Then, there's the prose. When it's Zusak, you can expect to be blown away. Here's one of the many passages that made me stop reading so I could just sit and take in:

"We run together in track pants and old football jerseys and the city is awake and smoky-cold and our heartbeats jangle through the streets. We're alive. Our footsteps are folded neatly, one after the other. Rube's curly hair collides with sunlight. The light steps at us between the buildings. The train line is fresh and sweet and the grass in Belmore Park has the echoes of dew still on it. Our hands are cold. Our veins are warm. Our throats suck in the winter breath of the city, and I imagine people still in bed, dreaming. To me it, feels good. Good city. Good world, with two wolves running through it, looking of the fresh meat of their lives. Chasing it. Chasing hard even though they fear it. They run anyway."

The hair colliding with sunlight part...that just killed me. It really did.

So, what I've been meaning to say as I've bumbled around in this review, throwing words out left and right, is that I wish this book was readily available in every bookstore. It's beautifully written, and it's one of those books that YA readers need more of. It's a contemporary book with an original plot (nope, no dead characters here) with characters and conflicts that are real.

I just plain wish this book was easier to get a hold of.

If you're a dedicated Zusak fan, I'd definitely recommend that you do the best you can to get a hold of this, short of murder. If you're just a reader who is hungering for a lovely contemporary read, take a look around and see if you can't snatch up a copy somehow.

Rating: 9/10. Don't be scared off by the whole boxing premise. I have zero interest in boxing but I still loved this book.

review: hold still

An arresting story about starting over after a friend’s suicide, from a breakthrough new voice in YA fiction.

dear caitlin, there are so many things

...more Summary:
An arresting story about starting over after a friend’s suicide, from a breakthrough new voice in YA fiction.

dear caitlin, there are so many things that i want so badly to tell you but i just can’t.

Devastating, hopeful, hopeless, playful . . . in words and illustrations, Ingrid left behind a painful farewell in her journal for Caitlin. Now Caitlin is left alone, by loss and by choice, struggling to find renewed hope in the wake of her best friend’s suicide. With the help of family and newfound friends, Caitlin will encounter first love, broaden her horizons, and start to realize that true friendship didn’t die with Ingrid. And the journal which once seemed only to chronicle Ingrid’s descent into depression, becomes the tool by which Caitlin once again reaches out to all those who loved Ingrid—and Caitlin herself.

My Opinion:

Hold Still is the latest YA book that I've fallen in love with. And to be honest, I don't fall in love with books that often. I think it's mostly because of the beautiful writing--LaCour's prose can only be described as lyrical and breathtaking. And as you might know by now, I'm a sucker for gorgeous novels.

Hold Still tells the story of Caitlin, but also of Ingrid, her best friend. Ingrid--a talented photographer with a future, a girl that seems happy before she kills herself. Her suicide devastates Caitlin, who doesn't know how to carry on in the year following Ingrid's death--and the halting and painful interactions she has with others only complicates her sense of loss. The combination of unwanted sympathy and morbid curiosity from her classmates leaves Caitlin feeling isolated at school. Her parents are convinced that her grief needs an outlet--they're worried that she's depressed. Her once friendly photography teacher won't even talk to her. On the other hand, Taylor, a skater-boy who's far too nice, keeps trying to talk to her.

Caitlin dwells on memories of Ingrid; remembrances of her best friend seem to materialize everywhere. Under her bed, Caitlin finds Ingrid's journal, and she knows she's meant to read it. The short journal entries, including Ingrid's confessions and sketches, appear periodically throughout Hold Still. They illuminate Ingrid's state of mind--one minute agonizing over her crush, the other confessing that she "can't stop crying." These excerpts are heartfelt and earnest--and quite touching. Other elements of the book--Caitlin's projects, involving photography and woodwork; and the fact that her lesbian friend Dylan's sexuality is a non-issue-- are also captured well.

It's really not the premise of Hold Still that caught my attention (YA already has it's fair share of girl-getting-over-death-of-loved-one)--but the execution. I did a little happy dance inside after reading the first pages of Hold Still--right away, I knew this would be one of the rare times I had to buy a book. So I did. And I'm really glad I did. It's by the grace of LaCour's language that Hold Still is able to hold it's own against the multitude of grief books already out there. To me, it's what allows the book to stand out.

The lyricism of the writing, the sentence fragments, and the setup of the book--the chapters are fragmented, brief vignettes of scenes from Caitlin's life-- all combined to make this one of the best YA books I've read in the last few months. Through the space of 200-something pages, readers are taken along a journey with Caitlin. A heartbreaking, poignant journey of grief that still manages to resonate with beauty.

My Rating: I give it a 9/10. I haven't given out a 9/10 FOR TWO MONTHS, peeps. AKA this means you really should pick up a copy ASAP. Really.

review: the sky is everywhere by jandy nelson

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life—and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey’s boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie’s own. Joe is the new boy in
town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they’re the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can’t collide without the whole wide world exploding.

This remarkable debut is perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Francesca Lia Block. Just as much a celebration of love as it is a portrait of loss, Lennie’s struggle to sort her own melody out of the noise around her is always honest, often hilarious, and ultimately unforgettable.

(Courtesy of Goodreads)

My Opinion:

Just about everything in The Sky is Everywhere is exquisite. From the asymmetrical cover that's my favorite of the year so far (the little hole in the heart is genius, as is the different size of the font) to the charming prose, Nelson has created a novel that's heart-aching and gorgeous.

Band geek Lennie has always been the pony to her sister Bailey's racehorse--content to grace the sidelines in the face of Bailey's vivacity. But when Bailey dies of arrhythmia suddenly, Lennie is left picking up the pieces. Her "plant"--which her eccentric Grandmother "Gram" believes is connected to Lennie's well-being--is wilting. She's pushing away those closest to her and doesn't feel like anyone understands her grief. Lennie is a hopeless romantic, and even Wuthering Heights, Lennie's favorite and much-obsessed-over book can't comfort her. Nothing can.

Enter Toby: Bailey's boyfriend, lanky, skater boy, and several years older. As someone who lost everything with Bailey's death, he can understand what's going through Lennie's mind . In him, Lennie feels a connection, and grief propels them from physical attraction to a shaky and torturous romance. However, there's a new boy in town--Joe Fontaine, fresh from Paris--who's gorgeous in every aspect. He's musically talented, sweet, perpetually cheerful, and perfect for Lennie. Lennie is caught up between these two boys, while her grief for Bailey makes her feel ashamed and guilty about her relationship with Toby and the newfound joy she's feeling.

I don't think it's quite possible to understand the beauty of this book without knowing that Nelson is a poet and originally intended that The Sky is Everywhere be a verse book. Vestiges of poetic prose remain, permeating every sentence of this book. Although Nelsons' play on word combination is a little hard to get used to at first, a chapter in or two I was able to really appreciate and revel in the depth of feeling behind her writing. An added extra bonus is the way Nelson sprinkles Lennie's poems throughout the book. Lennie pens her feelings, deepest emotions, contemplations, on scraps of whatever she can find--coffee cups, lollipop wrappers, book pages--and scatters them around town.

Here's one of the lovely poems:

There were once two sisters
who were not afraid of the dark
because the dark was full of the others voice
across the room,
because even when the night was thick
and starless
they walked home together from the river
seeing who could last the longest
without turning on her flashlight,
not afraid
because sometimes in the pitch of night
they'd lie on their backs
in the middle of the path
and look up until the stars came back
and when they did,
they'd reach their arms up to touch them
and did."

I think the setting and characters are also ingenious. Everyone is just so quirky, and I love it. I guess it's expected in a hippie-like Northern California town bordering redwood trees, where forty year old men such as Big, Lennie's Uncle, get married multiple times, attempt to raise insects from the dead, and smoke pot on a regular basis. Gram--with her always-green colored paintings and big heart is a memorable motherly figure. Lennie's house itself is a curiosity--and Lennie, literary girl that she is, names everything--from the Half-Mom portrait of the woman that deserted Lennie and Bailey at a young age that lies in the hallway, to the Inner Pumpkin Sanctum Lennie shared with Bailey.

The only thing I'm unsure about is the trajectory of the book--Lennie is fresh with grief in the beginning, but midway through, The Sky is Everywhere is almost solely focused on the romantic relationship she has with the two boys, a turn I wasn't quite expecting. Still, I suppose 300 pages of straight grieving is a little hard to stomach.

The twist with Joe at the end is absolutely perfect and gorgeous and possibly my favorite part of the book. The Sky is Everywhere is the type of book which I reread, hoping to overturn beautiful lines and scenes that I glossed through on the first read-through. A few quotes to give you an idea of the writing style:

"Grief is a house, where the chairs, have forgotten how to hold us, the mirrors how to reflect us, the walls how to contain us."

"The sky starts at our toes."

“As I walk through the redwood trees, my sneakers sopping up days of rain, I wonder why bereaved people even bother with mourning clothes when grief itself provides such an unmistakable wardrobe."

The Sky is Everywhere is one of those sweet, delightfully quirky novels in the style of I Capture the Castle* that will appeal to fans of If I Stay** who are looking for another touching, bittersweet novel to spend an afternoon with. It capably chronicles the confusion of life and being a teenager and first love.

I'm really looking forward to further works by Jandy Nelson. The Sky is Everywhere is a beautiful debut novel.

I give it a 9/10: definitely read it when you can :)

*Have you read I Capture the Castle? Please do if you haven't. It's one of my all time favorites.
** If I Stay is just plain great.

review: the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian

Book Description:

Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he thought he was destined to live.

My Opinion:

I've been meaning to read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian for ages. It's been recommended to me right and left; brandished, paraded, and flourished in front of me. Every so often I'd see it around at a place of books and think, I have to read that soon. A few days ago, I finally picked it up and read it. And I should've read it sooner, I should've made time for it. Because The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is not the sort of book you should ignore. You got to take notice of it, you got to devour it, and you got to love it.

Junior, the main character, is just so plain lovable. His voice is distinct, funny, and wise. This book details his first year leaving his reservation in order to go to school at Rearden, whose students are all white and mostly well off. Junior on the other hand, is Indian and poor. Dirt poor. The kind of poor where he doesn't get enough to eat. The type of poor that breeds misfortune. And boy, does Junior go through misfortune. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian should by all rights be a tragedy, because Junior's life is a pretty much a tragedy.

Junior goes through some lows and some high points in his life. When you're reading this book, you'll be stringed on along with him. You'll be immersed in his world--full of alcoholic parents that still love him, a sister nicknamed Mary Runs Away who wants to write romance novels, and Rowdy, his violent and misunderstood best friend. There's a whole host of great characters in this book. Which just makes it even more heartbreaking when Junior and his family have to endure horrible calamities.

But don't get the wrong idea: this book isn't depressing by any means. Sure, it's poignant and uninhibited and might make you cry. But it'll also make you crack up, make you smile so much you get cheek cramps*. And it'll fill you with hope. Because above all, this book is a tale of hope, of never-giving-up, and an example of what you can do when you set your mind to it. Thinking of this novel, I just want to reach into the velvety crisp pages of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and give Junior a hug, and tell him he's amazing, because he is. I have a thing for the underdog, for the hero who has everything against him. I think this is part of the reason why with Junior, Alexie has created a character that I'll love forever.

And speaking of Alexie, he's also amazing. His writing is beautiful, masterful. Here's some of my favorite quotes:

"I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats."

"We Indians really should be better liars, considering how often we've been lied to."

"I didn't know what to say, so I just stood there red and mute like a stop sign."

"I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,' I said. 'By black and white. By Indian and white. But I know that isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: the people who are assholes and the people who are not."

And scattered in between lines of lovely prose are cartoons (by Ellen Fogey). Junior wants to be a cartoonist, and I love the cartoons so, so, much. Here's one:


Maybe Junior's insights are a little too wise for a 14-year-old, but that's something I'm willing to overlook.

So this book is awesome story + wonderful characters + lovely cartoons + gorgeous prose. I'm not sure what that equals. Something jaw-dropping. Heart-stopping. Unparalleled.

Don't make the same mistake I did and put off reading this book. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a fairly short read, but the amount of pages has nothing to do with the amount of substance. In 200-something pages, Sherman Alexie pens genius. Pure, unadulterated genius. You know it's an amazing read when it makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time. This book is full of laugh-out-loud humor and great tragedy; and the mixture of both makes for an absolutely unforgettable read.

My Rating: 9.5/10. If you don't go read this NOW I'll force you to, somehow. That's how much I recommend it.

*gah. Aren't those painful? Lol.

review: the year of secret assignments

Book Description:
The Ashbury-Brookfield pen pal program is designed to bring together the two rival schools in a spirit of harmony and "the Joy of the Envelope." But when Cassie, Lydia, and Emily send their first letters to Matthew, Charlie, and Sebastian, things don't go quite as planned. What starts out as a simple letter exchange soon leads to secret missions, false alarms, lock picking, mistaken identities, and an all-out war between the schools--not to mention some really excellent kissing.

My Opinion:

The Year of Secret Assignments by Jacklyn Moriarty is chock-full of hilarious jokes, great characters, and a unique story. It's 340 pages long, and I laughed on pretty much every single one of them--which means this book is nothing short of amazing. Although I do read my fair share of humorous books, it's a rare moment when I actually do crack up out loud--for the majority of the time, it's more of a unheard chuckle that rings on the inside. So I'm pretty endeared with this book after reading it--I've never laughed so much from reading, ever.

The novel centers on three girls named Cassie, Lydia, and Emily, who have been best friends for years, and also happen to be in the same 10th grade English class. When their English teacher starts up a pen pal program between their school, Ashbury, and neighboring Brookfield High School, it's to some reluctance. After all, Ashbury students and Brookfield students don't get along; Ashbury's a private school for rich kids, while Brookfield is home to drug dealers and criminals.

But it's through this pen pal program that the girls are paired up with with three boys: Matthew, Sebastian, and Charlie. And although that's six main characters to keep track of, all of them are strong, distinct, and quirky. Even though it's been a few weeks since I've read the book*, I can recall every bit of a each character. So now I'm thinking of Emily's love of chocolate and horses and her tendency to misuse words; cute Charlie's supersonic memory and knack with cars; bad-tempered Seb's talent with drawing and soccer; Matthew's all encompassing hate; bizarre Lydia, who dreams of becoming a writer but can't finish a book; and Cassie, who's struggling through her grief from her father's death last year. It's not often that I love characters so much that I want to dive into their world and be their friends. And I'd certainly love to meet the real-life characters from The Year of Secret Assignments.

The novel is structured in a fascinating way**; and flipping from one page to the next, I wasn't ever sure what I'd find next. The bulk of it consists of letters from the pen pal program, but the writing is also interspersed with diary and journal entries, pages from Lydia's how-to-writing-guide Notebook (TM), emails, flyers, and announcements. But what I really liked was the nonlinear form--so unconventional, but executed so fabulously. The story doesn't unfold in a normal manner; instead, it's separated by terms (fall, winter, etc.) that divide up the letter exchange for the two main characters that are paired up (i.e. Seb and Lydia). The story picks up and leaves off at different intervals, but at all the same, it's fairly easy to follow.

The humor was definitely my absolute favorite part of this book. Some examples:

“I always think it’s funny when a teacher tries to be cool. I want to sit them down and say ‘It’s okay, you’re a grown-up, you’re allowed to be a nerd,’ and they will look up at me confused but also relieved and teary-eyed.”

"I will now conclude by saying that your mother has just tripped halfway down the stairs because she was wearing a single high-heeled shoe. It is a lesson in the danger of doing things by halves."

(Emilly with her malotropisms:)
""Also, I have seen on TV that you can get head transplants and it seems to me that it is a tragedy if you are bald and you don't get a head transplant."

It's hard to find quotes, because a lot of the humor is embedded throughout a scene--but this book truly is hilarious.

But as funny as this book is, it does have more serious undertones; in particular with Cassie, who pretty much broke my heart with her stubbornness and the way she was dealing with her deceased father. And the friendship between the three girls is just wonderful to behold; poignant, sweet, and even if it's a little-to-perfect, realistic. Above all, The Year of Secret Assignments has some pretty strong themes of love and friendship and loss, and the whole book is told in such an enjoyable way that it definitely ranks among my top reads in the past few months.

All in all, The Year of Secret Assignments is a lighthearted, fun read, and if you want to have a rollicking good time for a few hours of your day, or you just want a book to cheer you up, don't look any further. Make sure you have some time on your hands though-if you're like me, you won't be able to put this one down until you're finished.

I give it a 9.25-9.5***/10. One of the most entertaining books I've ever read, and like I said--I laughed continuously throughout the novel. Which earns a bunch of points and a you-must-read-it rec from me.

*okay, so I'm such a book-reviewing slacker. Lol.

**:::spazzes::: Am I the only one who loves it when I read books structured differently?

***Pathetic, I know. Hehe--I would put 9.4 but...eh.

review: if i stay

Book Description:
In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeenyear- old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck...

A sophisticated, layered, and heartachingly beautiful story about the power of family and friends, the choices we all make—and the ultimate choice Mia commands.

My Opinion:

If I Stay by Gayle Forman is the kind of book that tugs at your heartstrings and stays with you long after you've read it. It's short, it's bittersweet, and it manages to convey a story that is both emotional and true.

After Mia's family take an ill-fated drive one snowy morning, her life changes irrevocably. Her family is killed in car crash while she remains in a coma. In the hours after the crash, Mia is cast into a sort of limbo, where it's almost like her soul has been displaced while her body is teetering between life and death. She's faced with one of the most difficult decisions imaginable: whether to stay and face having lost close to everything, or whether to leave and die.

I love the way the story unfolds: one minute we'll be reading about her in the hospital, and the next we're fully immersed in some of the most defining moments of Mia's life. Foreman's execution is flawless: my attention was the held the whole way through while we learn about her parents, her brother, her friends, her boyfriend, her life. We learn about her talents and her personality, and we see how much promise she has. Before the accident, Mia's life was near perfect: she was a talented cellist with hopes of attending Julliard, she had a loving family, and she had hopes for her future.

What really struck me about this book was the characters, their personalities, and most of all the relationship between them. The interaction between Mia and her boyfriend Adam is so sweet and beautiful. The father, the mother, the brother, and pretty much every character in this book rang true to me with their quirks and their actions. If I Stay has some of the most believable, likable characters I've ever encountered.

The music that defines Mia's life and the lives of those closest to her is another beautiful element of the book. It's one of the main subjects, and it's perhaps the one of the most compelling reasons for Mia to stay. Foreman expertly conveys the power of music and applies it to create an even more powerful story; the music made the novel all the more heart-wrenching and devastating.

I loved reading this book. It was definitely the emotion behind the story and the characters that did it for me. All in all, If I Stay is a wonderful, brilliantly crafted novel about one girl's choice to live or die in the face of tragedy. It's poignant, it's powerful, and most of all, it's unforgettable.

My Rating: I give it a 9/10. I'd recommend it to pretty much everybody.

review: cracked up to be

Book Description:

What's the worst thing you've ever done?

When "Perfect" Parker Fadley starts drinking at school and failing her classes, all of St. Peter's High goes on alert. How has the cheerleading captain, girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, consummate teacher's pet, and future valedictorian fallen so far from grace?

Parker doesn't want to talk about it. She'd just like to be left alone, to disappear, to be ignored. But her parents have placed her on suicide watch and her counselors are demanding the truth. Worse, there's a nice guy falling in love with her and he's making her feel things again when she'd really rather not be feeling anything at all.

Nobody would have guessed she'd turn out like this. But nobody knows the truth.

Something horrible has happened, and it just might be her fault.

My Opinion:

Cracked Up to Be is the best contemporary book I've ever read. Truly. In fact, this book makes me very, very ashamed and regretful that I don't read more contemporary books.* Cracked Up to Be is just that good. If anything is going to get me to read contemporary, this is it.

Parker is perhaps one of the most memorable, wonderful narrators I've ever encountered. Readers are smacked over the head by her unforgettable voice, thoughts, and actions. Branded "manipulative" by the counselors and administrators who try to help her, Parker is witty, sarcastic, and cynical. She puts on a tough front and definitely tries her best to shock people. And I gotta admit, I can't help but admire her nerve. Parker makes the most biting and snarky comments, but what can I say? I love snark in a main character.

But I'm pretty sure I'm botching this explanation. So let's allow the quotes to speak for themselves:

pg 4:
"Grey looks like abird, a dead-eyed sparrow, and if I had her job, I'd want to kill myself. It's not like well-adjusted people ever come into the guidance office. You get either the crazy underachievers or the crazy overachievers and both come with their own depressing set of problems. I don't know. I'd just want to kill myself if I was her, that's all."

pg 77:
"Chris and Becky are still furious with me. They won't look at or speak to me, and I won't lie, I feel pretty accomplished about it. Somebody give me a gold star."

See? Amazing. Parker is one of my all-time favorite narrators. It's just that irrepressible voice!

Before this story starts, Parker was an obsessive perfectionist. Now, her popular ex-boyfriend Chris, her arch-enemy Becky, her parents, and her teachers are all bewildered by her self-destructive behavior. They're convinced she needs saving. But Parker wants nothing but to alienate herself further, and she'll go to any length to do so--whether it's being rude to the nice new kid who likes her, manipulating the people closest to her, or convincing her parents to buy a dog that's supposed to replace her. Readers will get hints, but not the full reason behind her behavior until the end; there is a flashback interweaved into the story, related bit by bit, that will ultimately explain why Parker is acting the way she does.

The dialogue is also one of my favorite parts of this book--it's just so realistic and rings true to Parker and the other people she interacts with. Courtney Summers is a genius when it comes to dialogue. Everything is just so sharp and sparse, but ultimately perfect.

All in all, this book was just flat-out, squeal-worthy fantastic. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. I was drawn into Parker's story. I had to know what had caused this downward spiral in her life. I had to know what Parker would say or do next, and trust me, she's pretty unpredictable. Actually, Cracked Up to Be is one of the best written books I've ever read --delightfully straightforward, riveting prose abounds, with equally amazing dialogue and characterization. Summers perfectly renders one girl's journey as she struggles to finally face what she's done and come to terms with it. Cracked Up to Be is totally and utterly unapologetic in it's stark portrayal of Parker's descent into darkness, it's grittiness, and it's jump-off-the-page wit. But most of all, this book is brilliant and powerful in both writing and message.

I guarantee this will be one of the best books you've ever read. If not the best.

READ THIS NOW!!!

I give it a 9.5/10

Special thanks to Emilia and Jessica for recommending me this awesome book :)


*I swear I'm reforming myself. I pinky promise. I've been reading lots of contemporary lately!