Review: Reunited by Hilary Weisham Graham

Reunited by Hilary Weisham Graham
Simon & Schuster BYR, 336 Pages
US Release Date: June 12, 2012
Challenges: Local Library Challenge, Contemporary Challenge

1 Concert
2000 Miles
3 Ex-Best Friends

Alice, Summer, and Tiernan are ex-best friends.

Back in middle school, the three girls were inseparable. They were also the number one fans of the rock band Level3.

But when the band broke up, so did their friendship. Summer ran with the popular crowd, Tiernan was a rebellious wild-child, and Alice spent high school with her nose buried in books.

Now, just as the girls are about to graduate, Level3 announces a one-time-only reunion show.

Even though the concert’s 2000 miles away, Alice buys three tickets on impulse. And as it turns out, Summer and Tiernan have their own reasons for wanting to get out of town. Good thing Alice’s graduation gift (a pea-green 1976 VW camper van known as the Pea Pod) is just the vehicle to get them there.

But on the long drive cross-country, the girls hit more than a few bumps in the road. Will their friendship get an encore or is the show really over?
---------------------Goodreads summary

Notable Quote

Summer had always admired how uncensored Tiernan was. Sure, her lack of a filter got her into trouble sometimes, but it also got her what she wanted. Summer, on the other hand, spent so much effort not saying what she actually thought and denying herself the things she thought she "shouldn't" have that sometimes it was hard to remember what she really wanted in the first place.

I've always known that if *NSYNC ever reunited, I'd drop everything and every penny in my pocket to get to that show. Now thanks to Reunion, I'd absolutely love to do it with my two best friends in a green VW Van Pea Pod, too.

Reunion is a fun, winding adventure of 3 ex-best friends chasing the childhood band that had brought them together so many years ago. Though they're not friends now and have no plans of ever being friends again - thanks in part to a Winter Ball Showdown during their sophomore year - it seems their trip has other plans for them.

I'm never one to turn down a road trip novel, and this definitely ranks among one I'd love to have been on! The description of the Pea Pod was so much fun and so vivid, I felt like I could really see the band posters and collages plastered on the interior wall. The shenanigans they find themselves on during the trip, from the wayside hippie festival to the hot swimming boys to the radio contest were hilarious and filled with good hearted hijinks, and I loved every second of it.

I'll admit that some of the elements to this novel are not the most original. Each personality the friends represent are pretty typical, and the movement of friendships followed a clear path that a reader could have guessed no problem. And I know I'm not the only one who had flashbacks to the movie Crossroads with Britney Spears. Even the personalities of the three felt suspiciously like the characters from the movie - one studious, straight-laced brain, one popular flighty girl, and one party girl with a side of snark. I know there's no funny business going on, but I couldn't help but remember the movie as I was reading.

Still, despite some of the originality issues, this book was pure fun and friendship. Alice, the instigator of the trip and purchaser of the tickets, is fairly innocent throughout the entire novel; but Summer and Tiernan both have some other motives. I love the quote from Tiernan about how a runaway can always spot another runaway - it was so fitting and meaningful. And even though I'm focused on the friendship and adventures the girls stumble on, there's a great depth to the meaning of true friends and figuring out who you are as an individual amongst your friends - former or otherwise.

My only other issue with the book was how long it dragged out this Sophomore Year Winter Ball Showdown. Each girl constantly refers to it throughout the entire novel, always getting so close to finally explaining what happened until backing off. And that's fine, I get the point of drawing it out, but I felt it was a little...lackluster. A little underwhelming. It fit fine with the book, and I was quite happy that it's a situation that I understood how it would break up the friendship. In that respect, it's near perfect. But the buildup was so much, and the followthrough didn't quite live up to it.

Something I did love though? The ending. Parts of it were a bit unexpected, but it's totally a predictable ending that kind of ends all wrapped up in a pretty bow. Normally I'm not a fan of those, but with Reunited? It's so perfect and playful that I couldn't NOT love it. It's exactly as it should have happened, and I closed this book with a ginormous smile on my face.

4 Stars / 5

Tune In Tuesday: The Teen Years...featuring Movies!

Tune In Tuesday is hosted by the amazing Ginger at GReads!

Since last week's teen years were focused on TV shows, I figured it only fair to give movies a week, too! I'm really big on soundtracks. I don't know if it's the natural writer in me, but I love having stories to go with music. Of course I can make my own stories, but I also like when I have one to go with music in the first place (this is probably why I love musicals so much). Since I turned 13 in 2000, I chose movies that were released between 2000-2005 (my HS grad year) that had songs I distinctly remember.

Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag

from the movie Loser (2000)

Moulin Rouge - Christina Aguilera, Mya, P!nk, Li'l Kim

from the movie Moulin Rouge (2001)
You can bet your booty I do the Christina part of this song, with the hand motions.

Smash Mouth - I'm A Believer

from the movie Shrek (2001)

Britney Spears - Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman

from the movie Crossroads (2002)

Mandy Moore - Only Hope

from the movie A Walk To Remember (2002)
Ohhh when he nails that 'you're beautiful' line...*swoon*

Eminem - Lose Yourself

from the movie 8 Mile (2002)

Frou Frou - Let Go

from the movie Garden State (2004)
OBSESSED with this song when it released. Got me through some tough times.

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon - It Ain't Me Babe

from the movie Walk the Line (2005)

Also, doing this made me realize that damn...I liked some really girly movies haha.

What movies do you remember from your teen years?

Tell me in the comments or leave me your link!

Tune In Tuesday: The Teen Years...in TV Shows!

Tune In Tuesday is hosted by the amazing Ginger at GReads!

For this week's Teen Years, I'm theme-ing it up again...with TV! Like every other kid, I watched a ton of TV. It's what I talked about, discussed with friends, got me through my homework: if I finish my AP Calc homework in time, I can watch this show! And sure, maybe TV rots our brains but it made me laugh when I needed it most, let me escape my life for 30 minutes or an hour, gave me new music, showed me actors to obsess over (Adam Brody <3), or made me realize that all the massive drama I was going through? Either not as bad as the Joey-Pacey-Dawson triangle, or that someone else was sharing it, too.

So! Without further ado, five TV shows of my teen years. Because this is a music meme, it limited what I could choose since I wanted to have ones with actual songs relating. There were plenty of other shows I watched*, trust me.

Dawson's Creek
Theme Song: I Don't Want To Wait by Paula Cole

No words need to be said about Dawson's Creek. We know the impact it had on our lives, even if now it's been reduced to Dawson's ugly cry face. Also, Pacey forever!

Say What? KaraokeI LOVED THIS SHOW. I cracked up at people trying to sing all the songs and cheat the wheel. It's the only reason I know a lot of lyrics to certain songs now, and while I don't recall a theme song to the show, I will always always remember the instant karaoke death when the wheel landed on Chumbawamba's Tubthumping.

American Idol

Kelly Clarkson - A Moment Like This

Ahhh, the original and the best. I was there, voting for Kelly Clarkson to win, and I loved her. (Still do.) And while I can't stand the show now - it's been running about 7 seasons too long in my opinion - I will always remember rushing home from newspaper after school to watch her sing and see how Justin Guarini and Christina Christian were stacking up.


The OCTheme Song: California by Phantom PlanetWho didn't watch this show when it first started?! You can't tell me Summer, Seth, and the train wreck that was Mischa Barton weren't hypnotizing. Good or bad, the world tuned in and made Orange County pretty famous. I later went to University in OC and laughed that I was going around to all the locations in the show. (and yeah, I love Adam Brody. He's from San Diego!)


2ge+herNot quite the theme song, but the most memorable one: You + Me = Us (Calculus)Truth be told, I didn't watch this show in the beginning, mostly because I was a die hard *NSYNC fan (STILL AM) and I didn't like the idea of parodying what I loved. But one day I randomly watched it and, naturally, loved it. I still reference this song today. Also: The Hardest Part of Breaking Up (Is Getting Back Your Stuff).

*Including but not limited to: TRL, Friends, One Tree Hill, Roswell, Radio Free Roscoe, Everwood, Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Will & Grace, Charmed, Off Centre.

What TV shows did you watch in your teens?

Tell me in the comments or leave your link and I'll hop by!

PS. Miss last week's Tune In Tuesday? It's about boys!

Review: Being Friends With Boys by Terra Elan McVoy

Being Friends With Boys by Terra Elan McVoy
Simon Pulse, 361 Pages
US Release Date: May 1, 2012
Challenges: Local Library Challenge, YA Contemporary Challenge, Completely Contemporary Challenge

Charlotte and Oliver have been friends forever. She knows that he, Abe, and Trip consider her to be one of the guys, and she likes it that way. She likes being the friend who keeps them all together. Likes offering a girl's perspective on their love lives. Likes being the behind-the-scenes wordsmith who writes all the lyrics for the boys' band. Char has a house full of stepsisters and a past full of backstabbing (female) ex-best friends, so for her, being friends with boys is refreshingly drama-free...until it isn't any more.

When a new boy enters the scene and makes Char feel like, well, a total girl...and two of her other friends have a falling out that may or may not be related to one of them deciding he possibly wants to be more than friends with Char...being friends with all these boys suddenly becomes a lot more complicated.
--------------------------Goodreads summary

Notable Quote

Even your misery was compelling.

No matter how hard I try to get out of the contemporary world of YA literature, I can’t deny that it’s the place I feel most at home in. Every time I read a contemp after a string of Dystopian/Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Thriller/whatever, I just get that overwhelming sense of “yes. This is where I belong.”

Being Friends With Boys reinforces that feeling of belonging. Perfectly.

I’ve never read any of Terra’s books before but I can assure you that after this, I definitely will check out her others! Her writing is so genuine and quietly strong, she really knows how to build characters that could walk past me on the street any second. The voices of each character are distinct, and each personality is crystal clear.

Initially, I wanted to read this book because it sounded similar to my own life. I do have girl friends, but growing up, I was definitely ‘one of the guys.’ I hung out with my brother and all his friends (still do) and always had a ton of guy friends. The dynamic is just different, you know? I don’t mean anything bad towards female friends, I love my girls and would be lost without their friendship and willingness to dissect every little glance and touch and not-saying-but-he-said-it-with-his-eyes moment. But guys are different, and sometimes it’s nice to enter into their world.

Being Friends With Boys is pretty spot on regarding how girls are friends with guys. How usually it’s drama free and easier, but one tiny little change and it will make it a mass of complications. My life is nothing like Charlotte's, and none of my guy friends are like the boys in this novel; but I felt like I was seeing my own relationships with guys on the pages. How some just have that deep, underlying understanding that can’t be questioned. How some are so comfortable and close you sometimes have to look away because you see him too clearly. How some are just innately complicated. How some start as more, and then get fuzzy with where it goes. How some friendships are just friendships. How some are better left at friendship. All of those were found in this novel, just as I’ve found them in my own life, and I loved every minute of it.

Also, all these boys? I've never been so in love, so mad, and so emotional towards so many characters at once! I felt just as invested as Charlotte, like it was me going through the fights or listening to music or hashing out songs and lyrics or having his arm slung around my shoulders. It definitely got a bit difficult to track at times, and the opening pages had so many different boy names in them I had to reread it just to figure out the relationships. But each boy is so unique and fun in their own way, making me all angsty towards them. While I had a suspicion from the very beginning how it would all play out, I was kept guessing the finer details until almost the end.

I was pleasantly surprised at the family aspect, too. While not a large part of the novel, I enjoyed that it's a functional, solid family unit of a blended family. So many books portray step-families as evil or misunderstood or terrible, and this was entirely refreshing to see it working. Giving sisters to Charlotte was also a brilliant way to counteract all the boys in her life, and my heart crumbled a bit when Jilly left to go back to college after Thanksgiving Break.

Charlotte is also a really strong character, and I appreciate that Terra let her be an independent girl among all these guys. She wasn't clingy or fussy or slutty or trampy towards them; she just was. She knew who she was; she just wasn't sure who she was with each of the guys. She's pretty fierce all on her own, with the perfect amount of teen indecision and doubt mixed in. With the exception of grades (I can't stand the idea of missing an assignment!), I'm fairly certain I could be Charlotte. Or at least, I hope!

Being Friends With Boys is the perfect contemporary YA novel, with tons of lovable characters, a great story, and fun little twists and surprises. If you want to fall in love and find some great friendships, pick this one up.

4.5 Stars

Review: The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour

The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour
Dutton, 307 pages
US Release Date: February 16, 2012
Challenges: Sophomore Reading Challenge, YA Contemporary Challenge

Colby and Bev have a long-standing pact: graduate, hit the road with Bev's band, and then spend the year wandering around Europe. But moments after the tour kicks off, Bev makes a shocking announcement: she's abandoning their plans - and Colby - to start college in the fall.

But the show must go on and The Disenchantments weave through the Pacific Northwest, playing in small towns and dingy venues, while roadie- Colby struggles to deal with Bev's already-growing distance and the most important question of all: what's next?

Morris Award–finalist Nina LaCour draws together the beauty and influences of music and art to brilliantly capture a group of friends on the brink of the rest of their lives.
------------------------Goodreads summary

Notable Quote

She stares in wonder at the eggs and toast, and I know how she feels, how everyday things are rare and exciting when they turn up in unfamiliar places.

I really wish The Disenchantments was out when I had graduated high school...or even college, really. It's a brilliant, stunning novel about finishing one thing and trying to figure out the big, all-encompassing question of "What next?".

When I was about halfway through the novel, I tweeted out that The Disenchantments made me want to write again. I've been a trained journalist for 12 years, but I rarely talk about the fact that I'm a writer first and foremost. Not a published author (yet), but I have the dreams; just have yet to finish the story. For reasons too personal for the blog, I haven't written a story in a few years -- I've done NaNoWriMo every year, but it's never a story that I know in my heart is destined to be seen. It's been a very massive, very intimidating writer's block, essentially.

But The Disenchantments made that itch flare, made that deep need to write and create and express through words bubble up in my chest again, and it was absolutely amazing. Because this book is something I would absolutely love to write one day (not exactly, of course!). It's filled with that subtleness that works its way unknowingly into your heart, in that quiet fashion where you don't even realize how much it's striking your soul until there's so much of it it overflows. There's nothing EXPLOSIVELY HUGE or anything that comes from left field here, and it's perfect.

I think what really sold this book for me is how absolutely real it is. There aren't massive emotional swings, or tricks in the plot that are supposed to smack you upside the head: like real life, it's a struggle, a slow chipping away at a problem that opens it up gradually and painfully. It's that moment when you learn of the fissure in the foundation, and all that follows are the slowly and ever-expanding things you finally figure out to realize just how broken and screwed you are.

I can talk about how it's an amazing road trip novel, filled with that perfect journey - both literal and metaphorical - as we watch four friends become closer to who they think they want to be; and I could talk about the music (The Supremes!) and how awesomely well it all comes off the page, from Bev's breathy voice to the irregular drum beats to the feedback of the amps; I could talk about how appropriately and quietly art and all its forms and what it opens up in a life are distributed in the book; I could even talk about how even though it's not the sexiest, hottest or dream-worthy kissy scenes I've ever read, I do think they're absolutely perfect in this book and made me swoon just as hard.  I could talk about all that, because it's all true...

But it's about how well it all comes together, how masterful Nina LaCour ties it all together into this perfect little mini-band tour.  Each character (including Melinda!) is so unique and lovely in their own way, and I have to admit that Colby is possibly the best male POV I've ever read--YA or not. I felt like I was in the van with them, answering those quotes on a slip of paper, wishing I could know what was on Bev's walkman, buying Colby a half an hour in the hot tubs. And not just because I loved them all so much and wanted to be their friends, but because I found a little (or even a lot) of myself in every single character; even though sometimes that hurt, it was the best kind.

5 Stars / 5

(and more if I could!)

TGIF (12) and Follow Friday (11)

TGIF is hosted by Ginger at Greads! This week's discussion is about

Musical Stories

If you could read a book about any song, which song would you love to see written down in story form?

This is a seriously tough question, because I think most music has to come from a deep place. (Most good music, anyway.)  There's always a story behind every lyric, and if you really wanted to, you could write it.  That said, I have 3 that I would love to have formed into a book. All of them are fairly popular (one VERY popular), and all are tortured/sad/heartbreaking in their own way; but still, I think some truly emotional and touching stories could be made.

Damien Rice - Cannonball

John Mayer - Slow Dancing In A Burning Room

Adele - Rolling in the Deep

What musical story would you want to read?

Leave me your link and I'll come check it out!

Follow Friday is hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee's View, meant to spotlight two blogs and allows bloggers to link up and meet other fabulous bookish friends and share the Following love!

This week's spotlight blogs are: Book Briefs & Gizmo's Reviews

And the question of the week is:

What is one book that you would be nervous to see a movie adaption of because you think the movie could never live up to the book?

I said it in my review, but I am absolutely terrified for the movie adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It's such a beautiful, emotional, epic read that you feel as you go from paragraph to paragraph, page to page.  And it's not really that I don't think they'd be able to do Hazel, Augustus and Isaac justice (there's a chance they could); but it's more that I think all the visual cues of sets and scenes would detract from the experience of reading it. I can't say more in case people have not read it (what are you waiting for??), but there are very specific parts where I feel a movie would ruin it because of surroundings.

Though truthfully, my answer is every book, EVER. I'm just not a fan of movie adaptations. Some are great (The Notebook, Gone with the Wind, every Pride & Prejudice adaptation, etc), but wholly, the book  is always, always better. Movies almost always ruin something a reader can get from the book. And really, movie adaptations are poor excuses for people not to read; I can't tell you how many students I had in my tutoring days that said they saw the movie so they could write the report. Absolutely disgraceful.

What book should never be a movie?

Leave me your link and I'll hop by!

And of course I'd love to return a follow if you are kind enough to follow me :)