Review: Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson (ARC)

Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson
Simon & Schuster BYR, 449 Pages
US Release Date: May 6, 2014
Format/Souce: ARC via Around the World Tours - thank you!

The Pre-Sloane Emily didn't go to parties, she barely talked to guys, she didn't do anything crazy. Enter Sloane, social tornado and the best kind of best friend—the one who yanks you out of your shell.But right before what should have been an epic summer, Sloane just... disappears. No note. No calls. No texts. No Sloane. There’s just a random to-do list. On it, thirteen Sloane-selected-definitely-bizarre-tasks that Emily would never try... unless they could lead back to her best friend. Apple Picking at Night? Ok, easy enough.Dance until Dawn? Sure. Why not? Kiss a Stranger? Wait... what?

Getting through Sloane’s list would mean a lot of firsts. But Emily has this whole unexpected summer ahead of her, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected) to check things off. Who knows what she’ll find?

Go Skinny Dipping? Um…
--------------------Goodreads Summary

Notable Quote

I don't think you have to do something so big to be brave. And it's the little things that are harder anyway.

Is there anything Morgan Matson can do wrong? I swear she has it all when it comes to writing. Amazing characters? Check. Growth and development that is both exciting and unpredictable and natural? Check. Friendships that are real and organic? Check. Brilliant boys who function as friends and like-like friends? Check. A wonderful writing style that invites you in and never lets you go? Check, check, and more check.

I have to say, while I love pretty much all and everything Morgan Matson does, probably the best parts of Since You've Been Gone to me were the small, nuanced details. Like that Frank was called "Frank Porter" through a lot of his introduction into the story. Because we all have or know those people who are just first+last name people, right? It's such a small detail, but it says so much about him. I was immediately given an idea about who he is and how he is viewed by that small thing.

Or the parallel between Collins and Frank's friendship to Sloane and Emily's, regarding an "extra" feeling to the relationship. I can't quite discuss it since it gives away some of the book if I were to go into details, but it was a subtle draw from the story, and it made it so much more whole, so much more like real life to me.

Of course I loved the big things, too. I thought Sloane was a bit strange and had a whole ethereal, hippie vibe to her--which was great. I felt very close to Emily and her character, who was a bit lost and looking. I really loved Frank Porter and Collins, they had such fun personalities and had great Best Dudes vibes and chemistry with each other. I was surprised how much I loved Dawn, too, and how she fit into the story. She came crashing in with tears and a teenage tragedy, and what she turned into was utterly fantastic.

I was really in love with the list, even though I didn't like how Sloane up and left Emily. It was such a fun, creative list, and I liked the ways that Emily fulfilled the items she could. Some were at face value, and others were a little more and a little deeper than I thought they would be--and it was better that way. It takes a lot to surprise someone when we're given a list from the beginning, but again, Morgan doesn't disappoint.

Sloane up-and-leaving Emily was something I didn't like, as mentioned--but I have to say, I understand it. I move around a lot, and I get why it feels easier to do that when you live a transient lifestyle…but I felt like Emily is the kind of girl you realize you can't do that to, and I was a little sad Sloane did. Of course, it fits with the characters and creates the whole story so it's not really a complaint…just a comment.

Since You've Been Gone is a brilliant story about friendship and finding yourself, about defining who you are and digging into what you once were with the people you knew and want to always know. Written with warmth, love, subtlety, and fun, it's a book that climbs quickly to one of my favourites of the year. And you should read it and discover why, too.

5 stars

and lists upon lists more

Review: Fan Art by Sarah Tregay (ARC)

Fan Art by Sarah Tregay
Katherine Tegan Books (an imprint of Harper), 368 pages
Expected US Release Date: June 17, 2014
Format/Source: ARC via Around the World Tours - thank you!

When the picture tells the story…

Senior year is almost over, and Jamie Peterson has a big problem. Not college—that’s all set. Not prom—he’ll find a date somehow. No, it’s the worst problem of all: he’s fallen for his best friend.

As much as Jamie tries to keep it under wraps, everyone seems to know where his affections lie, and the giggling girls in art class are determined to help Jamie get together with Mason. But Jamie isn’t sure if that’s what he wants—because as much as Jamie would like to come clean to Mason, what if the truth ruins everything? What if there are no more road trips, taco dinners, or movie nights? Does he dare risk a childhood friendship for romance?

This book is about what happens when a picture reveals what we can’t say, when art is truer than life, and how falling in love is easy, except when it’s not. Fan Art explores the joys and pains of friendship, of pressing boundaries, and how facing our worst fears can sometimes lead us to what we want most.
----------------------------Goodreads Summary

Notable Quote

“Does someone not liking you back break your heart?”

I’ve tried to write the beginning of this review so many times, but I can’t decide which element to talk about first since I loved them all so much. I want to tell you all at once how much I adore Jamie and how much I adore Mason and how adorable this book is, filled with the lovely tension of crushes and loves and best friends-but-wanting-more and the complexities of being Out but not really out. I want to say all at once because I simply can’t make the decision what to say first.

I’ll start at the very beginning, because it is, indeed, a very good place to start. Jamie is just the best main character ever. He is sweet and friendly and open and confused, and I felt like he was immediately my best friend. I loved all his interactions with people, all his thoughts and considerations and doubt. I’m nowhere near Jamie or whatever he finds himself in, but I related to him on almost every level, and it was lovely.

I would never be his best friend though, but that’s because that spot belongs wholeheartedly to Mason. And I support and love them, all the jokes and touches and “I love you, man”s that are and are not said. In fact, I love most of the friendships in this book—even the ones between all the popular jocks, even if I’m not a real fan of those jocks themselves. I really liked Eden and Jamie, since it’s a friendship built on secrets and outsider understanding. I’m not quite a fan of Eden, actually—she’s a little too much for me—but I like what she and Jamie had and become.

Perhaps one of the reasons I loved this book as well is the incorporation of the Gumshoe—I am a journalism girl at heart (and by diploma!) and ran the school newspaper in high school and was Creative director of a non-profit magazine in college (I did the layouts, basically). It was wonderful reliving the memories of planning meetings, going to the printers, finding content, putting everything together…and even the hardships of debating back and forth on when you want a piece in or not. It’s a very hard thing to debate the merit of something for print, especially when it’s something that speaks to you—so I got Jamie. I definitely got him.

Though I do have to say I wasn’t really impressed by most of the poems printed in here. I did like At Night I Dream—but the others weren’t really anything special to me. I did, however, LOVE the comic that started it all, and I can’t wait to see the final version.

I found quite a bit of this story predictable as well, though not in an infuriatingly so way or anything. It was more like…once you read something, you could tell the direction it would go. And while I was more than happy with the way a lot of this works out, sometimes it would have been nice to be thrown off the trail a little bit.

Fan Art was such a fantastic story. I loved the plot and how much fun it was—I feel like it perfectly captured the end of Senior Year so well. The nostalgia of the known and loved for the last 4 years with the terrifying anticipation of what’s to come.  I loved the small road trip, the Senior Ditch Day, the prank, prom, absolutely everything. Everyone should read it, because I promise you’ll find a little bit of yourself in it as well.

4.5 stars

Review: Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern (ARC)

Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern
Harper Teen, 352 pages
Expected US Release Date: June 3, 2014
Format/Source: ARC via Around the World Tours - thank you!

John Green's The Fault in Our Stars meets Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park in this beautifully written, incredibly honest, and emotionally poignant novel. Cammie McGovern's insightful young adult debut is a heartfelt and heartbreaking story about how we can all feel lost until we find someone who loves us because of our faults, not in spite of them.

Born with cerebral palsy, Amy can't walk without a walker, talk without a voice box, or even fully control her facial expressions. Plagued by obsessive-compulsive disorder, Matthew is consumed with repeated thoughts, neurotic rituals, and crippling fear. Both in desperate need of someone to help them reach out to the world, Amy and Matthew are more alike than either ever realized.

When Amy decides to hire student aides to help her in her senior year at Coral Hills High School, these two teens are thrust into each other's lives. As they begin to spend time with each other, what started as a blossoming friendship eventually grows into something neither expected.
---------------------------------Goodreads summary

Notable Quote

I have learned that many people have disabilities they must make their peace with.

There are so many things I can’t say about this book, simply because I feel like there are no words that can accurately describe it. If ever a standout in the YA genre, it is Say What You Will, in almost every aspect.

The obvious way is that it deals with two characters who have their own handicaps: Amy, with her disability, and Matthew, who seems fine but you learn has his own disabilities that cripple him—perhaps not in the same visual way as Amy, but he has them, certainly. And it is astounding to see how they are handled in a young adult book, amongst all the usual drama and stress and emotions of a Senior year.

These characters are also incredibly unique to any book I’ve read. They’re both quite strong, as people and as they are written. Their downfalls and their own handicaps are integrated really well into their personality, and I love that both are much more than their issues. Just as we always hope “cancer books” aren’t just about the cancer, this book is most certainly not just about Amy’s disability.

I want to talk so much about Amy and Matthew, about how they are together and separate, how they really are better with the other…but I really can’t without saying what exactly ails Matthew and how, without saying what exactly they endure. So I’ll have to leave it at this: I’ve never met anyone quite like the two of them, with their quiet, strong demeanors. Who are somehow both closed off and entirely open to new people and things. Who confront being uncomfortable with a resolve I wish I had.

But I can say that this story is beautiful, that this is a friendship built on so much more than days spent together. That it’s written so well, with their words and emails and texts and her Text. That I was caught by surprise in so many instances, both big and small, in big moments and small ones. There is so  much heart and tenderness in these pages, I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to control all the out-of-control beating of my own heart. And I can also mention that I was not impressed with all the parents in this book—not in terms of the writing, that was still great. But the parents themselves and what they do (and didn’t do) in the book make me very crabby when I think of it haha.

Say What You Will is a stunning addition to the YA contemporary world, introducing new characteristics while retaining all the emotions and feelings we crave and love. It is a beautiful story of friendship and love, and friendly love and loving friends. It’s also about confronting and accepting faults and flaws, and learning to not necessarily overcome them, but absorb them into who you are. And that is a fantastic lesson for us all to learn.

5 stars

Review: The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski (ARC)

The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy #1) by Marie Rutkoski
Farrer, Straus & Giroux (an imprint of MacmillanTeen), 355 pages
US Release Date: March 4, 2014
Format/Source: ARC via Around the World Tours - thank you!

Winning what you want may cost you everything you love.

As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. 

Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined. 

Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your heart.
-------------------------------------Goodreads Summary

Notable Quote

Isn't that what stories do, make real things fake, and fake things real?

I want to tell you that I have no words for this book…but seeing as how this is a review blog, that wouldn’t do much good, would it?

So I’ll amend it to: I have no worthy words for this book. The Winner’s Curse is brilliant and stunning, clever and cunning and sweet and intense. It made me hold my breathe, it made me close pages because I was feeling so much, it made me tear the book back open because I had to keep going. There are surprises everywhere, games and gambling and taking chances, and every single word and moment gets better than the last.

This is about the realest thing I can say: I stopped reading about 70 pages to the end because I had work the next day and needed to sleep. And I kid you not that my body woke me up at 3:30 AM thinking about it and needing to read…so I continued reading, because I could not leave it as I’d done.

I’ll talk about the components first, because that I can handle. There’s society and slaves, high culture and gritty realism. There’s lovely landscape and blood and gore. There is love, and relationships, and friendship at it’s best and most worthy; there is family at every angle, present and lost and lacking and disappointing. Absolutely everything I could ever think I wanted in a book is here at it’s best, with all the elements I never knew would make a novel better but has.

There’s so much depth to this novel. Every single person you meet, plot point you hit, is part of something else, leads to something even thicker and intense than you can originally see. You get buried in the plot and entirely consumed, and I barely remembered to breathe.

That said, the plot is never confusing or convoluted. Everything is there for a purpose, and it all makes sense in its build and movement. It is nicely linear, and it’s like everything you read just enhances the next moment rather than confuses it.

Kestral and Arin are breathtaking characters. They are so strong and so dimensional. And while I loved them individually for having the flaws and weaknesses and strength they do, I was so blown away every time they were together on the page. From the moment Kestral saw him at the slave market to…well. The end. Even when they weren’t at the same location, but thinking of the other or considering the other, I felt their connection. Their chemistry and tension and pure, raw emotion with the other.

Every review I’ve seen tells you to “clear your calendar” or “set aside hours to read this cover to cover” or some other variation, and I clearly echo that advice. This book is un-put-downable. Take it from me, who did put it down…only to have my mind and body wake me up craving to finish it at an ungodly hour. You cannot escape this novel, and nobody in his or her right mind would ever want to.

The Winner’s Curse is filled with tension and trials, fights and fancy parties. There’s even a duel! But what makes this so incredible is how every element is the best it could possibly be by itself, and together make something as beautiful as this tale. If ever a book to be 5 stars, it is The Winner’s Curse: for making your head and heart know they together love something wholeheartedly, but also battle as you find yourself tangled in the curses and games, too.

Read The Winner’s Curse. Just do it.

5 stars

and so many stars worth fighting for

Waiting on Wednesday: I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine

meant to highlight an upcoming release we're excited for!

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Dial BYR (an imprint of Penguin)
Expected US Release Date: September 16, 2014

Jude and her brother, Noah, are incredibly close twins. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude surfs and cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and divisive ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as an unpredictable new mentor. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant, fully alive, sometimes very funny novel from the critically acclaimed author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once. 
----------------------------Goodreads summary

I feel like I don't even have to justify why I am waiting for this book - perhaps read my review of Jandy Nelson's The Sky is Everywhere to know how much I love her. Or just search it to see how often it pops up on my blog and how much I absolutely love and adore it. Or check out all the brilliant words I quoted here (spoilers!!). And of course, this novel sounds so breathtakingly wonderful I can't even fathom what beauty will be within the pages. Is it selfish to hope she includes more poetry? Because yes. I want.

What are you waiting for this Wednesday?

Leave your link and I'll hop by!

Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (eARC)

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Delacorte Press, 240 Pages
Expected US Release Date: May 13, 2014
Format/Source: eGalley via NetGalley - thank you!

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.
-----------------------Goodreads Summary

Notable Quote

What if we could stop being different colors, different backgrounds, and just be in love?

There are so many ways I want to write this review, so many things I want to say and feel need to be said. The first and only things I’ve ever heard about We Were Liars is how brilliant, how amazing it is—and when you open up the eGalley, there’s a whole page about how moving it is but you can’t say much without giving away things.

And that’s the easiest and hardest part.

You really can’t say much about this book without giving away what’s inside. I can tell you the characters are memorable—some not in a good way, but that’s how they are meant to be so it is ok—and I can tell you that the story moves at this fantastically poetic pace. But I can’t tell you how they are Liars, what makes them the Liars, what moves them through the novel, what creates them.

I can tell you that there is an island, and they are a family. Some by blood, others by love. I can tell you that you are reading with mystery, with a cloud over you because you can feel in every word, every sentence, that there is more to the story and that you may not like it. But I can’t tell you who they are, really. I can’t tell you how the bond can go deeper than blood, deeper than love. I can’t tell you what makes her sick, what makes her tick, what causes her headaches.

But I can tell you that I read this book with bated breath. That I suffered and loved through every page, every single moment. I can tell you that this book will grip you, and shake you, and reach out to you and into you and you will know, with a  certainty, that this is a meaningful book.

I can tell you that while I didn’t cry (since it seems every other person who read this did), I felt it. I felt why, I knew why, I probably should have cried. I can tell you that even though I actually am not as huge a fan as a lot of others are with this book, there is an undeniable attachment and brilliance to it. The lyricism of the words, how they are strung and hung and linked together, make it an experience to read.

And I can’t give you concrete reasons why, but I can ask you to trust me, to trust that this is a worthwhile journey to go on, that you will never regret meeting the Liars and getting inside her head.

4 stars