Review: Something Like Normal

Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

Published by Bloomsbury

Genre: YA contemporary

$16.99 (US hardback)

214 pages

 

 

What it's about:



When Travis returns home from a stint in Afghanistan, his parents are splitting up, his brother’s stolen his girlfriend and his car, and he’s haunted by nightmares of his best friend’s death. It’s not until Travis runs into Harper, a girl he’s had a rocky relationship with since middle school, that life actually starts looking up. And as he and Harper see more of each other, he begins to pick his way through the minefield of family problems and post-traumatic stress to the possibility of a life that might resemble normal again. Travis’s dry sense of humor, and incredible sense of honor, make him an irresistible and eminently lovable hero.


My thoughts:
This book was beautiful. Going into it, I knew that it was about a kid coming back from the war and that his family life was pretty crappy, and that he falls for a girl named Harper. I don't know why, but I was sort of expecting the whole war and family life parts to be shoved in the background and that it would focus on Travis and Harper. I was so so so so wrong and this book caught me by surprise and I'm so glad for that. I'm glad that it wasn't just another sappy teen romance.

I immediately liked Travis, though at times I wanted to punch him in the eye just like Harper did because Travis was being so stupid! Ugh, I know he was hurting but really, Paige? Travis acting like a normal, heart broken, and beaten down by life boy was so sad, but so real. He acted like a real boy, he sounded like a real boy, in other words, he was completely believable. It is obvious that this whole book was on a subject that was very near and dear to Trish Doller. She was able to capture the horror I can only imagine the war in Afghanistan is like, along with the awkwardness of coming back from that situation. Doller was also able to get me to love and care for, and mourn, a character you never actually meet. I cried right along with Travis. I've read books before that you end up meeting a character after they die and it never really worked for me before. Yeah sure, I was always a little sad reading it, but I never felt that persons loss. That wasn't the case for me in SLN. I felt it, I cried.
I would also like to say that the cover and the description of this book threw me off. Like I said, it made me think it was a love story, and while that is partly true, I would never label this a love story. At least not in the normal way. Travis and Harper do have their love story in it, and while it is adorable, it is real. So very real. And yet it is not all the story is about.

The thing about this book is that I started it at around 9pm tonight. It is currently a little after 3am and I've finished it, and instead of going to bed like I know I should, I had to hop on my laptop and write this review. I wanted to write a review for this book after I finished reading it because I wanted all my emotions from the book to just spill out onto the keyboard. I didn't want to think about what I was saying, I just wanted how this book made me feel to show in the review. Hopefully that happened, not quite sure. For being such a short little book, I thought it was extremely moving. I adored it.

My rating: 10/10

Book Blogger Confession-- Dear Santa!

Book Blogger Confessions is a meme held on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of each month and is hosted by For What It's Worth

This weeks question:

December 17th: Dear Santa! What would you put on your blogging/bookish wish list if the sky was the limit? A new blog design? A house filled with new bookshelves? Even MORE books?

 

Dear Bookish Santa,

I've been a good reader this year. I've been volunteering at my local library every week almost all year, I have been using said library this year a lot more than I ever have before, and I've cut back on my book buying. It's this last one that has me a little upset because I miss buying books. My city lost its new bookstore and now we only have small used ones. I do use them, but I miss Borders and would very much like them to come back. I miss walking around the store, just browsing all the books. I miss the smell of the store, and I also miss going and making flirting eyes at the very, very, very cute guy behind the counter. I also miss Borders hot chocolate (did you know they used to stick a whole giant piece of chocolate on top of the whip cream? It was delicious), they also had mint chocolate mochas that were to die for. I miss those as well. Borders used to also have a awesome used online section with free shipping for Borders Plus members that saved me hundreds of dollars. Dear Santa, could you please bring me back my Borders?

 

If you can't bring me Borders, can you at least bring me a local Powells (driving an hour to the Beaverton or Portland one is costing me a lot in gas money), or at least a Barnes and Nobles? I just need a new bookstore in my city.

Also, if it's not too much to ask, I would also like a credit card just for books. But I want someone else to pay for this credit card each month. Unfortunately I do not make enough in my jobs to pay for all the books I want. I would also really appreciate a newbookcase (all real wood please, none of that cheap, flimsy wood they make most bookcases out of now). I've run out of room for all my books. Oh, I will need my room to be extended as well to fit this bookcase. So maybe just turn the whole new wall into one giant bookcase? That is, if it's not too much trouble.

 

Thank you in advance, Santa. I look forward to all the new book gifts from you.

 

Love, Ariel


*edit*
After reading a bunch of other peoples wish lists, I'd like to add in that I also want to go to ALA and BEA. I want someone else to pay for the hotel, flights, food, ect. I also want my sister to get the days off work and go with me. That way, I'd have someone to get all excited to go right along with me, like we did for Wordstock.
Also, Leakycon is being held in my home state this year and I'd really like my friend and I to go. I want the rock star passes for both of us, but once again, I can't pay for them. So I'd really like that as well.
I also want to meet more of my favorite authors, like John Green. I want to get a big group of them together with a few other bloggers and friends and have lunch or something and just hang out. It'd be a lot of fun. 

Too many shootings

If you guys haven't heard, there has been a unusual amount of shootings this week. My favorite mall ever, Clackamas Town Center in Portland, had a shooting in it a few days ago, three dead, and this morning there is a new kind of horror and someone has brought in guns and killed 27 people (18 of which are kids) in a CT elementary school.

My heart is absolutely breaking for the families and friends in both cases. It just reminds me how cruel this world can be. Everyone, go hug  your family, go hug your friends, go bring some happiness into the world. It is needed right now.

Waiting on Wednesday: different version

WoW is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine

Today when I opened up my email, Powells (the coolest bookstore you could ever visit) emailed me saying that today there was free shipping! How am I supposed to pass that up? I went through my list of books I want, found two I've been wanting for what seems like forever and bought them.

So now I'm waiting on them to come in the mail, hense the new waiting on Wednesday!

 

 

Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

Published by Bloomsbury

Genre: YA contemporary

$17.99 (US hardback)

214 pages

 

 

What it's about:



 

When Travis returns home from a stint in Afghanistan, his parents are splitting up, his brother’s stolen his girlfriend and his car, and he’s haunted by nightmares of his best friend’s death. It’s not until Travis runs into Harper, a girl he’s had a rocky relationship with since middle school, that life actually starts looking up. And as he and Harper see more of each other, he begins to pick his way through the minefield of family problems and post-traumatic stress to the possibility of a life that might resemble normal again. Travis’s dry sense of humor, and incredible sense of honor, make him an irresistible and eminently lovable hero.

 

 

 

Chosen Ones by Tiffany Truitt

Published by Entangled publishing

Genre: YA dystopian?

$9.99 (US paperback)

400 pages

 

What it's about:

 

Life is bleak but uncomplicated for sixteen-year-old Tess, living in a not-too-distant future where the government, faced with humanity's extinction, created the Chosen Ones, artificial beings who are extraordinarily beautiful, unbelievably strong, and unabashedly deadly.

When Tess begins work at Templeton, a Chosen Ones training facility, she meets James, and the attraction is immediate in its intensity, overwhelming in its danger. But there is more to Templeton than Tess ever knew. Can she stand against her oppressors, even if it means giving up the only happiness in her life?

Review: Pushing the Limits

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Published by Harlequin Teen

Genre: YA contemporary

$17.99 (US hardback)

392 pages

 

 

What it's about:

 

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal.But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.

Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

My thoughts:
This book has been getting insane reviews for a while now. Everyone was freaking out about how amazing it was and for some reason, instead of making me want to read it, I was wary. Lately I have been pretty disappointed in all of the hyped up books.

I am so annoyed at myself that I didn't read this book sooner.

It was fantastic. Could I have loved this book more? No, I don't think I could. Is there anything I'd change about it? Nope, not a thing. I was immediately drawn into the story. I wanted to know what happened the night Echo got her scars. I wanted to know what was going to happen to Noah and his brothers. I wanted to know when Echo was finally going to notice the real Noah and not the persona he had for school.

I don't know what else to add to this review. I don't know how much I can add to the review without it turning into a big pile of mush of me saying how much I adore this book. So I'll leave you saying that that this was a realistic teen love story. Echo and Noah don't have a insta-love start. They have to get past first impressions and outward appearances. They work at becoming friends and go from there. It was a refreshing love story with interesting characters the reader can instantly fall in love with.

My rating: 10/10

Review: Ten by Gretchen McNeil

Ten by Gretchen McNeil

Published by Blazer + Bray

Genre: YA horror/suspense

$17.99 (US hardback)

294 pages

 

What it's about:

 

SHHHH!
Don't spread the word!
Three-day weekend. House party.
White Rock House on Henry Island.
You do NOT want to miss it.

It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives—an exclusive house party on Henry Island. Best friends Meg and Minnie each have their reasons for being there (which involve T.J., the school’s most eligible bachelor) and look forward to three glorious days of boys, booze and fun-filled luxury.

But what they expect is definitely not what they get, and what starts out as fun turns dark and twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a sinister message: Vengeance is mine.

Suddenly people are dying, and with a storm raging, the teens are cut off from the outside world. No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that isn’t scheduled to return for two days. As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die? Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?

My Thoughts:
It's no secret that I'm madly in love with Agatha Christie. I talk about her books all the time, so when I saw that someone wrote a newer, teen version of Ten Little Indians (or for you British people out there, And Then There Were None) I was excited, really really really excited.

Then the reviews started coming in. All the Agatha Christie lovers out there were saying run, run away as fast as you can from this book. I still have not seen one review from a Christie fan that has liked this book. Obviously, this made me a little nervous going into the book.

Knowing both the book and the play version of TLI, I knew what to expect. I knew that there are two possible outcomes for this book and that it was most likely going to be the play version. This did take away some of the suspense of the book, but McNeil added a lot of her own characteristics to the book. The one big big big change McNeil made to her version is that the death message is on a dvd, is a little cheesey, and didn't explain much. Part of the brilliance of TLI is the little song that is posted on the table with the little Indian figurines. The party guests didn't think anything of it until a few deaths in. But with Ten, you didn't have that. You didn't know how each person was going to die and there wasn't the added song to make it errie. Because of this, it took away from the cleverness of the story and turned it more into a teen horror movie feel.

So for being an adaptation of a beloved story, it was okay. Adaptations of other stories can be very difficult and I think that McNeil did a pretty good job taking TLI and adding her own twist to it. I would definitely recommend mood setting while reading this book. Read it at night, a cold, rainy night. In a dark house. Set yourself up for the mood of the book and I think this could be a really fun read.

My rating: 7/10

Review: Undeadly

Undeadly by Michele Vail

Published by Harliquen Teen

Genre: YA paranormal

$9.99 (US paperback)

272 pages

Format I read: Netgalley

 

What it's about:

 

The day I turned 16, my boyfriend-to-be died. I brought him back to life. Then things got a little weird...

Molly Bartolucci wants to blend in, date hottie Rick and keep her zombie-raising abilities on the down-low. Then the god Anubis chooses her to become a reaper—and she accidentally undoes the work of another reaper, Rath. Within days, she's shipped off to the Nekyia Academy, an elite boarding school that trains the best necromancers in the world. And her personal reaping tutor? Rath.

Life at Nekyia has its plusses. Molly has her own personal ghoul, for one. Rick follows her there out of the blue, for another...except, there's something a little off about him. When students at the academy start to die and Rath disappears, Molly starts to wonder if anything is as it seems. Only one thing is certain—-Molly's got an undeadly knack for finding trouble....

My thoughts:
This book had such potential and yet fell short.

When I first started, it was the perfect pace. It explained everything just enough to not bog down the book but told you enough that you could follow along. I was really enjoying it and then all the sudden the pace sped up and there were so many story plots going on that it was becoming increasingly hard to focus on all of them. Some got left behind and then at the end had to be picked up real fast and explained. With all these story lines going on, it also meant that the characterization was starting to lack. I never really got to learn all the quirks of the characters, was never really able to connect with them. I found it odd that the second Molly gets to school, she all the sudden has these great friends and an enemy. I would have liked to see a lot more of this.

What I really want to say is that this book just needed to be longer. Take the time to fully explain what is going on, let the reader get emotionally involved in what is happening to Molly. It had some really good ideas, I loved the whole Anubis angle and how zombies are an every day thing. It reminded me of the end of the movie Shaun of the Dead. I just really wish the book was longer. It has a fantastic voice to it and Molly is a character that could have been a lot of fun to follow around. This book was just too short.

My rating: 7/10