The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Bad fates do not always follow those who deserve them.”- The Language of Thorns, Leigh Bardugo

Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.

Travel to a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid's voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy's bidding but only for a terrible price.

Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, #1 New York Times–bestselling author Leigh Bardugo has crafted a deliciously atmospheric collection of short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice, and love.

Perfect for new readers and dedicated fans, these tales will transport you to lands both familiar and strange—to a fully realized world of dangerous magic that millions have visited through the novels of the Grishaverse.

This collection of six stories includes three brand-new tales, all of them lavishly illustrated with art that changes with each turn of the page, culminating in six stunning full-spread illustrations as rich in detail as the stories themselves.

Despite not liking fantasy all that much, I like Leigh Bardugo. But this was mostly a miss for me. I mean, I'm definitely going to be in the minority here because I'm sure most fans eat this kind of stuff up with a soup spoon, but this is probably a case of "it's not you it's me". Looking back, I don't even know why I preordered this let alone bought it in the first place. As I said in my Cinder review, I like fairy tales, but not so much that I want to read retellings or modern updates of the tales that have so much history behind them and are wonderful windows in the time they were created in, a time when you could scare the shit out of children with stories of wicked stepmothers and cannibalistic witches and at the end of the day, still have the good prevail. It says something about the things people dreamed of and the influences of things like romanticism or religious morality at the time of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. Perhaps that's one of my problems with this collection- the stories have no history behind them, thus I cannot really see a point in their existence. This probably has to do with the fact that I am no longer a child and do not read fairy tales for entertainment any more, I read them for the reasons above. Blame my history major on that. 

And yes, when I say modern versions of fairy tales, this is basically it. With the exception of a couple, the fairy tales in this book are basically the same old stories just told with a "grittier" feminist edge. It gets repetitive really quickly. The man is always a villain, the prince is evil, the female characters are kind and good, etc. That's a very common thing to do in fairy tale updating, by the way, and one that I've never been too keen on. In a lot of ways, I was reminded of the stories told in A Monster Calls, but without any of the substance that those stories had. In the end, I found most of them mediocre and rather boring. And kind of confused, with the references to sexual abuse and just plain old sex. Fairy tales are written for children, thus fairy tale like stories like this should be free of that stuff, because it just kind of takes you out of that nostalgic feeling. 

Of course, maybe this book was just doomed from the start, because spin-offy books like this have never really worked for me. Even the Unwind anthology UnBound was a bit of a disappoint! That being said, I probably would have liked it better if it was just stories or mythology or the history of the Grishaverse than just rehashings of the same old tales. Like if it followed famous saints or kings and queens or grisha. Something new and different as opposed to another Little Mermaid retelling.

The only two things that did anything for me were both the loveliness of the prose- Bardugo can really write- and the wonderful illustrations (also the fact that it is a genuinely pretty book). Even those two things though couldn't save this book. In the end, though it's purely personal preference and I love Leigh Bardugo's work and will still continue to support her by reading her books, but this was, again, a solid miss for me. Maybe I'm just too old for fairy tales. Oh well. At least my younger cousin, who loves both Six of Crows and the Grisha trilogy has a birthday tomorrow so my money hasn't entirely gone to waste.

5 out of 10

John Belushi Is Dead (Hollywood Ending) by Kathy Charles

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“They were scavengers feeding off others, obsessed with lives that were not their own.”- John Belushi Is Dead, Kathy Charles

IN THE END WE ALL FADE TO BLACK.

Pink-haired Hilda and oddball loner Benji are not your typical teenagers. Instead of going to parties or hanging out at the mall, they comb the city streets and suburban culs-de-sac of Los Angeles for sites of celebrity murder and suicide. Bound by their interest in the macabre, Hilda and Benji neglect their schoolwork and their social lives in favor of prowling the most notorious crime scenes in Hollywood history and collecting odd mementos of celebrity death.

Hilda and Benji's morbid pastime takes an unexpected turn when they meet Hank, the elderly, reclusive tenant of a dilapidated Echo Park apartment where a silent movie star once stabbed himself to death with a pair of scissors. Hilda feels a strange connection with Hank and comes to care deeply for her paranoid new friend as they watch old movies together and chat the sweltering afternoons away. But when Hank's downstairs neighbor Jake, a handsome screenwriter, inserts himself into the equation and begins to hint at Hank's terrible secrets, Hilda must decide what it is she's come to Echo Park searching for . . . and whether her fascination with death is worth missing out on life.

I have a very strong morbid streak. I love reading books that have to do with funeral homes, I love watching ID channel shows or reading books about murder, and no vacation is complete without visiting at least one cemetery.

Despite this, I have no interest in death tourism and no real desire to see a dead body. I mean, sure, I took pictures of the Mercer House in Savannah, but that house has so much more history behind it than just being the house where Jim Williams shot Danny. It's not like I was deliberately going out to Kansas to take pictures of the Clutter house (which is still standing, believe it or not) and I definitely don't look at dead pictures of celebrities online because that just seems disrespectful to me. Also, it reminds me of this ID channel show where this woman became obsessed with death and watching videos of people hanging herself after her boyfriend killed himself. She ended up going on a three day shooting spree. 

Still, I went into this book interested in the subject matter and expecting some of my favorite brand of jet black humor. For the first few chapters, I was enjoying myself. The writing wasn't great, but the book set itself up pretty well and I liked the Harold and Maude references because that's one of my favorite movies ever. But at the same time, I was a little put off by the overwhelming Edgy Tumblr Teen vibe I got from the main characters. And especially the romanticizing of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, mostly because it reminded me of the disgusting true crime "enthusiasts" on Tumblr who spend their spare time photo-shopping flower crowns on their heads and writing gay fanfiction about the two of them being together and generally just making most true crime fans look bad. I mean, seriously, read Columbine by Dave Cullen and get back to me. So yeah, not too fond of the edgy teen myself. 

But Harold and Maude. And Bukowski, and Tom Waits, and basically all these references to things I love that don't get referenced like ever in fiction. Especially Harold and Maude. Of course, if you've seen Harold and Maude, than you've basically read this book. I mean, sure, some things were changed, the genders were swapped, there is no relationship between Hilda and Hank, he's a bit gruffer than Maude, etc, but the core message of the book is basically the same message as the movie. Of course, I did wonder how Hilda watched and loved the movie and didn't get the whole symbolically driving the Jag-Hearse off the cliff moment at the end. The message of how can you be so young and so obsessed with death when there's so much to love about life. I mean, sure, the humor of the movie is based around Harold staging his own suicides, even if there is a lot of really funny absurdist moments, but it made me wonder if we even watched the same movie. 

Also, the writing wasn't that... good. Hate to say it, but I got a Mary Sue fanfiction vibe. Especially the main character. Her opinions, inner narrative, etc, just seemed very clunky and set my teeth a little on edge. And the love interest just plain sucked. I hated their "flirty banter" and not once did it get a laugh out of me. In fact, I wished the book was a lot funny or had a darker sense of humor than what it ended up being. The actual humor is very typical YA quirky commentary which almost never gets a laugh out of me. Hilda also seemed like she had no real character, like everything about her was subject to change if the plot demanded it, if that makes sense. I don't think she was a particular strong character.

There is also a certain lack of subtlety that got to me. Especially the Connor family. Like, the mom is this extreme parody of a fifties mom and the dad is absent and Benji's basically a caricature of an edgy teen. And I don't think this book aged very well. The problem with writing a Hollywood themed book is that a book can feel dated very quickly with all the pop culture references. I suppose this book is supposed to take place in like 2004ish, even though it was published in 2009, based on all the Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan references (oh, the days when bleached blond Barbie dolls ruled Hollywood!).

So why did I persist on liking this book? Because I genuinely like the message behind it and think it's one very rarely told in YA. That it's okay to be mainstream and like the same things mainstream people like. It's okay to have Smells Like Teen Spirit be your favorite Nirvana song, it's okay to not want to have pink hair and work at a normal place and watch movies instead of looking for places people have died. In a world of relentlessly quirky protagonists, it's nice to have one who can be on the mainstream side. 

This review was everywhere and I apologize for that. In the end, I just don't have much to say about John Belushi Is Dead. It's a solid 8 out of 10 book, or a solid four stars. I liked it just fine, was even impressed by it at some points, and it is a wholly original story. That being said, I thought going in that this would be my new favorite YA contemporary. And it just isn't as special as I thought it would be.

8 out of 10

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Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Five Favorites- Speculative Fiction

Yes, here I am posting about speculative fiction, a gathering of genres I am not shy about admitting I stay away from, if you can't tell by my general lack of enthusiasm about it. I mean, the whole reason why I grouped them all together under the label of speculative fiction is because I didn't have enough material to draw it out and have a science fiction, a fantasy, a paranormal, a dystopian, and a horror list. I admit though, even with my drawing it out I am a bit embarrassed to say I had a hard time reaching five, since really only three were definites. But I need more time with my historical fiction and thriller lists, and fall is literally the only time I voluntarily bother with speculative fiction so I thought it would be nice to talk about it.

So, without further ado, here are my top five speculative fiction novels! In no particular order, of course.

1. The Unwind Dystology

  Originally, this list had a lot of nostalgic favorites such as The Girl Who Could Fly and the Percy Jackson series, but I haven't revisited those in a long time and while they both had a big impact on my life, I don't feel the need to go back to them like I did to the Unwind series. This is one of my favorite series of all time. Don't be put off by the dystopian genre classification. In fact, the first book came out three years before The Hunger Games swept onto the scene. So, what is this book about? Basically, it's set some undetermined time in the future after the Second Civil War, which was fought over abortion and resolved by the Unwind Accord, a law passed saying that 13-18 (later 17) year olds could be "unwound", retroactively aborted with all their parts used for transplants, which was a scientific discovery by then. We follow three teens, the typical YA trio of two-guys-and-a-girl, Lev Calder (he goes through like a million last name changes over the course of the series) who is a tithe which means he is going to be unwound willingly at the age of thirteen, Risa Ward, a state ward unwound because of budget cuts, and Connor Lassiter, a troubled teen whose parents unwound him as a last resort and also my biggest fictional crush. Him and Risa are also my number one OTP. There's also a lot more going on and that's just the first book. One interesting thing about the series is that the first book, Unwind, can be read as sort of a standalone, and then the other three books- UnWholly, UnSouled, and UnDivided are kind of like the actual series. It's a really great, really fucked up, and really underrated series, and has been reigning as one of my favorite books ever ever since I first read it back in middle school. It's basically my Harry Potter.

2. Marina

  Are you sick of hearing about this book yet? Well, you're probably going to hear about this book a lot more in the upcoming months. Because Marina is the current holder of my favorite book of the year, ever since reading it all the way back in March, and almost instantly became one of my favorite books of all time. This is a Spanish YA horror novel with heavy Gothic influences. It's about a boy, Oscar, who goes to this boarding school in Barcelona. As he wanders around the old part of town, he meets a man named German Blau and his daughter Marina who he becomes close to. From there, they find themselves getting involved in the dark and twisted world of Mijail Kolvenik, an inventor in postwar Barcelona. It's a very complex, complicated plot to describe, so normally I just tell people that it's basically a mix of Phantom of the Opera, Bioshock, Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe, and the science fiction-y parts of The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. It's just really damn good.  

3. The Road

  Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a post apocalyptic nightmare of a book that hits you hard in the feelings. The prose is a thing of beige beauty, simplistic with almost every sentence perfectly formed. It's bleak and depressing and even horrific, but it has an almost hopeful undertone about finding something from nothing. I could tell you that this book is about a man and his son trying to not just survive but retain their humanity in a ruined world, but that's almost too simple a summary. Reading this book is an experience, one best gone through without any prior expectations. It was my favorite book of last year and has become one of my favorite books ever.

4. Six of Crows Duology

  You can tell how much I read speculative fiction because every book on this list except one I read either last year or this year. The answer for that is simple, until last year I read almost all contemporary, historical fiction, and thrillers, as well as a lot of nonfiction. I didn't start develing into fantasy until I started getting into Booktube and that made me want to try really hard to read fantasy but alas, I couldn't do it. That being said, Six of Crows was a really great discovery, one that even I was able to really get into. Mostly because I loved the Amsterdam inspired setting and the interesting blend of 16th-17th century Netherlands with late 19th-early 20th technology and clothing all in one fantasy world. This book captured me with its atmosphere and cast of characters, a group that reminded me so much of the Unwind crew. This is one of the biggest fantasy duologies out there, so I won't waste your time talking about the plot. My favorite characters were Jesper, Kaz, and Inez, I hated both Nina and Matthias, and I felt very little towards Wylan except in relation to Jesper, in which case I was all over him. I was less invested in the second book, which disappointed me in a lot of ways, but it is still a really great book duology, even for someone not into fantasy at all.

5. The Illuminae Files

  So, we had a horror novel, 2 dystopians, and a fantasy. What about science-fiction? And well paranormal, but most people including me have kind of stopped taking those books seriously since the rise and fall of the paranormal empire. So science fiction. More specifically, space science fiction. I mentally refer to it as hi-sci-fi because I like the way that sounds. I reach for those books even less than I do fantasy because I can't stand space and have little patience for endless musings on the universe. With the exception of The End from The Tsar of Love and Techno because that last story is beautiful and you know it. But yeah, the Illuminae Files. Also known as, why the hell did I like this book. It's just a ton of fun to read, that's why. It's no great literature or anything, it's just a quick, funny, and violent read, with a great first novel, a less great but still strong second book, and hopefully a third book that will round out the series nicely, even though the second book did not feel like a middle novel at all. This is another book that I think is fairly hyped up, so I also won't bore you with plot. My favorite characters are Ella, Kady, Grant, and the AI. This book was just fun escapism, and really, what else do you need from science fiction?

What are some of your favorite speculative fiction books? Have you read any of these books? What do you think about them? Leave your thoughts below!

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“The rest of his life. How long that time had once felt to him. How quickly it has sped by. How much of it has been wasted. How soon it will be over.”- Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood

When Felix is deposed as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival by his devious assistant and longtime enemy, his production of The Tempest is canceled and he is heartbroken. Reduced to a life of exile in rural southern Ontario—accompanied only by his fantasy daughter, Miranda, who died twelve years ago—Felix devises a plan for retribution.

Eventually he takes a job teaching Literacy Through Theatre to the prisoners at the nearby Burgess Correctional Institution, and is making a modest success of it when an auspicious star places his enemies within his reach. With the help of their own interpretations, digital effects, and the talents of a professional actress and choreographer, the Burgess Correctional Players prepare to video their Tempest. Not surprisingly, they view Caliban as the character with whom they have the most in common. However, Felix has another twist in mind, and his enemies are about to find themselves taking part in an interactive and illusion-ridden version of The Tempest that will change their lives forever. But how will Felix deal with his invisible Miranda’s decision to take a part in the play?

Prior to this book, I've never read anything by Margaret Atwood. Actually, that's not entirely true; I do really like her poem They Eat Out- there's a musical quality about it that I enjoy, even if the message behind it is fairly obvious if you've ever heard of her. But I've never read The Handmaid's Tale, nor any other novel by her simply because feminist lit just isn't my thing, and that particular book has always struck me as, well, reactionary isn't the right word but kind of like Atwood decided the best way to destroy an ant hill was to break out the blowtorch and gasoline. But I digress. 

I decided to read Hag-Seed though because I always wanted to read something by her, if for no other reason than she's a famous modern day literary icon whose name is known by basically anyone involved in literature. Even though it was both a retelling and Shakespeare, two things I am not as crazy about as a lot of people are. While I have no excuses nor regrets about not really liking retellings, Shakespeare is a point of shame with me and I do fully intend on reading Shakespeare voluntarily someday, but that day just hasn't come yet. Still, this was the least likely of her books to be filled with tired ideology, so I was willing to give it a go, and decided to keep an open mind and not go in with any expectations about her writing or the story.

One thing I noticed is that Atwood lacks subtlety. The connections between The Tempest and Felix's life were always fairly obvious, even without her explicitly pointing that out to us several times, and even to someone like me, who has just enough knowledge of the play itself to be able to understand references to it and make them myself, thank you TS Eliot. And even if you know nothing about the play, don't worry, this book basically tells you everything you need to know about it.

It's almost like Atwood just wanted to write about The Tempest, and then she remembered that she had to make it a retelling. Because a lot of this book is Felix teaching the inmates and putting the production on and not a lot is retelling. Which I liked, but it made the retelling parts feel like afterthoughts, and I had a hard time getting into the actual climax with Felix's revenge plot and Freddie and Sal and Tony and Anne-Marie because it was transparently obvious it was only in there to fill some requirement. 

In some places this novel reads more like a No Fear Shakespeare or a teaching guide for The Tempest. Seriously, she lays everything out for you, from the plot to the characters to the theme to everything. And if you missed all that, the story is rehashed in the back. I liked those parts, don't get me wrong, mostly because I am a bibliophile and like to read and talk and analyze books, but at the same time there's, again, very little subtlety. 

I also was reminded a lot of movies like Dead Poets Society or Stand and Deliver or whatever that movie was about that LA teacher who inspired her students to leave gangs and write. This isn't necessarily good or bad, just an observation.

So what did I like? While Atwood isn't as skillful a writer as I thought she would be- which genuinely surprised me- her descriptions were very well done, and I liked the absurdist elements in her characters. They seemed to live in their own weird world and it was nice way of adding whimsy to the novel without it smacking you in the face. The best parts of the book, though, were the parts with Felix and his daughter. Wonderfully, tragically done. 

I mean, I'm sure if you're a diehard Atwood or Shakespeare fan you'll love Hag-Seed. As it is, I'm happy I read it; even though it underwhelmed me, I was sufficiently entertained. It's not what I would consider perfect literature, or even good literature, but it's an okay read.

6.5 out of 10

Running by Cara Hoffman Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“The city was like a beacon. And it drew us from wherever we'd been left. For me, the outskirts of a smoke jumpers' base in a cold mountain town, for Jasper and Milo the London suburbs and rain-soaked council housing of Manchester. We were looking for nothing and had found it in Athens: Demeter's lips white as stone, Apollo's yellow mantle sun washed, sanded, wind loan to granite.”- Running, Cara Hoffman

Running brings together an ensemble of outsiders who get by as “runners”—hustlers who sell tourists on low-end accommodations for a small commission and a place to stay.

Bridey Sullivan, a young American woman who has fled a peculiar and traumatic upbringing in Washington State, takes up with a queer British couple, the poet Milo Rollack and Eton drop-out Jasper Lethe. Slipping in and out of homelessness, addiction, and under-the-table jobs, they create their own kind of family as they struggle to survive.

Jasper’s madness and consequent death frame a narrative of emotional intensity. In its midst this trio become linked to an act of terrorism. The group then splinters, taking us from Athens to the cliffs of the Mediterranean, and to modern-day New York.

Whether in the red light district of Athens or in the world of fire jumpers in the Pacific Northwest, we are always in a space of gorgeously wrought otherness.

Not since starting this blog have I stopped and erased and restarted a review as many times as I have for this book. I first attempted to write a review when I finished the novel for the first time, but decided I needed more time to think this book through. It's been two days, and I still think I need more time, though frankly at this point it could be one month later and I'd still not be able to get my thoughts entirely collected and articulate enough to be able to express exactly what this book did to me.

Because here's the thing. I didn't love this book while reading it. In fact, I spent most of the reading experience not knowing how to feel about the characters, the prose, the plot, you know, the three main things a reader is supposed to connect to to enjoy a novel. 

In fact, one might look at this book and think I would hate it, because it screams pretension, and even if this novel ends up topping your best of 2017 list you can't really deny that Hoffman has set out to write Literature with a capital L. Sad, really, because the most this novel could probably hope for is a devoted cult following, given that Hoffman is not a big name in the literary world even after three novels (by big name I mean someone along the same lines as Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, etc, authors who will regardless of personal taste go down in the classical canon, if even for one work) all of which have amazingly low scores for Goodreads, a website where almost every book has a score in the middling to upper three stars. Normally, I dislike books that are so transparently written to be Literature, since books like that often feel phony in some way. 

But there's something about this book that just, well, mesmerized me. The grittiness of the setting, the despicable characters, all of that just grabbed me. There's something very Beat Generation about it, and as I have a huge, little known soft spot for the much hated Beatniks it was easy for it to work for me. Also, I don't demand likability from my characters, unless of course the author demands it from me in which case the character is usually insufferable, so I wasn't too bothered by the horribleness of all three of the main characters- even Milo, the most likely candidate for the story's moral center. Four if you count Declan. I actually liked that Hoffman had so much confidence in her writing ability that the characters' ugliness worked well with the story, and I have to give her major props for refusing to add a character to function as an actual villain. Even Declan can't be wholly considered a villain, because, as Bridey says, he's still their friend. This was smart of Hoffman, and by doing so she introduces a great point so little seen done well in literature- that there are no villains in real life, because everyone is absolutely awful to each other.

That being said, I did have a favorite character or at least a character that intrigued me the most. And that was Jasper. Jasper is like if Sebastian from Brideshead Revisited went absolutely fucking mental and decided that when he inevitably self destructs, he is going to take the world down with him. I don't know why I liked Jasper so much, but I did. His flippant interactions with others and dark sense of humor actually got real laughs out of me, and his relationships with Milo and Bridey fascinated me, as well as his past. I was disappointed that so much was unsaid about Jasper, though I understand that it's more literary to have a character like that in a novel. Another reason why I liked Jasper so much was because he was a great take down of the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl or Boy or whatever, this seemingly free spirit whose effect on both Bridey and Milo (especially Milo) ended up being more detrimental than anything else. 

I think my biggest criticism- and it's a big one, the main reason why my actual reading experience wasn't that great- is the confused narrative. I think that the flashback parts with Bridey and the present parts with Milo did nothing to help the novel along and just made me not like either of the characters. Both Bridey's past and Milo's present were slow and meandering and dragged the story down. Bridey's present parts were less annoying in the grand scheme of the novel, because it made sense that she would come back to Greece to find the boys (although a bit maddening because she could just Google Milo's name and discover that he lived in New York). And besides, we did get some great descriptions of Greece to sate my lazy wanderlust (A part of me wants to travel, but the part of me that doesn't like leaving home always wins). I wish Hoffman had enough faith to let the main plot, Bridey and Jasper and Milo in Athens in the 80s, carry the book.

That being said, I am surprised just how much the prose grew on me, to the point where I kind of fell in love with it. I love the way this book is written, so much so that I even love the entire ending paragraph even though it's something that was so obviously tacked on for the sake of literature. There's a kind of ache to it that makes me feel like crying, and nowhere is this more apparent than the entire scene when Jasper and Milo are fighting about the passports and just how sick Jasper is is revealed. You don't have to like either of them, but you can't help but feel for them in that scene.

In the end, I think the fact that I can't stop thinking about this book makes me give it a higher score than it should actually have given. Not everyone is going to like this book. In fact, I'd wager a guess that many people will actually hate it, with good reason to, and I'd probably not recommend it out much at all. But the more I reflect on it, the more I like it, and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if my rating for this book actually goes up in retrospect- after all, in the days since reading I've tweaked the rating probably five times. I will need to read another Cara Hoffman novel eventually to see if I can form a more solid opinion on her and her books, but maybe not for a while. I haven't been this haunted by a book in a long time.

8-8.5 out of 10

Friday Brown (Friday Never Leaving) by Vikki Wakefield Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“I am nothing. I feel like nothing. I want my life to matter. What if one day I'm gone and nobody ever knew I existed?”- Friday Brown, Vikki Wakefield

Friday Brown has never had a home. She and her mother live on the road, running away from the past instead of putting down roots. So when her mom succumbs to cancer, the only thing Friday can do is keep moving. Her journey takes her to an abandoned house where a bunch of street kids are squatting, and an intimidating girl named Arden holds court.

Friday gets initiated into the group, but her relationship with Arden is precarious, which puts Friday-and anyone who befriends her-at risk. With the threat of a dangerous confrontation looming, Friday has to decide between returning to her isolated, transient life, or trying to help the people she's come to care about-if she can still make it out alive.

I have been wanting to read this book for a while now, ever since reading On the Jellicoe Road actually (that review was, interestingly enough, also when I said I wanted to try another Aussie YA classic, Graffiti Moon, which, as you know, is now one of my favorite books ever). I was intrigued by this book given the surface level similarities in its plot to On the Jellicoe Road, but was frustrated by the lack of availability in America. And then, while searching it on the iBooks store, I realized that the reason why I could never find it was because I was looking for the wrong book- in America, it was published as Friday Never Leaving, not Friday Brown. No idea why, especially since Friday Brown has a better ring to it, but hey, maybe the American audience doesn't really like it when titles are the name of the main character? Regardless, I was happy to have found the book if a little annoyed that I was looking in the wrong place the whole time.

Whatever. I'm still going to call it Friday Brown because I'm ornery. I still put both titles in the blog title so others don't get confused the way I did.

Anyway, it took me a bit to really get into this book. There was just something... missing about the writing that made it hard for me to connect with the writing and the characters. It wasn't bad by any means, and there were some things about it that I kind of really loved, but again, it just took me a while to really connect with. Maybe it's the fact that the main character is kind of bland. She has more of a reader based personality than a writer based, if that makes sense, and most of my impressions of her seem given by me as opposed to given to me.

The first half of the books strikes me as not great, but a necessary evil. Wakefield needed to have that first half take place in the city so she could establish the characters and give the reader time to grow attached to them or at least get a feel for who they are. I admit, I don't think the novel would have worked as well if it was just the second half in the ghost town and I would be confused as to why the characters are acting the way they do or why we should care what happens to them. Still, it was a bit boring and kind of mundane and the characters themselves also don't really shine until the second half.

But it was smart of Wakefield to tackle two very different settings- both an urban one and a rural one. It's always fascinating, in a Lord of the Flies sort of way, to see how characters react when taken out of their element, especially when taken out of civilization entirely. I mean, it's not unique, and the same thing can basically be seen in shows like LOST or the new uptick in YA of wilderness survival camp books. But in this book it's done particularly well, especially given that Wakefield has such a diverse cast of characters to look at. Though some of the reactions were a bit repetitive, like the city kids all being afraid of the town, we get to see an interesting change in dynamics between the group and Friday. In the city, she is the fish out of water, the one needing to be taught how to survive urban life. In the country, she is the expert, the one who actually knows what she's doing and has to teach these city kids how to do it.

That being said, the only characters I ever felt any real connection to were Friday, Silence, and Arden. All three intrigued me, and I was curious to see how each would develop over the course of the novel. The other characters struck me as being wasted potential. It would have been interesting if Wakefield expanded upon the backstories and character of AiAi, Joe, Carrie, Bree, Malik, and Darcy. I mean, I understood the point of Darcy, the bitch that got redeemed, but Carrie's position as a motherly figure could have been elaborated upon, Joe had unseen potential as the comic relief the book could have used (I'm one of those people who always needs some sort of comic relief in my books), Bree could have been Friday's best gal pal, etc. The only two characters that struck me as kind of superfluous were Malik and AiAi. I did kind of understand the point of Malik, being the sociopath bodyguard/boyfriend of Arden, and he had a surface level interesting character but didn't seem fleshed out enough to be wholly interesting. AiAi was probably meant to be some kind of morality pet, but we already had Silence as the morality pet, we didn't need him too. 

I didn't start really liking Friday, however, until we got more into the second part and the climax. I did always like Silence though, and found Arden an interesting character. Ever since she came on to the scene, I was intrigued by her and how she controlled the people under her care, though I wished Wakefield went more in depth into her backstory, why she chose cutting hair to assert dominance, her and her family, etc. 

Despite these criticisms, this book still gets a high score, or at least a higher score than On the Jellicoe Road. Why? Because the things Wakefield does well are done very, very well, so well in fact that I can forgive the things I didn't like as much. There were times in this novel, the climax especially, that I was glued to the book, and that made up for the times when it was obvious she was just doing something for the sake of the plot, like the quickly abandoned father story arc. I would love to read more Vikki Wakefield novels, though unfortunately many are not available in my tiny and obscure home country. Still, if I ever do come across any of her books, I'll probably pick them up. I get the impression that in Australia she's the discount Melina Marchetta, but this book worked for me in a way that On the Jellicoe Road didn't.

8-8.5 out of 10

If you liked this book, you may also like:

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined by Danielle Younge-Ullman

A Little Wanting Song by Cath Crowley Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“The music kicks in and maybe the bad times kick out and maybe the world's a little better for them than it was before.”- A Little Wanting Song, Cath Crowley

A summer of friendship, romance, and songs in major chords. . . 

CHARLIE DUSKIN loves music, and she knows she's good at it. But she only sings when she's alone, on the moonlit porch or in the back room at Old Gus's Secondhand Record and CD Store. Charlie's mom and grandmother have both died, and this summer she's visiting her grandpa in the country, surrounded by ghosts and grieving family, and serving burgers to the local kids at the milk bar. She's got her iPod, her guitar, and all her recording equipment, but she wants more: A friend. A dad who notices her. The chance to show Dave Robbie that she's not entirely unspectacular.

ROSE BUTLER lives next door to Charlie's grandfather and spends her days watching cars pass on the freeway and hanging out with her troublemaker boyfriend. She loves Luke but can't wait to leave their small country town. And she's figured out a way: she's won a scholarship to a science school in the city, and now she has to convince her parents to let her go. This is where Charlie comes in. Charlie, who lives in the city, and whom Rose has ignored for years. Charlie, who just might be Rose's ticket out.

Told in alternating voices and filled with music, friendship, and romance, Charlie and Rose's "little wanting song" is about the kind of longing that begins as a heavy ache but ultimately makes us feel hopeful and wonderfully alive.

I don't know why, but it was a while before I picked this Cath Crowley novel up. I think the combination of unattractive cover and not being too invested in the plot kind of turned me off to it, and if I hadn't been such a huge Cath Crowley fan after reading both Graffiti Moon and Words in Deep Blue I wouldn't have even given it a second glance. 

This is her debut, I believe, though it was out in Australia for five years before being re-released in either 2010 or 2011, when I think it was published world wide. This was probably due to the Australian success of Graffiti Moon. I believe it was also originally published as Chasing Charlie Duskin; that's what Goodreads tells me at least. And, being her debut, the writing isn't as gorgeously lyrical as it was in Graffiti Moon or Words in Deep Blue. It wasn't as easy to fall into her prose in this novel than it in her other books. There weren't as many beautiful, quotable moments either, and I ended up being disappointed by that.

I also found myself weirdly distracted while reading, and I don't really know why. Maybe because I read this book on my iPad and sometimes when I read books on there I can't concentrate as well.

The two main characters, Charlie and Rose, were like prototypes of the Cath Crowley MCs we would get in later books. Charlie is an artist, a musician, who thinks of her life in the context of songs and is has a dead mother whom she still talks to. Rose wants to escape from her small country hometown to go to a science school in Melbourne and become a marine biologist. Both have home lives that, while aren't completely typical, are extremely realistically done with beautiful nuance. And her characters are equally as realistic, with wants and needs that many teenagers could relate to. I especially loved it when Crowley would go in depth on their relationships with their parents.

The banter and relationships are something also done very well. I rooted for Charlie and Dave, and was sad when Rose and Luke didn't work out like I hoped it would. Sometimes I wish YA novels didn't always pit love against dreams; it would be nice for a little recognition that you can have both. I brought up the banter because Crowley is the only author who can write banter in a way that actually makes me laugh. I even also found myself tearing up at some points, though it wasn't on the same level as the amount of emotions I felt reading her other two books.

Cath Crowley hasn't been in my life for very long, but my adoration for her novels hasn't lessened. I find myself loving her books despite the fact that, let's face it, they aren't the best literature ever put out there. And this novel isn't as good as her other books. But, I think I've established myself as being completely irrational in my liking of her, so I ended up enjoying this one, not as much, but in a different way. I appreciate this book for what it is, the predecessor to her other wonderful books- though I admit that without that context this one is pretty forgettable.

8 out of 10

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“No one had to explain to me the power our childhoods had over us, even when we fought like hell against them.” - The Roanoke Girls, Amy Engel

Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.

After her mother's suicide, fifteen year-old Lane Roanoke came to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, on their vast estate in rural Kansas. Lane knew little of her mother's mysterious family, but she quickly embraced life as one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But when she discovered the dark truth at the heart of the family, she ran fast and far away.

Eleven years later, Lane is adrift in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls to tell her Allegra has gone missing. Did she run too? Or something worse? Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to help search, and to ease her guilt at having left Allegra behind. Her homecoming may mean a second chance with the boyfriend whose heart she broke that long ago summer. But it also means facing the devastating secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.

As it weaves between Lane's first Roanoke summer and her return, The Roanoke Girls shocks and tantalizes, twisting its way through revelation after mesmerizing revelation, exploring the secrets families keep and the fierce and terrible love that both binds them together and rips them apart.

No, this book is not about Roanoke colony. Which is kind of like the literary equivalent of click bait because when I saw the cover I thought it would be about that, and maybe something to do with Virginia, the first baby born in America and her descendants being discovered or something like that. Which is actually a good idea for story and one I now need to write before anyone else does. Still, Engel or her publishers probably figured that putting Roanoke in the title would get all the American Horror Story fans flocking, just like how some many historical fiction writers are writing books about Hamilton.

But anyway, this book is more along the same lines, albeit a tamer, more domestic version, as possibly the most infamous episode of the X Files of all time. In fact, if this book was nonfiction and as a result had to have a long ass subtitle, I like to think that it would be called The Roanoke Girls: Come On, Granddad, Let's Make Some More!

Also, the Nabokov quote was good to start off with, because it reminded me of that one part in Lolita when Humbert Humbert fantastizes about starting a whole line of Lolitas. That part managed to creep me out more than this entire book did.

Let's start with my least favorite part of the book- the writing. Now, usually when I hate a book, I hate the plot, characters, etc, but not the writing. Lately though, I've been lucky enough to read some badly written books. While the writing isn't as offensive to my eyes as the writing in The Rattled Bones, it still is pretty bad. YA cash grab bad. You can tell the writer is used to writing books that don't take much effort to be considered good. And when I looked up Engel's other book series, really a duology, I wasn't surprised at all to find out it was YA dystopian. Look okay, one of my favorite book series of all time is YA dystopian, but just by looking at the synopsis on Goodreads I can tell that it was published in 2014, thus it was part of the dystopian craze during which publishers put out anything that could even remotely be considered dystopian, rushing all of it just so they could strike while the iron's hot. That kind of shit is all over her writing, with her main character being the kind of impossibly gorgeous men drool over, with her "long, coltish legs" "willowy frame" and, of course, big boobies. This is despite the fact that big boobies and willowy frame are two descriptions that do not usually go together. She also has naturally highlighted dark hair and eyes that are a color rarely seen outside of fantasy novels "ice blue... with starbursts of green around the pupil". Wow, so special. Wow, so unique. 

But of course, to balance out this beauty, she needs a tragic past. She has to be tough, no nonsense, the kind of girl with street smarts, who makes bad decision and treats people like shit because she has to hurt people, you see, she can't let anyone into her heart. But she'll make an exception for the beautiful bad boy love interest with the shitty daddy. It's almost painful how much Engel is trying to channel Gillian Flynn's typical unlikable female protagonists. The whole "beautiful but broken" thing comes across as trying too hard and something that can only be gotten away with in YA cash grabs.

There's something so soap opera-y about this book that just drives me up a wall. Everything is so dramatic, every little thing is vital to the plot, the characters point things out that should be obvious and the author acts like that's okay as long as she disguises it with a pretty quote. Problem is, that quote never says anything new or important or not melodramatic. And the dialogue is particularly horrible, filled with loaded statements and out pours of the heart to complete strangers. Of course, I am from chilly, reserved New England, maybe people really do tell barely more than acquaintances that their husband never loved them, who knows? I've never been to Kansas. I think my favorite part is when Allegra has an emotional breakdown on top of a carousel horse after getting drunk because of what's going on in the plot. This is treated as some big moment, when anyone who has ever been around drunk people for more than three minutes knows that drunk people, especially drunk girls, burst in to tears for things as little as a broken nail. 

And of course, can't forget the teenspeak. Engel seems to be convinced that in order to sound convincingly like a teenager, you must insert as many swear words in your dialogue as possible. Needless to say, the teenagers got basically insufferable after a while.

As a whole, this book was surprisingly boring for a book about incest. Once I guessed the whole plot about twenty pages in, it became almost unbearable to read. So much relationship drama, so much going on that had no place in the plot and shouldn't be in the book, so much of Engel trying to build atmosphere and add drama and suspense to a book that had plenty in it without the forced love story and flashbacks of then vs now that had surprisingly less to do with the plot than it should have. I mean, Engel didn't get at all that she should have focused on the granddad, Allerga, and the rest of the Roanoke girls as opposed to Lane and Cooper and Tommy and Allegra and all that nothing. 

Which is a shame, because in the hands of a much better writer, this book could have been something really great and dark and twisted and American Gothic. Instead, no, we got this 274 page soap opera in book form. Engel is what I like to think of as a plot thief, along the same lines as an oxygen thief in that she has taken an idea and made bad an idea that I could have loved if another, better writer got to write it. No writers come to mind at the moment, but in this case I think anyone would have been better than Engel.

So those are my thoughts on The Roanoke Girls. I'm off to read something far, far better. I haven't decided on what yet, but I have a feeling it will be good!

4 out of 10

The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich Review

Before Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, she thinks her position is clear. The child of two lawyers, she is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley’s face flashes on the screen as she reviews old tapes―the moment she hears him speak of his crimes―she is overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by her reaction, she digs deeper and deeper into the case. Despite their vastly different circumstances, something in his story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar.

Crime, even the darkest and most unsayable acts, can happen to any one of us. As Alexandria pores over the facts of the murder, she finds herself thrust into the complicated narrative of Ricky’s childhood. And by examining the details of Ricky’s case, she is forced to face her own story, to unearth long-buried family secrets, and reckon with a past that colors her view of Ricky's crime.

But another surprise awaits: She wasn’t the only one who saw her life in Ricky’s.

An intellectual and emotional thriller that is also a different kind of murder mystery, The Fact Of a Body is a book not only about how the story of one crime was constructed―but about how we grapple with our own personal histories. Along the way it tackles questions about the nature of forgiveness, and if a single narrative can ever really contain something as definitive as the truth. This groundbreaking, heart-stopping work, ten years in the making, shows how the law is more personal than we would like to believe―and the truth more complicated, and powerful, than we could ever imagine. 

The nonfiction books I've been picking up lately have been especially good, and continuing that winning streak we have The Fact of a Body. This was one of two extremely hyped up nonfiction crime novels this year, and it seemed much much more interesting than the other one, American Fire, about arson, a crime even more boring than money laundering or other financial crimes. Also, it's by the same author as one of my least favorite books last year. So when looking at both books in the library I only came home with one, this one.

The Fact of the Body is kind of in the same tradition as In Cold Blood, looking at a heinous crime and then looking at the man who committed such an act. Both crimes are roughly on the same side of horrible, the men in In Cold Blood killing four people, including two teenagers, in a home invasion and the man in this book killing a child after maybe sexually assaulting him. Or perhaps he killed the child and then sexually assaulted him. The details were never really worked out. I put these two crimes on the same level because crimes against children are hideous no question. 

After Marzano-Lesnevich establishes the crime and the crime's effects on the people of the town, like Capote she then launches into Ricky Smith's (the man who did it) past. There could be strong parallels drawn between him and Perry Smith. Both come from less than ideal home lives, big families with alcoholic mothers. Both have less than normal mental states, there is something easily pitied about them. While it was easier to pity Perry than Ricky, I can't help but feel something for them both. Of course, I've always been sensitive to people who come across as sad or desperate or childish seeming. I mean, I've been watching The People vs OJ Simpson and I just feel bad for everyone in that show except Shapiro and Cochlan. So really, it's not that hard to garner my pity, I'm pretty susceptible to sob stories, it's mostly why I oppose the death penalty. That being said, I'm not saying that Ricky Smith should be free or be in a mental institution instead of jail, no the man belongs in prison for life, no questions asked, but he doesn't deserve to die.

An interesting question that this book brings up is the question of pedophilia. Can a person with it get help? Can they change? Or are they people who just can't help themselves? I'm not a psychologist, far from it actually, but I don't think they can change. On one hand, the book leads you to pity the pedophile, who tried to get help only to have it fail, but on the other hand... pedophiles hurt children. They aren't kleptomaniacs who don't actually hurt anyone. Children do not and never will understand sex or romantic love, you cannot be in a mutual relationship with a five year old. In the end, I think there is nothing to do but put the pedophile in jail.

Also, I'm pretty sure Ricky Smith has some form of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The childish, impulsive way he acts certainly points to that, especially since his mother apparently drank steadily throughout her entire pregnancy.

However, I wasn't as taken with the memoir part of the book as I was with the crime part, though I'm sure it was very cathartic to write. 

Marzano-Lesnevich is a very good writer, one who definitely knows how to tell a story, and I can see her going far in the literary world. I liked her style, and how she endeavors to show all sides of the story, and her own perspective on her childhood abuse. While she doesn't claim to speak for all those who were abused as children, likely this book will be very helpful for someone who went through something similar.

In the end, I highly recommend this book to someone who likes crime books or family dramas or both, regardless of which side one falls on the death penalty. I will definitely watch for more of Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich's work.

8.5 out of 10