Book review: Imaginary Girls

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. Linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday.

Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby's friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby.

But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

Real talk: I didn't like this book.

But I finished it.

Why did I do that?

I think, similar to The Maze Runner (reviewed here), the mystery of it hooked me.

There were a few things I liked. (And I hate giving an entirely negative review.)

ONE. The author does a great job with details. Really. The details create an eerie quality essential to the book. Things like the feel of the reservoir when it floods its banks, when Chloe discovers an inhuman talent of another character... It's surreal and creepy and gives the book a haunting mood that made me not want to give up.

TWO. There are some really great characters. I love Pete -- a guy hopelessly in love with Ruby even though she barely gives him the time of day, who you can relate to someone in your life. And just the lives of the young people -- London's friends mostly -- and the way they relate to each other seemed very realistic to me. Hanging out on the green or in a graveyard because where else are teenagers supposed to go to be free from parental inspection?


Things that bothered me included:

ONE. There is a HUGE mystery (which I'll not reveal here because maybe you still want to read it and maybe you'll love it because lots of people on Goodreads do). And one of the things that bothers me most is that Chloe, the main character, doesn't really seem to care. It doesn't bother her at all. She's content just going around buyin sunglasses and eatin popsicles as if something insane and impossible isn't happening.

TWO. Also: Ruby sucks. Chloe looks up to her and always talks about how Ruby is the only one who cares about her and would do anything for her. But from my point of view, Ruby only cares about herself, and the qualities Chloe admires are that Ruby can get people to do what she wants them to and that she's beautiful. So I didn't believe Chloe's admiration or gratefulness, and I wished the author would give us a little more to buy into.

THREE. Oh, and the Ruby is pretty and can get anyone to do anything she wants? Yeah, you really, really get beat over the head with that message. Apparently this is very important and the author did not want us to admit it. Which is ironic because...

FOUR. I needed the author to come out and tell me a lot of things that she just hinted at instead. I felt like I was missing parts of the book, or that I should know something I didn't. It was a very frustrating reading experience.


Once again, I don't know why I kept reading it, since I have no problem putting down most books if I don't enjoy them. I guess I hoped it would get less frustrating and I would get some answers. (Spoiler: I didn't.)

So I guess I'm not really recommending this book, but I am wondering if anyone out there has read it? Please don't reveal spoilers in the comments. But if you have read it, let me know because I'd love to hear your opinions!

Have any of you read this book? Or alternately, do you guys ever get sucked into books even if you hate yourself for it? 

Book review: In Honor

In Honor by Jessi Kirby

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. Linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday.

Honor receives her brother’s last letter from Iraq three days after learning that he died, and opens it the day his fellow Marines lay the flag over his casket. Its contents are a complete shock: concert tickets to see Kyra Kelly, her favorite pop star and Finn’s celebrity crush. In his letter, he jokingly charged Honor with the task of telling Kyra Kelly that he was in love with her.

Grief-stricken and determined to grant Finn’s last request, she rushes to leave immediately. But she only gets as far as the driveway before running into Rusty, Finn’s best friend since third grade and his polar opposite. She hasn’t seen him in ages, thanks to a falling out between the two guys, but Rusty is much the same as Honor remembers him: arrogant, stubborn . . . and ruggedly good-looking. Neither one is what the other would ever look for in a road trip partner, but the two of them set off together, on a voyage that makes sense only because it doesn’t. Along the way, they find small and sometimes surprising ways to ease their shared loss and honor Finn--but when shocking truths are revealed at the end of the road, will either of them be able to cope with the consequences?

I've been waiting to read this one for a long time. I read and liked Kirby's Moonglass, and have heard amazing, amazing things about this book. I actually won the book in a giveaway through Goodreads and then never received it.

While Pat and I were getting ready to go home for Thanksgiving, I got the email that In Honor had come in at the library. Perfect timing! I was able to read this whole (short) book in just a few nights.

In Honor is about Honor, whose brother just died in Iraq and who sets out on a mission/quest/road trip and is accompanied by her brother Finn's former best friend Rusty. Thoughts:

1. Kirby did a wonderful job portraying grief. I thought it was so realistic. How it comes and goes. How sometimes you can remember the one you've lost happily and think of the good times and then the next moment your grief hits you like a bowling ball to the stomach. And also the guilt you feel when you realize you've been happy for a few minutes when you should have been grieving.

2. I loved how nature was such a part of Honor's grieving process. She watches the stars and the sunrise and climbs into mountains and has a lot of time for introspection.

3. In my review of Moonglass, I mentioned that I think Kirby's biggest strength is her ability to write great characters. I think that holds true for In Honor, too. I loved Rusty and Honor, the two main characters, but once again, the people who most stick out to me are the minor characters, like Rusty's mom's boyfriend Bru, who I loved. Also his mom, who was wonderful, and a boy Honor meets serendipitously at a campsite during the roadtrip. I love how Kirby uses "minor" characters to bring about change in the main characters -- because I don't know about you, but I know some of the most random people in my life have caused huge changes to who I am, have made me think the most, and sometimes have changed the entire trajectory of my life.

4. Okay, I have to say it: The book is kind of predictable. Some things, you know they're coming probably as soon as you read that description above. And also, some things that happen are just too convenient and probably wouldn't have worked out so easily in real life. But there are lots of small moments and characters along the way that make this story really beautiful and worth reading.

I gave it three stars on Goodreads. I really did like it, and it's definitely worth the read, but probably not one I'll remember forever, and I probably won't read it again unless I'm looking to write grief realistically myself. (must remember this one!)

Oh, and it's probably also worth mentioning -- Kirby reportedly based Rusty off the character Tim Riggins from the show Friday Night Lights. Just FYI. :)

Have any of you read In Honor? What did you think?

Book review: Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. Linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday.

Once upon a time, Hazel and Jack were best friends. They had been best friends since they were six, spending hot Minneapolis summers and cold Minneapolis winters together, dreaming of Hogwarts and Oz, superheroes and baseball. Now that they were eleven, it was weird for a boy and a girl to be best friends. But they couldn't help it - Hazel and Jack fit, in that way you only read about in books. And they didn't fit anywhere else.

And then, one day, it was over. Jack just stopped talking to Hazel. And while her mom tried to tell her that this sometimes happens to boys and girls at this age, Hazel had read enough stories to know that it's never that simple. And it turns out, she was right. Jack's heart had been frozen, and he was taken into the woods by a woman dressed in white to live in a palace made of ice. Now, it's up to Hazel to venture into the woods after him. Hazel finds, however, that these woods are nothing like what she's read about, and the Jack that Hazel went in to save isn't the same Jack that will emerge. Or even the same Hazel.

Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," Breadcrumbsis a story of the struggle to hold on, and the things we leave behind.

I didn't love this book. And here's why:

1. It took way too long to get interesting. If I didn't have it on audio (and if it wasn't the only one that had been loaded onto my phone) I probably would have put it down with a bookmark and not reopened it and then realized it was due and said oh well. Seriously, I didn't really get interested until Chapter 15. Fifteen! Out of 25! That's way too late. Especially since it's billed as a fairy tale, but all those fifteen chapters mostly focus on Hazel's life at home.

2. The best characters in the whole book only have one scene, maybe two. And there's a few other things like this -- things that could have been so much more if the author had pushed a little. Instead, she mentioned them and moved on.

3. Hazel was too thick headed, I think. There were a few times she walked into something, even having been warned, and I was like, what are you doing?

I think those are the top three. I didn't hate the book. It was just all right, though.

Although you all know I love books written for a younger audience, it's possible I was just too old for this and/or too much of a writer myself to enjoy it. (Sometimes I get too wrapped up in the mechanics of the story -- the writer makes me see what's supposed to be happening backstage, makes me look up -- any other writers get that?)

Anyway. It's all right. But certainly not my favorite read of the year.

Anyone read Breadcrumbs? I'd love to hear what you think!

Book review: Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. Linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday.

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.
For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger?
Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class": lessons in how to live.
"Tuesdays with Morrie" is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.

Before reading this book, I knew that it was a book everyone loved, and that's about it. I'd heard it described in ways that led me to believe it was life changing, one I'd want to read over and over again.

My feeling after reading?

Meh.

It wasn't bad. I didn't ever want to quit reading it. But it wasn't life changing, either.

Morrie is wise. I agree with pretty much everything he says. We (everyone) should be more focused on family and people, less ambitious about money and power. What really matters is the way you treat people, the interactions you have with them, the effect you have on them.

But really, of all the lessons Mitch learns from Morrie, that's the only one that stuck with me. I couldn't tell you any of his other wisdom because I don't remember it. (and I read it very recently.)

Maybe I'm seeing it too much through my own creative writing experience.

If you've done any classroom creative writing, I'm sure you've heard the phrase "show, don't tell." And I wonder if maybe that's why none of it stuck with me -- it's great to hear an old man tell me all the things he's learned about life, but I think they would stick with me more if I'd actually known Morrie, if I could see him living his life that way and see what it actually looks like.

I also know that creative non-fiction isn't always completely true. That sounds like stating the obvious, but many may take this book as absolutely true. Morrie was interviewed for national television and you can still find those videos, and Mitch Albom constantly talks about the tape recorder he used. But even if we were both there in the room, my perspective of events might not be the same as Mitch's. So I guess I'm also wary of that (as I would be in any memoir or piece of non-fiction).

So, like I said above, I didn't hate it. But I didn't love it.

Have any of you read Tuesdays with Morrie? Was it what you were expecting?

Book review: The Talisman

The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. Linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday.

On a brisk autumn day, a twelve-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: his father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America--and into another realm.

One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written,The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother's life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. Let the quest begin...

My dad has been telling me to read this book for as long as I can remember. My dad doesn't read a lot, so when he recommends a book, you know it's going to be good.

I resisted, with the same answer every time: I don't want to read a scary book.

My dad insisted it wasn't scary and I ignored him until I stumbled upon this audiobook at the library.

He was right: it isn't scary. So don't let the typical Stephen King scariness hold you back.

The Talisman is a typical epic journey -- Jack has a quest to find the Talisman, a mystical object in another (dangerous, confusing) dimension, though he doesn't know what it is or exactly where, other than that it's in a hotel on the east coast. He's not even really sure what it will do.

But he has great motivation: he's been told it will save his mother's life.

Jack's journey also helps him connect with his father, who died five-ish years before the start of the book and who could also flip into the other dimension.

But his journey is dangerous, and there are a lot of people out to get Jack.

I liked this book. A lot. I gave it four stars on Goodreads.

I believed Jack as a character, mostly, and believed his motivation to save his mom and understand his father was enough to get him through all the stuff he has to go through -- which is a lot. A lot.

I liked the characters a lot, especially one named Wolf. Wolf is a human/werewolf and has the loyalty of your favorite puppy. He's sweet and innocent and fierce. I loved Wolf.

But all the characters are unique and believable. There's nothing in this book that's like anything I've ever read.

And you find yourself pulling for Jack, and Wolf, and the other "good guys." Which is a sign of a great book -- when you want the characters to succeed.

King and Straub also created such a cool other world. The Territories, the other dimension Jack can visit, is so different from America. The people are different, the creatures are different. There are even regions to the Territories. The Blasted Lands, which come near the end of the book, were especially fascinating.

One quick warning: though the book isn't scary, per se, there is a lot of graphic stuff. Violence, for one, but also detailed descriptions of the violence. And a weird fixation on genitals, which are described often as part of character descriptions. Weird.

But none of that really ever made me want to stop -- and this was a long book. Twenty four full discs. I wished a little bit that I wasn't listening to it sometimes because it would be easier to skip the graphic parts, but I also loved the narrator and the way he read the characters, so we'll call it even.

Have any of you read The Talisman? It's definitely not my "normal" book (if I even have a normal anymore) but I loved it. What did you think?