Waiting on Wednesday (237)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that allows bloggers to share which books we are most anticipating.

This week I am waiting on:  Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman (2/27/2018):

Description from Goodreads:

Meet Tess, a brave new heroine from beloved epic fantasy author Rachel Hartman.

In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess, stubbornly, is a troublemaker. You can't make a scene at your sister's wedding and break a relative's nose with one punch (no matter how pompous he is) and not suffer the consequences. As her family plans to send her to a nunnery, Tess yanks on her boots and sets out on a journey across the Southlands, alone and pretending to be a boy.

Where Tess is headed is a mystery, even to her. So when she runs into an old friend, it's a stroke of luck. This friend is a quigutl--a subspecies of dragon--who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road. But Tess is guarding a troubling secret. Her tumultuous past is a heavy burden to carry, and the memories she's tried to forget threaten to expose her to the world in more ways than one.

Returning to the fascinating world she created in the award-winning and New York Times bestselling Seraphina, Rachel Hartman introduces readers to a new character and a new quest, pushing the boundaries of genre once again in this wholly original fantasy.

Why I’m Waiting:

I loved Seraphina. I actually never read the sequel, but I think I will some time soon. I’d need to re-read book 1 first. Any way, I remember it being an amazingly interesting world, with an awesome kick-butt girl main character. This new book sounds to be kind of similar. Plus, dragons! Plus, I love stories where the girl dresses as a boy. And, that cover! I can’t wait to get my hands on this book.

What are you waiting on this week?

Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

Summary from Goodreads:

An unlikely teenager starts a feminist revolution at a small-town Texan high school in the new novel from Jennifer Matheiu, author of The Truth About Alice.

MOXIE GIRLS FIGHT BACK!

Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with a school administration at her small-town Texas high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.

Viv's mom was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the '90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother's past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She's just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.

Moxie is a book about high school life that will make you wanna riot!

Review:

This seems to be the year of reading books I didn’t know how badly I needed. I needed this book. I needed this book so badly that at times, I had goose bumps and tears in my eyes. I have felt what Viv has felt. I have seen dress codes only apply to women. I have been groped by male classmates (whether as part of a dumb game like Viv’s school was doing, or just because men feel like they can). I have listened to boys say stupid things like, “go back to the kitchen,” “make me a sandwich,” and “why are women even allowed to drive?” and like Viv I never wanted to cause any problems or draw too much attention to myself. Life can be scary when you’re a woman.

Her zine or newsletter (as every other character referred to it) reminded me of all these things I have seen, witnessed, listened to all my life and always hated. And I’m so glad someone wrote a book about this. More girls (myself included) need to know that we can stand up and fight against these problems.

I love that this book also focused so highly on friendship. It didn’t matter what social circle, racial group, or religon these girls belonged to. They all could relate to what Viv was angry about. All girls can relate. And watching all these different girls from various backgrounds come together, stand together, was such a powerful thing. And it was probably the strongest message from this book overall: the power of girls working together is mind blowing and fierce.

We’re finally at a point in time where YA literature is reflecting the current political atmosphere. People want to read books where the little guy wins, where women can start a revolution and succeed, and where small successes can mean the world. Sure, we will always need distraction and YA generates some of my all time favorite distraction. But, lately, I’ve been feeling this mass need of something else: hope. Hope for a future with less sexism, racism, and hatred.

Was this the perfect book? No. I thought Viv’s romance actually could have been taken out of the book. It’s weird when I’m skimming through the romantic stuff so I can get back to the plot, but I was doing that there. I’m not sure the main character needed to avoid telling her mom things for as long as she did either. But, honestly, this book was so powerful, positive, fierce, and hopeful that none of that stuff really bothered me at all. I give this a 10/10. I hope for more books like this.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

Summary from Goodreads:

Sometimes it’s not the kid you expect who falls through to magicland, sometimes it’s . . . Elliot. He’s grumpy, nerdy, and appalled by both the dearth of technology and the levels of fitness involved in swinging swords around. He’s a little enchanted by the elves and mermaids. Despite his aversion to war, work, and most people (human or otherwise) he finds that two unlikely ideas, friendship and world peace, may actually be possible.

Review:

This book is everything! Seriously, it is everything I have always wanted and needed in a book. It’s probably my favorite book of the year and will go down as one of my all time favorite books. How do I know this already? Well, I’ve already re-read my favorite moments! I finished it one day, and within hours had to go back and re-read some parts again. It is sadly a library book and I’m dreading the moment I have to return it. However, I’ve decided that I must own a copy and will be purchasing it soon.

One of my biggest pet peeves in fantasy novels is how rough women have it. Seriously, why do so many women get walked over, raped, mistreated, and spit on in fantasy books? If it’s a fantasy story any way, why can’t more women be placed higher in the hierarchy? This is something I’ve asked myself every year, ever time I read a fantasy novel that I love. Yes, there are some powerful ladies in fantasy lately. Thank goodness. But how about some powerful ladies that don’t have to always prove themselves to men?

Thank you, Sarah Rees Brennan for making the elf characters of this book. I absolutely never got tired of Serene commenting on the softness of men. There’s even a moment when she interrupts a war scene to yell for men to come to the rescue of a lost child because she expects men to have the better ability to relate to the poor thing. I never got tired of this commentary and every time it happened, I smiled. I knew I needed a book that did something like this, but I guess I never knew how much I needed it: super freaking badly.

The fantastic feminist aspect of the book is actually only one of the many amazing elements that is this story. We also get a bisexual main character! I love having a main character who loves both men and women. I can’t honestly come up with another YA book that does this. Elliot falls in love with characters not based soley on what they look like (or what gender they are), but on what they believe and how many books they have in their rooms.

Elliot is such a character. He can be pretty snotty, mean, and awful at moments, but generally he is someone who can love all people and creatures. He genuinely is a paficist who believes wars can be avoided through treaties. And he sees the beauty in mermaids, harpies, and even trolls in a society of humans who of course still have prejudice against those who are different. Elliot was also born into such a terrible family. Watching him learn to love and be loved was maybe half the appeal of this remarkable character. He really does have to learn these things.

I also adored Luke. He was so used to being adored at every turn, and then comes Elliot, the meanest of all sarcastic characters, who is always pushing sweet Luke away. Their friendship to me was powerful. I loved watching Elliot learn to love Luke. I thought all the competition and jealousies between the trio made them more real. Nothing was ever truly easy for any of them.

While this is a fantasy that takes place over various wars, treaties, magic school years, and battles, it is mostly a character driven book. It is not a book for people who need heavier plots in their fantasy. It is a book for character lovers and world builders. This world is so magically interesting and believable at the same time. The battles among the different creatures seem like battles that can take place between different groups of humans; they are about land mostly, and honor…

Brennan develops this whole sense of mythology to her world where I was just as interested as Elliot to learn about it. I would read another book in this world if she wrote one.

This is also a book that pokes fun at is own genre. It kind of plays with the concept of what is expected in YA/Middle Grade fantasy and flips it around. It plays with gender, sexuality, and romance. But it also plays with the reader’s expectations of school, friendships, love triangles, popularity, athleticism, etc. It pokes fun of chosen ones and boys who can see the magical divide. It’s a book that both satirizes it’s genre and bends it genre into something new and better.

I can probably go on and on about this book and dissect it way past the point where anyone would keep reading my review. But, I’ll stop. I love this book. I can’t wait for more people to read it. I give it a 10/10.

Waiting on Wednesday (236)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that allows bloggers to share which books we are most anticipating.

This week I am waiting on:  The Last Girl on Earth by Alexandra Blogier (1/23/2018):

Description on Goodreads:

Li has a father and a sister who love her. A best friend, Mirabae, to share things with. She goes to school and hangs out at the beach and carefully follows the rules. She has to. Everyone she knows--her family, her teachers, her friends--is an alien. And she is the only human left on Earth.

A secret that could end her life.

The Abdoloreans hijacked the planet sixteen years ago, destroying all human life. Li's human-sympathizer father took her in as a baby and has trained her to pass as one of them. The Abdoloreans appear human. But they don't think with human minds or feel with human hearts. And they have special abilities no human could ever have.

Fit in or die.

When Li meets Ryn, she's swept up in a relationship that could have disastrous consequences. How far will Li go to stay alive? Will she save herself--and in turn, the human race--or will she be the final witness to humanity's destruction?

Why I’m Waiting:

This sounds so cool! I love the idea of a YA main character being the last human on Earth. I’ve read sci-fi where there’s only one human on an alien planet. But to have only one human left on this planet? And needing to fit in with the aliens that killed everyone else? This sounds epic.

What are you waiting on this week?

Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley

Summary from Goodreads:

Love lives between the lines.

Years ago, Rachel had a crush on Henry Jones. The day before she moved away, she tucked a love letter into his favorite book in his family’s bookshop. She waited. But Henry never came.

Now Rachel has returned to the city—and to the bookshop—to work alongside the boy she’d rather not see, if at all possible, for the rest of her life. But Rachel needs the distraction, and the escape. Her brother drowned months ago, and she can’t feel anything anymore. She can’t see her future.

Henry’s future isn’t looking too promising, either. His girlfriend dumped him. The bookstore is slipping away. And his family is breaking apart.

As Henry and Rachel work side by side—surrounded by books, watching love stories unfold, exchanging letters between the pages—they find hope in each other. Because life may be uncontrollable, even unbearable sometimes. But it’s possible that words, and love, and second chances are enough.

Review:

I’m hitting a reading jackpot lately! Seriously, I was in a bit of slump and nothing was appealing to me. And all of a sudden, wham, everything is unbelievable. I received an ARC of this book months ago, with no knowledge of what it was about. I also am only now noticing how cute the cover is. It’s a cover made up of books!

Basically, I just read it because I wanted a fluffy sounding paperback to take with me to the beach. I’m at the end of my much pined for week of vacation (that I always take at the end of the summer to recuperate from Summer Reading and spend time with my mom). I thought this sounded like a nice beach book.

It’s not quite as fluffy as I was hoping for. There is some serious sadness in this book. I shed a few tears at certain moments. It’s one thing to read about a YA main character who has lost a parent, but it’s quite another when she has lost a sibling. I felt so sad for Rachel on various levels. I of course felt bad about her brother. But, also I felt bad that her best friend/crush of many years never responded to her. Unrequited love is the worst.

That being said, it quickly became clear to me why Henry never got back to her. And it was slightly annoying that this thought never occurred to Rachel. I guess this speaks volumes for how kind and good she is. Also, I like that both Rachel and Henry got to be with other people and learn from past mistakes. I also love that there were side love stories too. I found George to be so interesting and l loved her letter-writing relationship.

Mostly, though, what stands out in this books is the books. The bookstore where the characters work, love, and live is magical. I want to go there. I want to fall asleep in the fiction section. I want to go to the book club and talk with all the regulars. I want to have dumplings once a week and talk about what I’m reading. This setting for growing up is a dream. I loved the scenes that took place at clubs and outside, but really, I kept counting my time until I could return to the bookstore.

This is another book for booklovers. It’s filled with fiction, poetry, nonfiction, classics, and more. There’s a place called the letter library, where characters are supposed to write in the margins of books that can never go out. They write letters to each other there too. What a romantic, beautiful concept.

I loved the characters though maybe Rachel was a little too good/naïve. I loved the audlts in the background. I also loved the friends who were going through their own dramas as compared to just being their for the main character’s play. Sometimes it’s hard for me to immerse myself in the language of Australian books because things can get said that are so out of context for me that I get taken out of the story and have to think too much. But, this was different. Everything flowed nicely. All in all I give it a 9/10.

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

Summary from Goodreads:

The story of a young woman whose diabolical smarts are her ticket into a charmed life. But how many times can someone reinvent themselves? You be the judge.

Imogen is a runaway heiress, an orphan, a cook, and a cheat.
Jule is a fighter, a social chameleon, and an athlete.
An intense friendship. A disappearance. A murder, or maybe two.
A bad romance, or maybe three.
Blunt objects, disguises, blood, and chocolate. The American dream, superheroes, spies, and villains.
A girl who refuses to give people what they want from her.
A girl who refuses to be the person she once was.

Review:

I loved this one. I read it in two sittings. One at the beach and one at home before going to bed extremely late.  It’s one of those books where you both hate and love the main character at the same time. You hate her because you quickly suspect her of foul play, most likely murder. But you love her because of how smart, bad-ass, and determined she is.

This book is unique. It’s told backwards. It literally starts at the end of the story, with the main character on the run in Mexico. She’s in disguise at a fancy hotel until she becomes aware of a cop following her. With each chapter, you’re taken back 1 week, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, etc. until you learn why the main character is running from cops in Mexico. I could see some people hating this writing style. But, for me, it worked 100%. It kept me riveted the whole time. I had to know what brought this character to this low point.

This is a short novel, but by no means an easy novel. Besides it moving backwards, it’s also loaded with references. It reads like an homage to The Talented Mr. Ripley. It also is chock-full of Victorian literature references and nods to orphan stories. There’s super hero movie references too. In a way it’s like if The Talented Mr. Ripley was re-written very specifically for me. I love super hero movies and Victorian literature. To me, Jule was a modern day Becky Sharp. I wouldn’t call her Batman or any superhero really, but I saw the similarities to Victorian orphans.

This is a book for book lovers, and definitely for English majors. It’s an English Major’s dream. Can you catch every reference this is filled with? Also, I love that a part of it takes place in Martha’s Vineyard because I live on Cape Cod, and I could picture it so well. I loved the international travel. I loved the complex relationships. I love that nothing is told for the reader straight out. You have to keep reading to see why Jule was connected to Imogen to begin with. You have to read it all the way through to find out why all these things happened.

I loved this book. It is very much not for everyone. And I can see some people struggling with the layout or even some of the intense similarities it has with a book I already mentioned. But, for me, it all fit perfectly. I give it a 9/10.

The Love interest by Cale Dietrich

Summary from Goodreads:

There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets.

Caden is a Nice: the boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: the brooding, dark-souled guy who is dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose the Nice or the Bad?

Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be—whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die.

What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both.

Review:

I’m kind of terrible because I seriously don’t even remember requesting this from the publisher, but I totally did. And they sent it to me in exchange for an honest review. Also, unlike everyone else who read that summary, I had no idea this was a LGBT friendly book. I thought it would be both spies falling for the girl. I was pleasantly surprised when the two male spies fell for each other.

I guess I was overall pleasantly surprised. I was kind of expecting the stereotypical YA love triangle story, with some fun spy stuff throw in. And what I got instead was something that almost made fun of the typical YA love triangle and poked fun at its own genre, with some fun spy stuff thrown in.

I loved the comment from the main character about thinking its ridiculous that someone would find their soul mate in high school, and then I loved the comment back at him about needing to read a YA novel. So, yeah, this happens in a YA a lot, and I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book that both commented on it and made fun of it at the same time. I loved this. I loved that the girl had to choose between two such extremes and I can even understand why the spy organization set that up. I would find it extraordinarily flattering and confidence boosting if a scenario like this presented itself to me.  I also don’t think it’s too unbelievable that it couldn’t be done. I can see organizations wanting to set up love interests for similar purposes.

I also loved that the two guys ended up falling for each other. I’m not spoiling this because apparently other reviewers picked this up from the summary…I was surprised, which doesn’t happen that often. And I have to admit that this aspect kept me interested. I’m not sure I would have been as invested in the story if the main character fell for the girl.

On the other side of things, I felt like there were some plot holes to the story. I found the whole love interest idea to be plausible, but I did not find all things about the spy organization to be quite as believable as the concept was. For instance the chip (that gets taken out?), the amount of love interests in one school, the killer robots, and the speediness and kind of rushed way everything resolved at the end all seemed too much.

I honestly feel like the book would have been so much better with a less happy ending. I feel like a less happy ending would have been more believable for me. I’m not saying one of my favorite characters should have died or anything. I just don’t think absolutely everything should have been resolved. Also, I could have dealt without the killer robots.

All in all though, this was fun and better than expected. I love books that can make fun of themselves. I also super loved the LGBT love triangle. I loved the concept for the story. I just didn’t love the follow-through/ending. I give this a 7.5/10.