Book: Afterparty by Ann Redisch Stampler

Published January 2014 by Simon Pulse|297 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the e-book from the library

Series: None

Genre: YA Contemporary

Emma is tired of being good. Always the dutiful daughter to an overprotective father, she is the antithesis of her mother — whose name her dad won’t even say out loud. That’s why meeting Siobhan is the best thing that ever happened to her…and the most dangerous. Because Siobhan is fun and alluring and experienced and lives on the edge. In other words, she’s everything Emma is not.

And it may be more than Emma can handle.

Because as intoxicating as her secret life may be, when Emma begins to make her own decisions, Siobhan starts to unravel. It’s more than just Dylan, the boy who comes between them. Their high-stakes pacts are spinning out of control. Elaborate lies become second nature. Loyalties and boundaries are blurred. And it all comes to a head at the infamous Afterparty, where debauchery rages and an intense, inescapable confrontation ends in a plummet from the rooftop…

This explosive, sexy, and harrowing follow-up to Ann Redisch Stampler’s spectacular teen debut, Where It Began, reveals how those who know us best can hurt us most.

I really wanted to like Afterparty, but instead, I found it was weird and frustrating.

One of my issues with it is that we’re told how her dad is over-protective.  We don’t really see it much, and it was a little hard to believe that he was as over-protective as she made him out to be. He’s the parent, so he can be as protective as he wants, but unfortunately, their relationship isn’t really shown very well, and I wish it were shown better.  Still, I feel for him, with his wife, who died from overdosing, and how Emma acted.

It is pretty predictable- good girl meets bad girl, does really stupid things in order to make said best friend happy, until there’s that one thing where the good girl realizes she can’t be friends with her friend anymore.  It was pretty tired, and there wasn’t a twist to make it interesting.  It was so frustrating to see her make stupid decisions, and how she couldn’t see how messed up Siobhan was. And how, no matter what happened with Siobhan, she kept going back to her.  I get why Emma would find Siobhan so appealing, and why she acted the way she did, especially if her dad is as bad as she says, but it was still frustrating.

I also felt like Emma’s relationship with Dylan was really shallow, as was his backstory.  I didn’t get the whole thing with his family preferring his brother, and I’m not sure if maybe I missed something (which I doubt), or if it just wasn’t explained well.  I think Dylan, like the other characters (except for maybe the dad) needed a lot more development.

1 star.  I couldn’t get into it, and it was frustrating and underdeveloped.

Book: The Madman’s Daughter by Megan Shepherd

Published January 2013 by Balzar + Bray|317 pages

Where I Got It: I own the e-book

Series: The Madman’s Daughter #1

Genre: YA Historical Fiction/Gothic/Suspense

For fans of Libba Bray, this first book in a gothic suspense trilogy is inspired by H. G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau and has been hailed byNew York Times bestseller Carrie Ryan as having “beautiful writing, breakneck pacing, a pulse-pounding mystery, and an irresistible romance.”

Following accusations that her scientist father gruesomely experimented on animals, sixteen-year-old Juliet watched as her family and her genteel life in London crumbled around her—and only recently has she managed to piece her world back together. But when Juliet learns her father is still alive and working on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the old accusations are true. Accompanied by her father’s handsome young assistant, Montgomery, and an enigmatic castaway, Edward, Juliet travels to the island, only to discover the depths of her father’s insanity. Torn between horror and scientific curiosity, Juliet knows she must end her father’s dangerous experiments and escape her jungle prison before it’s too late. Yet as the island falls into chaos, she discovers the extent of her father’s genius—and madness—in her own blood.

I’ve been wanting to read The Madman’s Daughter for a while, and I finally read it!  I have mixed feelings about it, though.

It was definitely slow, and there were more than a few times where I was bored, waiting for something interesting to happen.  It seemed like there was filler scattered throughout the book.

But there was something very gothic and suspenseful about the book, and I really liked that!  There is something slightly unsettling about the book and the things that happen, especially with what Juliet’s dad is up to.  I didn’t particularly care for him, but there was something very mad scientist about him.  Her dad is slightly interesting as a character, with why he does what he does.  That was definitely surprising.

I can’t imagine the scandal that Juliet had to deal with, and it went a lot further than I ever thought it would.  She is such a sympathetic character, and I felt for her, especially with how she built her dad up, only to have it come crashing down.  She didn’t have a lot of options, so I can’t blame her for not wanting to go.  But her slight acceptance of what her dad did was a little frustrating.  But I understand her curiosity too, and I feel like I probably would have reacted the same way if I were in her shoes.

I’m not sure how I feel about the love triangle.  That there is one isn’t surprising, but I don’t have strong feelings either way.

I really liked the island setting!  It worked so well for the book and it definitely added a creepiness to it that it wouldn’t have had otherwise.  It added to the feeling that there is no escape from what was going on, and I don’t think it would have worked as well if it were set somewhere else.  But at the same time, I wonder how different the book would be if it were set in a town or village.

I wonder if my mixed feelings are partly due to the fact that it was inspired by a H.G. Wells story.  I don’t know if reading it would have made a difference, but I may pick it up eventually to see where Shepherd got her inspiration from.

2 stars.  It was just okay, and I wasn’t terribly invested in the characters or what was going on, but it was pretty suspenseful, and Juliet was pretty sympathetic.  I’m not sure if I’m going to read the other books or not, but maybe one day I will.

Book: Sever by Lauren DeStefano

Published February 2013 by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers|248 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the e-book from the library

Series: none

Genre: YA Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopia

Time is running out for Rhine in the conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Chemical Garden Trilogy.

With time ticking until the virus takes its toll, Rhine is desperate for answers. After enduring Vaughn’s worst, Rhine finds an unlikely ally in his brother, an eccentric inventor named Reed, and she takes refuge in his dilapidated house. However, the people she left behind refuse to stay in the past. While Gabriel haunts Rhine’s memories, Cecily is determined to be at Rhine’s side, even if Linden’s feelings are still caught between them.

Meanwhile, Rowan’s growing involvement in an underground resistance compels Rhine to reach him before he does something that cannot be undone. But what she discovers along the way has alarming implications for her future- and on the past her parents never had the chance to explain.

In this breathtaking conclusion to Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden trilogy, everything Rhine knows to be true will be irrevocably shattered.

Sever!  I think I liked it, but I’m actually not too sure how much I like it.  Definitely not as much as the previous two books, and this one is my least favorite, for reasons we’ll get into.

So, not surprisingly, Rhine- and her brother- are very, very special.  Because of their eyes.  And I didn’t really get why that made them special.  Or the cure, and how it actually cure people.  People in the U.S., because apparently, everyone else in the world was fine.  Oh, Hawaii was seemingly fine. Maybe because they’re an island?  It all seemed weird, and the specifics weren’t there.  I definitely wanted more of an explanation than what we got in the book.  It just didn’t make sense to me, and it seemed like it wasn’t that important to explain, which is weird, considering that’s what the book is about.  It sort of felt like the whole world DeStefano created in the first two books was a little bit destroyed in this book…and not in a good way.  Everything I liked about the first two books were gone in this one.

I also felt really confused about the romance.  Linden, at times, seems to be falling for Rhine, and other times, he chooses Cecily over and over.  I didn’t get Rhine’s jealously of Cecily, especially considering she didn’t appear to have feelings for Linden.  And her relationship with Gabriel seemed a little off to me.  It felt like he was just there, and if Rhine had to be with someone, I kind of wish it were a new character, so she could have a fresh start.  And her grief over Linden felt out of place.  Maybe his death made her realize how much she cared for him, but with everything that’s happened over the course of the series, it was a little hard to believe.  It was the same with Cecily, but with her, it was slightly easier to believe.  Still, everyone grieves differently…

Vaughn is easily the most interesting character in the whole book, and he really overshadowed everyone else, in terms of development.  He’s definitely villain-adjacent, but his was the only story I was actually invested in.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting with Sever before I started reading it, but after reading it?  I’m pretty sure what I was expecting wasn’t the book we got.  I wanted to like it, but I think maybe I lost interest in the series.

2 stars.  It was okay, and I wish things made a little more sense to me.

Book: The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand

Published February 2015 by HarperCollins|305 pages

Where I Got It: I own the e-book

Series: None

Genre: YA Contemporary

There’s death all around us.
We just don’t pay attention.
Until we do.

The last time Lex was happy, it was before. When she had a family that was whole. A boyfriend she loved. Friends who didn’t look at her like she might break down at any moment.

Now she’s just the girl whose brother killed himself. And it feels like that’s all she’ll ever be.

As Lex starts to put her life back together, she tries to block out what happened the night Tyler died. But there’s a secret she hasn’t told anyone-a text Tyler sent, that could have changed everything.

Lex’s brother is gone. But Lex is about to discover that a ghost doesn’t have to be real to keep you from moving on.

I’ve wanted to read this one ever since I found out Cynthia Hand had a new book coming out!  I really liked it, but not as much as I thought I would, especially in comparison to Hand’s Unearthly series. But I still really liked it!

I really felt for Lex, and we really see, through journal entries and her life after, what it was like for her to lose her brother.  It’s interesting that we don’t know a lot about Ty, and he is very much a mystery…yet we can still feel his loss.  It’s simple and quiet, but still heartbreaking.  Not as much as I would have liked, but it was was still there. It is an emotional book, but for me, it wasn’t emotional until the end of the book, when I was trying not to ugly-cry during lunch.  I don’t know if it was that, or if it’s the end-of-summer reading blahs or if it just didn’t measure up to the expectations I had as for as the crying goes, but I sort of wish that I had been more emotional throughout the book.

It’s still a beautiful story, and Hand did a fantastic job with it.

I really liked Lexie, who’s smart, is going to MIT and loves math!  I, personally, am not a math person, but I love that Lexie loves math.  It still seemed more authentic and real than a lot of other books I’ve read dealing with the same issues.  Those still felt real but this one had a realness that the other ones didn’t.  There is an author’s note at the end, where Hand talks about losing a brother, so it definitely came from the heart.  It really shows in this book, and I really appreciate that.

4 stars.  Like I said, I really liked the honesty and realness in this book, and while I didn’t love it the way I expected to (or cry as much as I thought), it is beautiful and heartbreaking and a book I recommend to everyone.