Tag Archives: diverse books

Book Review: Liar by Justine Larbalestier

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Liar CoverBook: Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Published September 2009  by Bloomsbury|371 pages

Where I Got It: borrowed the hardcover from the library

Series: None

Genre: YA Contemporary

What It’s About: 

Micah will freely admit that she’s a compulsive liar, but that may be the one honest thing she’ll ever tell you. Over the years she’s duped her classmates, her teachers, and even her parents, and she’s always managed to stay one step ahead of her lies. That is, until her boyfriend dies under brutal circumstances and her dishonesty begins to catch up with her. But is it possible to tell the truth when lying comes as naturally as breathing? Taking readers deep into the psyche of a young woman who will say just about anything to convince them—and herself—that she’s finally come clean, Liar is a bone-chilling thriller that will have readers see-sawing between truths and lies right up to the end. Honestly.

What I Thought:

I thought Liar started off really strong and I initially liked it, but I slowly became indifferent towards the book by the end of it.

What really lost me was the revelation of the family illness- that her family were werewolves.  That was when the book started to lose me- and while it was first at first, by the end of it, it just felt like a lame excuse for why she lied all the time.  I get that things run in the family, which I could have handled.  And if the werewolf thing is a stand-in for something else (mental illness and period-related issues seem like the best possibilities, but the second one doesn’t explain the fact that her one uncle seems to be affected by the family illness), I thought it didn’t really do a good job of it, just because it turned into something I wasn’t expecting, and it felt out of place.

I’m fine with unreliable narrators, and one who’s a compulsive liar makes for a really interesting unreliable narrator because you’re never sure what’s true and what’s a lie.  What became really clear to me was that Justine really needed help.  She really did- her brother being a good example of this.  At different points in the book, she has a brother who hates her, he never existed, or he died and she was involved somehow.  Not only that, but it’s never resolved, and it’s randomly mentioned, but you don’t really hear about it after a certain point.  Which makes me wonder why it was even included…I guess to show how much of a liar she is, but you definitely get that throughout the book.  Maybe to show family issues?  Anyway, one of the very few things that you could actually trust is that she’s in desperate need of help, and it’s a shame that she doesn’t get it.

She gets sent up to the Greats (how they’re related to her, I could never figure out) in the country, and she runs away because her life will end if she’s not in the city.  I really wish we could trust her stories about her family, because I am oddly curious about what they’re really like, and if they noticed that Micah needed help.  And if they did, why they didn’t try to get her more help. Maybe they did, but Micah never talked about it?

While you couldn’t trust a lot of what Micah said, something I could trust (and actually liked) was how she felt out of place- race being a big one, since she’s bi-racial.  Part of me wishes that had come up more, because it really doesn’t in the book.  Which is fine, because there are so many other things going on, and just because a character is bi-racial doesn’t mean the story has to focus on that.  But there is a part of me that wishes we saw the impact it had on Micah’s life.

My Rating:

2 stars.  Micah definitely has a strong voice, and I liked that she’s such an unreliable narrator, but the big reveal about the family illness made me feel indifferent about the book.

Book Review: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

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To All The Boys I Have Loved Before CoverBook: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

Published April 2014 by Simon & Schuster|274 pages

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

Series: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before #1

Genre: YA Contemporary

Check out To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before on goodreads

Goodreads Summary: 

Lara Jean keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her.

They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her, these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she can pour out her heart and soul and say all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.

What I Thought:

After loving Han’s Summer trilogy, I’ve been wanting to read everything else she’s written, and this one was one that I was anxiously waiting to read!

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting exactly.  Don’t get me wrong, I really liked it, but it took me a while to get into the book. There’s quite a bit of set-up, so you know what’s going on, and why the letters get sent.  In a lot of ways, I think I was expecting the nostalgia that I felt with her previously mentioned series, and while there are some similarities, it’s also a different book.

I know the letters are what spur a lot of the events in the book, but I really expected more with the letters.  I really thought they’d be huge.  Them getting mailed was big, of course, but…I don’t know, I just expected something more with them, that’s all.

I thought Lara Jean was interesting- it very much seemed like her sister took care of so much after their mother died.  Lara Jean did too, but it really felt like Lara Jean couldn’t do anything without Margot sometimes.  I did like seeing her try to figure things out herself, and how she and Kitty did some of their annual Christmas traditions without Margot.  I get Margot maybe feeling a little hurt or left out…but I kind of also liked seeing them with her.

There was a point where Lara Jean and Josh were super-irritating, and it was Peter who acted pretty realistically during that whole thing.  Lara Jean seemed super-innocent (which I can relate to) and I understand why she acted the way she did (same with Josh but to a much lesser degree) but I still felt like it was a bit excessive.  Also, her friendship with Chris didn’t make a lot of sense to me- and considering they were best friends, I kind of expected something more with their friendship.

I wasn’t a big fan of the drama in it.  Sometimes, I don’t mind drama, but I guess I wasn’t in the mind for it with this book. And while I plan on reading the sequel, I’m also not sure about it.  I feel like this book stands on its own really well, and with an extra chapter for closure, I think it would have been fine without a sequel. But I love Jenny Han as an author, so I’ll definitely be giving it a chance.  It is why I kept going with this book, even though I wasn’t sure about it at first.

Even though I wasn’t sure about this book at first, I did like seeing the letters and what happened as a result of Kitty mailing them.  It was pretty obvious early on who did it, but I liked seeing Lara Jean deal with all of the Peter stuff and Josh stuff, and how her relationships with her sisters changed (even though I wanted more resolution with Margot because I felt like we got none).

Let’s Rate It:

It is a cute, sweet book and I liked that it was all about crushes!  I wish that letters were more of a thing in the book, and I felt like it started off slow, but it did become what I’d expect from a Jenny Han book.  To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before gets 4 stars.

Book Review: I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

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I'll Give You The Sun CoverBook: I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

Published September 2014 by Dial|259 pages

Where I Got It: I checked out the e-book from the library!

Series: None

Genre: YA Contemporary/LGBT

Check out I’ll Give You The Sun on goodreads

Goodreads Summary: 

A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell 

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways…until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah’s story to tell. The later years are Jude’s. What the twins don’t realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.

What I Thought:

After reading The Sky Is Everywhere ages ago and loving it and anxiously awaiting Jandy Nelson’s next book, I finally read I’ll Give You The Sun.

Unfortunately, I’m kind of torn between not really liking it and thinking it was okay.  I really wanted to like it more, because I did love The Sky Is Everywhere.

I did like that Noah and Jude narrated the book.  It’s different from a lot of other multiple narrators in that Noah and Jude are on a different timelines.  Because I don’t pay attention to summaries or anything, I thought it meant that Noah had died or something really bad happened to him because of that timeline, and it took a while for me to realize he was still alive.  But then I was more confused, because if he’s alive, why didn’t he really appear in Jude’s timeline?

It is an interesting way to tell a story, but it didn’t completely work for me.  On the one hand, I do kind of like that they have two different pieces of the story, but at the same time, I felt like the story wasn’t completely there for me because of it.

I just don’t know how I feel about I’ll Give You The Sun.  I was expecting something that more like The Sky Is Everywhere, which I connected so much with, and I really wanted that connection in this book.  That connection did happen, but not until the last 4 or 5 pages, and at that point, I wondered where that was for the rest of the novel.

I didn’t care for Noah or Jude, and I found that Noah randomly titling the scene as a painting to be really annoying, while Jude’s tendency to quote her grandmother’s book was quite.  I did feel for Noah, and I understand how and why he became the person he did.  He had a lot to deal with, especially since Noah is gay, and we see him struggle with how he presents himself to the world.  With Jude, I felt like she stayed relatively the same.  They didn’t feel genuine in the way the characters in her previous novel did.

Let’s Rate It:

Overall, I’ll Give You The Sun just isn’t my book.  I thought the way the story was told was interesting, and a big part of why I kept reading was because 1- I loved the author’s previous book to pieces and gave this one a chance that I probably would not have given it otherwise, and 2- I did want to know what happened and why things fell apart.  I think this book turned out okay for me.  I’ll Give You The Sun gets 2 stars.

Book Review: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

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The Bluest Eye CoverBook: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Published July 2007 by Vintage|143 pages

Where I Got It: checked out the e-book from the library!

Series: None

Genre: Adult Literary Fiction/African-American Literature

Check out The Bluest Eye on goodreads

Goodreads Summary: 

Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in.Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing.

What I Thought:

I’ve been on a Toni Morrison kick lately, and so I picked up The Bluest Eye.  It is what I’m coming to expect from a Toni Morrison novel, well before we knew Toni Morrison.

I liked The Bluest Eye, and I felt like this one, more than any of the other books I’ve read (except for Home) was about…life.  The one thing that I keep noticing with Morrison is that I pay much more attention to the writing than the actual story.  It’s weird, because the actual writing is something I almost never pay attention to.

But with Morrison, it’s all I seem to pay attention to, and The Bluest Eye is no exception. There are several different narrators of The Bluest Eye, and they all come together to tell the story of Pecola.  Honestly, it took me a while to realize that there were several different stories of some of the people in Pecola’s life, and I found myself having to go back and re-read certain parts of the book, because it was starting to not make sense to me.  It’s definitely one of those books that you have to read carefully.

I did like reading The Bluest Eye after reading some of her other books, because her writing style- which has grown and changed- is still relatively the same.

Let’s Rate It: 

While I only liked the story (and found the narration to be a bit all over the place), it’s hard to not like The Bluest Eye. Morrison really does know how to tell a story.  The Bluest Eye gets 3 stars.

Book Review: Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

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Afterworlds CoverBook: Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

Published September 2014 by Simon Pulse|413 pages

Where I Got It: checked out the e-book from the library!

Series: None

Genre: YA- Half Paranormal/Half Contemporary

You can find Afterworlds on goodreads

Goodreads Summary: 

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld comes a smart, thought-provoking novel-within-a-novel that you won’t be able to put down.

Darcy Patel has put college on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. With a contract in hand, she arrives in New York City with no apartment, no friends, and all the wrong clothes. But lucky for Darcy, she’s taken under the wings of other seasoned and fledgling writers who help her navigate the city and the world of writing and publishing. Over the course of a year, Darcy finishes her book, faces critique, and falls in love.

Woven into Darcy’s personal story is her novel, Afterworlds, a suspenseful thriller about a teen who slips into the ‘Afterworld’ to survive a terrorist attack. The Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead, and where many unsolved and terrifying stories need to be reconciled. Like Darcy, Lizzie too falls in love – until a new threat resurfaces, and her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she cares about most.

What I Thought:

Afterworlds really is a unique book!  It’s a novel-within-a-novel, and there is something very meta about this entire book.

I’m really not kidding.  I did get the sense that Westerfeld was poking a bit at YA tropes and just the YA community in general, but in a really good way.

I don’t even know how to begin reviewing this book…but I guess I should start with Darcy’s story.  I really liked her story, and I liked seeing her navigate New York and the publishing world, especially with the help she finds in other awesome writers.  I don’t know what that world is like, but it is one that feels so real, like that’s what it is like for one person- and it really felt like bits and pieces of it may have come from Westerfeld’s own experience as a YA writer.

I also liked that we saw Darcy over the course of a year, and how much she went through with her book and her personal life. And I loved that in quite a few ways, her life intertwined with Lizzie’s story, and how much Darcy and Lizzie had in common. Which does make sense, since Lizzie is one of Darcy’s characters.  They both had these really big things happen that would change their lives, and I liked seeing both of their stories.

I really like that we not only see Darcy working on Afterworlds but that we get the actually Afterworlds story! And not just an excerpt or quotes but the full novel.  It was kind of disorienting at first, because you get thrown into both stories, and there’s nothing to indicate which story you’re reading.  But the two stories are so different that I knew which story was which in no time.

I also liked Lizzie’s story, especially at the beginning.  It’s so weird, because I really liked Darcy’s story as the book went on, and I liked Lizzie’s story less as the book went on.  Still, it’s an interesting way to tell a story, and I think there was a lot of potential for it to not work.  For me, it worked a lot better than I could have expected or imagined, but I think the way it’s told isn’t for everyone.  Given that Afterworlds is such a big part of Darcy’s life, and different aspects of it come up throughout the book, it makes sense that we would see Darcy’s story.  It would be a very different book if we didn’t have her fictional story, and Lizzie’s story helps Darcy’s story come to life.  Both stories need each other, and you see the effects that each story has on the other one.

I found the conversations about re-telling myths and stories that are part of a culture to be not your own to be really interesting, especially given all of the recent discussions about reading diversely.  Like, it’s okay that Darcy re-tells stories from Hinduism, because her family is from India (even though Darcy herself doesn’t seem particularly religious, and her family, from what we see of them, don’t seem to be particularly religious either).  I have no idea why I find it super-interesting, but I do.  Also, I love that her family is totally cool with Darcy having a girlfriend, and that it wasn’t a big deal when Darcy told them.

Let’s Rate It:

I really liked Afterworlds, and how you needed both stories in order to tell the other one.  I liked seeing how Darcy’s life and Lizzie’s life intertwine, and how both stories have an effect on the other one.  Darcy’s story is easily 5 stars, while I’d really have to give Lizzie’s story 3 stars, so overall, Afterworlds gets 4 stars.

Mini Book Review: The Faerie Guardian by Rachel Morgan

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The Faerie Guardian CoverBook: The Faerie Guardian by Rachel Morgan

Published October 2012 by Smashwords|237 pages

Where I Got It: Nook store

Series: Creepy Hollow #1

Genre: YA Paranormal- Faeries

You can find The Faerie Guardian on goodreads

Goodreads Summary: 

Enter a hidden world of magic, mystery, danger and romance in this YA fantasy from bestselling author, Rachel Morgan.

Protecting humans from dangerous magical creatures is all in a day’s work for a faerie training to be a guardian. Seventeen-year-old Violet Fairdale knows this better than anyone—she’s about to become the best guardian the Guild has seen in years. That is, until a cute human boy who can somehow see through her faerie glamour follows her into the fae realm. Now she’s broken Guild Law, a crime that could lead to her expulsion.

The last thing Vi wants to do is spend any more time with the boy who got her into this mess, but the Guild requires that she return Nate to his home and make him forget everything he’s discovered of the fae realm. Easy, right? Not when you factor in evil faeries, long-lost family members, and inconvenient feelings of the romantic kind. Vi is about to find herself tangled up in a dangerous plot—and it’ll take all her training to get out alive.

What I Thought:

I liked The Faerie Guardian!  If there’s something I know, it’s a book about fairies, and given how many I’ve read (and want to read), trust me when I say that this book is quite different than a lot of other fairie books.

I LOVE the idea of faeries protecting the human population from some really nasty creatures.  And naturally, things go wrong right from the start.  Things are also pretty predictable, but it was still a fun read.  Most of all, I loved how detailed and intricate this world was, and it really made me want to see more of it.

I didn’t particularly care about the romance.  It was pretty obvious, as far as romances go, but I also felt like there wasn’t anything special between Violet and Nate.  It very much felt like they were together for the sake of being together.  On the other hand, I did like the relationship between Ryn and Violet, and how their story was resolved.  I honestly think they have better chemistry, and I’m hoping that eventually, it’s Ryn and Violet, even though I’m positive that it’ll be Nate and Violet in the end.

Speaking of Violet, she is a pretty awesome fairie, and I really liked her!  I can’t wait to see what she has deal with in the books to come.

Let’s Rate It:

I don’t have much to say about The Faerie Guardian, but I really like the concept and the world that Morgan wrote.  I’m not thrilled with the romance, and I’m desperately hoping that it doesn’t go the way I think it will. I didn’t love it, but it’s still a fun read.  The Faerie Guardian gets 3 stars.

Book Review: Home by Toni Morrison

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Home CoverBook: Home by Toni Morrison

Published May 2012 by Knopf Doubleday|160 pages

Where I Got It: the library

Series: None

Genre: Adult Literary Fiction/African-American Literature

You can find Home on goodreads

Goodreads Summary: 

The latest novel from Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.

An angry and self-loathing veteran of the Korean War, Frank Money finds himself back in racist America after enduring trauma on the front lines that left him with more than just physical scars. His home–and himself in it–may no longer be as he remembers it, but Frank is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from, which he’s hated all his life. As Frank revisits the memories from childhood and the war that leave him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he thought he could never possess again. A deeply moving novel about an apparently defeated man finding his manhood–and his home.

What I Thought:

I really liked Home!  I read Sula and Beloved a few years ago, and while I liked them, I wasn’t completely into them.  But I figured it was a good time to give Morrison another try, and I’m actually really glad I did.

I really liked Frank, and how he had to deal with memories and what happened in Korea.  And he goes on a journey to help his sister, who went through some horrible things herself.  I really like seeing his memories and how he got to be the person we see at the beginning of the novel to how he became the person we see at the end of the novel.

I was struck by how Frank was trying to deal with everything that’s happened, and how he was trying to find his place after coming home.  You could tell how hard it was for him, and it’s something that still rings true today- with all of the stories of soldiers coming back with health issues and PTSD, and all of the recent events in places like Ferguson, you see how we’ve changed a lot, but at the same time, it’s still something that we’re dealing with.

Home is short, but Morrison makes every word count.  It’s simple and beautiful and this is one of the very rare books where I’m more interested in the actual writing than the story (even the story is great too).  Seriously, if you want to study writing, Toni Morrison is such a great place to start.  She can write, and she does it so well.

Let’s Rate It:

I really liked seeing Frank have to deal with so much, and even though his story takes place after the Korean war, so many things (like racism and PTSD) are still relevant today.  It’s also a simple but beautifully written book, and of the 3 books I’ve read by Morrison, I think this is a really good one to start with if you’ve never read Morrison.  Home gets 4 stars.