Review of 'The Rest of the Story' by Sarah Dessen

Sarah Dessen was my favourite author as a teen, and I read this last year before *that* twitter scandal emerged and banged on for WEEKS about how much I loved her as a writer/this book. Anyhow, it was a nice return to a comforting read, which is kind of what I feel we all need at the moment. 

Emma Saylor lives with her dad as a family of two after her mother's death. She's never met her mother's family until this summer: with her dad and grandma unavailable, she needs somewhere to stay. It's only when Emma arrives at North Lake that she discovers she stayed there as a child. Her mother's family came from the working class side of the lake, residents all year around working at the big resort to keep tourists happy, whilst her dad lived around the other side of the lake (and other side of the wealth gap).

Over the summer, Emma learns not only more about her mother than she ever expected, but more about herself. She's reunited with Roo, a boy who remembers her as his best friend when she stayed at North Lake as a child. He holds the key to the mystery that changed the course of her mother's life, and Emma's not sure she wants all the answers.

I've been a fan of all of the books Sarah Dessen has written - there's never just the boy meets girl element to the plot, but always something a little deeper. Her books remind me a little bit of a sort of Jacqueline Wilson for young adults. I loved this coming-of-age, trying to navigate your identity story. Emma doesn't live in a vacuum, and as with most teens there's a LOT of different pressures on her from different people to be a certain type of person, and the book follows this as well as Emma's attempts to really work out who she'd like to be.

I'd recommend this if you're a fan of romance or YA books, especially for a slightly comforting read in these anxiety-ridden times!

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Review of 'Beautiful Broken Things' by Sara Barnard

Most YA fiction that I've come across has focused on romance, which I LOVE, but sometimes friendships get completely overlooked in the face of a cute teen love story. Yet friendships make up a massive part of being a teen, or young adult, and even outweigh the romance. I think it's *so* important for books to recognise this, and remind us all that friends are important, and they can revolutionise some really important years for us all.

Beautiful Broken Things is a book primarily about friendship. Caddy and Rosie have been friends for years, but live on opposite sides of the track: Caddy goes to an expensive private school, and longs for a significant life event to happen to her, whilst Rosie's already experienced trauma in her life. The girls are inseparable, until Suzanne comes along. Troubled and mysterious, she joins Rosie's school and unwittingly creates a wedge between the two best friends.

I think we've all been in that position of anxiety, when our best friend threatens (albeit passively) to become best friends with someone else. Caddy feels undermined, and at first she's determined to push Suzanne out, but eventually she becomes even better friends than Suzanne is with Rosie.

Suzanne is beautiful, but has some serious mental health issues, and a tragic past that keeps catching up with her. The exploration of her mental health problems was incredible - it was an accurate portrayal of a teenage girl struggling to make her way in the world. She made a whole host of mistakes, she was conflicted, and I just really think the author nailed what it's like to not be sure of yourself when the world is telling you that it's time you should know.

I honestly believe the media has such a detrimental effect on the way girls treat each other: we're always portrayed as enemies, as not to be trusted, and as creatures that spend their whole lives trying to hunt down a man. It's just not the case. Beautiful Broken Things is an important book because it completely avoids romance, and focuses on the issue of female friendship, finally showcasing that this often is what a teen girl's life is all about.

I'll be giving this 5 stars, and I really would recommend it to fans of YA fiction.

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Review of 'Extraordinary Means' by Robyn Schneider

It's been a little while since I read this (I'm super behind on reviews, but I WILL CATCH UP WITH YOU 2018 BOOK PILE), and I'd almost forgotten how much I loved this until I picked the text up again. This is one of my favourite YA reads of the year, and it came at me totally unexpectedly. I downloaded it to my Kindle, thinking it would be pretty average, and it blew me out of the water so much that I started to hunt down everything Robyn Schneider's ever written.

This dystopian YA starts off with Lane moving into Latham House. All he wants to do is to be back at school studying to ensure he gets the best possible results in his tests to set him up for the future. But Lane is sick. A rare form of TB has emerged in modern society, and Lane has tested positive for this. He's not showing the signs of his illness yet, but at some point it'll happen, and there's no going back. 

Latham House is part boarding school, part hospital. Lane's completely isolated from his family, friends back home and his old life. Although he's not sick yet, a lot of the other kids are and life at Latham is tense. There, Lane meets Sadie, a girl he once knew from a summer camp years ago. There she was shy and quiet, but she owns the room here, making everyone chuckle. 

All Lane has ever wanted to do is study to become the perfect student, but as his illness starts to catch up with him, he's forced to realise that there are other things in life worth enjoying.

This is an incredible coming-of-age story that broke my heart a little as well as making me smile. The characters were so easy to connect with, and I feel as though I've left a little bit of my heart back in Latham. I would definitely recommend this if you're a fan of YA fiction! 

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Review of 'Eleanor and Park' by Rainbow Rowell

I'm *almost* caught up on my book reviews now, which is basically a miracle. I'm only a couple behind now and hopefully they'll be up soon! I'm so ready for my Goodreads target to actually show where I really am.

I read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell a few months ago and it felt like a complete breath of fresh air for me, but it wasn't until I read Eleanor and Park that I realised why. Rowell's protagonists are the characters that would be the best friend or the sister or the acquaintance of the main character in another book. Her main characters aren't stereotypically beautiful, or popular, or super clever, or all of the above. They're the people that get overlooked in life, and in literature.

Eleanor is a chubby ginger girl whose family are utterly poor. She shares a bedroom with all of her siblings, she wears second hand clothes and if anything gets broken it has to be fixed. When she starts going to a new school she very soon becomes the target of bullies. With an abusive stepdad at home and these girls making her life a misery at school, there's not much for Eleanor to look forward to.

... That is until she meets Park. Park's someone that the bullies leave alone (it may or may not have something to do with his incredible martial arts skills). He's scared that talking to Eleanor on the bus will make him the bullies' new target, but he's intrigued by her. 

Could Park help Eleanor see the light in her life? Or is he going to look down on her like everyone else does ...

I loved this young adult novel: the main characters were different to the ones that always seem to crop up in other books, and it made this such an interesting read.

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Review of 'The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily' by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I'm finally (sorta) catching up on my backlog of book reviews now, and this is the very last thing that I finished in 2017. I feel like everyone needs a feel good book at Christmas-time, and this was perfect. I was a little apprehensive at first because of how short it was (just over 200 pages), but the authors managed to cram so much depth into the characters; I was impressed. 

Lily resonated with me on a profound level. This was the first year that I didn't get totally overwhelmed by my excitement for Christmas, and I still haven't quite put my finger on why yet. It was the first year that Lily hadn't either. Usually she kicks off the twelve days of Christmas with a tree-putting-up ceremony, and from then on launches into full on Christmas mode.

This year, everything was changing for Lily. Her granddad, who she had been caring for after he got ill, decided to move away to her aunt's and receive more around the clock care. Lily was gutted, and Christmas didn't feel worth celebrating anymore. 

Dash loved Lily, and though he hadn't said those three little words out loud yet, he was keen to make his girlfriend enjoy her favourite time of year. So, he decided to create 12 days of activities to make Lily happy again. Although things went wrong more than once, Dash wouldn't give up. But could Lily overcome her sadness in time for Christmas?

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Review of 'One of Us is Lying' by Karen M. McManus

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2018 has got off to an incredible start! I'm excited for all the new reads I'm going to be starting, and I'm setting my new Goodreads target! I'm a little behind on catching up with my reviews, so the next couple will be ones I've read in 2017, and I can't wait to share them with you.

One of Us is Lying is one of my favourite YA reads of 2017. It's a YA thriller loosely based on the Breakfast Club. Five teens enter detention, and four teens leave. Simon has a deadly nut allergy and is poisoned from his water glass. The obvious culprit would be Nate, the one with the criminal background, drug addicted father, and general lack of desire to be at school. But what about Yale-hopeful Bronwyn? Or prom Queen Addy? Or athlete Cooper? Simon runs a gossip site, and all four of them have a big secret that they don't want coming out - but who would kill for it?

This novel had me up late into the night reading 'just one more' page to find out everybody's secrets. I realised who the culprit was a little before it was revealed in the book, but it still made for a great read. I would definitely recommend this if you're into thrillers. 

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Review of 'The Hate U Give' by Angie Thomas

I've been thinking about this for a while and I'm just struggling to put into words how absolutely incredible this book is, and how much you all need to read it. It's the most important book that I've read in 2017 and everyone absolutely needs to get their hands on it. It really gets to the nitty gritty about race issues in the States, and exposes them in a way that I've not really come across anywhere else.

Starr Carter, the book's protagonist, is a 16-year-old African American schoolgirl who witnessed the shooting of her best friend when she was 8. When she gets a lift home from her childhood best friend Khalil, she doesn't think that this is the second day she's going to see someone get shot. Khalil and Starr get pulled over by a cop and when Khalil moves towards the passenger side of the car to see if Starr is okay, the cop shoots him repeatedly. 

In the following days and weeks, Starr is totally bowled over by the fact that this cop isn't straight up arrested for murdering her friend in front of her. Soon she starts to question everything. She goes to a private school where the majority of students are white, and doesn't want to speak up there. At school Starr is a different person, one who doesn't talk in the same way as she does with her family and friends from her neighborhood. She starts to wonder whether she's betraying her own identity by dating a white boy from the school. 

As riots break out over the town for Khalil's murder, Starr is forced to question her own identity and the justice system of the country she lives in.

It's an absolutely astounding book, and I'll honestly be buying any future novels Angie Thomas brings out because this was beyond insightful and powerful and heartbreaking.

Review of 'Our Chemical Hearts' by Krystal Sutherland

I'm still obsessing over YA fiction at the moment, and Our Chemical Hearts is truly a beauty of the genre. I've heard so much about this and honestly it shows mental health in a truer perspective than I've seen it shown in a long time. Usually when I read a book about someone who's struggling with their mental health I get a niggling 'this isn't what it's really like' feeling welling up inside me, until I'm not comfortable with the contents of the book at all. But Our Chemical Hearts brought this idyllism that people create around mental illness up, analysed it and made me fall in love.

Henry Page is an average teenage boy. He's not lost 'the big V' yet, and his last kiss ended up helping his best friend discover that she's just not into men. Not a brilliant track record for keeping on the cool side of the tracks at school. He has cast aside attempts at romance for the time being, instead focusing on becoming the editor of his school newspaper, which he's been working on for the past two years. 

Henry's life is all going to plan, until Grace Town transfers from her old school to his. Her literary reputation at the previous school means that the head of the newspaper wants to make them co-editors for the year. She refuses. Henry reluctantly chases after her, requesting that she works on the paper with him. Despite her boyish clothes, limp and cane, there's something about Grace that lures him in.

Before he knows it, Henry's in love with Grace. But she has good days and bad. On the bad days, they barely speak a word to one another (Grace's choice, not his). On the good days, she might just brush up against Henry whilst they chuckle over a joke, making him blush. 

However, Henry's bothered by the fact that he knows nothing about her past. So, he checks out her Facebook page. At first he thinks he's got the wrong Grace Town. The girl in this profile picture is stunning. She has long hair, the biggest grin and is absolutely beautiful decked out in makeup and girl's clothing. Henry falls more and more in love with her.

Grace knows what's going on with Henry, but she's all too aware of why it can't be. You see, Grace was in an accident with her boyfriend, the love of her life. That's where she got the limp, and where she lost Dom. She's living in his room, and the boys' clothes she wears are his. She's not, nor will she ever completely get over losing Dom. He was her soulmate, and they'd been close since they were five. 

Grace knows what Henry doesn't want to admit, even to himself: he's not in love with Grace Town, he's in love with an idyllic version of her. He craves the 'good Grace' days, and can't handle her on the bad ones. He wants to fix her; he doesn't really want to be with the Grace in front of him.

The rest of the story is about a struggle for love that's based on an illusion. This is exactly what I meant when I said that the book doesn't shy away from the realities of mental illness. I was completely 100% suckered into Henry's love for Grace, and how noble it was, until Grace pointed out that it wasn't. Then I saw what was happening: he was in love with the girl without the mental illness. I realised that I'd overlooked the depression coming out of her grief, and I was waiting for Grace to miraculously get better, and become the girl that Henry was lusting after. But mental illness doesn't work like that. Loving someone can't cure them. 

If you're interested in YA fiction about mental health and love, then I'd really recommend this!

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Review of 'If I Was Your Girl' by Meredith Russo

I *think* this is the first book that I've ever read with a trans* main character. And it sucks that it's taken me so long, but quite frankly there just aren't enough in mainstream literature. I'm so glad that If I Was Your Girl was chosen to be part of last year's Zoella book club as it gave so many young people an incentive to read a book about a trans* character.

As the novel progressed, I began to get a little (very) concerned that it actually wasn't very progressive at all. Although our main character Amanda was bullied because of transitioning to become a girl, she did have things a little easier than most trans people. For starters, Amanda knew she wanted to be a girl from a young age. She's overtly feminine. She also gets hormone treatment and surgery to fully transition to a girl that honestly would not be available to the majority of trans* youth. I felt disillusioned by how idyllic the whole setup was. 

When I got to the end of the novel, however, there was a note from the author, Meredith Russo, who is trans* herself, to the reader. In it, she explains that this idyll of transitioning was purposeful; she isn't naive about how things really work. She wanted to show what being trans could be like if things were easy. It also makes it easier for cis readers to accept Amanda as a girl. In my opinion, this makes the novel a good step in to trans* literature, I just wish this note was at the beginning of the novel! Although dark subjects are discussed, it shows the positive sides to the practicalities of being trans*, like how easy it was for Amanda to get treatment. I would love to see Russo write a YA novel about an individual who couldn't get treatment, and how they struggled. 

In the novel, Amanda has just moved to a new school. She's come to live with her dad after a violent attack on her in her hometown. The attack came about because Amanda used to be Andrew, and some of her classmates couldn't accept the change. Amanda is keen to make a fresh start. She wants to keep her head down to make it through high school alive, get good grades and go to college. All goes well until she realises that she's falling in love with a boy at her school. Can Amanda really keep the past behind her?

Have you read it? What did you think?

Review of 'Highly Illogical Behaviour' by John Corey Whaley

I really haven't read a good number of mental health related fiction novels, despite being very interested in the genre. Highly Illogical Fiction is a young adult book which deals with acute agoraphobia and the anxiety that comes with it. In my opinion, the author tackles the subject excellently: there are no sudden cures to the protagonist's mental illness,  but there is gradual improvement, and that's what recovery is all about. 

Solomon hasn't left the house in three years. Not even just to enter his back yard. Three years ago, things came to a head with Solomon's mental health, and he had a breakdown at school, stripping down, jumping into a fountain and staying there until he was removed. After that, he realised he couldn't bear leaving the house again. His panic attacks had become so frequent and so severe that they were no longer something he could handle.

Three years on and Solomon is doing a little better. Yes, he doesn't leave his home, but he keeps up with schoolwork and the panic attacks are less frequent, albeit they still occur. Everything is going fairly smoothly, and nothing is changing: just as Solomon wants. That is, until Liza comes around.

Liza Praytor wants nothing more than to leave her hometown by getting a scholarship to a good university to study psychology. But she needs to write a paper on her experience with mental illness. Not suffering from a mental illness herself, Liza hardly believes her luck when she goes to a new dentist and it turns out to be Solomon's (aka the crazy fountain kid's) mum. After a little snooping, Liza finds out that he's still stuck at home, and decides to befriend him and write her paper on how she's going to help to make him better.

Solomon reluctantly agrees to meet with this girl who sent him a letter via his mother, asking for them to be friends. Their friendship blossoms, and she begins to help him with his panic attacks. There's just one problem: Solomon has no idea that this is all going on record; an experiment aimed to get Liza the place at university that she wants ...

Have you read it? What did you think?

Review of 'Fangirl' by Rainbow Rowell

Do you ever come across books that you just completely connect with on a personal level? I felt this so much with Fangirl, to the extent that I had to put it down a few times to take some breathers, because well, fuck, the book was really impacting me. In some ways, I wish I had come across it when I was 18, but in others I think it would have hit far far too close to home, and been too intense for me to handle. Retrospectively, I can see how much it would have upset me to read it, but I can also see how similar my life was to a couple of the characters, in particular Wren. 

Cather and Wren's mum didn't know she was having twins when they were born, and she had only one name in mind: 'Catherine'. So, they became Cather and Wren. The girls have been inseparable since birth, especially as their mum didn't stick around for too long. They were left to pick up the mess that was their dad, and everything that happened just served to bring them closer. They even share their number one passion: Simon Snow books (and the movies of course). Think Harry Potter but with vampires too. 

Magicath and Wrenegade are their online alter egos, fangirls of the Simon Snow tribe. They've been writing fanfiction together for years, but Wren's starting to pull away. Soon it's just Magicath writing, and she gathers a following of over 35K readers. Cath's no longer just writing for herself: she can feel the weight of a whole community on her shoulders.

When the pair head to university, Cath is distraught because Wren decides that she wants a new roommate. She cuts her hair short, gets rid of her glasses, and Cath feels alone in a world that she's always been paired in. As Wren embraces university life with parties, drinking and new guys, Cath becomes more introverted, and struggles to even find her way to continue writing fan fiction.

Fangirl is all about how everything changes at the start of university, but also tells us that it's okay for everything to change, even if it's scary.

I loved this novel, and would definitely recommend it to any YA fiction fans! Have you read it?

Review of 'Lying About Last Summer' by Sue Wallman

I've really been digging YA fiction at the moment. So much so that next time I write up a book haul for y'all it's going to be pretty YA heavy. I've been interspersing them with a lot of dense classics, so it makes for a nice, easy reading break between all the kind of books that you're 'supposed to read'.

Lying About Last Summer is the second book from 2016's Zoella book club that I've read so far, and I loved it almost as much as the first one. It's a bit of a thriller, and we all know how much I fell in love with those last year, so I was naturally a big fan.

Lying About Last Summer is all about Skye's ability to deal with her sister's tragic death. One year previous to the novel, Luisa, her sister, was killed. And Skye was present. But, heeding her sister's advice and paralysed by fear, she did nothing until it was too late. 

Skye's life used to revolve around her swim team and badgering her older sister to spend time with her. But Luisa drowned, and Skye can't step foot into a pool without a panic attack. Her parents can no longer cope with living in the house that they lost a child in, so the family move and Skye becomes more isolated than ever.

Fast forward to the next summer, and Skye's parents have sent her to a camp for bereaved teens in an attempt to help her recover from Luisa's death. All is going well (or at least as well as it can do), until she opens up the old app, Message Hound, that her and Luisa used to chat on. They're the only ones with the passcode for their messages, so they used to use it for things they didn't want their mum to see. When Skye messages her sister, the last thing she expects is a reply ...

Have you read it? What did you think?

Review of 'I Was Here' by Gayle Forman

As soon as I found out that Zoella was doing a book club with WH Smith I knew I wanted to look into it more, I won't lie. I've now ended up with almost all of the range, and this is the first one I've read. It was the one I was most excited for, after looking a little into the plot of each of the eight novels in the book club. It feels like forever since I read a YA novel, and it was SO comforting to read one again.

I was completely obsessed with the plot of this book, and finished it in just over a day, which is something that never rarely happens anymore. It was a 'stop everything' kind of novel, that I just had to finish.

I Was Here is all about a girl named Cody, who's best friend Meg killed herself suddenly, and with no real explanation. Cody thought they told each other everything, but she didn't know that Meg was even struggling with life, let alone that she wanted it to end. 

Meg and Cody have been inseparable for years. Cody's mum works all hours to support the pair of them, and she's never met her dad, so Meg's family feels like her own. When Meg dies, Cody feels cut off from everything. She wants to go and see the Garcias, but it's not the same without her. When Meg's parents ask Cody to travel to Meg's university and pack up her things for them, Cody's only too glad to get out of the small town they live in. 

When Cody arrives at Meg's dorms, she realises that there's a LOT going on that she didn't know. Like the fact that Meg was harassing her ex-boyfriend. Or that she rescued two kittens. Soon Cody realises that her and Meg did fall out of touch in the few months before Meg took her life. Still though, Cody can't believe that Meg made the decision to die alone. What if she didn't? 

We follow Cody on a course to track down other people who may have had a hand in Meg's death, and it becomes a complete page-turner as we do.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Review of 'Abandon' by Meg Cabot

This is the first YA fiction book I've read in ages, and one that's actually been on my shelf waiting to be read since it first came out a couple of years ago. I have to say, I love the illustration on the front cover, and really think it's something that has the potential to draw a lot of readers in. I LOVED Meg Cabot as a teenager: The Princess Diaries series was basically what my dreams were made of, and even when I branched into her adult novels I was enthralled. This book really brought me back to how much I loved her writing, and after ending on such a cliffhanger I'm definitely going to have to pick up the next in the series (Underworld) asap!

Pierce's life is nowhere near normal, and not just because she lives on Isla Huesos, aka the island of bones. Just before she moved to the island, Pierce died ... and then came back to live, but not before she took a trip to the Underworld. There she was given a necklace that she was told would protect her from evil, but the problem is that Pierce doesn't just want to protect herself, she wants to protect the people she loves. After returning to live with a completely new perspective on things, she is soon branded as trouble and her uber rich parents are determined to make sure she doesn't completely make a fool of herself and more importantly them.

So, when she goes to Isla Huesos, Pierce hopes that she'll be able to finally make her mum proud again, and become a 'normal' girl. Yet, fate has other plans. Her necklace becomes a bigger problem than she'd ever imagined, and her captor in the underworld who gave it to her keeps showing up. The biggest problem? She thinks she might be falling for him.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Steph x

Review of "Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli

Recently I've been getting more and more interested in YA fiction, especially as it's been so long since I've read any and have done a degree in English Lit during that period! Simon vs the Homosapiens agenda really opened my eyes to ways in which the genre has transformed. Although it's only been three or four years since I've read any, Albertalli's novel opened my eyes to ways in which difficult issues are now being tackled. I don't remember ever having read a YA novel in which the protagonist, whose point of view the novel is written from was openly gay (at least to the reader!). I was incredibly pleased to see the uncomfortable issue of how and when to come out dealt with head on, without the importance of this to a young person being overlooked. All in all I think it was an incredibly interesting text, especially with the parallel plot lines between the "real" world, and Simon's online relationship with Blue. 

Simon's your typical teenager: desperate to get away from his parents' smothering questions, keen to make new friends, and more importantly, ready to start a relationship. However, Simon's recently realised that it is boys he likes, which in his mind causes a whole host of problems. Especially when you bring Blue into the equation. Blue is Simon's (or Jacques, his online alias') emailing penpal, who goes to the same school, but is keen to keep his identity a secret. The pair fall for each other over email, but like most teenagers are far too shy to bring this relationship to light. Simon begins to see potential Blues everywhere he looks, but soon other aspects of his life catch up to him. The drama play, his friends' arguments and his sister's mysterious disappearances all have him on edge and distracted. In the end, will everything turn out right?

Have you read it? What did you think?

Steph x