{Book Review} With Malice

With Malice by Eileen Cook
Published by HMH Books for Young Readers on June 7th 2016
Genres: Mysteries & Detective Stories, Young Adult
Pages: 316
Source: Purchased
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It was the perfect trip…until it wasn’t.
Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron wakes up in a hospital room, leg in a cast, stitches in her face and a big blank canvas where the last six weeks should be. She discovers she was involved in a fatal car accident while on a school trip in Italy. A trip she doesn’t even remember taking. She was jetted home by her affluent father in order to receive quality care. Care that includes a lawyer. And a press team. Because maybe the accident…wasn’t an accident.
As the accident makes national headlines, Jill finds herself at the center of a murder investigation. It doesn’t help that the media is portraying her as a sociopath who killed her bubbly best friend, Simone, in a jealous rage. With the evidence mounting against her, there’s only one thing Jill knows for sure: She would never hurt Simone. But what really happened? Questioning who she can trust and what she’s capable of, Jill desperately tries to piece together the events of the past six weeks before she loses her thin hold on her once-perfect life.

Imagine waking up in the hospital with having no recollection of how you got there and realizing you don’t remember the last six weeks of your life. Now imagine finding out that you and your best friend were in a car accident and she was killed…and then you find out that you are suspected of murdering her! Jill and Simone go on the trip of a lifetime to Italy, but Simone never comes back.

The book is written from Jill’s point of view and is interspersed with police interviews as well as blog posts and comments that provide different perspectives on the events that transpired before the accident. Did Jill intentionally kill her best friend? The police, media and blog comments seem to point to her guilt but will Jill’s memory ever return so she will know what happened? As in real life, the media and news play a big part in public opinion and we see how that impacts Jill’s case and her recovery. Her therapist helps Jill come to terms with the fact that even if her memory of the events does return she will never be sure if those memories are real or false memories because of the way the brain functions and heals.

This is a gripping story that reminded me of the Amanda Knox case. A handsome Italian guy, two best friends, the police mishandling of evidence as well as the media frenzy that ensued, parallel the Amanda Knox case and make for an intense read, I kept turning the pages hoping Jill’s memories would return and wanting to find out what really happened. But will we ever truly know the real stories in either case?

{Book Review} The 5th Wave

by The Modern Librarian // No Comments

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Published by Penguin Books, Limited on 2014
Genres: Dystopian, Science Fiction
Pages: 460
Source: Library
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The 1st Wave took out half a million people. The 2nd Wave put that number to shame. The 3rd Wave lasted a little longer. Twelve weeks . . . Four billion dead. In The 4th Wave, you can't trust that people are still people. And The 5th Wave? No one knows. But it's coming. On a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs. Runs from the beings that only look human, who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan may be her only hope. Now Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up. www.The5thWaveIsComing.com

I absolutely loved The 5th Wave. I had been holding off reading it because of the daunting length of the book, but I downloaded the e-book which makes it so much easier for me to read long books. I’m not sure why I waited so long to read it, students have loved it, and now I am anxiously awaiting the movie adaptation and can’t wait to read The Infinite Sea. It has everything I love, adventure, romance and mystery. Cassie’s perseverance despite the overwhelming odds of defeating the aliens, finding her brother and just surviving make her a character to admire. These are some of my favorite quotes from the book. Read this book, you’ll love it!

“This silence is deafening. Why did they come billions of miles just to stare at us? It’s rude.”

“We’re here, and then we’re gone, and it’s not about the time we’re here, but what we do with the time.”

“I want him to touch me again. I want to feel his hands, as soft as clouds. But I’m afraid if he touches me, all seven billion billion billion atoms that make up my body will blow apart and scatter across the universe.”

“Don’t you get it yet? The minute we decide that one person doesn’t matter anymore, they’ve won.”

{Book Review} Some Boys

by The Modern Librarian // No Comments

Some Boys by Patty Blount
Published by Sourcebooks on August 5th 2014
Genres: Love & Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 339
Source: Purchased
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Some girls say no. Some boys don't listen. When Grace meets Ian, she's afraid. Afraid he'll reject her like the rest of the school, like her own family. After she accuses Zac, the town golden boy, of rape, everyone turns against her. Ian wouldn't be the first to call her a slut and a liar. Except Ian doesn't reject her. He's the one person who looks past the taunts and the names and the tough-girl act to see the real Grace. He's the one who gives her the courage to fight back. He's also Zac's best friend.

What do you do if you’re raped by the most popular boy in school and no one believes you? If you’re Grace, you stand up to everyone no matter what until someone believes you. She shows courage and determination even when everyone turns against her, including her best friends. I really admired this about Grace, because I know when I was in high school I never would have been that brave.

“It would be so easy for you to – I don’t know – hide. Run away. Pretend.” He shakes his head. “But you get in people’s faces. You don’t back off. Even when you’re scared. And you’re scared a lot lately, aren’t you.”

The book, told in alternating chapters between Grace and Ian, the best friend of Zac, the boy who raped her. Ian has always liked Grace, but since Zac is the alpha male of the group and “scored” with her, which apparently means she is now off limits. After Ian and Grace are both assigned week long detention during spring break, Ian starts to realize that things aren’t always as they appear. The book raises important stereotypes that pervade the issues of sexual assault, such as the way a girl dresses or that fact that she was drinking.

“I just want people to believe it happened.” I shiver, suddenly cold. “Nobody does, you know. The cops wanted to know if I was Zac’s girlfriend, if I was drinking, doing drugs, if I ever worked as a stripper, if I ever kissed Zac before that night. What the hell does any of that have to do with what happened? Do the laws against sexual assault not apply to strippers? To girlfriends? I don’t get that.”

Along the same lines as Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and Just Listen by Sarah Dessen, Some Boys is an important and well written book about sexual assault which I highly recommend. It would make an excellent book club/discussion book.

{Book Review} The Last Time We Say Goodbye

by The Modern Librarian // No Comments

The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand
Published by HarperCollins Publishers on February 1st 2015
Genres: Young Adult
Pages: 400
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THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE is a poignant, layered and compelling novel about a teenage girl grappling with the suicide of her younger brother Ages: 13+ The last time Lex was happy 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 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 the past doesn't have to define the present. From New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Hand comes a story of love, loss and learning how to let go.

“Time passes. That’s the rule. No matter what happens, no matter how much it might feel like everything in your life has frozen around one particular moment, time marches on.”

I ended this book with tears streaming down my face, actually I was balling. Even after I finished reading I couldn’t stop crying. My husband was worried about me.

I couldn’t stop reading. What was the text that that Lex got from her brother? Who was leaving her the paper flowers? Why did she break up with Steven? Was her brother sending her messages from the afterlife? I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

Suicide is one of the hardest deaths with far reaching consequences. Cynthia Hand shows first hand the impact it has on the people closest to the victim and the guilt that clouds those people. Could they have stopped it? Why didn’t they see that person was hurting? Why didn’t they reach out for help? Everyone works through their grief in different ways, but eventually they learn that they must move on.

I loved all the characters in the book, but Steven, Lex’s geeky, math nerd boyfriend, was by far my favorite. He’s my new favorite book boyfriend.

I absolutely LOVED this book!

{Book Review} All the Bright Places

by The Modern Librarian // No Comments

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
Published by Random House Children's Books on January 6th 2015
Genres: Death & Dying, Depression & Mental Illness, Love & Romance, Social Issues, Young Adult
Pages: 400
Source: Purchased
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The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning! Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him. Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death. When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink. This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.

My thoughts: Mental illness has such a terrible stigma in our society; for some reason we look at a disease of the body (i.e. cancer) very differently than a disease of the brain. The more I learn and read about it the more frustrated I become because it is so hard for people to get the help they so desperately need. Whether they are too afraid to reach out or their illness is ignored, this happens far too often in our society. Until mental illness touches your life it is extremely difficult to not only understand its effects on the person suffering, but also its effect on all the people close to them. All the Bright Places opens our eyes and hearts to two broken young adults, Finch and Violet. Finch, determined to become Violet’s savior, through a class assignment where they have to visit the “wondrous sights” of Indiana.

“Everyone around you is going to give you a gentle push now and then, but never hard enough because they don’t want to upset Poor Violet. You need shoving, not pushing. You need to jump back on that camel. Otherwise you’re going to stay up on the ledge you’ve made for yourself.”

As Finch fights to bring Violet out of her dark depression we discover that Finch’s mental illness goes much deeper, but their friendship and relationship grows even as Violet’s parents forbid her from seeing him.

“You are all the colors in one, at full brightness.”

What happens next can only be described as heart wrenching. I kept turning the pages hoping beyond hope that what I thought was going to happen didn’t.

I absolutely love books that have scavenger hunts or road trips, i.e. Paper Towns, Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, Let’s Go Places, The Disenchantments and this is one going to the top of that list. All the Bright Places is a beautiful story, albeit extremely sad, and I absolutely adore Jennifer Niven’s writing. I found that she captured the lives of two young adults very accurately. It took me awhile to figure out what Finch was suffering from, but I think that only highlights the difficulties of diagnosing mental illness.

“That’s just his thing. It’s what he does.”

All the Bright Places is so important because it underscores the issues surrounding mental illness especially in young adults and hopefully brings an awareness to the dire consequences. I knew after about two chapters that this was going to be a tear jerker and I finished the book with tears streaming down my face.

{Book Review} Half Bad

by The Modern Librarian // No Comments

Half Bad by Sally Green
Published by Penguin on March 4th 2014
Genres: Boys & Men, Family, Fantasy & Magic, Young Adult
Pages: 416
Source: Purchased
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In modern-day England, witches live alongside humans: White witches, who are good; Black witches, who are evil; and sixteen-year-old Nathan, who is both. Nathan’s father is the world’s most powerful and cruel Black witch, and his mother is dead. He is hunted from all sides. Trapped in a cage, beaten and handcuffed, Nathan must escape before his seventeenth birthday, at which point he will receive three gifts from his father and come into his own as a witch—or else he will die. But how can Nathan find his father when his every action is tracked, when there is no one safe to trust—not even family, not even the girl he loves? In the tradition of Patrick Ness and Markus Zusak, Half Bad is a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive, a story that will grab hold of you and not let go until the very last page.

My thoughts: If you like action, adventure, plus magic then this book is for you. In a world where witches live among fains (humans) in Modern Day England, white witches are good and black witches are bad, and Nathan is the only half white witch and half black witch. In some ways this book reminded me a little bit of Harry Potter, since Nathan is an outcast. He is ‘different’ from everyone else, since he is half white witch and half black witch and is forever being tormented by the white witches, with whom he has grown up with. No one wants anything to do with him and the white witch council is slowly limiting his rights and freedom; no one trusts him as they don’t know whether his loyalty lies with the white or black witches. Nathan is not only trying to figure out who he is but he also needs to find his father, Marcus, the most feared black witch of all. When the council imprisons him, Nathan must figure out a way to escape and locate his father to find out why he left him and has never tried to find him. In the process he begins to define who he is and learns to place trust in others. This books kept me on the edge of my seat and turning the pages.