Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

I don't read contemporary YA. To put this in context, in the last nine years, I have read 963 books for pleasure. Of these, nine were contemporary YA and of those, I actually finished five of them. I even finished The Fault in Our Stars and An Abundance of Katherines, so I'm hardly picky! It's just not my thing. I didn't like teenagers when I was one, so they're hardly likely to have grown on me now that I'm a decade more irritable. The point is, a book of this genre has to be pretty special to make me want to read it, finish it and then actually want to talk about it in a review. I give you - We Were Liars.

A beautiful and distinguished family.

A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

  

Bex made me read this. Well, no, she didn't. But she wrote a post about it when I was bored, and lonely, and near a bookshop, so really she might as well have held a gun to my head, right? 

I actually really liked this book when I started it, even though there's not much (at first) to set it aside from lots of other YA novels out there. Cadence Sinclair and her family visit their private island every Summer. We jump into the story at about Summer Fourteen and everything is pretty much normal. You meet the characters, get a little background and slope around the beach with them for a while. It's still an interesting story and I got quite into it. More to the point, this book has a teenage relationship and I did not hate it.

But then we jump into Summer Fifteen and it all starts to go a bit wrong. With the plot, I mean. The book is still great. Cadence has had an accident... only she doesn't quite remember what that was. She knows that she has horrendous migraines and is now living the life of an invalid, but everything else about that summer is just gone from her memory.

The rest of the book features Cady during Summer Seventeen as she tries to unravel the mystery of what exactly happened to her and I promise you that it's not what you think. I'm struggling here because a lot of what I want to talk about is very spoilery. There's a twist and I have very mixed feelings about it, but this is definitely a book where the less you know going in, the better the book will be.

Let's see if I can dance on the line of vague yet explanatory. When the twist first begins to unravel, it's great. I texted Bex in capital letters just because I had to talk to someone about what had just been revealed. I loved where it was going as I completely hadn't seen it coming and it was perfect. But then I think it almost went a little too far? It seemed to twist one time too many and then it just seemed a little silly. To give credit to Ms Lockhart, it took me completely by surprise (*cough* although that might be because it makes absolutely zero sense *coughs*) and it would be interesting to reread the book knowing what I do now.

It wasn't enough to ruin the book for me, but the point of this book is the GASP!ending. I know it sounds like I didn't like We Were Liars, when I actually really did, but you're kept in suspense for an entire book and then it doesn't quite pay off. I got on board with a slightly preachy protagonist because she accepts her own flaws. The secondary characters aren't very fleshed out, but she only sees them once a year - maybe they're written that way on purpose. It tries too hard to be arty, but hey, that's fine. Arty is nice. SEE!? I GOT ON BOARD WITH THIS BOOK. And then I was ever-so-slightly let down.

Bex is going to murder me.

Read her review at An Armchair by the Sea here.

Review: The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

I'm simply horrendous at reading books when they're actually relevant - either when they're first released, when the movie version comes out or when my friends are reading and loving it. It usually takes a random flash of inspiration to remind me that a book exists and then maybe I'll finally, finally read it. Or more often, not.

Plot summary:  Charlie is a freshman. And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But Charlie can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

As it turns out, I had absolutely no idea what this book was actually about. I think I had a vague idea about a coming-of-age novel, something to do with a quiet teenager who finds new friends? While I wasn't strictly wrong (not that I'd ever admit to it if I was), there's a lot more to The Perks of Being A Wallflower than I expected.

Charlie is a slightly odd, quiet teenager who writes long letters detailing his life to the friend of a schoolmate, who he once heard was a decent person. He uses this as a sort-of journal and so we get to hear about the minor dramas that make up Charlie's life. I would have loved to learn more about the recipient of these letters - it's hardly the point of the story, but I do think that perhaps one letter in response would have tied the whole book up nicely.

It actually works really well. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's 'moving,' but there's a certain twist to Charlie's tone that lets you know that there's something undernearth the surface. I think I twigged fairly early on that he has some sort of mental illness, but then I do have a penchant for this kind of book. I loved that it never really felt the need to tell the reader exactly what Charlie has, thus avoiding the labels of 'mental health book.' This way Perks gets to remain a simple coming-of-age novel that's read and loved almost universally.

Charlie is perfect. Slightly naive to the point where you just can't help but want to help him out. I also think he represents a lot of our own teenage anxieties - not necessarily the drama present in his life, but the usual concerns about whether your friends actually like having you around and your parents discovering exactly how much you drank last weekend.

I had a harder time relating to some of the other characters, who don't really seem to be believable teenagers. I accept that they're two years older than Charlie, but they're so... liberal (diplomacy at its best) that it seems like they're already at college. No live-at-home teenager has that much freedom or quite as philosophical a world view.

Sam occasionally irritated me as I think she may be the least developed character, which is odd considering she's probably the second-most important. She reads more like a caricature of a person than any believable approximation, having very lofty ideals towards the end and it did feel like she took advantage of Charlie somewhat, which doesn't fit with everything else we'd been told about her values.

I did not see that ending coming and hadn't even been a little bit spoilered. While I didn't hate it and I don't object to it, I'm still not sure that it was strictly necessary especially as the narrative goes out of its way to state that It wasn't responsible for Charlie's difficulties. It does seem as if the purpose was primarily shock value and that does tend to irritate me.

Spoilery about the ending: 

I do feel that it may trivialise and over-simplify sexual abuse a little. 'Oh, I was sexually abused and so now I sexually abuse other people.'
Well, no. It doesn't always work like that, but it was presented as if this was a perfectly natural and understandable development.

Aaaaaaaaand I'm done.

I do think there's something here for everyone - every teenager who feels a little isolated from their peers, but also every adult who feels grateful that they never have to go through that awkward stage again! The Perks of Being A Wallflower deals with mental illness, sexual awakenings, anxiety, homosexuality, teenage relationships and probably a lot more. There's an awful lot packed into this seemingly simple book and, while it has its faults, I recommend it very highly.

Read Ellie's review of the book and movie here.   

Series Review: The Selection, The Elite and The One by Kiera Cass

Normally I like to review each book in a series separately as they can all bring something different to the work overall and so deserve to have their own post. However, I've selected (sorry) to review The Selection as a series because I don't want people to read my review of the first book and dismiss it overall - this series is so much more than the sum of its parts.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT YOU READ THIS THROUGH TO THE END. Please.

Plot summary: Thirty-five beautiful girls. Thirty-five beautiful rivals…
It’s the chance of a lifetime and 17-year-old America Singer should feel lucky. She has been chosen for The Selection, a reality TV lottery in which the special few compete for gorgeous Prince Maxon’s love.
Swept up in a world of elaborate gowns, glittering jewels and decadent feasts, America is living a new and glamorous life. And the prince takes a special interest in her, much to the outrage of the others.
Rivalry within The Selection is fierce and not all of the girls are prepared to play by the rules. But what they don’t know is that America has a secret – one which could throw the whole competition… and change her life forever.

I know, alright? I'm not normally one for books with swoopy dresses on the cover and the summary didn't really sell it to me either. I can't remember why I even bought this in the first place, but it doesn't matter - DO NOT JUDGE THIS BOOK (you know, like I did). The Selection, the first book, is more or less what it says above. The plot revolves around America, who is part of a competition to win the heart of the Crown Prince, Maxon. There's some sort of rebellion going on in the background, but I'd say it's 97% about the girls and their dresses as it's never really mentioned what they're rebelling against. It's fluffy and twee... and yet strangely enthralling.

It doesn't help that America isn't so great herself. She's very whiny, preachy and ungrateful, snivelling about how she doesn't want to be there but then doing a poor job of showing it by rolling around in her luxourious sheets. This happens a lot in YA books, I think -  authors want their female protagonists to be strong-willed and independant, but they go too far the other way and end up being bitchy and horrible people.

The Independance Ship sailed when she didn't immediately slap Aspen Leger but spent the entire book shouting at Maxon. It's very frustrating when a character has two choices of men and it's incredibly obvious which one she should pick. One is a Prince who loves her for some unfathomable reason, despite her generally being horrible to him, and the other broke up with you after abusing you for making him a picnic because he's A Man and should be The Provider. Garrgh.

I really did like America and Maxon's relationship though. It was maybe a little Insta-lovey on his side (I admit that might be because I don't understand what he'd see in her) but it's refreshing to see a series where the main couple are friends first. It's just nice. They seem to have genuine, unforced rapport and I desperately needed them to get together. If only it were that simple.

I finished The Selection on the way to go book shopping in Chesterfield with Ellie and my explanation of my feelings were convoluted to say the least. "It's so bad... but I think I like it? Should I buy the next book? I can't decide. It's not very good, but it's so good!"

In the end it was irrelevant because the bookshop didn't have it in stock. However, over time my irritations with The Selection faded and I was only left with memories of the good parts and a burning desire to know what happened. It has its faults and it's light-reading, but at the same time it really does draw you in and make you care.

Quite obviously, I ended up buying The Elite and reading it almost immediately. Let me just point out that I never do this; I never read books in a series right after each other. It's a miracle if I read them in the same damn year. And yet I did. Immediately.

It just didn't feel like the second installment of a trilogy. We all know the usual drill - the first book sets the scene in the dystopian society and ends with the characters running away, the second book has them trailing boringly through woods/deserts/rebel camps and the third is basically all-out war. Not here - Kiera Cass has broken the mould. I actually love that the competition is still ongoing, that it's in the same place with the same women.  Why fix what isn't broken?

It starts to get a whole lot darker and less about the competition - we're now at probably 65% competition and 35% rebellion. I was nowhere near as annoyed with this one as I was with The Selection (except the few places where America made me want to hurl my Kindle across the room) and I was able to confidently assert that I really liked it, without the doubt that shadowed the first.

It's not perfect. America is actually more annoying than in the first book -"Hey America, please don't do this - I'll get in trouble." "Okay." *waddles off and does it anyway.*  ARGH. She absolutely 100% makes up her mind to be with one person, but then turns around and makes exactly the same decision about the other person! That said, she does have her moments - I loved when she ran defiantly towards Marlee - that was actually the right thing to do and it was beautifully written.

Aspen, however, does not redeem himself in any way ever. "You don't fit in here, he doesn't love you, you wouldn't make a good princess..." He's not an even remotely viable love interest... although I admit I might feel that way because Maxon is written so well. His background is explored a little more in The Elite and, while it's not pleasant, it makes him into a loveable, fully-fleshed out character to firmly root for.

In fact, I was so desperate for the series to end the 'right' way that I actually had to research the ending before I'd let myself buy The One. I honestly couldn't have brought myself to read it otherwise.

I loved this book. It really is just that simple. We've now decreased to the competition taking up 20% or so of the plot (if that), but I cared as much about that as I did the rebellion and everything else.

That's just it - I cared about everything. Yes, America is stupid and Aspen is awful but it just didn't matter. Maxon and his parents were such real characters that I felt as if everything that happened affected me personally. I welled up more than once because it was so moving, although I do admit to being a slight wuss in general.

Usually the first book in a series is the best and it goes downhill until the third book consists of just some anti-climactic fighting in some rebel camp. It's the exact opposite here - The One is clearly, clearly the best. I know this because I had to skimread a whole chapter because I was that desperate to get to the end - I went back and read it properly later but I just needed to KNOW! 

   "But there must be something more we can do," Maxon insisted.
   "You've already done something pretty empowering. Well, she did," August said, dipping his head in my direction. "From what we're able to tell, farmers are keeping their axes with them if they leave their fields, seamstresses walk the street with scissors clutched in their hands, and you'll see Twos parading around with disarming spray. No matter the caste, everyone seems to have found some way to arm themselves, just in case. Your people don't want to live in fear, and they're not. They're fighting back."

It still has its faults - the ending wasn't as in-depth as I'd have liked, but it was climactic and exciting regardless. America's relationship with the other girls was a little cliched in this book which I don't really see was necessary. I will give it points for not pulling any punches though, as for a YA novel, this is fairly brutal. People die and there is some reasonably graphic violence. We're not talking guts and entrails here, but it's not what I'd have expected from the cover.

The acknowledgements section begins 'Can you just put your hand on the page and pretend I'm giving you a high five? Seriously. How else do I thank you for reading my books?' I did that. I genuinely and literally put my hand on my Kindle screen and high-fived The One. Just because Kiera Cass asked me to. That's how much I loved this.

Conclusion: The Selection series has a twee premise but if you can accept that and just roll with it, this is a brilliant series. It steadily picks up power from book to book, resulting in The One which was actually just short of wonderful. There are many faults throughout, but they're overshadowed by genuine realistic relationships and characters I really cared about. It's just good.

This book was:

• The Best Series I Read In 2014
  

So, The Selection - the biggest surprise of 2014!

Review: Teardrop by Lauren Kate

Teardrop was so obviously not for me that I considered just not reviewing it and, if I was merely apathetic about it, I probably would have let it go at that. Unfortunately I have such strong feelings about this book that I just have to review it properly. Well, I say 'properly,' but I probably actually mean 'angrily.'

This isn't going to go well.

Plot summary: Never, ever cry... Eureka Boudreaux's mother drilled that rule into her daughter years ago. But now her mother is gone, and everywhere Eureka goes he is there: Ander, the tall, pale blond boy who seems to know things he shouldn't, who tells Eureka she is in grave danger, who comes closer to making her cry than anyone has before.

But Ander doesn't know Eureka's darkest secret: ever since her mother drowned in a freak accident, Eureka wishes she were dead, too. She has little left that she cares about, just her oldest friend, Brooks, and a strange inheritance - a locket, a letter, a mysterious stone, and an ancient book no one understands. The book contains a haunting tale about a girl who got her heart broken and cried an entire continent into the sea. Eureka is about to discover that the ancient tale is more than a story, that Ander might be telling the truth... and that her life has far darker undercurrents than she ever imagined.

Genuinely and completely non-sarcastically (but just wait), it sounded like an interesting premise. Mysterious boy and dead mother clichés aside, I picked it up for the unique premise of the underwater mythology mixed with a girl who couldn't cry for fear of Bad Things happening. Great, awesome!

Except not. It's so achingly, mind-numbingly domestic. The actual magic-y aspects don't really form an integral part of the story until at least three quarters of the way through, and that's a generous estimate. It's hinted at, sure, but it's mostly the old male friend and the new sultry boy beating their chests at each other, to Eureka's natural delight disdain. I had zero interest. If I wanted to read about a teenage protagonist who had to choose between two equally terrible men, I could wander into Waterstones and pick up almost any book in the Teen section. It's just so over-done now.

The prologue doesn't help in that respect. I rant about prologues and epilogues so much that I'm not going to bang my head against that wall anymore today, but this prologue is kind of self-defeating. It tells you the end of the story! Because of this, I began the story already knowing who Ander is, why Eureka's mother died and why people are chasing her. Oops, there goes the mystery!

Eureka herself has to be the worst fictional character I have ever come across. I know her Mum has just died and I'm very sorry about that. But please, dear God, stop talking about it. She's unbelievably melodramatic - more so than Sloane in This Is Not A Test, and she tried to sacrifice herself to a zombie horde. She can't be in the school group photo because OMG MY MOM DIED and 'You know I don't like boys since MY MOM DIED. God, you are SO INSENSITIVE.' Also, it is not a 'death sentence' to sit at a lunch table with people. I hated this. Hated. I was so angry at it that I actually had to keep putting it down before it ruined my mood for the day.

Eureka felt tricked. A yearbook picture hadn't been part of her deal with Coach. She saw the photographer, a man in his fifties with a short black ponytail, setting up a massive flash apparatus. She imagined huddling into one of the lines alongside these other kids, the bright light going off in her face. She imagined the photo being printed into three hundred yearbooks, imagined future generations flipping the pages. Before the accident, Eureka never thought twice about posing for the camera; her face contorted into smiles, smirks, and air kisses all over friends' Facebook and Instagram pages. But now?
The permanence this single photo would imply made Eureka feel like an imposter. She imagined the lie of her high school resume - Latin Club, cross-country team, a list of honors classes. Survivor's guilt, the one extracurricular activity Eureka was interested in, was nowhere to be found. She stiffened so it wouldn't be obvious she was shaking.

It's bearable for two paragraphs, right? Well, almost. Now imagine 400 pages of that.

The other characters are fairly generic - boy-crazy but dependable best-friend, horrible step-mother (who actually seems like a fairly reasonable person), clueless father.... etc. Except we have to stop every time somebody new is introduced so we can be told what they look like and where they live in excruciating detail. It's not quite as bad as 'the main character looked in the mirror and saw XYZ looking back at her,' but it's close.

The writing itself is lazy. There are lots of instances where Eureka 'can't explain how she knew' and doing odd things 'by instinct,' presumably because the writing is too lazy to explain a character's action with a logical reason. And obviously Eureka can randomly understand some obscure iconography because she went with her mother to a xylography class at some point. That's lucky. And lazy.

My feelings about Teardrop are probably pretty clear by this point. I think I'm so annoyed because it could have been great - there's a unique premise that I've never seen even touched upon before, but unfortunately that wasn't where the focal point of the book seemed to be. Too much melodrama about silly things and too much shoddy writing. I don't think I'll be trying Lauren Kate again.

Read another review of Teardrop at Effortlessly Reading.