Book Thoughts: Breath

Title: Breath
Author: Jackie Morse Kessler
Series: Riders of the Apocalypse #4

I am just not quite sure how to feel about this book.

I like Xander; I thought he was better developed as a character than the previous protagonist, Billy. And I LOVED getting to spend time with Death as the protagonist. Seeing the character of Death develop was super cool and I love the way Kessler handled his backstory.

I also really enjoyed seeing the other Riders again. As a conclusion to the series, BREATH is absolutely what it needed to be.

I just didn't quite like Xander's story. Riley is never referred to by a pronoun, so it's always "Riley pushed Riley's hair behind Riley's ear" (that is NOT an actual quote, just a condensed example), and I didn't quite follow where the whole Baby Lex thing came from. The story with Riley made perfect sense in light of the plot twist, but Lex just didn't. And the twist just sort of felt like a cop-out, I dunno.

I think what I'm getting at is this: I love Xander's character and I liked his story (not his ending), but I thought the novel would have worked better had it focused solely on Death and the Riders without bringing Xander into it. But it's still definitely a worthy conclusion to the series and absolutely worth reading for Death's story.

Book Thoughts: The Casual Vacancy

Title: The Casual Vacancy
Author: J.K. Rowling
*Imported from tumblr*

I knew going in that this was going to be very different from Harry Potter, and I was okay with that. Thirty pages in, I was horrified — most of the characters were frustratingly unlikeable people, and there was almost as much swearing as there was conversation in the dialogue. I gave it a couple more chapters but was unconvinced that I would finish it.

And then… I kept reading. I was still kind of disgusted by a lot of the characters, but at the same time I understood why they did what they did. I’ve seen it described as “dark and gritty" but I’ve also seen it described as “brutally honest," and I think both descriptions are accurate for this book. It is a brutally honest portrayal of the dark and gritty parts of life that we like to ignore, although I felt that the happiness that people often manage to find in everyday life was underrepresented. (That, in fact, is my biggest complaint about the book.) But I dare anyone to read this book and come away unchanged.

Depressing, this book certainly is. Also very adult in content in many ways, and yet there are teen characters whose lives are portrayed accurately. Anyway, I’ve lost the thread: depressing, but also honest and thought-provoking and beautifully written and above all, powerful. Not one to read lightly, certainly, but one I am glad to have read.

Book Thoughts: 34 Pieces of You

Title: 34 Pieces of You
Author: Carmen Rodrigues

I just read this one as an e-book on PulseIT, and wow.

I'm honestly not sure what I think of this book. Chronologically, it was a little hard to follow with the nonlinear storytelling; some of the actual events were a little hard to follow too because I kept getting the characters' voices mixed up and forgetting whether it was Jessie, Sarah, or Jake narrating. I would have liked more backstory about the characters, too.

BUT. But. Emotionally it was a pretty powerful read, a really interesting way to handle the death of a teenager and a loved one. I wish we'd been able to see things from Ellie's perspective, but maybe the point was that none of them could see things from Ellie's perspective.

I had a hard time putting this one down - it drew me in and made me want to keep reading. Fascinating take on the different characters' emotions. I just wish there had been a little more - it ended too soon. The issues in this book are very real and definitely played with my emotions. I recommend it for fans of Thirteen Reasons Why and Ellen Hopkins.

Book Thoughts: Glimpse

Title: Glimpse
Author: Carol Lynch Williams

Glimpse is absolutely wonderful. It's 484 pages long, but it's written in verse so in terms of word count it's probably pretty short. I read it over about an hour and a half. It's a quick read and an amazing book so please don't let the length scare you off.

Hope is 13. Her older sister Lizzie is 14. They have other friends, but ever since they were 3 and 4, they've been best friends and they've protected each other. So when Hope walks into their shared bedroom to find Lizzie pointing a gun at her own head and Lizzie gets shipped off to a mental hospital, Hope's world turns upside down. She doesn't understand why her sister would want to die. She doesn't understand what she's supposed to do now that she can't protect Lizzie anymore.

Hope's mother is not exactly a source of comfort; it seems like Lizzie has always been her favorite, but neither one of them was planned, and Momma hasn't really been there for the girls since their father died eight years ago. What Momma does have is a secret, and that secret may explain why Lizzie wanted so desperately "to leave/for good."

Glimpse was beautifully written and once you start reading it you just can't stop. Absolutely a must-read. So, so good. It was excellent. Both of the girls are incredibly relatable and real. Their problems don't make them any less normal girls. Hope's interactions with her best friend were always a lot of fun to read. And the writing is just spectacular. I really loved all of the poems and everything. This was a really, really awesome book. Definitely recommended.

Book Thoughts: Rage

Title: Hunger
Author: Jackie Morse Kessler
Series: Riders of the Apocalypse #1

This review is a hard one for me to write. I had a lot of problems with this book, but at the same time I thought it had a really interesting premise and I loved Jackie Morse Kessler's writing style. The idea behind the story is simple enough: Lisa is anorexic, depressed, and one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Three pills into her suicide attempt, Death shows up at her front door and hands her the role of Famine. Lisa doesn't know how to handle the new job, especially not with all the pressure from her family and her boyfriend and her ex-best friend, but maybe, just maybe, it will teach her some important lessons.

My main objection to Hunger was at the very beginning. When Death shows up to hand her the Scales that are the symbol of the office of Famine, Lisa is three pills into a suicide attempt. He says a couple of weird sentences, hands her some scales, and leaves. Lisa decides that she is hallucinating (and fat), but says "At least I'm not depressed anymore." Not right-this-second suicidal I can understand. To be so torn up as to be in the middle of a suicide attempt and then decide after a brief interruption that she's not at all depressed anymore? It didn't seem realistic. At all.

My other problem was the characterization of Lisa and her friends. All we really know about Lisa is that she's anorexic. Everything we see about her character is directly related to anorexia. We don't know who she is as a person, we know who she is as an anorexic girl. By the end, we do see a few of her character traits, but it's still mostly about her anorexia. Tammy is just the bulimic friend. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the way that subject was handled, but all we know about Tammy is that she's bulimic. The relationships with James and Suzanne are more interesting, but we don't know really anything about them, either.

That aside, I loved Jackie Morse Kessler's writing style, and the concept was really cool. Death was my favorite character by far, and it was interesting to see the way Lisa's role as Famine affected her personal life and vice versa. Despite my initial problems with the characters, I did enjoy the book and will most likely read the second one when it comes out. Hunger is not a book that I'm going to press into someone's hands and say "Read this!" but I do think it makes a good read.

Book Thoughts: Tangled

Title: Tangled
Author: Carolyn Mackler

At first, I wasn't sure I liked Tangled. I thought it was going to be just another chick lit where the dorky-girl-who-has-no-life either ends up with some hot guy who turns out to have a sweet personality or discovers that being hot and popular is not all it's cracked up to be. But I kept reading, because I kind of liked the characters, and...wow. It turned out to be really good.

TANGLED is the story of four teens - Jena, her mom's friend's daughter Skye, a hotshot jock named Dakota, and his dorky younger brother Owen - who for various reasons have to spend a week at a resort called Paradise. Jena meets(/falls for) Dakota and finds a suicide note by a hot tub, and then things are in motion that are beyond their control. There are four sections in the book, each told from a different character's point of view and surrounding that character's individual story, but there's definitely crossover between them. The book is about how their lives get tangled together and how it changes all of them. That sounds sappy or dorky or something, I know, but it's not. It was sooo good. Skye's and Owen's sections were probably my favorites because I could relate to them better, but they were all great.

There is some strong language and some sexual content, especially in the first half, but it's written in so that on the whole it adds to the book rather than taking away from it. I almost put it down because of some of that content, but I am reeeally glad that I kept reading. Seriously. Sweet story, great characters, and just overwhelmingly real. Probably more of a girl book than a guy book, although guys would probably enjoy Dakota's and Owen's sections just as much; you should read it if you get the chance. :)