Claire Stevens's Blog, page 13

Waiting On Wednesday - As You Wish by Chelsea Sedoti

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme that gives us all a chance to highlight the upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.  This week my Waiting on Wednesday pick is As You Wish by Chelsea Sedoti.
 
Here’s the blurb:

What if you could ask for anything- and get it?

In the sandy Mojave Desert, Madison is a small town on the road between nothing and nowhere. But Eldon wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, because in Madison, everyone gets one wish—and that wish always comes true.

Some people wish for money, some people wish for love, but Eldon has seen how wishes have broken the people around him. And with the lives of his family and friends in chaos, he’s left with more questions than answers. Can he make their lives better? How can he be happy if the people around him aren’t? And what hope is there for any of them if happiness isn’t an achievable dream? Doubts build, leading Eldon to a more outlandish and scary thought: maybe you can’t wish for happiness…maybe, just maybe, you have to make it for yourself.

Moxie by Jennifer Matthieu

Moxie girls fight back!

This was a pretty good book about a girl who lives in an unbelievably sexist town in Texas, where the school football team are fawned over and the girls have to put up with harsh dress codes and harassment.  At the back of a closet, Viv finds a shoebox of old zines from her mum's Riot Grrrl days in the nineties and decides to do something similar.

So overall this was a really powerful book and an excellent treatise to what people can do when they decide to band together and support each other.  because like any other bully, the patriarchy survives by the old Divide and Conquer.  Girls being mean to each other plays right into their hands, because if we're all busy judging each others cellulite then we have no time left to call men out on their sexist behaviour.  One of the most powerful parts of this book was the big walk-out.  Loved it. 
 In fact, I liked the whole idea of Moxie and how it grew and evolved and became everyone's, not just Viv's.

The town Viv lives in in Texas was pretty backwards in its views on gender equality and while not every town is quite so oppressive, the things that happen to the girls in this book (discrimination, harassment, sexual assault, victim-blaming) happen to girls everywhere, so it feels very relevant.

The author tries to bring intersectional issues into the book.  She shows how the town's ingrained misogyny affects a lesbian couple and some of Viv's black friends and how their experiences are different to Viv's as a straight, white girl.  The book really isn't long enough to do the intersectionalism justice, but it's good that the author tried to touch on it and hopefully it will inspire readers to look up other books or essays that deal with this subject.

The only bit where I felt this book fell down was with the treatment of Viv's relationship with Seth.  He felt like a plot device, like an unwitting foil who was only there so Viv had a boy to explain feminism to.  I get why he was included - to show that even guys who are allies can be thoughtless with the things they do and say because of the societal nature of misogyny.  Because guys will never truly understand the impact of sexism and misogyny, in the same way that white people will never truly understand what it is to be discriminated against racially.  And what Viv has to explain to Seth is the whole thing about anyone born into a position of privilege having a moral duty to think about how their actions and the things they say affect others.

All in all, really quite good.

4.5 stars

Allegedly by Tiffany D Jackson

"Doesn’t matter what you say about racial equality, you’ve never seen white families storming the steps of city hall demanding justice for a little black baby. They’re pushing for the death penalty and don’t even realize executing this little girl is no different than murdering that baby.”

This was going to be a five star book until literally ten pages before the end. The ending lost this book a star. I can totally see what the author was trying to do, but for me it didn't work and it erased some of the excellent messages the author was trying to get across.

However, we are still left with a four star book, which is pretty good going. Bad ending notwithstanding, what we have is a treatise on the failings of the criminal justice and social care systems, racism, parental responsibility and mental health. All wrapped around a graphic, twisted drama with some truly abhorrent characters.

Mary Addison killed a baby.

Allegedly.

For seven years she has been processed through the system as a child murderer and there has been no point in setting the record straight. Until now. Because now Mary is pregnant herself and risks having her baby taken away from her. After all, there's no way social services will let a convicted baby killer raise her own child.

Mary's relationships with literally everyone else in this book were completely twisted, but I guess that's what you get when you spend your adolescence in solitary confinement. Her relationship with her boyfriend was kind of creepy (she is fifteen; he is eighteen. That's statutory rape) but it kept me turning the pages.

I finished this book in just over a day, which is pretty quick, even for me. It is ghastly, gory, shocking and twisted and, aside from the jarring ending, I really enjoyed it.

Waiting On Wednesday - The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily by Laura Creedle

 Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme that gives us all a chance to highlight the upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.  This week my Waiting on Wednesday pick is The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily by Laura Creedle.
 
Here’s the blurb:

When Lily Michaels-Ryan ditches her ADHD meds and lands in detention with Abelard, she's intrigued--he seems thirty seconds behind, while she feels thirty seconds ahead. It doesn't hurt that he's brilliant and beautiful. When Abelard posts a quote from The Letters of Abelard and Heloise online, their mutual affinity for ancient love letters connects them. The two fall for each other. Hard. But is it enough to bridge their differences in person?

This hilarious, heartbreaking story of human connection between two neurodivergent teens creates characters that will stay with you long after you finish reading

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Animals, birds and insects can provide such useful insights. If I’m ever unsure as to the correct course of action, I’ll think, ‘What would a ferret do?’ or ‘How would a salamander respond to this situation?’ Invariably, I find the right answer.

Eleanor Oliphant is doing absolutely fine, thanks.  She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meals and buys the same two bottles of vodka every weekend.  See?  Completely fine.  Except that sometimes she isn't.

Eleanor is a character who will stay with me for a long time.  The journey she goes on throughout this book is extraordinary.  When we first meet her, all the signs point to her being on the autistic spectrum - she finds social communication challenging and her life is governed by her routines.  it's only as the book progresses that we learn more about Eleanor, her past and the tragedy she has lived through.  When she and a colleague she doesn't like very much help an old man who collapses in the street the three of them develop a friendship that will change each of them.

The more I read of this book, the more I loved it.  Eleanor's destructive relationship with her Mummy lends a dark edge to what might otherwise be quite a twee book and the result is a book that has a perfect balance of happy and sad.  The way the background between Eleanor and her Mummy is paced exactly right, too.

I really liked the fact that this book didn't factor in a romance.  Well, not a real romance anyway.  It would have been so easy for this to have slid down the slippery slope of 'My love will fix you' between Raymond and Eleanor.  Instead they support each other through friendship and this seemed to make their relationship stronger than if they were just shag-partners.  Don't get me wrong - I love a good romance.  But it seemed to me that it was necessary for Eleanor to save herself, instead of being saved by external forces.

This was an unexpected gem of a book and one of my favourite reads of 2017.  I listened to it on Audible and the narrator really brought the characters to life.

5 stars

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me if I was worried that men would be intimidated by me. 

I was not worried at all - it had not even occurred to me to be worried, because a man who would be intimidated by me is exactly the kind of man I would have no interest in.

This was a powerful, interesting essay about the concept of and misconceptions surrounding feminism and why ultimately it is a good thing for everyone, not just women.

The word essay gives the impression that this will be some dry, stolid text.  Like Adichie, I find classic feminist texts fairly hard-going, but this was a breeze and I finished it in the time it took our IT technician to re-connect my computer to the server at work today.  So, about thirty minutes.  It neatly encapsulated my own thoughts on feminism and was succinctly argued as well as being very personal to her own experiences.

Feminism means different things to different people,  and Adichie sums up perfectly why we shouldn't see feminism as a dirty word but should embrace it for everyone's sake.

5 stars

Waiting On Wednesday - Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme that gives us all a chance to highlight the upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.  This week my Waiting on Wednesday pick is Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke.
 
Here’s the blurb:

It’s Kind of a Funny Story meets Daria in the darkly hilarious tale of a teen’s attempt to remake her public image and restore inner peace through reality TV. The only thing 17-year-old Jane Sinner hates more than failure is pity. After a personal crisis and her subsequent expulsion from high school, she’s going nowhere fast. Jane’s well-meaning parents push her to attend a high school completion program at the nearby Elbow River Community College, and she agrees, on one condition: she gets to move out.
 
Jane tackles her housing problem by signing up for House of Orange, a student-run reality show that is basically Big Brother, but for Elbow River Students. Living away from home, the chance to win a car (used, but whatever), and a campus full of people who don't know what she did in high school… what more could she want? Okay, maybe a family that understands why she’d rather turn to Freud than Jesus to make sense of her life, but she'll settle for fifteen minutes in the proverbial spotlight.
 
As House of Orange grows from a low-budget web series to a local TV show with fans and shoddy T-shirts, Jane finally has the chance to let her cynical, competitive nature thrive. She'll use her growing fan base, and whatever Intro to Psychology can teach her, to prove to the world—or at least viewers of substandard TV—that she has what it takes to win.

Someone To Love by Melissa de la Cruz

This was an okay book about a girl with bulimia who finds herself in the public spotlight when her dad decides to run for governor.

The story was paced a little slowly but it rattled along okay and I guess it shed some light on topics that are relevant, like constantly feeling compared to other girls, self-harm, parental pressure and eating disorders. There were some aspects of the book that didn't feel so relevant, though. Like the problems Olivia has with being in the public spotlight (can't see that being a major issue for 99.9%of the population) or being super-rich (yeah .....) or having a famous boyfriend.

Just as a bit of background, I've never had an eating disorder so I can't speak from first-hand experience, but something about this story felt a bit off, like it didn't quite ring true. I think it was the way she seemed to recover from her bulimia so quickly at the end. I may not know much about eating disorders, but I do know it's not like tonsillitis. You can't just take a pill and get better. It takes months and years of therapy and support. I think the author was trying to do a really brave and worthy thing in writing about this, and I'm not saying that every story has to be like an own-voices thing, but it still has to have authenticity and some of the description of Olivia's bulimia just felt a bit ... functional.

I really liked Sam in this story, but Olivia was a bit bland and naive. Zack was utterly charmless and I was zero-surprised when he turned out to be an arsehole. I wasn't a massive fan of Antonia either - she really pressured Olivia.

The writing felt a bit tell-don't-show. Like this paragraph here:

I love being around Antonia. She makes me feel so alive.

Don't tell me these things - show me. 

There were two characters from one of the author's previous books included in this story. They weren't integral to the plot of this book and they didn't really have a proper story arc of their own, so it felt like they were just shoehorned in because the author wanted to catch up with them again.

All in all, not a winner for me.

2 stars

There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

***Many spoilers lie ahead! (But not the identity of the killer)***

This was an okay book about a serial killer who terrorises a small town. Makani is a girl with A Past and she's moved to Osborne, Nebraska to live with her grandma and put he past behind her. But then a serial killer strikes and Makani's past doesn't want to stay buried. 

I thought this book was an okay read but it didn't blow me away as much as I'd hoped. The pacing was kind of slow in parts, although there were also parts that were really tense and enjoyable. The characters were really great, as I would have expected from Stephanie Perkins, so that kept me reading. 

I think it was a brave decision to reveal the identity of the killer halfway through the book and I'm not sure whether it paid off. A couple of chapters in I was really certain who the killer was and I was proven wrong. But the killer turned out to be someone who (I don't think) had been mentioned up until then so there was no big reveal and their motives aren't really that clear. When the motivation is eventually revealed, it turns out to be a bit of an anti climax. 

I liked the romance in this book but at times it overshadowed the crime aspect. There's only one reason for a romance to be included in a crime story and that's to provide hamartia or motivation. The romance never gets to play a lead role, except here it did. 

Al in all this was kind of a mixed bag. Not bad by any stretch, but maybe a little bit too navel-gazey compared to other crime books.

3 stars

Waiting On Wednesday - Unearthed by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme that gives us all a chance to highlight the upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.  This week my Waiting on Wednesday pick is Unearthed by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner.
 
Here’s the blurb:

When Earth intercepts a message from a long-extinct alien race, it seems like the solution humanity has been waiting for. The Undying's advanced technology has the potential to undo environmental damage and turn lives around, and their message leads to the planet Gaia, a treasure trove waiting to be explored.

For Jules Addison and his fellow scholars, the discovery of an ancient alien culture offers unprecedented opportunity for study... as long as scavengers like Amelia Radcliffe don't loot everything first. Despite their opposing reasons for smuggling themselves onto the alien planet's surface, they're both desperate to uncover the riches hidden in the Undying temples. Beset by rival scavenger gangs, Jules and Mia form a fragile alliance... but both are keeping secrets that make trust nearly impossible.

As they race to decode the ancient messages, Jules and Mia must navigate the traps and trials within the Undying temples and stay one step ahead of the scavvers on their heels. They came to Gaia certain that they had far more to fear from their fellow humans than the ancient beings whose mysteries they're trying to unravel. But the more they learn about the Undying, the more Jules and Mia start to feel like their presence in the temple is part of a grand design--one that could spell the end of the human race...