Claire Stevens's Blog, page 50

One by Sarah Crossan

I had to leave it a couple of days before writing this review because all the feels were still making me want to burst out crying, but I wanted to get it down before all the emotions subsided because this was an incredibly moving, powerful book.

One is the story of Grace and Tippi, sixteen year old conjoined twins who have always been homeschooled.  Now, though, their parents’ money has run out and they’re being forced into mainstream schooling for the first time.  The book tells the story of their foray into school while at the same time dealing with their weakening health, the question of whether they should be medically separated and a home life that seems on the brink of collapse.

Sarah Crossan’s writing is just sublime.  I’m not usually one for poetry or poetic prose and certainly not free verse, but in this case it just totally worked.  We’re never given huge wads of information about what Tippi and Grace’s lives are like and the stuff that happens to them, but we’re given little windows into their lives, little vignettes, in the most lyrical (yet somehow non-wanky) language.  I had a lump in my throat the whole way through, not only with the things the girls had to contend with but also with Grace’s prose.  Grace was absolutely the right name for this character - her attitude and forbearance are so graceful and so brave.  I honestly felt like she was a real person talking to me.  Her thoughts are incredibly finely balanced between  wanting to be her own person apart from Tippi and not being able to bear to be separate from her.

And while One is really The Tippi and Grace Show (and it really is a lot like a circus show at times), Sarah Crossan also fleshes out the surrounding characters beautifully.  Their sister, Dragon, was especially well written, I thought - she is rarely if ever put in the spotlight despite her extraordinary dancing skills and loves her sisters nonetheless.  Yasmeen and Jon are lovely characters too, and both had their own problems.  There is some romance in One, but it isn’t without its logistical difficulties, what with Tippi and Grace being conjoined, and Grace has a lot of inner turmoil about the impossibility of falling in love when your twin is literally by your side at all times.

One starts off being about Tippi and Grace’s first time at a mainstream school but quickly becomes more about their declining health and decision on whether or not to separate.  Mixed in with this is their family’s precarious financial situation, their decision to allow documentary makers into their lives, alcoholism and eating disorders.  Sarah Crossan really isn’t frightened about throwing all sorts of problems at her characters!

To my shame, I’ve never really stopped to consider what life is like for conjoined twins and this book has really made me think.    The way Tippi and Grace showed their love for each other and the way they lived their lives determined to stay together yet be their own people was just beautiful .

This was such an awesome book.  Wow.  Just wow.

One is released on 27th August by Bloomsbury Children’s Books.  I received a copy courtesy of the publisher and Netgalley.


5 stars

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson

I’m having a bit of a contemporary standalone fest at the moment, and Last Chance Summer has fit right in with this theme. 

When Taylor Edwards’ family receive some devastating news, they re-evaluate their busy lifestyles and decide to spend one last summer together at their lake house in the Pocono mountains.  They haven’t been to the Poconos for five years and when they arrive, Taylor discovers that her former best friend is still around, and so is her first boyfriend...who is much cuter at seventeen than he was at twelve.  As the summer progresses and the Edwards family reconnect despite the ticking clock hanging over their heads, Taylor discovers that this summer might be a time for all sorts of second chances.

It took me a while to connect with Taylor because at first she seemed quite cold and odd, and it was only really when she started to re-form a relationship with her dad and re-connect with her former best friend, Lucy, and her first boyfriend, Henry, that I really started rooting for her.  And then I didn’t stop!  Despite her flaws, she was very sweet and thoughtful and I really liked her.  I especially liked the relationship between her and Lucy.  Close female friendships are underrepresented in YA and this one was particularly well-written, I thought.  And Henry - I think I have a new book boyfriend.  He was so scrummy, I could have just eaten him all up.

Morgan Matson manages to write a whole spectrum of emotions and situations into this book, and I think that was one of the things that made it such a compelling read.  You’ve got the tragedy the family are dealing with, and we know from the outset that it’s not going to have a happy ending.  Balanced in with this is the romance with Taylor and Henry, friendship and a whole lot of humour.  And then, of course, you’ve got Taylor’s guilt at having a good time when her family are struggling so badly.  This isn’t one of those books where the tragedy overwhelms the story; the author realises that actually, yes, you can be having a dreadful time but that there can also be high points mixed in with the sadness.

From the outset, we know what the plot is going to hold and the author doesn’t insult the reader with any ‘It’s a MIRACLE!’ plot twists, but instead deals with Taylor’s family tragedy with dignity.  Again, the book isn’t entirely about what the family are going through, and Taylor finds that this summer is going to have second chances in lots of different ways.

I’d definitely recommend this as a summer read!

4 stars

Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan

Apple And Rain is the story of Appolonia ‘Apple’ Apostolopolou, a thirteen year old girl who has lived with her nan ever since her mum walked out on them when Apple was three.  Apple’s nan is fairly strict, she’s got a hopeless crush on an older boy at school and her best friend is starting to hang out with other people, and Apple is convinced that if her mum was still around, everything would be much better.

The story itself is bittersweet and deals mainly with very ordinary adolescent problems: best friends, boys, wanting more independence.  The fact that Apple was only thirteen meant I didn’t connect with her as much as I wanted to, but it did make the situations she got into and her helplessness very believable.  I kind of wanted to give the poor girl a hug at times!

What really comes through in this book is the author’s love of poetry.  Apple’s favourite class is English and her teacher encourages her reading and writing of poetry, which helps her deal with the things she is going through.  I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of Sarah Crossan’s One a little while ago, which is written in free verse, so poetry is obviously a passion of hers.  To be honest, poetry isn’t really a passion of mine, but the author doesn’t use loads of up-its-own-bum references; she keeps everything relevant and accessible, so it wasn’t offputting, even for a poetry-avoider like me.

Apple is a very sweet, slightly naive girl.  Like I said, her age meant I didn’t connect with her as much as I wanted to, but I still liked her well enough and wanted her to see what she needed to do to get out of the horrible situation she was in!  Del was a lovely character - I loved how devoted he was to Apple and I’d have liked to have known more about his background.  Apple’s mum is absolutely appalling in her fecklessness, and although her behaviour was dreaful, the author managed to keep it just this side of believeable.

All in all, I did enjoy this book.  I don’t think it was as good as One, but it was still a very touching tale of growing up, friendships, love and being careful what you wish for.

4 stars

Feature and Follow Friday #15

Feature and Follow Friday is a weekly book blog meme hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee's View.  The idea is to answer the featured question, link back to the hosts and featured bloggers and then hop around the blogs on the Linky thingy making new friends!  

This week's featured question is: If you could have any animal in the world as a pet, what would you pick? Fictional ones count too! - Suggested by Book Cat Pin


Great question - there are so many to choose from!  In real life I have a cat.  He's huge - about the size of a spaniel - and although he looks kind of pissed off and evil in this photo, he's really friendly and cuddly, so I'd have to say that he's my ideal pet, really!

If I had to pick a fictional pet, I'd probably pick either Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes or Harry Potter's owl, Hedwig.  They're both pretty cool, but owls and tigers aren't easy pets to keep in real life.

P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

Jenny Han’s writing reminds me of a Victoria sandwich: fluffy, light sponge with a layer of sharp-sweet raspberry jam and rich vanilla buttercream. They are unashamedly indulgent, and my first thought whenever I finish one of her books is, ‘Aaaah ... nice.’ Other authors do ‘issues’ books brilliantly; Jenny Han does feelgood fluff (and I use that word in its nicest possible sense).

P.S. I Still Love You is the follow-up to To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. Lara Jean is now dating Peter, the boy she pretended to be dating in the previous book, but he is still very close friends with Genevieve. Their relationship doesn’t seem to be going quite to plan and Lara Jean wonders whether Peter really is the boy for her, when in walks a blast from the past.

I love Lara Jean. She’s so beautifully innocent and earnest, I just want to crawl inside the book and hug her. She kind of reminds me of a cross between a kid (naive, dresses cute) and a little old lady (loves crafts and baking, fusses over everyone). I read a lot of YA and Lara Jean is such a unique character; when very nearly every other YA author portrays teens as sixteen in age but about 68 in cynicism and worldly-wisdom I think it takes guts as an author to step outside that trope and write someone completely different.

The two boys she is in love with (Peter is one, but I won’t say who the other is) balance each other out nicely. Peter is basically the same as he was in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before - kind of self-centred, but very funny and charming and he obviously adores Lara Jean.

The plot isn’t what I’d call a wild roller-coaster ride. It basically centres around Lara Jean and Peter trying to make their relationship work, Lara Jean’s jealousy of Peter’s relationship with Genevieve and her blossoming friendship/relationship with another boy. Despite the lack of gun fights and car chases, things tick along at a decent pace and the book never feels like it's dragging. Kitty and Margot are still around - in fact, the lovely dynamic between the Song girls and their dad is another thing I love about these books.

This book is a really fun summer read. It’s perfect for taking to the beach or the park and deserves a good four-star rating.

4 stars

Cover Reveal - Ward Against Destruction by Melanie Card

Author Melanie Card has today revealed the cover of her book, Ward Against Destruction, the fourth book in her Chronicles of a Reluctant Necromancer series. Looks pretty cool, doesn't it?  Here's the Goodreads blurb:

Ward de’Ath used to the think that nothing could be more terrible than death. Now he realizes
there are worse things. Like his never-ending hunger for blood. Even if he conquers the
unbearable cravings that drive him headlong toward destruction,he’s a wanted man with a bleak
future.

Assassin Celia Carlyle learns she is the only one who can protect Ward from disaster. She loves him–she wants to help him, but no one can tell her how to save him from himself. And the confusing voices in her head scream to let him go.

But Ward's dark trials keep mounting. A malevolent evil is rising in the land, threatening to
unleash horror upon the world. The only way Ward can defeat it, and have the chance to marry
Celia, is by accepting his fate and becoming the one thing he swore he would never become..

Add to Goodreads 

Books in this series:
Ward Against Death│Ward Against Darkness│Ward Against Disaster


About the Author
I have always been drawn to story telling. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t telling a story in my head or on paper. In grade school, we had journal writing time which I turned into story telling time, weaving tales of magic and adventure that mimicked the fairy tales and myths that I loved to read. It was there, with the help of two very special teachers, that I nurtured this love and started my journey as a writer.

I write fantasy, paranormal romance, and everything in between, seasoned with a good dash of adventure and mystery. Join me on my tales of magic, adventure, and romance.

Author Links:

Website│Goodreads│Twitter│Facebook

Cover Reveal Organized by:
YA Bound Book Tours

Waiting On Wednesday - Asking For It by Louise O'Neill

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by  Jill over at Breaking The Spine.  It's a chance for us all to highlight the upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.  

This week, my Waiting On Wednesday pick is Asking For It by Louise O'Neill.  It sounds like a fairly harrowing story, but in an age where the media and society thinks that victim-blaming is completely okay and where slut-shaming is the norm, it is one that totally needs to be told.  Here's the Goodreads blurb:

It's the beginning of the summer in a small town in Ireland. Emma O'Donovan is eighteen years old, beautiful, happy, confident. One night, there's a party. Everyone is there. All eyes are on Emma. 

The next morning, she wakes on the front porch of her house. She can't remember what happened, she doesn't know how she got there. She doesn't know why she's in pain. But everyone else does. 

Photographs taken at the party show, in explicit detail, what happened to Emma that night. But sometimes people don't want to believe what is right in front of them, especially when the truth concerns the town's heroes...

I think I'll need to get into a happy place before I start reading this, because my spidey-sense is telling me that Emma's not going to be having a great time ...

Asking For It is being published on the 3rd September by Quercus.

Top Ten Tuesday - Auto-Buy Authors

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by those lovely folk over at The Broke and the Bookish.  Every week they suggest a list topic and we all share our ideas, because everyone likes a nice list, don't they?

This week, the topic is: Top Ten Auto-Buy Authors.

I actually don't auto-buy any books.  Just because I've loved certain books by an author, doesn't mean I'll love all of them.  Case in point: J K Rowling.  I adore Harry Potter, but thought that The Casual Vacancy was only okay.  It's not a bad book, but just wasn't my kind of thing (too much like my real life).

Having said that, there are definitely authors whose work I will automatically put on my radar for when it comes out.  I'll look at the synopsis and maybe some reviews from people who I know like the same books as I do and then I'll 

God, I sound like such a granny, don't I?

Anyway, here they are.  My top ten auto-look-at authors: 10)  Sarah J Maas.  Wasn't a fan of the Throne of Glass series, but the amazing A Court of Thorns and Roses makes me want to see what she'll write in the future.

9)  Stephanie Perkins.  The girl knows how to write a swoony love-interest.  Nuff said.

8)  J K Rowling.  Okay, so The Casual Vacancy wasn't my thing, but The Cuckoo's Calling was pretty great, and hell, she wrote Harry Potter, so I'm always going to be interested in what she's got up her sleeve.

7)  Tammara Webber.  Author of the Contours of the Heart series and the Between the Lines series.

6)  Jenny Han.  For when I want some feel-good reading.

5)  Morgan Matson.  Ditto.

4)  Rainbow Rowell.  Just.  So.  Adorable.  Her books.

3)  David Levithan.  Hasn't managed to put a foot wrong, so far.  I'll always check his books out.

2)  Marissa Meyer.  The Lunar Chronicles is shaping up to be my favourite series of all time, so I'll definitely look out for her work in future.

1)  And my number one, auto-look-at author is ... Stephen King.  I know, right?  Bit different from the rest of the list and I'm not even a horror fan (in fact, I think a lot of SK's fans preface statements about him by saying 'I'm not even a horror fan ...') but goodness me, the man can write.  Not all of his books have amazed me, but if I had to write a list of all the books that have amazed me ever, his books would feature heavily.

What about you?  Who are your top ten auto-buy authors?

The Vampire Diaries - The Awakening by L. J. Smith

This book was really not for me...  

Where to begin? Okay, let's start with the leading lady, Elena. Shallow and vapid by nature, she's the most beautiful girl in school with men falling at her feet and a gaggle of equally vapid-sounding yes-friends. Halfway through the book she gets voted in as Homecoming Queen - a huge risk on the part of the author as the Homecoming/Prom queen is rarely the kind of character a reader can really get behind. And then Elena commits the most heinous crime of all: instalove. It's not even the traditional hits-you-like-a-bolt-of-lightening instalove - the only reason she decides she wants Stefan is because he doesn't want her. Seriously?

Spoiler Alert - Gotta say, at first I thought Elena was going to be some throwaway character who we *think* is going to be the main character, only for her to get eaten at the end of the first chapter when the attention shifts to the *real* main character. Sadly, she doesn't die. In fact I skipped ahead to episode twelve of this series (I know! Twelve!) and she's still bloody alive!

The love interest, Stefan, is like a cardboard cut-out vampire. Good-looking? Tick. Tortured? Tick. Flash car? Tick. Loads of money? Tick. Believes he's damned to hell for all eternity? Tick. Just couldn't see the attraction. He falls in love with Elena at first sight, not because she's beautiful in her own right, but because she looks like a dead girl he used to love, thus earning him the nickname Creepy McCreeperson.

His brother, Damon, is moderately more interesting and has some amusing lines, but nothing good enough to airlift this book out of Dullsville.

The style of writing is a bit limp and the plot meanders around without actually reaching any proper conclusions. Plot threads are left unresolved (Why does Elena's friend suddenly turn against her over the summer? Is Bonnie really a psychic, or just a ditz?), perhaps to be cleared up in a later book, but I think it's safe to say I won't be reading that far.

I've read a few vampire romances over the years, but this one felt too much like Sweet Valley High for me to enjoy.

2 stars

Sweet by Tammara Webber

There are only a few authors whose work I actively look out for but, after reading and loving Easy and Breakable, Tammara Webber is one of them.

Sweet is a companion novel to Easy and Breakable and the focus is switched to Boyce and Pearl, high school friends of Lucas.  It delves a lot into their history, how they’d been friends since they were little and how this friendship developed into something more after they graduated high school.

I did enjoy Sweet.  It took a couple of chapters to get going, but once it did I stayed up until 2am.  I only put it down when I fell asleep in the middle of a sentence and my Kindle landed on my forehead.  I finished it off this morning while I was supposed to be ironing.  So yeah, it was a fairly compelling read.

I liked Boyce and Pearl as characters.  Outwardly they are so very different, but they just seemed to gel really well when they were together.  They’d both had stuff to deal with while they were growing up and they came from such wildly different backgrounds that it was really lovely to see how their feelings for each other overcame the obstacles in their paths.  I have to say, I didn’t like them as much as I liked Lucas and Jacqueline in the previous two books.  Lucas was a lot moodier and tortured than Boyce (plus: piercings and tats - yum!) and although Pearl was a good, strong character, she was a lot weepier than Jacqueline.  Happy tears, sad tears - the girl cries a *lot*.

I’ve just re-read what I wrote and I realised I’m making it sound like I didn’t like Boyce and Pearl.  I really did, but because I liked Jacqueline and Lucas (okay, mostly Lucas) so much, everyone else is going to pale in comparison.  It probably didn’t help that I have a massive book-crush on Lucas and, because I’m weird, I basically inserted myself into Jacqueline’s persona.  It’s something I’m working on with my therapist.

Anyhoo ... let’s move onto the plot.  The story is told from the dual POV of Boyce and Pearl and it not only deals with real-time plot but also has plenty of flashbacks.  This could have gone seriously wrong and ended up like a massive plate of plot-spaghetti, but the author skilfully manages to keep everything straight and the plot reveals itself gradually whilst filling in the details of Boyce and Pearl’s friendship.

I think I read an interview or something where the author said she really loves Happy Ever Afters, and this really shows in Sweet.  Like, EVERYONE gets a Happy Ever After in this book!

Sweet is a standalone and you don’t have to have read Easy or Breakable to enjoy it.  Tammara Webber’s writing is so good and she’s got such a great ear for dialogue that I’m interested to see if she’s going to write any more books in this series (my money’s on Brittney Loper).

4 stars