Category: Book Reviews

“Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control.

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors.

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat.

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul.”

The second book in this three book trilogy is action packed, with relationships breaking, where others build. Mare, the main character, must learn who to trust; but it seems as if that remains no one.

Among Mare’s escape at the end of Red Queen, she discovers that her once pronounced dead brother, is in fact, very much alive.

Between rescuing her own heart, having mixed feelings for a fallen and betrayed prince, and saving New Bloods who are like her, Mare is living the busiest of lives.

When all else fails, she know she can rely on herself, and if no one else can help her, she knows she will.

In this story, secrets are revealed, allied are made, enemies are defeated and reappear.

After narrowly escaping the burning city of Naercey, Mare and her friends make their way to a secluded island where her family and the Scarlet Guard lie low. Bruised and beaten, Mare quickly realizes she can’t trust anyone, not even her closest friends—maybe not even family. But Mare has a plan: she’s going to track down the rest of the newbloods—Reds with unknown powers that rival the strongest Silvers’—and build an army. She sets out with those closest to her, including Cal, the now disgraced prince. Feeling incredibly alone, she can’t help but gravitate toward him; they share an ache for the person they both believed Maven to be before he became a treacherous king. As her conviction rises, so does the body count, and it isn’t long before Mare becomes eerily like the killer she’s trying so hard to destroy. Though her friends are disturbed by what she’s become, not even they can stop her now. Her quest is fraught with trials and bloodshed, but the action lags; the traps begin to feel too familiar, and the first-person, present-tense narration spares no detail. Tragedy seems to be a certainty before the end, but the spectacle still packs a surprising punch.

let me be clear: this book will destroy you. it will make you ache in ways you didn’t think were possible to ache before. you will feel it heavy in your chest for days – maybe even weeks – after, certain words echoing in the empty spaces of your life.

and you’ll love it for doing so.

when i read books, i always have a little sheet of post-it flags tucked into the front cover. why? to keep up with things i want to remember, to make note of the particular ways in which a sentence was worded that fell just right on my tongue or my ears, to make note of little phrases that punch me in the gut in just the right way that i never want to forget them.

with this book by benjamin alire saenz, i wanted to put a little flag on every. single. sentence. and every time i come back to this book, i somehow manage to find another little bit i love but never noticed before, and i have to flag it, too.

now, don’t get me wrong. i have read at least a couple books that have emulated a similar near-obsession with their contents. i have read plenty of pretty stories, or stories that are told in pretty words.

but this book is beautiful.

i stayed up well into the a.m. several times reading it, simply because i physically couldn’t muster up the conviction to tear myself away from it.

at its core, i find that this book is simply about adolescence. adolescence and human connection and discovering all the secrets of the universe, in the simplest (and most meta) of terms. readers witness our main characters, ari and dante, open themselves up and shut themselves down – to both each other and their families. our boys learn how to swim and run around desert flats in the rain and save birds. they love and they hate and they learn so much and so quickly, because that’s what being 15 is.

what saenz manages to do with this book is truly capture the whirlwind and complicated and – at times – ridiculously trivial nature of growing up, in a way that somehow manages not to feel cheesy or unrealistic or… well, like it was written by a 60-year-old man. this book is feeling things you still don’t quite understand, feeling things you’re terrified of feeling. it’s how easily we allow ourselves to act without thinking, yet still manage to be pensive about things we really should have done a long time ago.

when asked about my favorite book, this one is the first that comes to mind. when asked about my favorite author, this one is the first name on my tongue. when thinking of things to look forward to, this book’s pending sequel and film adaptation are at the forefront.

this book is everything i hope to be and more as an author. this is how i hope to use my storytelling, and these are the stories i want to tell.

And by Alan Haehnel is a roughly thirty-minute play that made my jaw drop. The main character, Aaron, starts out on the stage with comparing “the heartbeat of the world” to the sounds “and-and, and-and, and-and.” Actors begin coming in, saying the same thing to the beat. He calls it “the great connector.”

That is enough to compel you to stay interested, but once the plot gets started, it’s amazing. The other actors begin listing their problems, varying from fathers dying of cancer to no one noticing her haircut.

The continuous use of “and-and” in the first section of the play is an amazing auditory effect, especially when they crescendo. Aaron even compares using and to then, but, and because, but he claims that things are happening at the same time. This is the point of the whole play: everything is happening simultaneously. This happens, and this happens, not then, but, or because. He almost tells his story, but changes his mind, and then we get deeper into the other characters’ stories. In between, however, he always says “and” before the next person speaks.

At the end of this, he begins his own story again that happened three nights ago. He changes his mind again, and we are able to dig even deeper into the other stories. It becomes obvious that he is simply dodging the question of what he was doing while all the other things were happening. He even becomes seemingly more frantic as the play goes on, knowing that he is eventually going to have to tell his story.

The use of the auditory sense is only strengthened as the play goes on, as he makes them talk all at once to show how it really is instead of one-by-one like they were all telling the stories. However, it was the only way to make them decipherable. In reality, it is “pandemonium.” He keeps emphasizing how simultaneous everything is: someone having a hangnail, someone’s brother going off to war, someone worried that candy bars are getting smaller, and everything in between.

Once Aaron gets ready to tell his story again, he goes backstage and pulls out his mother, father, a bed with two bodies under the covers, his little sister, and himself (as he was playing video games three nights ago) for visuals! It’s a bit shocking, them all being on separate rolling platforms, but it’s so intriguing. We go through all of the character’s stories again, him still saying “and” in between, and he describes what everyone was doing in his house. What is the most interesting is his sister, Adrian: she was under the covers with someone else.

We then go back to the character’s stories again, which at this point, is getting a little tiring, even with the change of all the stories mixing together in a way that didn’t make sense. Aaron’s slightly ridiculing comments are funny, however. He becomes even more frantic, talking about how smart he is, and he could not have known. At this point, you have a pretty good idea of what is happening under Adrian’s covers.

He then categorizes everyone’s problems with a number, which didn’t seem as important to the play. He ranks and groups them, until his sister comes onto the stage. She keeps asking him what’s wrong, as she still has not told her mother and father what has happened. He keeps apologizing and asking how he could not have known. His sister is obviously strong, remarking that she isn’t as fragile as he thinks. Finally, it is said out loud that she was raped by someone that she thought loved her. This play was just Aaron’s way of processing the fact that he was playing video games, and everyone else in the house was doing something else while she was being raped.

This unique point of view on rape, a little brother the room over, is very interesting. Their moment together was raw, tender, and sweet, as were the moments when he kept trying to talk about his story and couldn’t. This play was a wonderful and unique situation that was a delightful read, even if it did get a little bit repetitive at parts. It was amazing getting to see someone work through something that serious on stage that didn’t even happen to him, but his sister. Seeing his sister at the end was equally amazing. Overall, I recommend watching or reading this play.

Last month, I reviewed Kore Yamazaki’s The Ancient Magus’ Bride Vol. 1. This month, I continue to review the 10 volume manga series with this blog focusing on volume 2.

So, if you read last month’s blog, you’ll know that Yamazaki left us hanging at the end of the volume. Renfred and Alice (Renfred’s apprentice) captured Chise as she was starting the purification spell that would destroy the blight that had been giving the Cats of Ulthar problems.

Just like Volume 1, Vol.2 is jam-packed with background information, filler content, and ends with a cliff hanger that makes me want to pull my hair out.

So to begin, the first really important bit of the book is probably the very beginning where Yamazaki starts right where he left off. As i already said, the Alchemists have Chise and Ariel in his grasps. Chise, of course, makes a rash decision and escapes, saving Ariel from the very literal iron fist of Renfred and ends up only slightly injured in the process. Pilum Murale (or Elias) uses his magic to teleport(?) to Chise.

While this is all really interesting artwork and action, the most important aspect of these scenes is the dialogue. We learn that as  Sleigh Buggy, Chise’s lifespan is very short. We also learn that Elias is using her as a “guinea pig” of sorts. Once again, Chise is offered a way out of the magical lifestyle she has been thrown into, but she doesn’t take it. Instead, she states very clearly that Elias is her family now and that she will stick by him until her death which is presumably coming very quickly.

But anyways, Chise purifies the blight and then goes into a fortnight (2 week) long coma.

The next really important scene takes place in Chapter 8: The Faerie Queene. In this chapter, Elias visits Chise as she sleeps in the forest. Apparently, he thought this was the best way for her to regain her magic and consciousness because nature. But no matter how ridiculous that is, he visits her out in the woods.

Here, Titania, the Queen of all Faerie, and Oberon, her husband, visit Elias and a sleeping Chise. Oberon actually uses his magic to awaken Chise. We are also reminded that Chise is not only Elias’s mentee but his fiancèe as well.

We learn of some interesting new conflicts when the queen and her husband leave through their guard, Spriggan. After the queen invites Chise and Elias to Albion, the Fae kingdom, he threatens Elias by saying “…do not dream of setting foot into our lands. A flesh clad halfling like you has no place there.”

This is interesting because this is not the first time we’ve heard Elias be referred to as a halfling. At the beginning of Vol. 2, Renfred makes a comment saying how Elias will never be human and can never be Fae again.

But that is all we receive from Yamazaki in this volume on that specific matter.

Anyways, Spriggan then speaks to Oberon and says, “The liath anam herald disaster and despair… How many souls have been lost because of him?” This only deepens my curiosity about Elias and his past in Albion. But Yamazaki gives nothing more on this either.

The next big event occurs in Chapter 10: Speak of the devil, and he is sure to appear. This is happens to be when we learn of the “main bad guy,” an alchemist. Alice, who was captured by Chise, speak of the boy(?), and he appears just as the title references.

This volume ends with the Alchemist injuring Chise when she tries to save Alice from getting attacked by the Alchemist’s chimera.

 

“Red Queen is a young adult fantasy novel written by American writer Victoria Aveyard. It was her first series and her first novel. It was published in February 2015. Its sequels are Glass Sword, King’s Cage and War Storm”

“A sizzling, imaginative thriller, where romance and revolution collide, where power and justice duel. It’s exhilarating. Compelling. Action-packed. Unputdownable.” (USA Today)

“Aveyard weaves a compelling new world of action-packed surprises… inventive, character-driven.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“A volatile world with a dynamic heroine.” (Booklist)

“Breakneck pace and engaging characters.” (School Library Journal)

“ [Aveyard] sets her audience up for a gaspworthy twist that reconfigures nearly every character’s role and leaves Mare with no one to trust but herself… This blend of fantasy and dystopia will be an unexpected and worthy addition to many genre fans’ reading list.” (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books)

“Fascinating world building… Readers will be intrigued by a world that reflects today’s troubling issues concerning ethnic inequality, unfair distribution of wealth, pollution, warfare, political corruption, and the frightening power of the media.” (Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

In a world where opposites don’t attract in the slightest, Mare Barrow is in the middle of it.

This story starts off as your average poor girl just trying to make ends meet and save her family and only friend from absolute poverty, all while trying to save herself from conscription, compulsory enlistment for state service, typically into the armed forces.

Mare has seen her brothers before her, leave to fight a war that is not their own, her own, but soon she will be apart of it if she doesn’t find a way out.

And above all, she must sit through mandatory displays of power by Silvers; the rich, wealthy, and all powerful beings of silver blood. Mare finds herself hating the Silver kind, but also comparing them to that of Gods.

Mare’s life is in an unending spiral, especially when she gets her sister into a situation that leaves her with broken fingers, and Mare a guilty heart. Soon after, Mare meets a man who changes her life, later finding out he is heir to the throne of Norta. He gifts her a job within the palace, which is fine and dandy until her life is put on the line.

Mare’s life flashes before her eyes as she plummets into a pit of electricity at the Queenstrial event, to choose the next queen. But instead of dying, something incredible happens.

Mare beats death and as a cover up, the King and Queen of Norta throw Mare into a life that is not her own: the forgotten princess Mareen Titanos.

She is then betrothed to the second son of the king: Maven Calore, the prince, and that is all he will ever be.

Along with her new life, Mareena is put in the routine of becoming a “proper lady” which is unlike herself.

Mare and Mareena are two different personas, but she feels as if they are often morphing, forgetting herself.

Mare must prove herself to the Queen, who torments her at every turn, the Red Dawn; people of her own kind who fight for a cause and against the crown, and the crown and the royalty behind it.

There is a twisted turn at every point of this story and it will for sure keep you on edge.

when thinking of books that have resonated with me – really, truly resonated with me – this book often heads the top of the list. this story by stephen chbosky has been in my life in many different forms, each one hitting me in a different way than the last.

the first experience i ever had with this story was in seventh grade, around the time its film adaptation came out. from the get-go, knowing nothing more about it than what i saw from trailers on tv, i despised it. absolutely wholeheartedly detested it, based solely on the idea that it was just some boring tumblr-cliche, hipster-y, coming-of-age junk. this was a time in my life where i very aggressively prided myself on the notion that i was “not like other girls” and utterly loathed anything that would categorize me as either a “basic white girl” or a pretentious hipster.

come eighth grade, however, things became a little different. i Totally Legally watched the film on my phone one night in bed and proceeded to cry my eyes out. truth be told, i think it’s the first film that’s ever drawn out completely gut-wrenching sobs from my body. this was a time in my life were i was – to put it lightly – having a really horrible time. it had become so easy for me to isolate myself and convince myself that things would never get any better. then i got curious, and i watched that film i had claimed to hate just a few months prior, and everything was new.

finally getting around to reading the book hit me even harder, although in a different way. it was interesting to see all of the details that felt so big and important while reading the book that didn’t make their way into the film, as well as to see little things that came up in their own subtle ways.

really, i was more enamored with how the book was able to capture something the film couldn’t quite get. i saw so much of myself in the main character, charlie – not in his experiences, but how he experiences. as i get older and find myself going back to this book, i find newer parts of myself that i didn’t have the last time i read the book. as i keep my own journal, just as charlie does, i begin to notice new parallels, and even lines that run together as one.

i feel that seldom do readers ever find a book that they can truly and wholeheartedly find themselves within. it’s not really a matter of connecting with the characters, but more so an act of seeing so much of oneself reflected through paper and ink. chbosky’s book is able to capture mature themes such as adolescence, mental illness, and sexual abuse in an innocent candor that i’ve yet to find match for. there’s something incredibly endearing about the sheer vulnerability of the story being told, as well as the fact that such mature themes never once take away from the innocence of how the story is being told. it’s something that has stuck with me not only as a reader, but as a writer who wants – more than anything – to share vulnerability with my own readers. the influence of this book’s storytelling on my own is unmatched by any book i’ve ever read, and i’m sure any book i ever will.

Everyone is aware of The Godfather.  If they’re not aware of Mario Puzo’s 1969 book, they are most likely aware of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 film of the same name and probably even of its two sequels.  Even if they haven’t seen these films, they have likely seen parodies of the classic work of fiction that have been done by everyone from Rodney Dangerfield to The Rugrats.  The franchise’s imagery is universally recognizable, from the puppet master’s hand gracing the cover of the book and movie posters to that of Marlon Brando stroking a cat and wearing a tuxedo with cotton balls stuffed in his cheeks.

This book and its better known films did not invent their genre, but they perfected it.  The Godfather is to the crime genre as Star Wars is to science fiction.  It has inspired generations of artists to create classic works from GoodFellas to The Sopranos.  The Godfather put lines like “I’ll give him an offer he can’t refuse,” and “Leave the gun; take the cannoli,” into our collective awareness and shaped our very views of gangsters and the mafia.  Maybe this is why Book II has been so criminally (pun intended) overlooked.

The Godfather Book II is a two chapter chunk of Mario Puzo’s gangster epic centers around the fictional character of Johnny Fontane, a character that Puzo based on Frank Sinatra.  The character goes far deeper than a Sinatra impression however.  As of the start of the book, we have already been introduced Johnny in Book I.  (Perhaps you’re aware of a certain scene with a hacked-off horse head?)  A bit of a tragic character to begin with, Johnny is a famous singer in Hollywood who has lost his voice to drinking, smoking, and partying.  He is left only able to sing for a short time before needing nearly a month to recover.  This character description alone highlights a major theme of the book, that of the corruption of that which is pure by Hollywood.

Puzo does not hold any punches in his critique of the soulless machine that is Tinseltown.  When the book begins, Johnny is sharing dinner with Sharon Moore, a new girl in Hollywood, in his apartment.  By this time in his career, Johnny is something of a has-been, praying that what F. Scott Fitzgerald said about “no second acts” isn’t a reality.  The description of how this evening plays out is almost alien.  It seems that Johnny, inching ever closer to going to bed with the girl, is acting more out of habit than honest desire.  Still, he tries to get to know the girl and makes it clear that he is not purely interested in an emotionless quickie.  By the end of this evening, when the girl ultimately turns him down, Johnny isn’t so much disappointed as he is understanding.  He understands her motivations in refusing to sleep with the great Johnny Fontane.  Even so, he is clearly somewhat bothered by this, enough to slyly make sure she knows that he hadn’t truly tried his hardest to spend the night with her.

He does feel sorry for this almost immediately, not wanting to belittle her, even offering for her to call her if she ever need someone to talk to.  This endears the reader to Johnny and allows them to empathize with him.  He is our window into the heartless beast of Hollywood, but he is not Hollywood.  He is a human, and he is a victim of the town.  We are given hints of his inner humanity that are contrasted with his familiarity with the vices of the town, but we are not fully convinced of his goodness yet.  For that, Puzo carries us directly to Ginny, Johnny’s first wife.

Johnny calls Ginny after Sharon leaves and asks if he can come over just to talk.  He does so, and they discuss the date as well as Johnny’s new film.  Their interaction is caring but wholly unromantic.  As you read, you feel glad for Johnny that despite no longer being married to her, he has Ginny in his life as a sort of emotional stability.  This is something that Johnny needs since, as was clearly demonstrated on his date, it is not something that he can find from anyone else in Hollywood.

As they talk about his movie, Johnny remains comical, but it is clear to Ginny that he is not well.  Though the success of the movie is imperative to the continuation of his career, it is not clear if this is what Johnny truly needs in his life right now.

Johnny ends up spending the night at Ginny’s house in her guest bedroom and wakes up to a breakfast in bed and his two daughters running to him with hugs.  It feels almost as though we are seeing a perfect, happy, American family.  (Though it is not explicitly stated, it is nearly impossible for one to read this section and not envision a white picket fence outside the house.)

This scene is a stark contrast to the one that follows in which Johnny picks up Tom Hagen, Don Corleone’s lawyer, from the airport.  The Don helped to land Johnny the big role in the movie to begin with, and now Hagen has come to tell him that his chances of winning the Academy Award currently seem to be slim to none.  Johnny is enraged by this, nearly driven to tears.  Hagen doesn’t take long to correct himself, saying that the Don is capable of changing the current circumstances through his influence.   This calms Johnny, but doesn’t change that we have seen a new side of him, one that was grown of a seed planted in him by Hollywood.

A condition that the Don gives Johnny is that he must start along the road toward producing his own movies as he feels that this will help Johnny to support himself in the future if Hollywood big shots turn on him as they have before.  The Don offers to support him along the way, and it is incredible to see how, with the Don’s support, Johnny is easily able to hit the ground running and already be in pre-production of a new film with just a few phone calls.

It is here that the narrative takes a break to reflect on what has brought Johnny to this point in his life.  It discusses his second wife, Margot Ashton, for whom he left Ginny.  She is a personification of the evils of Hollywood, a gorgeous but cold and uncaring starlet who laughs in Johnny’s face in his lowest moment which she is the reason for.  She is the perfect contrast to Ginny, a kind, Italian woman, beautiful but not in the unobtainable way that the women of Hollywood are.

After making the phone calls to begin the turning of gears of his next film, Johnny Fontane makes another phone call, one to Nino Valenti.  Nino Valenti was Johnny’s close friend and singing partner growing up in New York whom he had always promised he would find work for should he make it big in Hollywood.  This, of course, never occurred though Johnny had been a successful movie star.  Now, as the sun rises on a new set of opportunities for Johnny, he calls his old friend to invite him to come to Hollywood in order to correct his past transgressions and please the Don.  This sets up Nino, a character being newly introduced to the alternate dimension of Hollywood as the perfect contrast Johnny, a character with a similar background to Nino but who has been almost entirely appropriated by the town’s twisted ideologies.  Having set up this interaction, Puzo ends the chapter here.

This chapter is a great work of literature.  It is one that both makes the reader empathize with its protagonist and worry for him.  It is also, perhaps, more relevant today than ever before with more and more of Hollywood’s underbelly being exposed to us with every passing day.  As this chapter is only one half of Book II of The Godfather, these themes are further dealt with in the second half where Puzo further ups the scale.  I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone interested in reading this fascinating character study.

*Spoiler warning*

This weeks book review I am doing the one and only story of Artemis Fowl. This, in particular, is a series but I am going to be talking about book one. The title, in general, is called Artemis Fowl because, naturally, that’s all you really need for this book. After you start the ride there really is nothing else to capture your attention but a name. A name that you surely will not forget for years to come as you take the journey with this twelve-year-old boy.

Artemis Fowl is a book by Eoin Colfer. The opening pages are almost a warning. It goes on and says that the book was a record kept by someone over the years about Artemis. It continues to say that all of the stories in here were true to some extent and that this is their very first instance where they are face to face with Artemis and will, later on, take many more journeys with the boy. Of course, if you’re young that already peaks your curiosity. How can a little boy, age 12, be so powerful and feared and have a record at such a young innocent age? That’s when the book really begins and with the “warning” under your belt, you dive head first into the life of Artemis Fowl. 

It opens up with a chase of sorts, Young Artemis is with his “Butler” a big man with years of special training, sworn to protect Artemis with his life. They are looking for something. we later find out that something is a faerie book. Now already this book is noted to be fantasy. But the way Colfer sets up the world I wouldn’t be surprised if we did see faeries and trolls flying around. Each character in this is crafted meticulous and all of them are stereotypical but also unique in the best ways. Now back tot he story. when Artemis receives this book we finally get a clue into his personality. Artemis is the villain. Which already took me for a spin. We would be following the villain around. But could we sympathize with him in the story? The answer is YES! Through all the horrible terrible things he has done, you constantly see the little things that he is, young, alone, and desperate. We find out that his mother is terribly ill, and that his father is missing (presumably dead) . Those two things are big plot points in later books but for this one, not really. Even as he meets Holly, his captive in the story you still have to side with the villain on some points. Artemis is not truly looking to hurt anyone he only does what is necessary to reach his goal, and what is his goal? Money, the whole plot is to capture a leprechaun to get the gold to restore his family fortune. Of course, he still is rich but why not get a little more? So to not spoil too much. This is a story about a boy getting ready to take the journey of his life. This book is almost a giant exposition leading up to the later ones. The plot is strong but really it is to look at his character and make your assumption about everyone else as well. It’s honestly a great read and if you love fantasy and adventure the rest of the series would be right up your alley. 

Cell is a novel written by Stephen King, published in early 2006. The book is set inside of an apocalyptic world and follows a New England artist named Clayton Riddell in an attempt to reunite with his son and soon-to-be-ex-wife. At the beginning of the novel, a mysterious signal broadcast is aired over the global cell phone network and turns the majority of humankind into mindless, vicious animals.

Within the first part of the book, titled “The Pulse,” Clay stands behind three women (which he calls Pixie Light, Pixie Dark, and “the woman in the power suit”)  in line at an ice cream truck and sees them spiral out of control, as well as a man with his dog in the park near where he stands. Pixie Light holds a peppermint-colored cell phone, and Pixie Dark listens to the conversation going on as her friend holds the phone so they can both hear. The woman in the power suit is holding her phone to her ear and attempting to speak to a woman on the other end when suddenly, she pounces on the man inside of the truck and kills him. Then, Pixie Dark kills her, neither of them using a thing but their bare hands to do the deed. The friend, Pixie Dark, only catches a small portion of the broadcast and begins wandering the sidewalk, asking, “Who am I, who are you?” repeatedly running into a light post.

Clayton soon meets a man named Tom McCourt, who helps him with one of what they take to calling the “phone crazies” or “phoners” that comes after the two of them with a steak knife. The men soon make their way to the hotel Clay is staying in, where they find a young girl, named Alice Maxwell, hiding. Eventually, Clay convince Alice and Tom to let him venture on his trip to find his son, and they decide to go with him. The three catch disturbing hints about the activities of the phoners, who still attack non-phoners on sight.

They arrive at an academy with only one remaining teacher and just as many students. Jordan, the 12-year-old computer geek, and the teacher, Charles Ardai show the small group where the local phoner flock goes at night: they pack themselves into the Academy’s soccer field and “switch off” until morning. Together, they all assume that the phoners have become a hive mind and are developing psychic abilities and soon decide they must destroy the flock, and, using two propane tankers, they succeed in doing so.

That night, all of the survivors share the same horrific dream: each sees him- or herself in a stadium, surrounded by phoners, as a disheveled man wearing a Harvard University sweatshirt approaches, bringing their death. Waking, the heroes share their frightening dream experiences, dub him “the Raggedy Man,” and soon learn that he is the metaphorical spokesman of the flock.

(to be continued…)

“I’ll Give You the Sun” by Jandy Nelson is one of my all-time favorite books. It is set in an upstate California town, narrated by two siblings, Noah and Jude. They are twins who see the world the same way at the beginning of the book, but as the book goes on, and they fall away from each other, their differences become more apparent. They both struggle with the same internal struggle of wanting to be their own independent people, despite being twins, and their story follows them through their stages of grief after losing their mom in a car accident. 

Noah, the ‘younger’ of the twins is narrating their younger years, and we follow him in his efforts to get into the local art high school. His narration is very close to being unreliable due to his exaggerated accounts of his surroundings. It is often hard to tell what is really happening and what is actually real. His narration was the polar opposite of his sister’s in his accounts of growing up. He made it very obvious that he had lost his mother, distanced himself from his father, and barely talked to his sister. As the book goes on, he uncovers his most prevalent internal and external struggles, revealing him being gay, and how he has to reevaluate who he hangs out with and how he has to act. While his mother is alive, he is somewhat comfortable in being the artsy, weird gay kid, but after she dies, he takes time completely rearrange how he lives. After Jude, his sister, sabotages his portfolio for the art school, and his mother dies,  he becomes the popular, athletic kid. It’s a very interesting way to see how different grief and self-loathing can affect characters. 

Jude, polar opposite of her brother, begins the book being a sunny and cool character. She is the typical rendition of surfer-popular-girl. She has the most friends and distances herself from her weird brother unless they’re hidden away at home. She hangs out with guys older than her and goes to too many parties. She grew up being closer to her father, but striving to gain her mom’s approval. Her narration starts as soon as her mother dies, and the total shift in her character is even more extreme than her brother’s. She begins to totally isolate herself, wearing baggy clothes in hopes that boys will not notice her, and talking to her dead grandmother’s ghost. Because of Noah meddling with her portfolio, she gets into the art school, but is close to flunking out because she thinks her mother’s angry spirit is breaking her sculptures. Through much personal growth and revealing secrets about her mother and herself, she eventually realizes that she is not cursed and the whole family finally reunite again. 

I love this book for so many reasons, but the main one is the beautiful way Nelson captures the process of grief. I was recommended this book in a very hard time after I lost a loved one, and reading it was very refreshing. I stand by it being my favorite book, telling anyone I see that they should definitely give it a read.