Highly Illogical Behavior – John Corey Whaley

Title: Highly Illogical Behavior

Author: John Corey Whaley

Publisher: Faber and Faber

Publish Date: May 26th 2016

Genre: YA, Temporary

Rating: 4 stars

“Sixteen year old Solomon has agoraphobia. He hasn’t left his house in three years, which is fine by him. At home, he is the master of his own kingdom–even if his kingdom doesn’t extend outside of the house.

Ambitious Lisa desperately wants to go to a top tier psychiatry program. She’ll do anything to get in.

When Lisa finds out about Solomon’s solitary existence, she comes up with a plan sure to net her a scholarship: befriend Solomon. Treat his condition. And write a paper on her findings. To earn Solomon’s trust, Lisa begins letting him into her life, introducing him to her boyfriend Clark, and telling him her secrets. Soon, Solomon begins to open up and expand his universe. But all three teens have grown uncomfortably close, and when their facades fall down, their friendships threaten to collapse as well.”

I really did love this book. The story was so touching, the characters deliciously realistic and mental illness was given a voice in the sort of way I haven’t seen very much. The only reason I didn’t want to scream about this at the top of my lungs was because the writing style just wasn’t my bag. It felt a bit slow and didn’t catch my attention as much as it could of – I didn’t get 100% hooked straight away.

“We’re just floating in space trying to figure out what it means to be human.”

But the book gave a voice to mental illness in a very different way. I say ‘very different’ but I doubt that John Corey Whaley is the only person to write a book like this – I just haven’t read one that deals with these issues in such a way. He wrote about the trials of agoraphobia in the sort of detail that made the reader understand his problems to the T but still didn’t leave it as his main characteristic. If I was to think of Solomon looking back, I’d be thinking more of his entertaining sarcasm or his love for Star Trek. Whaley didn’t let mental illness define his main character. In a lot of other books, mental illness does often become a characters defining point so the fact Whaley doesn’t do this makes me appreciate him so much.

His characters were also so lovable. There was something so real about the trio that you couldn’t help but become intrigued and sucked into their ways and mannerisms. As I mentioned before, Solomon was full of clever quips, Lisa was full of support and Clark was just a popular guy who hates being ‘popular’, making them individually interesting and, as a group, working so well that you can’t help but be enamored by them.

“He was an astronaut without a suit, but he was still breathing.”

The novel was also full of real-life wisdom, meaning you can take away a lot more than just an insanely good story. It delved into relevant topics for copious YA readers such as the struggles of having to pin-down what to do with their future and how to choose etc. You also see the characters battling with being moral. Lisa wanting to write about Solomon for her scholarship essay went down a much larger rabbit-hole that made you question yourself, not just the characters which just really hooked me so much more than I expected.

This is definitely one to add to your TBR’s, it gives a whole different viewpoint on a lot of things and leaves you with your eyes a lot wider open than before.

Trouble – Non Pratt

Title: Trouble

Author: Non Pratt

Publisher: Walker Books

Publish Date: March 2014

Genre: YA, Contemporary

Rating: 4 stars

“In this dazzling debut novel, a pregnant teen learns the meaning of friendship—from the boy who pretends to be her baby’s father.

When the entire high school finds out that Hannah Shepard is pregnant via her ex-best friend, she has a full-on meltdown in her backyard. The one witness (besides the rest of the world): Aaron Tyler, a transfer student and the only boy who doesn’t seem to want to get into Hannah’s pants. Confused and scared, Hannah needs someone to be on her side. Wishing to make up for his own past mistakes, Aaron does the unthinkable and offers to pretend to be the father of Hannah’s unborn baby. Even more unbelievable, Hannah hears herself saying “yes.”

Told in alternating perspectives between Hannah and Aaron, Trouble is the story of two teenagers helping each other to move forward in the wake of tragedy and devastating choices. As you read about their year of loss, regret, and hope, you’ll remember your first, real best friend—and how they were like a first love.”

Me and my lovely friend Erica @ Tangled in the Willows did a book swap a few weeks ago and I’ve only just got round to blogging about it *slaps wrist*. I gave her my treasured copy of ‘All The Bright Places’ by Jennifer Niven which she LOVED and I got her copy of Non Pratt’s ‘Trouble’ that blew me away. ‘Trouble’ is definitely the sort of book I’d recommend reading – it’s funny, light but still blows exposure onto some serious and important issues that surround a lot of YA readers.

Apart from that eye-catching cover, the best thing about this book is the plot twist (or big reveal? Not sure how to describe it). About half-way through I did see it coming but it’s the sort twist that you sit there debating whether the author will be daring enough to go through with it. And Pratt is very daring. She pushed that plot twist all the way and then some, dribbling out the last of the character’s secrets right until the end. This is definitely a shocker of a book, it’s ready to make your breath catch in your throat.

“It’s too much to be forgiven when all you want is to be blamed.”

Another very lovable feature of Pratt’s debut was how open and honest it was. She didn’t dress up the subject of teen pregnancy in any way but didn’t dress it down either. Not that I’ve had any experience of it, but you can see the authenticity of the story – it wasn’t airbrushed so you could see how some parts of it end up being very negative. And, through Pratt’s masterful writing skills, you can also see the beauty of the experience. As a reader who’s not a fan of pregnancy or children in anyway, even I could see some the softer and emotive events that occur and how tender the relationship between daughter and mother can be.

I was also a huge fan of some the lighter, even funnier moments. Pratt showed how everything does have its best moments and that not everything is doom and gloom. One of our favourite moments was at the start of the novel when Hannah (accidentally) hits Aaron with her car door – it may be more of a ‘you have to read it’ sort of thing but it is definitely a highlight. The author managed to be humorous without being sounding forced, making it an absolute delight to indulge in.

“There are some things it are best not to repeat. I think I heard most of them in that antenatal class.”

The characters were one of the books best traits. Aaron was detailed in such a way that you really couldn’t help but love the guy – he was just too lovely and protective. His unnecessary guilt also caused me so much frustration – I’d love to go into the politics of it but I don’t want to ruin anything. It was Neville who took pride of place in my heart. He, along with the other elderly characters in the novel, were presented in a way that is so different to a lot of other YA novels – they weren’t these ‘evil’ people who don’t understand the youth but act more as friends to the younger characters. But Neville was just so funny and open that he really was, in my opinion, one of the best characters in the book.

All of the characters just appeared so real too. Their personalities felt so natural and easy to read that you could really imagine them as your friends, your family or even just your neighbors. However. I did have one problem with them. They definitely did not sound their age. There is no way in hell that Hannah etc were only 15, 16 maybe but definitely not 15. It was this that lost a bit of that lovely realism for me and knocked off a bit of that love. Maybe Pratt needed to reduce how powerful and ‘educated’ the characters were – if anything, she’s written them too well.

Get yourself a copy of this book – not only will it look good on your shelf but it’ll make you laugh, smile and cry. It is written in such a way that makes the story real enough to allow full a full escape from the real world, you can’t say no to that can you?

You Know Me Well – David Levithan & Nina LaCour

Title: You Know Me Well

Authors: David Levithan and Nina LaCour

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Publish Date: June 7th 2016

Genre: YA

Rating: 4 Stars

“Who knows you well? Your best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A stranger you meet on a crazy night? No one, really?

Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed.

That is until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way.

When Kate and Mark meet up, little do they know how important they will become to each other — and how, in a very short time, they will know each other better than any of the people who are supposed to know them more.”

(I received a digital copy of this book in return for an honest review)

There was something about this book that made me lose control. I picked it up, flicked to the first page and commenced a reading frenzy. And, especially considering that this wasn’t even a long book, I ended up finishing this in an afternoon. If I had to sum up the overall feel this book had, I’d happily describe it as one of those warming summer reads that every teen ends up reading over the holiday. Also, it immediately gets huge thumbs up because it’s LGBT that is actually written well! Yay!

“We are all on the way to the same party even if it’s taking place in hundreds of different bars and living rooms. We are going out to celebrate ourselves and one another. To fall in love or to remind ourselves of people we’ve loved in the past.”

I am a huge fan of having different POV’s throughout a book because really, what’s better than having one point of view apart hearing from multiple characters? Nothing. And when it is different authors doing the different POV’s? Even better. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason I liked Levithan and Green’s ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ so much too – you can always count on having the different voices sounding completely different. In ‘You Know Me Well’, you can definitely feel the difference’s between voices, albeit a few similarities, which really made the whole reading experience so enjoyable.

“Taylor is a boy, and you are my best friend. Taylor is a date, and you are my calender.”

Another massive pull to this book was how lyrical the writing is. I think I could have literally highlighted the whole book with quotes that I wanted to share it was that poetic. Every line was somehow perfectly structured to give it a shimmering coat of beauty – it was melodic, rhythmic and tuneful. And, to be honest, there is not other way to make me love a book than to make each word roll off the tongue like music.

I also related to the ending a lot. Kate found herself really worrying about the future and couldn’t find herself feeling ready for all these massive things about to take place. As a teen/young adult, it is so likely that the readers of this book, including me, are facing some massive changes in the future so seeing a character (that will evidently be so successful and strong as Kate) dealing with these issues in a way that makes her happy is going to be so important. It’s like LaCour and Levithan are showing that you can take which ever path you want, whenever you want, a message perhaps not echoed enough within our very demanding education systems.

“Whatever this is that’s happening between us, it’s another part of the tower I have to burn down.”

The way the book began was key in making the novel so easy to get into. It felt like as soon as you were on the first page of ‘You Know Me Well’, you knew the book and its characters well. In a lot of books, I often find myself waiting for the action to start or for the characters to start being complex enough to be interesting but in this one, I think the authors really cracked it. Here you were straight into the whirlwind plot, chewing down on each development of the plot and hanging off every line of every chapter.

“The heart is a treacherous beast”

Levithan and LaCour were also brilliant in the way in which they made their relationships complex without being confusing. There’s often a thin line between realistically complex and confusingly complex and here the authors found themselves on the right side of that line. Each relationship was complicated enough to mirror the oddities of real life relationships which again helped the plot and the characters become so much more vivid.

However, I did have one bug bare with this book that caused a lot of minor issues, knocking off that fifth star I was so tempted to add. The book should have been longer. If it was longer, we wouldn’t be left with the WTF moment of Mark and Kate becoming such close friends so quickly. And there wouldn’t be that small niggling feeling that the authors were just rushing through to finish the novel due to the speed at which the plot was carried off.

“I say maybe because when you’re a teenager there’s this rule: You aren’t supposed to make a decision based on love. You are supposed to tell your heart that it is a fickle thing. You’re supposed to remind yourself of Romeo and Juliet and how badly it turned out for them. Your poor teenage heart. It isn’t equipped for decisions like this. Except maybe. Maybe. It is.”

It would also help with dealing with some of the smaller details in the book that could have done with more explaining. I feel like Kate’s relationship with Lehna was only slightly gone into and the same with Violet. If it was longer then I think there’d be less confusion or lack of info on both relationships. I do, however, think that Mark’s relationships were detailed fantastically but I didn’t really feel a connection to the character outside of relationships and personality. I just couldn’t picture him as a body with more going on than what the book detailed.

“Here we come. It’s our parade.”

Also, what was up with that Brian guy? Was he just a really bad gay stereotype or was he just acting that way because of his job? That was something that should have been explained too.

But regardless of the limits that have been set due to the relatively short length, this is one fantastic read that is bound to become a favourite.

Insurgent – Veronica Roth

Title: Insurgent

Author: Veronica Roth

Publisher: Harper Collins Children’s

Re-release Date: December 31st 2015

Rating: 4 stars

“One choice can transform you – or it can destroy you. Tris Prior’s initiation day should have been marked by victorious celebrations with her chosen faction; instead it ended with unspeakable horrors. Now unrest surges in the factions around her as conflict between their ideologies grows.

War seems inevitable; and in times of war sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge and choices will become ever more irrevocable. Tris has already paid a terrible price for survival and is wracked by haunting grief and guilt. But radical new discoveries and shifting relationships mean that she must fully embrace her Divergence – even though she cannot know what might be lost in doing so.”

(I received a digital copy of this book in return for an honest review)

Read my review of Divergent here.

Let’s start off by saying I loved all the action. There were so many twists and turns on this little roller-coaster ride that I nearly fell off. But, by some twist of madness, I managed to keep up with everything going on. It was quite hard though. There were just so many things to keep track of and some things were just mentioned (like when Evelyn and Tobias were talking when tris was supposed to be asleep) that I felt were just said and we were meant to understand straight away? I don’t know if it’s just me being a distracted reader but everything became understandable at the end. I literally had a light bulb moment and felt like I was some sort of Einstein.

Which brings me to my next point. I actually quiet liked Jeanine. Not in the ‘fave character’ sort of way but wow she’s so clever. Her brain is exactly what I want my brain to be like. Just without the condescending way of talking, the complete lack of empathy and just her overall lack of a soul. I basically want to be clever. I also love the fact the the villain is female. Go Roth for standing up against those dastardly female stereotypes in the media (you know the ones that involve women being sexual objects no matter how heroic or, in this case evil, they are).

“People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them.”

But Tris was SO indecisive. I felt like she was just taking us round a merry-go-round in her hand and ugh it got boring. I could manage it in the first book but in Insurgent? It’s starting to drag. And her constant guilt over Will makes me want to scream too. It was either Will or her, he wasn’t even him when she shot him so why is this so difficult for her to get past. Even Christine and Cara could deal with it and they were really close to him. I would also appreciate it if someone could tell me why Tris and Four are even together in Insurgent. As far as I could see there was no romance at all. It’s literally like they are attracted to each other and they are therefore willing to get killed for each other. It just doesn’t add up. And I’m STILL struggling to see how the characters are the ages they are. They all seem so much older.

Anyway, despite all my frustrations with my emotions, I really did love the second book. And the plot is, and continues to be, intelligent. I know I said this with Divergent but still, Roth has this magical ability where she can keep everything a surprise until the last moment. Which is especially true for the ending in Insurgent. I can imagine her donning a (well deserved) smirk as everyone reaches the end before realizing that there was the sort of ‘middle of the sentence’ cliffhanger that would have killed me if it wasn’t for the fact I can start the next book straight away.

I just want to finish off by sharing my favourite lil’ bit that, I must admit, made me snort ever so slightly:

“‘Got that gun?’ Peter says to Tobias. ‘No’ says Tobias, ‘I figured I would shoot the bullets out of my nostrils so I left it up stairs.'”

Not If I See You First – Eric Lindstrom

Title: Not If I See You First

Author: Eric Lindstrom

Publisher: HaperCollins

Release Date: Dec 31 2015

Rating: 4 Stars

“Parker Grant doesn’t need perfect vision to see right through you. That’s why she created the Rules: Don’t treat her any differently just because she’s blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances.

When Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart, suddenly reappears at school, Parker knows there’s only one way to react – shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough to deal with already, like trying out for the track team, handing out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn’t cried since her dad’s death. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened – both with Scott, and her dad – the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem.”

(I received a digital copy of Not If I See You First via NetGalley in return for an honest review)

I really really really really really loved this book. When you think of people who are blind, you don’t really consider how much they miss out on and this book totally opened my eyes. This is the sort of book that makes you hate yourself, showing how closed-minded and ignorant you inadvertently are. And that is exactly why its so brilliant. I never stopped to consider how much actually gets missed out when you don’t have sight, how many things that we take for granted, the things that we don’t even think about, are taken away. Things like facial expressions and other physical features, you never stop to think about. Not If I See You First really hammers in Parker’s experience perfectly.

“All of Aunt Celia’s meals are cartoons, like something you might get if you were a captive in an alien zoo and they fed you what they thought people ate by watching TV.”

Other things I adored include Sarah and Parker’s relationship. It did get very near to a ‘roll-your-eyes’ cringe level but stopped just short of it. The friendship was just so warming and, even when they had a mini fallout, I was constantly rooting for them both. I also love Molly who was just the sweetest. She suddenly had this ‘stuff’ (you know what girls are like with their arguments) to deal with after agreeing to help Parker and the fact she was so willing to just get on with it and stick by Parker’s side made me just want to hug her. I also loved Scott. He seemed like the perfect guy and, whilst this isn’t very realistic to my pessimistic mind, it was cute and made the whole thing a lovely, light read.

“Rule # INFINITY: There are NO second chances.Violate my trust and I’ll never trust you again. Betrayal is unforgivable.”

But, and this is a big but, I did think that the characters weren’t very deep. They had the perfect surface but if you scraped that surface away a little I don’t think there would be much there. Which brings onto how much I actually disliked Parker. She seemed to just go round and round and round and round and… and it just got boring. To begin with, I was cool with her over analyzing all this stuff but even when the answer was painfully obvious she kept doing it. I was very close to losing my rag with Parker. She did say some things did make me laugh though. One of my favourite lines where one of hers:

“He can’t like my personality – I haven’t really unleashed it on him yet.”

But then she does use phrases like ‘troll brain‘ that makes me cringe so bad I get a stomach ache:

“Of course you want this guy all over you, my troll brain says.”

I think Parker was the only reason that this book didn’t fit me perfectly and I really recommend that you read it.

What was I listening to?