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Tony’s Review…Mice, Gordon Reece (Spoilers)

4/5

Shelley and her mother are mice, hiding away from the world in one of its corners. Both of them carry the scars of their battles with predators – Shelley’s at the hands of school bullies who nearly killed her, and her mother emotional scars from fights against her father and her bullying bosses.

So being mice, when a burglar breaks into their home and threatens them, they do what mice do: They hide, they accede, they submit. But Shelley snaps, pushed past the limit. And she discovers that mice have teeth, and what sharp little teeth they are. Shelley kills the burglar in self defence, but her mum realises that the police won’t see it that way…they’ll see it as murder.

They decide to hide the body, to bury the burglar in the rose bushes. The act of defiance becomes a waiting timebomb beneath them, waiting to explode. Every knock on the door makes Shelley think of police, of prison bullies who will make the ones at school look like nursery teachers.

But gradually, the two women come to realise that the teeth they used to kill the burglar are still sharp. They begin to take control of their lives, to come out from the shadows. To fight back against the people they submitted to.

And when a note from a blackmailer arrives, the two women decide to use those teeth again, this time to kill…

A fantastic premise and a wonderful idea.

I loved this book. The two characters come alive and evolve, transformed by what they’ve been through. Every stage of the plot proceeded from it’s tense (all be it slightly unrealistic) first encounter with the burglar and shot off without a pause, pulling me along with it. Will they be caught? What will happen next? What will trip them up? It kept me flipping the pages and I zipped through it.

The descriptions and world building were first class, lending the book a real sense of atmosphere and place. I had no trouble visualing the world they lived in, and I breathed in the smell of the flowers through their windows, felt the terror and the tension as they did.

I did wonder at the end if Shelley was becoming a sociopathic monster, desensitised to the violence she’s lived through. She urges her mother to shoot the blackmailer, screaming at her to do it, do it. And at the end, when she wants to return to school, she almost seems to relish the thought of a confrontation with her former bullies.

I wonder: What becomes of a mouse when it realises that it enjoys how sharp it’s teeth are?

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Tony’s Review…Tethers by Jack Croxall

3/5

Karl and Esther, both 13 years old, both bored by their restrictive Victorian lives, stumble across a mystery in the village where they live. It quickly leads them from their quiet land-locked lives to the coast of the UK and then back again to its heart before the climax, making some friends and very dangerous enemies along the way.

Jack Croxall has a pleasing, old-fashioned style of writing, an almost “Famous Five” feel to his words and language. The pacing is perfect, shifting the book forward at a nice clip and not lingering too long. I needed to keep reading!

The characters of Karl and Esther are fleshed out and full of life – their flaws and imperfections as well. I love that Karl can’t climb through windows as elegantly as Esther, nor can he sword-fight as effectively. Esther isn’t just a passive Victorian girl either, going weak at the knees at the first sign of danger, but is a kick-ass heroine in her own right. I loved the reaction of Karl when he sees the ocean for the first time; it really made me connect with the character.

The secondary adult characters were all nicely done as well, but I kept expecting them to have their own agendas. Perhaps an unwritten rule of YA is “Never trust anyone over the age of 30”, and I kept expecting a heel turn from them. I got the impression they were holding a lot back from Karl and Esther. Karl would announce a discovery or a clue, and the two men traveling with them would nod and smile as though it was expected. They put me on edge, and I was expecting something dark from them.

The accents of the characters dialogue were nice, apart from Scot Shona, who didna speak like this, but did speak like this. That was a flaw I would have liked fixed; everyone else speaks in a realistic voice.

I would have liked the two teens take on more of the danger themselves, but the adults take a lot of it. It is a YA book after all, and I don’t read YA for the grown-ups to have all the fun. On the other hand, it was nice to have at least competent adults on hand, and the kids did manage to do most of the important stuff.

There were a few typos I noticed, and a few grammar errors – a run on sentence here and there and a missing speech mark – but nothing that bumped me out of the story.

A delightful, fast-paced read with an old-fashioned feel to the structure. I enjoyed it a lot. (Tony Talbot)

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Just Finished…Jake by Michael Cargill

Jake

It’s a 4.5* for me.

Michael Cargill ‘gets’ people – now I’m not sure whether he gets everyone, or that he writes about people whose brains work very like mine, but with each book of his I’ve read (Jake being the third), regardless of the plot or setting, it is the characters and their realistic behaviour that stands out for me. Jake is the same, and perhaps the most realistic and relatable of all Cargill’s characters I’ve met so far.

For much of the book you follow Jake through his daily teenage life: daft ‘boy’ antics, school and home life, rolling along. Within the first few pages I was transported straight back to high school – from the noises and sounds, to the familiar mad behaviour of the lads in class (although, seeing it from Jake’s point of view it makes a lot more sense now!) As YA books go, it was very ‘real’ – with no random appearances by vampires, angels or other common supernatural types – and I found myself quite happy reading about the intricacies of Jake’s life.

His first romance is really cute – to the point some scenes had me smiling to myself at the clumsy sweetness, and I loved the development of Jake’s relationship with his little brother, and the way he began to see his mother differently through observing her parenting the new addition to the family.

Overall, Jake is a really well-observed book, Cargill writes great characters and works with the smallest of details to give realism to his writing – as I’m not in to giving away spoilers there is little more I can say about the book without ruining it, but definitely worth a read if you like normal books about normal people.

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Just Finished…Insurgent by Veronica Roth

InsurgentHmmm…

I’ve just finished Insurgent and ‘Hmmmm…’ is the overwhelming thought in my head. There is something with this series I just don’t feel, and I think it’s because I find Tris difficult. There’s also the ‘faction thing’ for the people within the system: I find it hard to believe that they do not question a system that would seem to want you to be a particular way, but then encourages divergence by allowing the movement of people between the factions (nature / nurture…If they want pure, faction-matched people, why would the system allow movement…?) The conclusion of the book did go some way towards alleviating my issues there, in that it gives you an answer to the ‘why’; but it doesn’t explain why people inside the system should not see it as a flaw in their faction system to allow movement from one to another.

I’m not a Tris fan – I find her reactions to things too variable; she veers from being ultra-logical and self-aware to being obtuse and reactionary. Even with her ‘divergent’ brain I find it difficult to believe in someone so wildly erratic. It’s almost as though she switches from one faction stereotype to another, without a natural blending of the various faction natures coming together. Maybe I’m wrong and she’s like this exactly because of how she’s been raised and so she cannot blend the various elements together, just use one at a time…if that’s the case, there’s some logic to that, but I find it difficult to believe as a true reflection of human nature.

There are characters I like in this series: I like the Dauntless banter and passion (with people like Uriah) and I’m OK with Four; Christina I also like, just as I did in Divergent. And the books are well-written, so that you get a feel for the environment…but I find I’m just mildly ambivalent with the book as a whole.

Overall 3.5* – I found this book more interesting that the first – although it is reasonably long and I could walk away from reading it, so I know I wasn’t gripped. Seeing more of the other factions was good – Divergent was too much Dauntless training for me, with not much of interest until the end of the book. But Tris is not my cup of tea and I find that because I don’t relate to her, I empathise less.

Am I missing something with this series??

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Emily Read…Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris

 Emily is our Goodreads pal and all-round lovely lady! 🙂 And, as you’ll know from our side-bar, her blog Confessions of a Bookaholic is one of our favourites. Now and again we feature her book reviews on Aside from Writing so you can get to know her too… ‘now’ is one of those days! 🙂 

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Series: Unraveling #1
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Mystery
Release Date: April 24th 2012
Source: Bought
Overall Rating: 4/5 Stars
Cover Rating: 3/5 Stars


Synopsis: Leaving the beach, seventeen-year-old Janelle Tenner is hit head on by a pickup truck. And killed. Then Ben Michaels, resident stoner, is leaning over her. And even though it isn’t possible, she knows Ben somehow brought her back to life…
Meanwhile, Janelle’s father, a special agent for the FBI, starts working on a case that seems strangely connected to Ben. Digging in his files, Janelle finds a mysterious device – one that seems to be counting down to something that will happen in 23 days and 10 hours time. That something? It might just be the end of the world. And if Janelle wants to stop it, she’s going to need to uncover Ben’s secrets – and keep from falling in love with him in the process…

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I lent Unravelling to a friend before I read it, she loved it and then insisted that I read it. So I did. It wasn’t what I expected at all though I haven’t decided whether that’s a good thing or not yet. The whole concept of a countdown till the end of the world seemed a bit cliché but this was actually very interesting. The story centers around Janelle who is hit by a car and killed. But then she’s alive again with a guy leaning over her. She is positive that he brought her back to life, no one believes her of course. When Janelle sees one of her FBI agent dad’s files she finds out about a countdown that can’t be deactivated. She has less than 24 hours to stop it and she’s sure the boy who brought her back to life has something to do with it.

I actually really liked most of the characters in this book. Janelle was an awesome heroine! There were points where she got on my nerves but overall she was a strong, independent character. I love how even when she’s falling in love with someone she doesn’t let it interfere with stopping the countdown. Ben, the main love interest, was quite sweet and nice but his personality didn’t go further than that. But what he lacked in personality he made up for in his romantic behavior. I really did like him but I liked his best friend more. Elijah was very entertaining and the misunderstood vibe worked for him which is a rare occurrence. My absolute favorite character was Alex. He was Janelle’s best friend and a very good one at that. He was always there for her and risked everything to help her, he even took care of her little brother. At first I was rooting for them to get together but as the book goes on you see it’s purely friendship.

The book started off pretty slow but after a while the pace quickened. Usually I am very good at predicting what is going to happen in books but in this one I just couldn’t, the twists and turns are completely unpredictable. Even though it went very quick I enjoyed the romance and the authors world building was almost flawless. One thing I wasn’t keen on was the swearing. I’m used to it in adult books but this was way more than most adult books I’ve read plus it was supposed to be YA. This book is advertised as 24 meets the X-Files, neither of which I’ve watched but after this I may check it out. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy sci-fi or a good mystery.

My Favorite Quote:
“I mean, contrary to popular belief, I’m actually not harboring a secret desire to grow up and become a bioterrorist.”

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

Read Emily’s interview with us here!

Goodread Group: Books, Blogs, Authors and More

 http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/62777.Books_Blogs_Authors_and_More

My blog: http://emily-confessionsofabookaholic.blogspot.com/

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Just finished…Hope’s Daughter (Melanie Cusick-Jones) *Spoilers*

Cassie and the remains of humanity live on an immense space station, taken from earth when environmental disaster wipes out the population.

At least that what she’s always been told…with the help of her friend (and then boyfriend) Balik, Cassie explores the dark secret behind Space Station Hope, a revelation that eventually leads to her fleeing for her life.

Although the book was a little slow to get started, I didn’t feel like I wanted to put it down at any point. Mel C-J created a believable world, and a mystery which kept me guessing right up to the last chapters.

Some theories I was flicking through as I was reading included Nineteen-Eighty-Four, Logan’s Run, Soylent Green…Was it even a space station, I wondered?
All of these theories were way off the mark, and close to the end, I wondered if Cassie’s parents were androids, and all of what was happening was benign. Wrong again!

The idea of a space station run by aliens so they can harvest human DNA was done with subtle hints and misdirection. At no point did I guess that was what was happening on the station.

In some places, the editing was a little rushed, and because of that, some of the nice ideas in the book slipped past me. I was too busy trying to figure out the sentence to concentrate on the story. Mel C-J did seem to need more commas so I could get a sense of what’s going on.

That was particularly bad near the end of the book, when Cassie’s father showed up. I think the scenes with him could have been cleaned up quite a bit, and the pacing slowed a little so I could absorb what was going on. I also think a bit more world building to establish the scale of the space station would have helped, and I would have liked to have seen more of the guts of the place, as it were.

I liked all the characters in the book, even breathless Ami and Olivia, who shows her humanity later in the book despite her superficial appearance and personality. Everyone was well rounded and nicely developed. I even felt empathy for the aliens, forced to harvest humans to survive.

In the end, I’d give it 4/5, mainly dropping the star for the grammar errors that needed fixing. But I’m hooked enough to start looking for the sequel!

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Emily Read…The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 Emily is our Goodreads pal and all-round lovely lady! 🙂 And, as you’ll know from our side-bar, her blog Confessions of a Bookaholic is one of our favourites. Now and again we feature her book reviews on Aside from Writing so you can get to know her too… ‘now’ is one of those days! 🙂 

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Cover Rating: 4/5 Stars
Overall Rating: 5/5 Stars

 

‘I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they’re here. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It’s like looking at all the students and wondering who’s had their heart broken that day… or wondering who did the heart breaking and why.’
Charlie is a freshman. And while he’s not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But Charlie can’t stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

 

 

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I picked up this book for what you may think is a strange reason. I was looking at a list of banned books online and it annoyed me so much that I picked one at random to read. It happened to be this one and I must say, I’m glad! I adored this book, I really did. It exceeded my expectations. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower is told entirely in letters to an unknown source. There are many speculations about who the letters are to but personally I like not knowing, it adds to the point of the book. In these letters the main character documents a year or so of his life and we get to come along for the ride. Truthfully this book had me on the edge of tears a good many times.

There are not many characters that I disliked in this book because even the annoying ones had such real personalities that it was difficult to hate. The main character, Charlie, I absolutely loved. His voice was so individual and unlike any narration I have read. At the start I thought Charlie’s childish nature was a bit strange for his age but as the book went on I got my suspicions as to why he was like that. He had two close friends though I always got the impression that Charlie was more of a tagalong than a proper friend. Patrick and Sam were his best friends. I really liked them because they were so lifelike as was his sister. The author is gifted with the ability of making believable characters.

Overall, I absolutely loved this book and am considering going back to that banned books list to get more recommendations and be a bit of a rebel. I would recommend this book to everyone even if they’re just reading it because it was banned like I was originally. Charlie’s world was one that I would love to visit again but as this is a standalone I will have to make do with the one book. Although there is a film coming out this year and trust me, I will be first in line to see it.

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My favorite quotes:
“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”

“…we accept the love we think we deserve.”  

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

Read Emily’s interview with us here!

Goodread Group: Books, Blogs, Authors and More

 http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/62777.Books_Blogs_Authors_and_More

My blog: http://emily-confessionsofabookaholic.blogspot.com/

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Just Finished…Dreamless by Josephine Angelini

   I really enjoyed the first book in this series when I read it earlier this year and in many ways Dreamless delivered just as well as Starcrossed did. I do like the way Angelini uses the traditional mythology: some very famous and obvious, such as Helen and Paris, the Oracle, etc. with others less common.

Certainly, I read the book quickly and found it difficult to put down (although the chapters are quite long, so that could explain it!) But I didn’t enjoy the dynamics between the characters as much as I did in the first book – I missed Helen and Lucas’s intensity and was quite put off by how their relationship developed/dwindled in Dreamless – I understand why this was necessary for the plot, but I still missed them.

There’s lots of romantic developments for other characters, which if you’ve read Starcrossed I’m sure you can guess at – they were fine, but I wasn’t overly fussed. The baddies are good though and I thought the overall plot was interesting. Angelini’s skirting around the idea of a love triangle towards the end of the book – I hope she doesn’t opt for this ‘go to’ plot device in Book 3 as it’s been done too much recently and I’ll probably switch right off.

Overall Verdict: 4* People who liked Starcrossed will enjoy this I’m sure – doesn’t suffer too badly from ‘second book syndrome’. For a mythology YA it’s one of the better series around.

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Just Finished…In Your Dreams by Amy Martin

This book is great: from the well-rounded characters, to the interesting twist-filled, but believable plot I went for this hook, line and sinker.

Told from Zip’s (Zara ‘Zip’ McKee) point of view – a heroine with a nice combination of self-depreciation, sporting ability, brains and maturity (that doesn’t seem like a 30-year-old in a 17-year-old!) – the story unfolds in traditional YA territory of high school. But the gorgeous new guy, with pale skin thankfully doesn’t turn out to be a vampire (or anything else otherworldly), but someone who suffers with narcolepsy.

The treatment of Kieran’s condition was very interesting – I’d never really thought about how people with narcolepsy deal with various situations and seeing Zip having to work these out as their relationship develops gave an added layer of interest for me and also showed a good deal of Zip’s character and outlook on life. It was nice to read about realistic characters dealing with real world issues, that can be just as problematic as dealing with being a YA in the first place! Hormones and high school are tough enough without passing out on a regular basis :)

All the key characters: Kayla, the parents, Kieran, Zip’s team mates… are all well-drawn and as you work through some of the twists and turns I think hold up well with their behaviour and motivation. I loved the dialogue and scene-setting in this book: Zip and Kieran bounce off one another so well that you could be watching them bantering away; and Zip is similar with her mother and Kayla over time. I had a few ‘awwww’ moments in their relationship – they are very cute and believable, without being cheesy. I also found that I really wanted to know what happened next – I read the book in a couple of days which is quick for me – all credit to the author, whose style of writing is engaging, fun and balances plot/drama with regular characters extremely well.

Overall: 4.5* A great debut and I was very pleased to see that this was ‘The End of Book One’ as I reached the last page – I would certainly look out for anything Amy Martin writes in the future and definitely want to hear more from the lovely Zip!

PS – Thanks to author Amy Martin for providing me a copy of this to read / review – love it from the minute I started reading it in the hairdressers! :)

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Just finished…If I Stay (Spoilers)

(by Gayle Forman)

Review by Tony Talbot

Mia is a seventeen year old girl caught in limbo when the car carrying her and her family is involved in a fatal crash. Stuck between dead and alive, she discovers she can observe her gathering relatives, and learns that all the other members of her family have died except her.

Accepting she has a choice – live or die – Mia hesitates between the two, wondering what she has to live for now her family is dead. If she dies, she won’t have the pain of losing her family for real when she wakes.

Except…she realises her family is more than the people she lives with. Her family is also anyone who cares for her, her boyfriend, her mother’s best friends, grandparents.

But it’s her boyfriend Mia feels most torn over. If she dies, she won’t have to deal with losing him to rock stardom while she moves to New York to perform at an elite music school.

Grief over losing someone is like that…making choices as to whether you want to feel again after someone close dies. Making a choice to love someone again one day, risking yourself losing them again. It’s part of defining who you are as a person: loss and coming to terms with that loss.

I liked Mia’s family and Mia. I liked the way they weren’t dysfunctional, but they weren’t perfect either; the way they argued and bickered, and still loved each other at the end of the day. I liked the tension between Mia and her boyfriend, Adam, the knowledge that love wasn’t all roses and sunshine, and it wasn’t going to be a happy ending either (though not in the sense of Mia dying). It made them all the more human to see their frailties and their flaws.

But I never got the impression that Mia was going to die voluntarily, which robbed the book of it’s most fundamental question. She seemed far too much of a fighter to give in so easily.

And for me, the book ended when Mia’s story was just starting. When she wakes and has to deal with the overwhelming grief and the reality of never having these people in your life again. The knowledge that she has to go back into her home one day and walk through the now empty rooms, empty of the people she loved, but still full of the smell and feel of them.

I don’t envy her that walk (like most people, I’ve done it more than once) but I never got to see it through her eyes and her strength. Which is a shame for such a nicely written book on such a powerful subject.

3/5