The Help by Kathryn Stockett ★★★★★ Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, raising her seventeenth white child. She's always taken orders quietly, but lately it leaves her with a bitterness she can no longer bite back. Her friend Minny had certainly never held her tongue, or held onto a job for very long, but now she's working for a newcomer with secrets that leave her speechless. And white socialite Skeeter has just returned from college with ambition and a degree, but, to her mother's lament, no husband. Normally Skeeter would find solace in Constantine, the beloved maid who raised her, but Constantine has inexplicably disappeared. Together, these seemingly different women join to write, in secret, a tell-all book about what it's really like to work as a black maid in the white homes of the South. Despite the terrible risks they will have to take, and the boundaries they will have to cross, these three women unite with one intention: hope for a better day. I don't know where to start. I loved everything about The Help. Reading it feels like time-travelling back to Jackson, Mississippi, circa 1962 - 1964. Stockett's attention to detail is impressive, especially when it comes to the interactions between characters. The subtleties in the way Hilly, Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny talk to each other showcase the racial tensions of the early 1960s vividly. Stockett doesn't gloss over her subject. She tells the good, the bad, and the ugly - which is entirely the point of The Help. She doesn't try to cast the white women in a positive light, just an accurate one. The relationships between the maids and their employers; the maids and the children they take care of; and the maids and Skeeter are complicated - sometimes sweet and sometimes bitter. All of the characters are complicated and dynamic, too. The three narrators are easy to sympathize with for a plethora of reasons. Their stories are very different, but each one is full of heartbreak, humor, and courage. Each woman has a distinctive voice and a lot of personality. Stockett presents their stories as sympathetic but not pitiful; the narrators don't complain about their situation, they just tell the truth of it. I especially love that Skeeter isn't portrayed as a saint. She doesn't escape the influence of racism, and it's obvious that she has to go back on what she was taught and overcome it. It was touching, to see her making that effort. A teacher once told me that the reason we learn about history is so that we don't make the same mistakes out ancestors did. Jim Crow is a mistake I hope we never repeat. Reading about the lives of Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter was like stepping into a different world for me, but many of its lessons are still relevant today. The Help is fiction, but it isn't false, and that's what makes it so important. NPR called it "one of the most important pieces of fiction since To Kill a Mockingbird," and I have to agree. The Help is a heartfelt, wonderfully written book that leaves an impression even after the final page has been turned.
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Trouble by Non Pratt ★★★★★ When the entire high school finds out that Hannah Shepard is pregnant, 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.” I was really intrigued by Pratt's novel because of Aaron's role as psuedo-dad, which made it stand out as more than just another teen-mom book. Trouble stood out in many other ways, too. Most books about teen moms either revolve around a love story with the absent/less-than-ideal father or around the mom's feelings about having a baby so young. Trouble definitely dealt with those issues - Pratt couldn't very well ignore them - but there was a lot more thrown into the mix. Hannah's reputation, what Aaron does to help save it, the effect Hannah's pregnancy has on her life and those around her, unusual family dynamics, grief, guilt, and forgiveness - all of these things are elements in Pratt's book. Hannah and Aaron deal with realistic and sometimes unconventional problems in one of the most life-like books about teen pregnancy I've read. I don't want to pigeonhole Trouble as nothing more than a "teen-mom story,"because it has a lot more to it than that. Aaron's personal struggles add another whole layer to the story. The emotions surrounding Aaron's past and Hannah's uncertain future were raw, with no sugarcoating. Tears welled up a couple of times while I was reading. The characters are lovely (or, in some cases, incredibly awful human beings). They handled things badly, they tried to put everything to rights, and even when they were going about it all wrong, they were lovable. (Again, excluding those couple of people. No spoilers.) Pratt presents Hannah's situation as it is, showing the downsides and consequences without shaming her. Aaron's character is troubled and moody without being melodramatic or annoying. I loved the way the characters interacted and the way their relationships changed. And I really loved hearing the story from both Aaron and Hannah's points of view. The way Pratt did the dual-narration was clever; she switched perspectives several times within a chapter to show both POVs without having to reiterate anything. Trouble was an excellent book. It was moving and realistic, and Pratt captures the messiness of life beautifully. Trouble isn't perfect, but the good parts outnumber and outweigh the not-so-good parts. Many high-school kids will be able to relate to Aaron and Hannah, even though they're (hopefully) not in a similar situation. Endless Night by Agatha Christie ★★★★★ When penniless Michael Rogers discovers the beautiful house at Gipsy’s Acre and then meets the heiress Ellie, it seems that all his dreams have come true at once. But he ignores an old woman’s warning of an ancient curse, and evil begins to stir in paradise. As Michael soon learns: Gipsy’s Acre is the place where fatal “accidents” happen. Sometimes when an author gets a reputation for being excellent, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Not so with Agatha Christie. She deserves every ounce of praise that's been given to her. The first few chapters of Endless Night are a bit of a mishmash, and didn't really seem to be going anywhere. Around chapter three, the book started to have more of a direction. From that point on it was much more interesting, but it was more about Mike and Ellie's love story and the difference of their social classes that it was mysterious. Christie added in a few idiosyncrasies and foreboding signs to remind the reader that death was in the cards. It might have gotten exhausting, a story about a young married couple with only a few warnings of danger thrown in, but it wasn't. I liked Mike and Ellie, and I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. I was noticing the idiosyncrasies without really registering they didn't fit. Things like the lack of fuss made over the death that only made sense after the plot twist hit. I don't want to say to much and spoil the book, but let me say that Christie is a master of her craft. The twist blended seamlessly into the story, shocking without jarring the reader, and once I read it I just sort of gaped and mumbled "What?" for a few minutes before rushing to find out the rest. I'm sorry if this review is vague, but the genius of Endless Night lies in the surprise, so I don't want to give anything away. Christie writes straightforwardly even as she misdirects readers. It's impossible to guess the endings to her books, but once she reveals the truth, readers can see all the evidence they overlooked. Because of that talent, Agatha Christie truly is the Queen of Mystery. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (The Lunar Chronicles #2) ★★★★★ Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second installment of the Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison--even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive. Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner. The second book of the Lunar Chronicles does not disappoint. Meyer has perfected the art of blending fairy tale and science fiction, although Scarlet didn't stick to the story of Red Riding Hood as closely as Cinder followed Cinderella. The elements of the fable were still plain to see, and worked into the plot seamlessly. The solid world-building from Cinder is present in Scarlet, too, but this time in France, not New Beijing. As Cinder's story unfolds and tangles with the stories of others, it only becomes more captivating. I wish that Cinder and Scarlet had met a little sooner in the story, but since this book is part of a series it wasn't paramount. Everything else is timed, with plenty of action sequences balanced out by suspenseful or character-building scenes. And, speaking of characters, they were flipping amazing. I fell in love with Cinder in book one, but Scarlet's fierceness and loyalty made me love her, too. Wolf and Thorne, although less major characters, were just as developed. Also, Levana continues to be terrifying. I connected with Meyer's awesomely realistic characters right away, which made the emotional scenes that much more powerful. There were plenty of those, but Meyer never let the story get soppy, always kicking Cinder, Scarlet, & Co. into action before they could become a soap opera. The only time she doesn't really manage to do that is with the romance between Wolf and Scarlet. It is so blatantly obvious that they're going to get together, just from the blurb (She is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her), and the whole romance is pretty cheesy. It was still a better than a lot of YA romances, but Scarlet and Wolf's relationship doesn't live up to the skill Meyer showed with Cinder and Kai. I did very much like that they were two very different love stories, however. Meyer brought the stupendous writing, characterization, and world-building from the first book and added even more oomph for Scarlet. Based on the amount of effort and talent Meyer put into the Lunar Chronicles, it's not too far off to say this series is the Harry Potter of the sci-fi genre. I cannot wait to see where she takes this series next. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart ★★★★★ A beautiful and distinguished family. A private island. A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy. A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive. A revolution. An accident. A secret. Lies upon lies. True love. The truth. This book was a birthday present, and it is probably the best present I got this year. I finished it, sobbing, close to midnight, and it now holds a place of honor on my shelf. We Were Liars starts off as a story of a girl recovering from a traumatic incident she can't remember, and it becomes a story about love, privilege, and tragedy. I was almost afraid, after reading the summary, that it was going to be a story about rich kids on their private island with problems that don't really matter, but the book proved itself to be so much more from the first page. The romance was spot-on. Cadence never sounded whiny, and the love story never felt forced. The characters were all gorgeous and drove the plot well. Written in Cadence's clear, almost lyric voice, the story unfolds with perfect pacing. I wasn't bored for a minute. And then the plot twist hit. Seriously, honestly, the best plot twist I have read in YA. I wasn't expecting it at all, but I could see all the little hints Lockhart had left throughout the story. It was done so well I had to pause and re-read the paragraph three times before I convinced myself that I hadn't read it wrong. And then I dissolved into a puddle of tears. There's a good amount of suspense and mystery throughout the whole book, which starts to subside a little towards the end, after the climax of the novel. After that point, I was nothing but a mess of shock and awe for Lockhart's talent. This book ripped my heart out, but it made me happy about it. Read it. Weep. And then come back for more. Cinder by Marissa Meyer (The Lunar Chronicles #1) ★★★★★ Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future. As a kid, I loved fairy tales and princesses as much as the next little girl. My favorite was Cinderella, and I was obsessed with her. I owned every version of the story I could get my hands on - including a retelling where "Cinderella" was a cowboy named Bubba. Cinder blows all of those versions out of the water. Meyer captures the best parts of Cinderella's story and the best elements of sci-fi and turns them into a phenomenal book. When I was little, the thing I loved most about Cinderella was her strength - despite everything. Meyer expresses that perfectly. Linh Cinder is by far my favorite incarnation of Cinderella. While the Grimm brothers portrayed a girl waiting for her prince to save her, Meyer brings a more heroic Cinderella to life. Cinder is determined and brave, both loving and lovable. Casting her as a cyborg was an ingenious decision, and it adds another whole dimension to the story. The detailed way Meyer intertwines science fiction and fairy tales is imaginative and engrossing. I enjoyed looking for the classic elements of Cinderella that found their way into Cinder, and I was not disappointed. From the lost shoe to the magic pumpkin, Meyer finds ways to adapt the fairy tale to a futuristic setting - which is ingenious in its own right. For the most part, Meyer's world-building is spot-on. The few little slips here and there could very well be explained in the next book, and they weren't major enough to interfere with the story. Cinder's world is inventive and well-thought out, from the ruthless Lunars to the almost-human androids. A race of people living on the moon could have seemed far-fetched and even silly in some plot lines, but the struggles of the characters and the fairy tale make the story seem familiar and realistic. Even if you don't typically like fairy tale retellings, if you're a fan of sci-fi, you should definitely check out Cinder. While I'm fairly biased to Cinderella stories, this book has a lot going for it. Unlike most fairy tales, Cinder is exciting and unpredictable - once upon a time doesn't necessarily lead to a happily ever after. Cinder is one of the best books I've read this year, and I absolutely can't wait to read more. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton ★★★★★ Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naïve to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the Summer Solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo. I'm having a very difficult time putting my feelings for this book into words. Not because I'm conflicted about them, but because there just aren't any words to accurately describe how much I love The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. This books is potentially the most beautifully written I have read since The Fault in Our Stars - and maybe even more so. The story Walton tells is about love, loss, tragedy, hope, and so many other things that are acutely human. It's impossible to stick this book into a single category. Even though it has its fair share of the fantastical, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender contains a story more real than most realistic fiction books. Walton's lyrical prose is bittersweet and heart-wrenching. Ava narrates her story, and her family's story, with a clear voice, mixing whimsy and heartbreak in a way only true stories can. The story begins slowly, with Ava's grandmother, and works its way through the generations to Ava and her twin, Henry. And although the beginning isn't fast-paced, it's captivating. The pace of the story slowly gathers speed, leaving readers breathless with tears and joy by the last page. The story of the Roux family is complicated and crowded with a multitude of characters, each more intricately written than the last. And yet, the story is told simply and beautifully. Each of the characters contributes something, and even those characters I hated, I understood. Not a single one of them is flat or boring, and almost all of them are intensely relatable. Walton's strange and beautiful characters tell an equally strange and beautiful story, permeated by love and all its imperfections. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender is an achingly lovely book. I want to scream from the rooftops how good this book is - and to stop myself from gushing any more, that's all I'll say. Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick ★★★★★ Based on the true story of Cambodian advocate Arn Chorn-Pond, who defied the odds to survive the Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979 and the labor camps of the Khmer Rouge. When soldiers arrive in his hometown, Arn is just a normal little boy. But after the soldiers march the entire population into the countryside, his life is changed forever. Arn is separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp: working in the rice paddies under a blazing sun, he sees the other children dying before his eyes. One day, the soldiers ask if any of the kids can play an instrument. Arn's never played a note in his life, but he volunteers. This decision will save his life, but it will pull him into the very center of what we know today as the Killing Fields. And just as the country is about to be liberated, Arn is handed a gun and forced to become a soldier. Until I picked up this book, I had never heard of the Khmer Rouge. The thought that such awful events - the murder and imprisonment of an entire people - has been overlooked by history is almost criminal. This is a book that everyone should read. Not only is it written extremely well, but it tells an incredibly important story. McCormick's decision to use improper grammar and syntax only strengthens Arn's voice and the impact of the story. Never Fall Down captures the suffering of a nation with a voice of innocence. We read about history to learn from it, to see its mistakes. One of the reasons I love historical fiction so much is that it teaches about the past so much better than a textbook. Textbooks are factual and apathetic, while books carry empathy. McCormick captures the emotions of a child soldier so vividly with Never Fall Down that it was nearly impossible not to cry, reading this. There were so many times during this book that I wanted to pull him out of the pages and into safety. A story like Arn's is unforgettable. I am horrified at my own ignorance of the Khmer Rouge, which only goes to show how important it is that stories like Arn's are told. McCormick does a remarkable job telling it, and I strongly urge you to read this book. The Scorch Trials by James Dashner (The Maze Runner #2) ★★★★★ Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to. Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim... and meal. The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them. Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED? A lot of second books become nothing more than filler between books one and two, but The Scorch Trials is one of the best second books I've read. It starts off almost exactly where The Maze Runner left off; Dashner doesn't waste a second getting right back into the thick of things. There's barely a lull in the action for the rest of the book, and with every twist the story gets more exciting. Ocassionally, Dashner throws character development to the wind in favor of action (there are a lot of "for some reason, Thomas felt..." sentences, etc), but not so much that it hurts the plot. The action itself is really, incredibly good; Thomas and the Gladers are constantly being thrown into imaginative and freaky situations. Each new danger is different enough to keep from being a repetition of the same old thing. The frequent, well-written action scenes made The Scorch Trials kind of thrilling. The best and worst thing about this series is that I have absolutely no idea what's going on. Readers only know as much as Thomas does, which adds to the suspense and makes every new revelation that much more shocking - but it's also incredibly frustrating not to have any answers. Even though Dashner doesn't let much slip about WICKED's plan, the evidence he does provide doesn't just confuse readers, and his world-building is surprisingly well-executed. Knowing only as much as Thomas does makes it easier to sympathize with him, so readers who like feeling close to characters might like this series for that reason. Those who hate suspense might want to look elsewhere. I, for one, can't wait to see what all this has been building up to. Endangered by Eliot Schrefer ★★★★★ When Sophie has to visit her mother at her sanctuary for bonobos, she’s not thrilled to be there. Then Otto, an infant bonobo, comes into her life, and for the first time she feels responsible for another creature. But peace does not last long for Sophie and Otto. When an armed revolution breaks out in the country, the sanctuary is attacked, and the two of them must escape unprepared into the jungle. Caught in the crosshairs of a lethal conflict, they must struggle to keep safe, to eat, and to live. In sixth grade, I wrote a report on Diane Fossey, and for months afterwards I was obsessed with great apes. Reading Endangered brought me right back to that love for great apes and those working to save them. The book was incredibly well researched, but it never read like a textbook. Actually, Endangered was exactly the opposite of boring; parts of it were heart-pounding and tense, while others were tender and sweet. In a book about endangered animals in a war-torn country, suffering and survival are bound to be central ideas. With Sophie and Otto, Shrefer does an excellent job of keeping animal suffering from falling into the shadow of human suffering. Readers will love all of the characters, human and ape, that appear on the pages. Schrefer's portrayal of bonobos as nearly-human creatures, but also as wild animals, is a perfect balance of respectful and adorable. Endangered is clearly a product of deep interest in Congo and love for bonobos. This is a book that I'll remember for a long time and one that I highly recommend. |
Once Upon a Time...As a longtime lover of stories and a believer in the power and magic of books, I've spent my life seeking out the best reads. This blog is dedicated to reviewing the books I read - good, bad, or magnificent - to help other readers find their next favorite books. Currently ReadingKing Zeno
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