Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz ★★★★☆ Dante can swim. Ari can't. Dante is articulate and self-assured. Ari has a hard time with words and suffers from self-doubt. Dante gets lost in poetry and art. Ari gets lost in thoughts of his older brother who is in prison. Dante is fair skinned. Ari's features are much darker. It seems that a boy like Dante, with his open and unique perspective on life, would be the last person to break down the walls that Ari has built around himself. But against all odds, when Ari and Dante meet, they develop a special bond that will teach them the most important truths of their lives, and help define the people they want to be. But there are big hurdles in their way, and only by believing in each other―and the power of their friendship―can Ari and Dante emerge stronger on the other side. This book has so much representation I might just have to happy-dance. Not only are the two main characters and their families people of color, but there are several gay characters - and none of them are portrayed badly! Plus, aside from being wonderful examples of diversity in literature, all the characters are layered and interesting. Dante and Ari are a bit too immature for fifteen at the beginning of the book, but they get more believable after their birthdays. The entire book gets better the more you get into it, really. Most of my thoughts on it were gibberish and "awwww's" for the first few hours after I read it. I'm still not entirely sure how to convey my feelings for this book except to say that I really, really love it. I absolutely adore Ari and Dante, their story, the way Sáenz writes - let's just say it's not hard for me to imagine why Aristotle and Dante won all the awards on its cover. On the other hand, I can definitely see why some people don't think it quite lives up to expectations. Especially in the first few chapters, the book reads more like a middle grade novel than a YA one, and the dialogue i occasionally stilted. Still, those are relatively small problems. There was much more that went right with this book than wrong. I can't guarantee that you'll love Aristotle and Dante, but I can assure you that I most definitely did. Subtle, profound, and fun to read, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a book you should definitely give a chance.
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Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King ★★★★☆ Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to? A.S. King's ability to write a book that feels real, no matter what unrealistic elements are included in it, is one of my favorite things about her writing. Her characters could live down the street from you, or have the locker next to yours. Vera is no exception. Even with a touch of the supernatural (hello, Charlie), Vera's story resembles that of thousands of ordinary teenagers: falling in love with your neighbor, dealing with grief, dealing with your parents and their philosophies... Vera and Charlie are both brilliant characters; they're complicated and flawed but still likable. Interestingly, they are mirror-images of each other as well. The other characters are also pretty well hashed out, although we don't get as close a look at them. Even Jenny Flick - cast as the crazy, slacker bitch - was reasonably developed. I absolutely love the way the book is narrated: Vera tells the story with brief, occasionally wise, interludes from her father, Charlie, and the Pagoda. Mr. Dietz's parts filled in the holes of Vera's backstory and explained a lot of her eccentricities (another thing I loved - seeing just how much Vera and Charlie's respective parents influenced them). Having the Pagoda - an inanimate object - interrupt every few chapters was genius on King's part. I feel like that pagoda taught me something about the world, although I have absolutely no idea what it is. Another stroke of King's genius came in the form of Charlie, the pickle in Vera's Big Mac. King puts forth a very interesting view of death. Charlie's dead, but he isn't exactly in an afterlife, nor is he a typical ghost. As he tries to communicate with Vera and get her to clear his name, the reader learns a little at a time about his death and Vera's life with him. Suspense in waiting to find out how Charlie died, and why his name needs clearing in the first place, is well-paced. I don't think I stopped reading for more than an hour at a time I would recommend Please Ignore Vera Dietz to A.S. King fans and people who like really good contemporary books. You won't be disappointed. The Tyrant's Daughter by J.C. Carleson ★★★★☆ When her father is killed in a coup, 15-year-old Laila flees from the war-torn middle east to a life of exile and anonymity in the U.S. Gradually she adjusts to a new school, new friends, and a new culture, but while Laila sees opportunity in her new life, her mother is focused on the past. She’s conspiring with CIA operatives and rebel factions to regain the throne their family lost. Laila can’t bear to stand still as an international crisis takes shape around her, but how can one girl stop a conflict that spans generations? It has been almost two weeks since I finished this book, and I'm only now getting around to writing a review for it. This is mostly due to my well-developed ability to procrastinate, but it's also because I don't have a whole lot to say on The Tyrant's Daughter. Let me clear up a few things: the writing was good, and I enjoyed reading it. The Tyrant's Daughter provided insights into middle-eastern culture, and Laila's experiences in America made me examine my culture a little more closely. This book, if anything, made me even more ashamed of the Americans that call women "terrorists" for wearing their hijab - which is why I recommend this book. The Tyrant's Daughter should be required reading in American high schools, simply because the story it tells is so important. Important doesn't necessarily mean incredible, though. Laila's story wasn't as strong as it could have been, due mainly to her nonchalant attitude. "Nonchalant" isn't really the right word; Laila narrated her story like it happened a long time ago. It was obvious that she felt something about the events she was retelling, but the emotion was distant. There were a few scenes that made me fairly angry and even a little choked up, but my reaction was more because of the details in the story than the way it was being told. The nonchalance, for lack of a better word, also stole a lot of the suspense from the story, making the climax of the novel seem almost like a non-event. Laila was relatable as much as she was foreign, and she was a passably complex character. The majority of the other characters had only two sides; they had depth, but they weren't complex. The rest were completely flat. Most of my interest in the characters came from Laila's analysis of them, which was again insightful. The Tyrant's Daughter is definitely, absolutely worth the read. I give Carleson a lot of credit for tackling this subject and doing a respectably good job with it. The impact of the story is strong; the rest of it is somewhat weak. Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid ★★★☆☆ Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost. Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most. There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love. Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth— sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way. It is impossible to stay sad while reading this book. The sweet, never-fail happy endings alone will boost your mood, but add in the adventurous, unconquerable Leila, and your frown will do a backflip. Each character narrates only a short portion of the book, their own little adventure that ties into Leila's larger story. In the short amount of time each character gets to narrate, Alsaid develops them fully, not only with backstories, but with hints at what their futures might hold. Readers get to know Leila as she pops up in the other characters' lives, but it isn't until the last part of the book that she tells her own story - which was a creative and brilliant way to develop her character. Leila and the mystery she presented worked well to tie all the stories together. Leila herself was exciting and witty, constantly getting into trouble. The various and often hilarious ways she helped the other characters reach their happy endings were heartwarming; sometimes a bit cheesy, but sweet all the same. There was quite a bit of romance, too (some of which was also cheesy). Only one relationship seemed a bit sudden and potentially underdeveloped; the other two were believable but cutesy. Let's Get Lost is a good book to read on the beach or on a road trip, or when you just need a literary pick-me-up. It doesn't deal with very serious matters (for the most part; there are a few heavier parts) and doesn't require as much thought as, say, A Tale of Two Cities. This is a book to read for pure enjoyment and leisure, one that will leave you with a smile on your face. Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley ★★☆☆☆ In the remarkable, bizarre, and heart-wrenching summer before Cullen Witter's senior year of high school, he is forced to examine everything he thinks he understands about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town. His cousin overdoses; his town becomes absurdly obsessed with the alleged reappearance of an extinct woodpecker; and most troubling of all, his sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother, Gabriel, suddenly and inexplicably disappears. Meanwhile, a young, disillusioned missionary in Africa searches for meaning wherever he can find it. When those two stories collide, a surprising and harrowing climax emerges that is tinged with melancholy and regret, comedy and absurdity, and above all, hope. Normally, I wouldn't pick up a book that made so much of itself just in its blurb. Either it raises my expectations too high or it seems like the book is making too much of itself. Some poorly-blurbed books rise above their adjective-filled summaries, but Where Things Come Back does not. I do agree that the story had a generous helping of absurdity. Religious zeal, prophetic visions, and weird imaginings of zombies fill the chapters. Cullen also repeatedly talks about himself in the third person (When one does this, he often...) which got old fast. Beside the absurdity, though, Where Things Come Back doesn't really live up to its descriptors. I've heard a lot of good things about this book, and to be fair, some of them are true. The characters are likable and interesting; and Cullen makes some good points in his rambling. The chain reaction that begins with Benton Sage and spans the length of the book was pretty clever, but Cullen's chapters were duller. If you've read more than one of my reviews, you've probably caught onto the fact that I dislike most YA romances. Where Things Come Back was happily instalove-free, but the romance still fell flat. (This may contain spoilers) It starts with Cullen's obsession over the girl, Ada, who is incidentally the hottest girl in town. Of course, Cullen gets the girl - but more because she pities him and he idolizes her than because they actually love each other. I hesistate to call it a "love story," actually; there wasn't much love. Alma Ember's love stories were a bit more realistic. Whaley did a great job of combining the stories of Benton Sage, Cullen Witter, and everyone connected with them. They wove together seamlessly, which is no small feat. The writing of Where Things Come Back was by no means subpar, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped to. The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith ★★★☆☆ Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father. Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met. As a rule, I stay away from romance books, because I am always disappointed. Maybe disappointed isn't the right word. I just find romances to be too cliched, with too little plot. I can appreciate a good love story, but there comes a point where I can't help but roll my eyes. For fans of teen romances, this is a fantastic book: it's sweet and the characters are fairly well developed. There wasn't much happening besides the love story; even the travel was really an extension of the romance. Throw in some family troubles and you've covered the entire plot. I'm being a bit harsh. Honestly, I enjoyed The Geography of You and Me. As someone with permanent wanderlust, I absolutely adored the world-travel aspect of the book. The romance was sweet and I was rooting for Lucy and Owen, I'll admit. That doesn't mean there wasn't a whole lot of fluff and a few nearly-painful cliches, but The Geography of You and Me is definitely in the top 20% of teen romance. No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale ★★★★☆ Small towns are nothing if not friendly. Friendship, Wisconsin (population: 688) is no different. Around here, everyone wears a smile. And no one ever locks their doors. Until, that is, high school sweetheart Ruth Fried is found murdered. Strung up like a scarecrow in the middle of a cornfield. Unfortunately, Friendship’s police are more adept at looking for lost pets than catching killers. So Ruth’s best friend, Kippy Bushman, armed with only her tenacious Midwestern spirit and Ruth’s secret diary (which Ruth’s mother had asked her to read in order to redact any, you know, sex parts), sets out to find the murderer. But in a quiet town like Friendship—where no one is a suspect—anyone could be the killer. This book is strange and wacky and I absolutely love it. No One Else Can Have You starts off with the discovery of Ruth Fried's body, stuffed with straw and hung from a tree in the middle of a corn field - a pretty gruesome scene. As Kippy investigates her friend's death, she uncovers shocking police negligence, small town secrets, and the darker side of Friendship. But this is not an overly serious story. Although a lot of heavier themes run through the book (murder, grief, PTSD, etc), No One Else Can Have You is funny and, above all, entertaining. Most of the dialogue contains "okeydokeys" and "don'tcha knows", the story takes a number of unexpected turns, and the characters are hilarious. Some of them are almost caricatures, but Hale rounds them out and gives them realistic and endearing qualities along with their goofier ones. Kippy herself has a lot of personality, as eccentric as she is lovable. Her honest, occasionally foot-in-mouth narration kept the story interesting. Actually, she's pretty badass. And although she's no Sherlock Holmes, Kippy was better than a lot of YA "detectives." The murder, in all its grotesqueness, was the perfect offset to the strangeness of Friendship and its inhabitants. Kippy's investigation was amateur, as to be expected (what sixteen-year-old has access to a forensics team?), but it also carried a lot of weight with it. As Kippy uncovered more evidence that the killer was still on the loose, and as that evidence was repeatedly ignored by the police department, the more dire the situation became. Friendship's smiling, happy populace contrasted with all the secrets the town kept buried like black and white, and the contrast kept the book from being too dark or too light. There were a few little things in the book that I didn't like as much or weren't, technically, politically correct (ie, referring to Norse mythology as "Nazi stuff"), but overall it was a solid read. The pacing is perfect, all the crazy things work, and even the romance is good. If you're looking for a cold, hard mystery novel, this isn't it. But No One Else Can Have You is a wildly entertaining story with a dark side, and the most fun you'll ever have reading about murder. 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. 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. |
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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