My Girl - Jack Jordan

Review by Coll
3 Stars

**I received this ebook from author in exchange for an honest review**

Paige’s life has turned into a living nightmare. After losing her daughter ten years ago, her only closure being her daughter’s severed arm that was found in the river, her life began to fall apart. Now her husband has committed suicide and she is utterly alone and lost. Paige spirals into a deep depression, almost giving up on life. Then strange things start happening in her house that can’t be explained, and she finds something in her late husband’s desk drawer that makes her question a part of his life that she did not know about. As she tries to decipher the mystery of her husband, and of her daughter’s murder, she gets closer to danger and starts learning things that terrify her and make her question everything.

My Girl is written in three sections, breaking up the story into two pieces and then bringing it together as a whole in the third section. The first part of the book instantly sucked me in. It was intriguing, interesting, and began to get very creepy, which I loved. Paige’s unraveling is described incredibly well and you get a real sense of a woman on the brink of just giving up completely. Jordan made you feel so many emotions towards her, from sympathy for what she has been through to frustration and anger at her reckless actions. You really get a sense of how destroyed Paige has become and how the tragedies in her life have affected her. 

The downfall for me, when reading My Girl, came about halfway through the book. There was an incredible twist in the story which I did not see coming, but then things got a little, unbelievable I guess. I felt like things were being written for shock value, and it got to a point where I had a hard time seeing the story as being realistic. There is a subtlety that can be used to impact people and My Girl went beyond that at points, into the realm of overly done. I remember getting to a moment where I was no longer shocked by the twists because I just expected crazy things to keep happening. That being said, the book always remained exciting. I just wish it stuck more to the creepy thriller/mystery that began the book instead of getting so outrageous.

I will say that the book was compulsively readable. I did not want to put it down and I finished it within one day. I never felt bored reading it, and that is always a plus. Unfortunately several elements of the story were left unexplained or vague, and I feel like My Girl would have benefitted from being a longer novel. There were so many good ideas that, if expanded upon, really would have added to the whole story. I also found myself questioning some very odd behaviors by several characters that were not explained or just very unrealistic, and the motives behind the antagonist could have really been expanded upon. I believe these things could have been remedied by a lengthier story with more detail and backgrounds to all the main players in the book.

All in all I enjoyed reading the book and it kept my interest, although maybe not always for the right reasons. Sometimes I was interested in the story and the mystery behind it, and other times at what crazy thing would be thrown into the mix next. My Girl had the makings for a really great psychological thriller/mystery but unfortunately it went overboard at points. However I did find myself picking it back up easily, wanting to find out what happens, and I was satisfied with the ending. If you are looking for a quick and enjoyable read that is out of the box then I think you might enjoy My Girl. 

Interested in My Girl? Check it out on Goodreads.

mashup: Summer Days & Summer Nights // Brain on Fire

Hello all bookish people! As you can see from the title, this review will be an odd sort of a mashup. Mainly because, and I’ll be honest here, I personally find it impossible to properly review short story collections and/or memoirs. Especially since this memoir in question spanned a couple years of a person’s life during her illness. So, without further ado, here are two completely and utterly unrelated books in one review. I just really wanted to talk about both. I mean, they both have yellow on the cover so they are basically the same?

The first book I want to talk about is Summer Days and Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins. This is the second short story collection (want to start a counter on how many times I say these words) that she curated. The first was My True Love Gave to Me which featured 12 holiday stories by different authors. This collection (count: 3), however, consists of 12 summer romances. It seems twee, but really, it’s a great idea and way to showcase the talents of several authors. Some are well-known (Leigh Bardugo, Veronica Roth), others less so (at least for me). Of course, as is with collections of any sort, there are always going to be hits and misses. I’m glad to say none of them were complete busts for me, but there were a couple that engaged me less. However, I do want to mention a couple standouts. Firstly an LGBTQ story by Nina LaCour. Now this was a sweet, sweet story, and one that stuck with me the most. It deftly dealt with the discovery of mutual attraction without “othering” same sex couples. As well is should be. There was also some stories with fantasy elements (the Leigh Bardugo one), and some that felt like comedies of manners in the current age (the oddball story by Jon Skovron).

What I enjoyed most about the short story collection (count: surely, 25 by now) was how so many of the stories were utterly unexpected. One sees the cover design (baby blue with bright yellow pages) and expects light-hearted and fluffy fun, but it was so much more than that. There were heartbreaks and the woes of first loves. Sure, there were also a few “happily ever afters”, but the majority focused on the amount of actual work that can go into falling and staying in love. All that with fantasy and sci-fi twists, as an added bonus. Four stars for me (rounded up from the calculated average of 3,5). I’d recommend it.

**

The second book I want to talk about in Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness. Ms. Cahalan is a newspaper reporter who suddenly and quite inexplicably starts suffering from epileptic attacks. She is sent to NYU’s Epilepsy ward, where her symptoms worsen daily and she becomes almost catatonic and a mere husk of her former self. Susannah Cahalan has constructed the events leading up to, during, and after that month of madness, and the memoir is correspondingly divided into three main parts. The second one – her stay in the hospital – is later carefully constructed from her family members’ accounts and camera footage, because she still has little to no recollection of that time. Now, if you are having flashbacks to any House MD episodes, you’d be completely right. This was a fascinating and compulsively readable medical mystery (I feel bad for sensationalising the author’s life story), and I quite literally could not put the book down. 

I don’t want to say too much about her eventual disease because I think not knowing adds to the suspense, but it’s not a real spoiler to tell you that obviously it is a rare disease – a real “zebra” in doctors’ parlance – so the memoir doubles as a public health service announcement.

The writing style was clear. Even the science-y aspects were understandable and did not bog the narrative down. My one small quip would be that I personally would have loved to have a clear illustration of all the different parts of the human brain. She refers to them quite often and describes the location of all the lobes and areas, but I feel an actual picture would have been even better, most of all because she did include other random illustrations/copies of her medical charts/journals. All in all, this was a strong four stars. I did find the latter part slightly less engaging than the first two, but I guess it’s symbolic, in a way, as it chronicles the time spent finding her way back to herself. I personally would’ve loved to read more about what doctors and people themselves can do to ensure better cooperation between different specialists, but she touched upon this subject only briefly.

I’d recommend this to newbies and lovers of non-fiction alike. It’s important to spread awareness for this extremely rare disease that has probably gone undiagnosed in so many people, mainly because of how the symptoms can be misleading, and the condition can be misdiagnosed as mental illness. Quick note! It is also being made into a film, due to be released possibly this year. I love finding out such things after I’ve read the book.

#FridayReads - June 17, 2016

Tiina

Friday once again! I am travelling home this week so I won’t be doing that much reading over the weekend even though I spent the whole of yesterday going through all the books in my childhood home and sorting them into Keep, Donate, and Recycle piles (don’t hate me for the latter, it was mostly old notebooks). Mainly I’ll be working on finishing up a short story collection edited by Stephanie Perkins. It’s called Summer Days & Summer Nights and it’s the summer equivalent for My True Love Gave To Me. I am almost done with it and as always with story collections, it had its hits and misses, but this time it was mostly 4-5 star stories. There was diversity, there was sadness, and there is, of course, romance. In addition to that, I am planning on leafing through Audrey Niffenegger’s The Night Bookmobile, which is a graphic novel. I might do a reread of Where the Heart Is if I feel like it, or then just move on to a non-fiction book. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness is a memoir/medical mystery by Susannah Cahalan. I’ve heard only good things so can’t wait. I am also still working on How Not to Fall by Emily Foster and I’m enjoying it very much. That’s it! What about you, internet people :)?

Coll

Well I am at one of those moments where I am still reading some of my books from last weekend so I am not starting many new ones. I am about to finish up Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey and will be moving onto the next book in the series, Caliban’s War. Sci-fi space operas like these capture my nerdy heart and I am so in love with this series right now. I am also in the middle of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, the graphic novel about growing up in Tehran during the Islamic revolution, which I started last Sunday. I plan on starting My Girl by Jack Jordan, which we are reviewing for the book’s blog tour (the book is set to be released July 4^th). It is a psychological thriller about a mother trying to unearth the secrets of her late husband and how they might relate to her daughter’s death. That is about it for me this weekend. The weather is supposed to be beautiful in NYC and I hope to get a lot of outdoor reading done (as well as some indoor video game playing). I hope you all have some outdoor reading plans too and we would love to hear what they are!

The Girls - Emma Cline

Review by Coll
4 Stars

**I received this eBook via Random House and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

I am always a little worried when a book is being talked about as one of the most anticipated of the summer, for fear of being let down when I finally read it. Fortunately that was not the case with this book because I loved it. The Girls is the debut novel by Emma Cline, set in Northern California during the end of the 1960s, save for a few sections in the present. The story focuses around Evie Boyd, a young teenager who feels left out and unaccepted by friends and family, and is desperate to fit in somewhere. When she meets Suzanne, an older girl with an air of danger, she immediately wants to be a part of her life. In her desperation for acceptance by this new girl she is pulled into a cult, and because all she cares about Suzanne she does not realize the danger and violence she is spiraling towards.

There is a lot a want to say about The Girls and I know I cannot fit it all in to a review, but I will try my best. Right off the bat I want to express that this book is not always “easy” to read because of its sometimes disturbing plot.  That being said, I do think it is definitely worth reading. There were many points that I could genuinely relate to, that I think most girls in the world could. Evie is going through the time where you feel the need to impress boys even though they pay you no mind, and look a certain way to get attention, or act a certain way to be liked. Those years of hell are enough to break any girl, and this book shows how deep the hole is that you could go down if your emotions take you too far. 

The Girls escalates to a point that I am sure not many of us could relate to, when Evie is drawn into a cult. I know, a cult can become super unbelievable, but not in the case of this book. Cline really did it right, with the time period she used and how she structured her story. The 60s were such a tumultuous and rebellious time in which many dangerous cults did pop up, which gave an air of believability to this story. (I found myself thinking quite often of the similarities between the cult in the book and The Manson Family, which it seemed to be loosely based on.) Adding to the plausibility of the story was Cline’s writing style and the nature which she gave to her characters. If you put yourself in the shoes of a teenage girl, the girls in this story are the kind you would crave being welcomed by. The addition of an older man who shows interest in you (let’s say the leader of a cult) would make it so easy to attract a young girl with low self-esteem, so hungry for admission that she mistakes being preyed upon for her vulnerability as acceptance. Through Evie’s eyes you see the rise and fall of the cult, and the extreme and violent length its members are convinced to go to. 

Overall I thought The Girls was very well written. You connect with the characters and easily see their good and bad qualities, and are torn between hatred and love for several of them. At times the book did drag on a bit and it got slightly wordy. There are also a lot of secondary characters throughout the book, which became a little overwhelming at points. However, to me, the pros about this books definitely outweighed the few cons. So many times in this book Cline made me think back to being a teenager, feeling awkward and not important and wishing above all else to feel special and to fit in. It is both frightening and fascinating to read about a young girl going through that same thing and being dragged down to a level so dark. 

In the end I really did love this book. It was both brutal and beautiful and I found it hard to put down. Quite often the story is disturbing, but it is calling forth things that really occur in life that are not pleasant, so the book needs to distress the reader at times. I think this was an incredible debut novel by Emma Cline and give her props for taking such a chance with a story of this startling nature. I highly recommend The Girls as a thrilling, and at time unsettling, coming-of-age story that is well worth the read. 

“We were like conspiracy theorists, seeing portent and intention in every detail, wishing desperately that we mattered enough to be the object of planning and speculation.”

Interested in The Girls by Emma Cline? Check it out on Goodreads.

Vinegar Girl

*I received this ebook from Vintage Publishing via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler is part of the Hogarth series, which features retellings of and modern takes on Shakespeare’s works. This one is a retelling of The Taming of the Shrew. Kate Battista is a socially rather awkward curmudgeon. She is basically taking full care of her ditzy sister Bunny and absent-minded father, the brilliant scientist Dr Battista. The whole family is extremely set in their ways. Enter Pyotr, Dr Battista’s Russian research assistant whose visa is expiring. If you know anything at all about the original play, the rest really won’t come as a surprise: Kate’s father is hell-bent on marrying them off to get his assistant to stay in the country. However, differently from the original, the novel focuses more on Kate’s thoughts and feelings, than the machinations and countless admirers of her little sister.

In brief, I liked it a lot. It had a strong vibe of The Rosie Project in the sense that neither protagonist can read social cues very well, or in this case, Kate just doesn’t care about them. There was a lot of awkwardness and cringe-worthy moments stemming from total incongruence with even the most basic rules of politeness in society. At first glance, this rendered Kate almost completely unlikeable. However, several more chapters in, I suddenly found myself torn between disliking and liking her; it almost creeped up on me. The reader sees how a father’s inattention made Kate the way she is, which makes her way easier to understand. The small insecurities that started peeking through made her infinitely more relatable and likeable. What is more, the impending marriage upsets the careful routine and balance that ruled her life so far, and she’s finally made to leave her comfort zone behind.

The family dynamic was presented extremely well. They all live in a sort of stasis; there are the same exact foods and routines to which everyone adheres. It made for a really strange reading experience, because at first it was hard to understand why anyone would put up with this kind of behaviour. Dr Battista’s character was the most peculiar and I didn’t really know what to think of him. He was selfish in a helpless way and almost came off as mean. Whereas Kate went through an obvious change, Dr Battista stayed largely the same – not really understanding his motives, or at least not thinking them through.

I did enjoy the writing style a lot. It was lyrical and yet so simple at the same time. The novel itself was rather slim and thus a really quick read. It probably doesn’t have the levity of Anne Tyler’s other works (not that it’s asinine or anything), but it was still a cracking read.  The humour was extremely well presented. I really enjoyed reading the novel despite the fact that I knew exactly where the narrative was going, as would anyone who knows even a bit about the original play (or has seen the countless film adaptations). Like I said above, it’s not a perfect one-to-one retelling of the original. Instead, this novel mixes aspects from different cultures with timeless notions of romance.

Plotwise, not much happened, but I was still interested in the story and found it almost impossible to put the book down. It is really such an oddball of a book. The finale was very comical and almost came off as a farce. I did like how Kate wasn’t made out to be completely subservient, so the ideas of homesickness and gender relations made this a powerful read for me. All in all, it’s a lovely romance and a comedy of manners. It brought a smile to my face, even though I’m still not completely sure what this book was trying to do. Four stars!

“It’s like men and women are in two different countries! I’m not ‘backing down’, as you call it; I’m letting him into my country. I’m giving him space in a place where we can both be ourselves.”

TBR Jar Review: Tuf Voyaging - George R.R. Martin

Review by Coll
4 Stars

So here it is, my first TBR Jar review. Tiina and I have such a backlog of books to read that we have both decided to utilize the TBR Jar, where we put the names of all the books we want to read into it and occasionally we pull one out. The most recent one I pulled out was a book called Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin. Yes, the same GRRM who wrote the Song of Ice and Fire Series. I thought this would be a great TBR Jar book to review because it is a great way to show that Martin has written other amazing books in completely different genres than what he is known for.

Tuf Voyaging is a science fiction / mini-space opera (yay!) that was first published in 1986. The story follows a space trader named Haviland Tuf, who through a series of incidents becomes the owner of the last remaining seedship of Earth's legendary Ecological Engineering Corps. With his, new powerful ship and his desire to now be an ecological engineer, Tuf travels the universe to different worlds, helping colonies to solve problems they have created. This book is a novel divided into six sections, which to me were less like chapters and more like short stories, that all relate together to explain this one man’s life over the course of a few years.

Martin did a brilliant job in his character creation when it comes to Haviland Tuf. He is such an unlikely hero of a story, not only in appearance but also demeanor. Additionally, he has this way of speaking that is so eloquent and smart, yet hilarious at the same time (think V for Vendetta); the use of syntax, choice of vocabulary, morphology, etc. brings Tuf’a language to such a different level than other characters. Oh yeah, and he has an obsession with cats. This huge, smart, and powerful guy has such an adoration for cats and it plays into everything he does throughout the book. To me it made his character so human and he is someone you just can’t help but love. But now where his character is built to be loved and admired, many others in this book are definitely built to invoke the opposite feeling in the reader. But then anyone who had read any of ASOIAF (or watched Game of Thrones) knows how well Martin can write a hated character.

The overall storyline of this book is quite brilliant and often prophetic. In this fictional world we see civilizations facing some problems very similar to those that we may experience one day here on Earth, such as overpopulation, violence, species destruction, bio-warfare, religious and political fanaticism, etc. The problems that Tuf helps to combat are not unlike those we will one day face, and it adds an element of possible truth to this far flung sci-fi story that just pick at your mind the entire time you are reading. I mentioned earlier how the books is broken into six sections that act as almost interrelated short stories. I feel this was an effective story-telling means for this book although the beginning of each section did suffer a bit from its detachment from the previous. Overall this is just a small nit-pick from me and once you get a few pages into each section everything flows smoothly again and you are sucked back in. There are also illustrations (very excellent ones) interspersed throughout the story, which I appreciated very much. The visuals and written descriptions meld together so seamlessly and give a solid idea of what people and places look like. 

For the most part, this book had almost every element I look for in a story. It had amazing writing, ample character development, great visual description, excitement, good guys, bad guys, and many morals. Oh and cats. ;-) There were times when the story dragged a bit and a transition between sections interrupted the flow more than I would like, but in the end this is a minor criticism and hardly mattered to me. If you are a sci-fi fan and like space operas then I highly recommend giving Tuf Voyaging a read. Also, I think this book goes to show that our beloved (sometimes hated) George R.R. Martin has been around for a lot longer than A Song of Ice and Fire and has many other brilliant works that are worth checking out. 

“Monsters are entirely mythological, sir, like spirits, werebeasts, and competent bureaucrats.”

Interested in reading Tuf Voyaging? Check it out on Goodreads.

#FridayReads - June 3, 2016

Tiina

Friday again already! I don’t like time moving so fast during spring/summer! I’m not sure how much time for reading I’ll have this weekend, but my initial plans include just finishing off the books I’m currently reading. They are: Fives and Twenty-Fives (yes, still, but it’s so bleak and I don’t like being sad, mmmkay?!), Wolf in White Van (weird in a good way, but I still don’t know where this is going exactly), Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (for my library book club!), Vinegar Girl (a review book, will be released June 16^th, it’s a retelling of The Taming of the Shrew). Are you tired of parentheses yet? All right, and as always, I’m also listening to an audiobook. This time it’s the fourth in the Raven Cycle series – The Raven King. It is just as good as the others but I am terrified of bad things happening. I’m always hesitant in recommending this series, by the way. It’s GOOD, but I think it’s something completely different from anything else out there, or at least different from the books I’ve read/heard about. I guess you could call it paranormal/urban fantasy? There is some romance, but it is very, very PG: the main character Blue was foretold her true love will die when they kiss, so obviously the whole series is very chaste :D. It’s mostly a tale of friendship, and people growing up, handling their families and future lives. All that with some freaky and mysterious goings-on! I’d say definitely pick up the audiobooks, they are such a great experience! Because, you know, Stephen King just made a video about how he loves audiobooks. That last trivia item was for Coll, but hey, the more people I convert the better ;-). Happy Friday!

Coll

I have no idea how it is Friday already but I am just rolling with it. First off I want to finish off The Elementals this weekend. It is a horror book by Michael McDowell that is about haunted house filled with a horror that can shape nightmares and kill you. It is an older book (1981) and so far I am enjoying it (just got to the creepy part, woohoo!). Then there is Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey that I spoke about last week, which has become my new best friend. <3 Now as for new books, I will be starting my first book from our TBRathon that we are doing. The book is Slayers by C.J. Hill, which fits the prompt for “read a book by an author with a four letter last name”. Slayers is the first book in a fantasy series about a small group of people, descendants of those who killed off the dragons, who are tasked with keeping the secret location of the remaining dragon eggs and protecting them. I have been a long-time fantasy fan and am also a fan of YA so it seems like this book will be pretty much up my alley. The other book I will be starting is The Complete Persepolis (Persepolis, #1-4) by Marjane Satrapi. This is the June book for Our Shared Shelf, the Emma Watson Goodreads group. It is a graphic novel that takes place in Tehran and tell the story of childhood and coming of age in the middle of the Islamic Revolution. I am really excited for this book and can’t wait to get started on it. So yeah, that is about it for me this weekend. Maybe I will also start looking into an audiobook to get into, since Tiina says that Stephen King likes them. ;-)

So those are our weekend plans. What books do you plan on spending your weekend with?

Wrong Place, Right Time

*I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review* 

Wrong Place, Right Time by Elle Casey is the second novel in the Bourbon Street Boys trilogy (or series). I’ve had the first on my wish list for a while, and when I saw this as a possible request I had to jump on the opportunity. I got approved, and promptly bought the first book Wrong Number, Right Guy. They are companion novels so you can definitely read them as standalones, but I prefer seeing the character growth throughout the series.

This instalment of the series features Jenny, a single mother of three (pretty great) kids, and her budding friendship with one of the guys from the Bourbon Street Boys private security firm. They had instant attraction, but the actual romance was really slow-build, which felt realistic for two single parents, so I didn’t mind it at all. At first I was slightly disappointed in the less funny inner monologue of Jenny (May’s in the first book was full-on hilarious), but in hindsight I really appreciate how the author just didn’t do the same thing as in the previous one. Jenny’s less muted and PG lifestyle fit the book’s tone perfectly. She has kids, and in a lot of ways she’s more mature than May was when dealing with her work and family life. Paradoxically, she has very immature ideas and notions about some aspects of her life that didn’t ring true. Then again they were addressed later on in the book so I really love how the author handled all the “loose ends”, so to speak.

My favourite part of the novel was how strong the main character was. I know it’s a testament to what’s wrong with chick lit nowadays that I had to point this out as a special feature, but the main character was really kickass, and not in the physical sense. She handled her ex-husband’s shenanigans with poise, she raised her kids to be great and compassionate people, and she fought her own battles. Elle Casey’s heroines sure aren’t pushovers. Sure, the job offer Jenny got was very convenient (same with May in the first book), but they proved themselves to be worthy of it.

What is more, whereas the first book introduced most of the cast, this one delved a lot deeper to everyone’s backstories, and had a more serious undertone. Jenny is a responsible single parent, so it would make sense that her views on life and the ways she acts with other people are less flighty and breezy.

One of my problems with both books was that a lot of the inner monologue, and sometimes the dialogue, came off as very info-dumpy. There were instances of clear telling, not showing, which was a little grating. Another thing I found off was how the 32-year-old (!) woman was depicted as a “den mother” to all the college-aged kids in the software engineering world. In which world is it uncommon for people in their 30s to work in that field? I mean sure, she was probably seen as a mother figure in a way, but I’d say a 32-year-old person would easily be seen as equal by guys in their early 20s.  I did appreciate the company being depicted as a man’s world, however, and the references to the glass ceiling probably ring true. My last little nitpick would be that I noticed some incongruities when you read the two books in close succession. May insinuated Jenny was a party girl before her marriage, and a yoga enthusiast, but this wasn’t really evident in Wrong Place, Right Time; in fact, the opposite was implied. Maybe I missed something.

All in all, the characters were likeable, funny, and endearing, so the book was a solid 4 stars. The few issues I had didn’t take much away from the general enjoyment of the novel. I’d recommend it to romance fans and newbies alike. I can’t wait to continue on with the third book when it’s released.