Girl in Pieces - Kathleen Glasgow

Review by Coll
4 Stars

So our first review after a very long hiatus and I decide to do an incredibly difficult book to write about, so this should be fun. Honestly, I chose Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow on a whim. I had not been in the best of moods and the title just called out to me when I saw it, so I chose it. I knew nothing about the plot, and therefore nothing about the emotional, and personal, whiplash I was in for.

There is no sugar-coating what this book is about; it tells the story of Charlotte “Charlie” Davis, a teenage girl who cuts herself. The book starts off rather abruptly with her in a home for girls, where she has been placed after being found on the streets, homeless, near destroyed and mutilated by her own hands. In the opening pages I found myself a little clueless as to what was happening but all the pieces fall into place rather quickly. Not to mention the main character also seems a little lost at first so I felt it put me on a more intimate level with her. We quickly learn of the troubled life Charlie has led and follow her through her time at the home and her time after release, with many flashbacks to her old life.

Now there is nothing easy about taking in a story about someone who self-harms. If you have harmed yourself in the past it stirs up so many mixed emotions in you, and if you are someone who had never self-harmed it just seems hard to stomach, I would assume. To be completely candid, I used to self-harm. There is no shame in admitting it but there is also no glorifying it, and I felt this book showed the reality of what it is like quite well. I have read other reviews on it where it is said to be too extreme or that there are too many issues going on at once and I have to beg to differ with that. I felt the story could have been very real and I am sure it is for some girls. I also think it gives a good glimpse into the mind of a girl who thinks she needs to go to such extremes just to handle existing.

Girl in Pieces reads similarly to a series of diary entries with flashbacks strewn throughout. The chapters are short, for the most part, and it is a writing style that does take a little getting used to, but I noticed that after a few chapters it flowed without a problem for me. The only thing I took occasional issue with was that the writing could be a little too poetic at times. For example: “My eyes are fierce with water…” This happens from time to time and it can be a little overly done at points but I feel like those moments did not take away from the reading experience. Also what teenager didn’t think in such dramatic and poetic ways at times? It kind of comes with being a teenager, especially an artistic one like Charlie.

Numerous characters are thrown into this book, both weak and strong, and they are all rather compelling in terms of their issues and the impact they have on themselves and one another. They show how troubled people will feed off one another for help and comfort but too often in the wrong way, where they enable and destroy each other. I think Glasgow also did a great job of showing how some of the bonds we form with people over our flaws become the strongest and most needed friendships. She shows that instead of flaws being a negative, some positive can come out of them, although not without pain.

Girl in Pieces, to me, is a book that should be read. And I don’t just mean read by people who can relate to it but also by those who can’t relate and could never understand the idea of harming oneself. It provides and eye-opening clarity and a painful truth of what really goes on in some people’s lives. I am not going to lie, it is not an easy book to get through and it is not a light read. I even found myself having to walk away from it several times. I don’t mean that in a bad way either. It was just so real and vivid at times that I needed to take a step back to absorb everything before going back. In the end I really loved the book. It never once got slow or boring and the main character was someone I really felt for and I found myself incredibly concerned with her story and the outcome of it all. Girl in Pieces in a break from the YA books we automatically think of and provides a dose of pain, reality, and redemption that is so sorely needed sometimes.

“Everyone has that moment, I think, the moment when something so…momentous happens that it rips your very being into small pieces. And then you have to stop. For a long time, you gather your pieces. And it takes such a very long time, not to fit them back together, but to assemble them in a new way, not necessarily a better way. More, a way you can live with until you know for certain that this piece should go there, and that one there.”

Interested in Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow? 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.

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.”

Tumbledown Manor

*I received this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

Tumbledown Manor by Helen Brown is a meaty contemporary chick lit novel. Yes, maybe I made up a genre just now. It’s not exactly what most people would call “fluff”; a term I actually object to. The main character is about a writer named Lisa, who is celebrating her 50^th birthday when she accidentally finds out her husband is cheating on her. So, considering she’s originally from Australia, Lisa decides to take off and move back there to deal with both the breakdown of her marriage and also writer’s block. The latter part – the insight into her creative process – was my favourite part of the whole novel. She is writing a trilogy of historical novels (with a heavy dose of sexy romance) about the Bronte sisters, and Tumbledown Manor was also infused with random interesting tidbits about their lives. Yes, there were hindsight diagnoses and assigning medical conditions based on descriptions of people, but still, the writing process was fun to read about.

The novel also features a fixer-upper project –obvious from the title. I like these kinds of settings: a dilapidated manor-house, somewhere in the outback, that a single lady with gumption is trying to fix up. I mean, she wasn’t that far from a big city and even had access to takeaway deliveries and hardware stores, so it wasn’t completely unmanageable.

The novel also features a careful romance, it’s subtle and slow-burning with a couple of tropey “simple misunderstandings”. Still, I could get on board with it, and I liked she took her time getting over her 20+ year marriage. Oh, and there was also a slight mystery, but it was completely in the background.

Now, there were some aspects to the novel that I didn’t fully enjoy. Firstly, it featured a couple of odd-sounding metaphors and similes. The text seemed to be completely saturated with them to the point where it was difficult to actually understand what the author was trying to say. It did get better as the novel progressed! Secondly, the main character definitely did not act her age, in the sense that she was really immature at times and even silly. She just plain wasn’t as intelligent as I would expect a grown-ass woman to be. One of my pet peeves: she used an odd abbreviated text speech with her daughter, which I find kind of unlikely for a writer. I’ve met a few, and they all manage to type out most words, and wouldn’t be caught saying “Gr8”. I know she was perhaps trying to relate to her daughter but lady, use your words.

Also, I feel like the novel was trying to handle too many “issues” at once. It just seemed A LOT for one single person. The author did say she knows women (plural!) that these things have happened to, so it felt really artificial piling them all on the shoulders of this one lady. Even though the book outlined these possible issues, they weren’t really dealt with. For instance, Lisa’s son was openly gay and she accepted it as she should, but some other characters had weird issues with Ted’s sexuality and they were never actually addressed or analysed. Sidenote: I don’t think someone being gay is an issue. However, I took issue with the way people refused to accept it. That homophobia wasn’t really addressed within the family, which I find unrealistic. What is more, Lisa’s daughter Portia had a suspected eating disorder and that again was almost ignored by most of her family. Then there was a brief mention of cancer; of course also divorce, disability, racism. It just felt a lot for one woman, unless she’s a character on Grey’s Anatomy.

Thus, I am giving this book 3,5 stars. I rounded it up to 4 on Goodreads, but I actually think I’m right smack in the middle of “I liked it” and “I really liked it”. I know, this makes no sense. Tumbledown Manor wasn’t a spectacular literary masterpiece but it was fun to read, never a trudge, and it helped in getting me out of a reading slump. Cozy, is how I would describe it: I laughed out loud, I teared up. Also, I have gotten a bit more into Australian fiction lately. The author is originally from New Zealand so maybe Australasian fiction then :). If you like contemporaries or chick lit (in the best possible sense of the word), then go for it!

"After a lifetime of enabling others, surely she'd earned the right to make her own choices, no matter how outlandish?"

The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl

*I received this ebook from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl by Melissa Keil features a group of friends in a small Australian town during a possible apocalypse. Yep, you read that right. A small Australian town has been singled out as a place that would survive an impending end of the world. The narrator is an aspiring comic book writer/artist Sarah Jane Albany AKA Alba. Alba chronicles the everyday adventures of her and her friends – Grady, Caroline, Tiahnah, Eddie, and Pete – during the tumultuous weeks after graduating and before the awaiting doomsday. Since it’s set in Australia, the beginning of summer refers to the last two weeks of December for us from the northern hemisphere. The main character is an artist, so the novel features line drawings from her comic book about Cinnamon Girl (hence the title!). My ebook edition had them in black and white, I presume they will stay like that in the final version.

I have been reading a lot of books lately that are either actual comics or dealing with the history of them. Still, I have no shame in claiming I am a complete newbie in the genre, so unfortunately a lot of Alba’s references went over my head. However,  I still really enjoyed her enthusiasm and obvious love for the comic books and graphic novels. We should all be so lucky as to have a passion like this.

The novel is set a few weeks after the majority of the group of friends has graduated, so it doesn’t necessarily deal with any unexpected themes. They await their admissions results from universities, answers to job applications, and realise friendships and relationships are under pressure from moving in different directions. I guess you could really see the end of the year – and possibly the world – as a great metaphor for the end to an important chapter in their life. Or, you know, it could mean the merpeople from Mars will actually attack and kill all living beings on Earth. You will really have to read the novel to find out.

In itself, the book is cute, adorable, and will give you the warm and fuzzies, despite the possibly grim setting. I love the atmosphere the author created for this small town that is to survive the apocalypse and thus sees an influx of new inhabitants. It was stifling – partly due to the summer heat – but never completely terrifying, and this balance was very well done, I think. Although this is more a novel of friendship, there was also some romance, which was incredibly well done. Nothing completely innovative, but it was very sweet (gave me Fangirl vibes in its essence).

The only main problem with this reading experience – aside from my own lack of knowledge about comics, and a slight lag in pace in the middle of the book – was that the ebook I read had a lot of formatting issues. I presume because it was an ARC and I am certain those bugs and glitches were fixed in the final product. There were also some minor instances where I was a little confused as to the explanations about the past, but they didn’t really reduce my enjoyment of the novel.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this novel for people who love contemporaries but also know a little about comics, but it isn’t completely necessary, of course.  It is a solid 4,5 star read, although I rounded it up to 5 on Goodreads. Also, I will read everything else Melissa Keil writes.

“[M]ost stories can only start when you place yourself in them.”

Not If I See You First - Eric Lindstrom

Review by Coll
4 Stars

One thing I always remember to keep in mind while reading YA books set in high school is that I have to go back to the mentality that I had back then. That is such a rough part of life, with so many emotions, that sometimes you really need to take a step back in time when reading from the point of view of a teenager. Not If I See You First follows a few months in the life of Parker. After an accident severed her optic nerve, leaving her blind at the age of seven and killing her mother, Parker’s life changed dramatically. She built up her defenses and came up with her own list of rules that other people must follow. A few years later Parker loses her father and her life changes yet again. But she is determined not to let this break her. However, in an attempt to protect herself she is also, unknowingly, shutting out those around her.  

Not If I See You First is Eric Lindstrom’s debut novel, and an ambitious one, if you ask me. Not only is he writing from the point of view of someone who is blind, but from the point of view of a teenage girl. Hell I don’t think I could write about myself when I was a teenager, so for an adult man to succeed using the voice of a high school girl, I find that impressive. At first I was unsure how I felt about this book. It took me a few chapters to really get into it, but once I reached that point it was hard to put down. It is not an “action-packed” read, but it is compelling and interesting, and made me think about what it would be like to have my sight taken away from me. 

In the beginning of this book I was not a huge Parker fan. I thought she came off kind of bitchy and seemed to overreact a bit. As the story progressed I learned more about her life, started to understand her “rules” more, and developed such love and compassion for her that I found myself feeling protective. Lindstrom has a knack in this book for gradually having the reader get to know Parker (and the other characters) over time, where you go from judging them from first impressions to learning who they are. He successfully mimicked the process we go through each time we meet someone new. Every character also has major flaws, making them all seem so much more real and relatable.

If there was anything that bothered me about this book it was the reactions characters sometimes had to situations. There was a lot of sarcasm and moments of overreacting, and times where you want to scream at characters for things they are saying and things they are holding in. I tried to attribute it to the character’s personalities and accept it, but this might be something that some readers could find a little bothersome. The relationship part of the book also came off a little overdramatic at times. To think that we could find a soul mate in our early teen years is hard to take seriously and I had to struggle not to dismiss it as teenage drama. 

Through this book we go through a learning process with Parker, where she re-learns trust, understanding, and how to be herself again. I think Not If I See You First told more than just the story of a high school girl who lost her sight; it also told of how if we become overprotective of ourselves we will shut others out and then miss out on so many things.  I was torn between 3 ½ and 4 stars, but I decided to go with four. This is not a book for everyone, mainly because you need to be a YA fan, but I do recommend it to those who like this genre. It is a quick, fun, and adorable read. It is also not a book that you go into with the expectation of being taught something, but that is what it does and that is part of why I enjoyed it so much. From Parker’s first rule “Don’t deceive me. Ever…” to her last “There are NO second chances…” she teaches us something about ourselves as she is forced to learn about, and accept, herself.

“If you don’t understand just accept the confusion. Or embrace it.”

Interested in Not If I See You First? Check it out on Goodreads.

First & Then - Emma Mills

Review by Coll
4 Stars

Okay I am just going to come right out and say it, I really liked this book. The entire time I was reading it I could not understand the affection I was feeling towards it. I am Colleen, Queen of All Things Horror, sci-fi extraordinaire and fantasy fanatic. So how could I be so into a YA, contemporary “romance” book?  But I was. (I put romance in quotes because I didn’t look at the book as straight-up romance.)

First & Then follows high school student, Devon Tennyson, through the first few months of her senior year. Devon is not the popular girl nor is she the outcast, she is a normal girl stuck in the middle trying to navigate family, friendships, the prospect of college, and growing up. The story is a modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice but with high school students. Oh and football. It is described as Pride & Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights and I found that to be pretty damn accurate. Devon also has a slight obsession with Jane Austen and often contemplates how she would have handled modern high school life, which was cute for the most part but I will say it got slightly overbearing at times. 

First & Then is very relatable. As I was reading it I would have flashbacks to my high school years and how so many of the things Devon was going through were things I experienced. Only with the exception that she was way cooler than me. That is actually one part of the book I had a few issues with. Well, not that she was cooler than me (I accept that), but that this regular girl was able to get along with every person she went to school with, whether they were the football captain, the hot guy, the cool girl, etc. Most people who were unpopular in high school would have to admit that this is slightly unrealistic. Or, maybe I was just way more unpopular than I thought. Who knows? What I loved about First & Then was how, in the end, the message was to take the time to see people as they really are and not listen to the things we are told about them or hear about them. 

One thing about the book that some people might take issue with is a lot of moments brought up do not get clarification or closure. For example, a character who has a complicated, underlying story to their life is not focused on and is only seen once or twice and we never find out more about them. Things like that pop up a lot in the book. If you think about it though, this is the story of a few months of a high school girl’s life and people had momentary impacts on her but their time is fleeting. And in reality that is kind of how it goes sometimes, especially in high school. So it did not concern me much but I could see how it might be bothersome.

When I finished the book I was stuck between giving it 3 ½ or 4 stars, but I decided to go with 4 after some mental debate with myself. I guess what it all came down to is I really had a good time reading First & Then. It is not ground-breaking literature but it is very readable and very relatable. It is a cute modern rendition of Pride and Prejudice, a quick read and has its “awe” moments and instances of emotion and frustration. And in the end what did I learn from all this? I can be a tattooed chick that is super into horror and sci-fi and still get sucked in by a YA contemporary “romance book”. And you know what? I am okay with that.

"Close your eyes, real tight, and then count to three hundred. That's all you have to do. You just count to three hundred, and when you open your eyes, five minutes will have passed. And even if it hurts or things are shitty or you don't know what to do, you just made it through five whole minutes. And when it feels like you can't go on, you just close your eyes and do it again. That's all you need. Just five minutes at a time."

Interested in First & Then? Check it out on Goodreads.