February Genreflecting: Giveaway & Stay With Me by Paul Griffin review

An urban romance that will capture your soul, break your heart, and restore your faith in the human spirit

Fifteen-year-olds Cece and Mack didn't expect to fall in love. She's a sensitive A student; he's a high school dropout. But soon they're spending every moment together, bonding over a rescued dog, telling their secrets, making plans for the future. Everything is perfect. Until. Until. Mack makes a horrible mistake, and in just a few minutes, the future they'd planned becomes impossible. In this stark new reality, both of them must find meaning and hope in the memories of what they had, to survive when the person they love can't stay.

From award-winning writer Paul Griffin, Stay with Me is both heartbreaking and uplifting, filled with characters (both dog and human) that will forever change the way you look at the world.

From Goodreads

That summary does this book more justice than I ever could. Stay With Me was powerful beyond words. Incredibly well-written and perfectly paced, this book had me hooked from beginning to end. Mack is a sensitive and misunderstood teen. Despite his personal difficulties he is determined to make something of himself if only to be able to enjoy a nice, quiet life. A life he decides he wants to share with Cece, the personable and brilliant waitress at Mack's job. 

While Mack is initially "assigned" to take care of and look after Cece in her brother's absence at boot camp, the two come to mean more to one another than either one of them ever hoped. You find yourself imagining just how great and easy life could be for them if everything worked out. But since this is kind of like a typical romance in reverse, all the great stuff happens before the difficult thing that rips them apart.

The language and imagery used in this book are done in such a way that you hardly notice that not a lot is necessarily going on. Taking place over just 102 days, time means nothing and everything. There are so many characters and layers to their stories that you still don't quite see the whole picture until the very end. And what an ending! Truly a must read!

With respect to it's genre, Stay With Me has all the classic elements. The whole story revolves around this young couple's love, not only for one another, but also for the people and animals in their lives. Tracking their romance is how the story moves forward and progresses. There is a myriad of emotions ranging from vitriolic hatred to unquenchable adoration experienced by our young lovers as they grow and evolve together. And this book definitely follows the pattern of truth in love. This isn't a fairytale ending because this book is about real love. That's not how it's always supposed to work, but sometimes it's better this way.

I really enjoyed reading a romantic book. In comparison to a realistic fiction book, this one just gives me so much more to look forward to! The emphasis isn't on the experiences that these teens have, but on their love. While that may sound contradictory, it's really not. Being based around the teens' emotions provides a different avenue of interacting with readers. I find it can be a deeper connection for me most of the time because I am attracted to love. While not always easier to relate to, I find it much more enjoyable.

Now onto, the fun part! As part of the Genreflecting feature, each month I will be giving away a book in the genre I explored. As this month is Romance I have chosen to give away Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway! The giveaway is open from now until midnight on Thursday, February 28th to US residents over the age of 13. Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

January Genreflecting: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky review

Charlie is a freshman. And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.

Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix-tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

But Charlie can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

From Goodreads

First off, we'll start with my review of the book. Having grown up when YA was just starting to blossom, it's not surprising that I missed this book the first time around. It also wasn't my kind of reading at the time. Well, it's apparently not really my style today. Told in the form of letters to an unknown recipient, we meet the brilliant, if awkward Charlie. The kid brother of the star football player & a boy-obsessed sister, Charlie has never really fit in socially.

While I can relate in a way to this, the book spiraled into something weirder and more dark than I imagined. There is pervasive drug & alcohol abuse, as well and sexual & emotional assault on many characters. I think the core message of the book could have been brought to fruition without all this, but in a way these things are so ingrained in the personalities & lifestyles of the older teens that Charlie hangs out with that I think the book would have been missing something without it.

For such a short book, told in four parts over about 200 pages, it packs a wallop of a punch. The world as we see it is through the distorted perception of Charlie, but the message that he seems to latch onto throughout the book is one of individuality & trusting oneself. The narrative & word choice give a clear picture of just how removed Charlie is from the social interactions he is supposedly taking part in. His incomprehension of other people's actions coupled with his cognitive abilities reminds me of someone with Asperger Syndrome. All of this combined to make a powerful, if sometimes overstated, storyline.

With respect to the genre analysis, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is indeed a prime example of a contemporary life book. While we listen to Charlie describe his emotions & events of his life, what we're really focusing on is how he interacts with his own world. We don't focus in on the fact that he smoked pot & took LSD, we focus in on the fact that in his desperation for acceptance, Charlie was willing to experiment with things outside of his comfort zone. We get to live alongside Charlie as he travels the confusing path that is adolescence. It is especially difficult for him for reasons that he himself is unaware of, so it makes the overarching story (and not the minutia) the most important.

I think this book has successfully explored the teenage experience at a very pivotal time in our nation's collective history. Being published in 1999, but set in 1991-1992, would normally make this book seem "dated" to the majority of the population. While there are definitely some obvious "signs of the times" in the book, it is a timeless novel. I could see it being set anywhere from the 1960's to in the near future. A good contemporary novel has the ability to transcend time in order to be approachable by the audience, present & future. This is evidenced by the fact that this book is just now being made into a major motion picture starring Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame), Ezra Miller, and Logan Lerman.

What do you think about The Perks of Being a Wallflower? Have you seen the movie? Do you intend to?

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins review

Love—good and bad—forces three teens’ worlds to tilt in a riveting novel from New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins.

Three teens, three stories—all interconnected through their parents’ family relationships. As the adults pull away, caught up in their own dilemmas, the lives of the teens begin to tilt….

Mikayla, almost eighteen, is over-the-top in love with Dylan, who loves her back jealously. But what happens to that love when Mikayla gets pregnant the summer before their senior year—and decides to keep the baby?

Shane turns sixteen that same summer and falls hard in love with his first boyfriend, Alex, who happens to be HIV positive. Shane has lived for four years with his little sister’s impending death. Can he accept Alex’s love, knowing that his life, too, will be shortened?

Harley is fourteen—a good girl searching for new experiences, especially love from an older boy. She never expects to hurdle toward self-destructive extremes in order to define who she is and who she wants to be.

Love, in all its forms, has crucial consequences in this standalone novel.

From Goodreads

Tilt follows the teenagers introduced in her adult novel Triangles. Each of the three teens are facing their own struggles with demons. None of them ever expected to end up in the situations in which they find themselves, but who does? 

Mikayla can't imagine a world without Dylan, so why would he expect her to hurt their baby? Shane has used "light recreational drugs" to help him cope with a dying little sister & the fact that his homosexuality has caused him to be a blight on the family. But how far will he falls when he falls for a doomed lover? Harley is a newly minted high schooler trying to find her own path in a sea of confusion. With no real guiding reference as to what a relationship or proper personal responsibility should look like, she risks losing everything she never knew she'd miss.

As far as the story is concerned, this is a very traditional Ellen Hopkins novel. Told in verse, you're pulled into very hectic situations and tossed in all sorts of directions. Each character has some serious demons to face that they couldn't have really planned for no matter how hard they may have tried. While none of them have perfect parents, I really think their parents' issues cause more damage than the teens are able to cope with at such a fragile time in their lives. 

I'm sure every reader will be able to identify with at least one of the main characters, but I really enjoyed the vignettes from other characters. Between each section of a main character's story is one page from a minor character's point of view. I think this gives the book a different feel than we usually get when reading from just the main characters' views. In a way it breaks down the barrier between how the main characters' perceive events & the reality of the situation.

Unfortunately, this book does not provide the type of closure that I have come to expect from Ellen's books. While her previous books may not have answered every question, I think they still left the reader with some sort of closure or satisfactory ending. The final sections of each character felt very abrupt to me. It's almost as if I was missing a few pages. When I checked, my book was in fact complete. So just a heads up, this one ends messily and in no real way gives the reader or the characters any sort of completion. While that may have been her intention, it didn't really sit that well with me.

Overall though I enjoyed the book, as much as one can say they "enjoyed" such a book. What were your thoughts?

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry review

--"I won't tell anyone, Echo. I promise." Noah tucked a curl behind my ear. It had been so long since someone touched me like he did. Why did it have to be Noah Hutchins? His dark brown eyes shifted to my covered arms. "You didn't do that-did you? It was done to you?" No one ever asked that question. They stared. They whispered. They laughed. But they never asked.--

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal.

But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.

Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

From Goodreads

Echo used to be as vibrant as her red hair is wild, until that fateful night. Now, almost two years later, she still can't remember what happened or why she is covered in hideous scars. What scares her more though is that she knows it involves her imbalanced mother & Echo is afraid she is becoming just like the woman she fears. Add on top of that her social outcast status & you've got a recipe for a miserable senior year of high school.

That is until the new social worker/counselor at school assigns her to tutor another student struggling with personal issues. Noah is the strong & silent type for the most part. After losing his parents, he also lost his little brothers to the same system that swallowed him up. With a string of nasty foster homes in his recent past Noah is determined to put his family back together by gaining custody of his brothers. In order to do that he needs to resemble a responsible adult, so excelling in school is on his to-do list.

The pair reluctantly circle one another & through several attempts and hits & misses they finally come together, but not at all how either of them pictured it.

This book absolutely stole my breath away. I found myself tearing through page after page in this story because I couldn't get enough of the characters. Katie McGarry has created such wonderful people & such a realistic world that I truly felt like I was living out the book myself. The humor was right on & the dialogue was very engaging. This was definitely a laugh out loud & cry alongside the characters kind of book.

While the basic plot isn't much new (you can't really create much new when you strip these things down to their bare bones) the layers of story that she creates around it are what make the book well worth reading. Echo & Noah are so dynamic & multifaceted that they continued to surprise me with their actions & motivations. You don't go into this story knowing everything. You have to earn your stripes for the appropriate knowledge right alongside each character. Even more entrancing was the situations in which we find the characters. Love & loss are two intertwined emotions in this book & both Echo & Noah do a fabulous job working their way through them.

Wit, humor & humility are such wonderful components of this story that I cannot convey through words. Even better though, these two main characters (along with their supporting cast) give a face to the difficult decisions that many people face. Some of these are mega decisions & some of them are more passive decisions, but all of them affect how the character is shaped.

Easily one of the best books of 2012, I strongly recommend you read Pushing the Limits. Simone Elkeles, Jennifer Echols & even Sarah Dessen fans can totally relate to this book & I hope you all enjoy it as much as  I did. I leave you with 2 quotes from the book.

"Noah had muscles, looks and trouble stalking him. Somehow, he made jeans and a T-shirt look dangerous."

"Luke used to give me butterflies. Noah spawned mutant Pterodactyls."

-Both quotes are from the ARC which was graciously provided by Around the World Tours

But I Love Him by Amanda Grace review

Ann was a smiling straight-A student and track star. But after she meets Connor, it all changes. She surrenders everything to be with him, and by graduation, her life has become a dangerous high-wire act. One mistake could trigger Connor's rage, a senseless storm of cruel words and violence damaging everything--and everyone--in its path.

From Goodreads

I'm just going to go ahead & state the obvious: yes this book is about an abusive relationship, but it'll change your perspective on how women get drawn into these situations. Amanda Grace has created a phenomenally powerful story that allows you to really get inside the mind of the victim & empathize with their situation. By telling the story backwards, you start the book with the monster & gradually go back through her memories until you meet the boy Ann fell in love with a year earlier. This very unique difference gives us the ability to really relive these events with Ann so that we can better comprehend how she "let herself get to this point".

With flashbacks to present day interspersed between the memories, we find ourselves just as lost & confused as Ann. That's not to say that the reader can't understand what's going on, but we get as suspended in the memories as her. She has such a difficult time reconciling the boy that she loves to the monster she's living with now. That's not to say that Connor isn't to blame for what happens, but they were both complicit (even if only subconsciously) in the events that took place. Connor is charming & smarmy all at the same time while Ann was just looking for comfort. She found what she needed in him, but chose to ignore all the warning signs & changed her behavior rather than tell him to take a hike. And Connor knows what he's doing is wrong, but refuses to get the help he so desperately needs.

Even more astounding than the writing style was the flow of the story. I know by the end of the book you're really supposed to know the characters, but in this instance the felt conflicted on how I should feel about the characters & what I was really supposed to know about them. Everything I thought I knew changed with the story & despite the fact that my anger at Connor flared every time we cut to the present, I still found myself falling for him just like Ann did when they first met.

In short, this book is well worth taking a look at. There is minor violence (obviously) but nothing that you wouldn't expect to see in this kind of story. I was honestly more shocked by the emotional turmoil this book held over me. Be sure to get yourself in the right frame of mind before taking this one head-on.

Want to Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman

Abby has always been the smart, well-behaved girl. Very reliable & dependable for anything really. Moving up to high school is just another step towards accomplishing all that she has worked so hard for in school. But, it's different. The good things aren't the same & the bad things are just more prominent. With a best friend turning into a social butterfly, Abby turns to a teen website for chatting & socializing. That's where she meets Luke.

Luke is charismatic, cute, supportive & everything Abby wants; but he is far from what she needs. Despite dating Billy, her lab partner, Abby is drawn to Luke's presence & needs him in her life. She doesn't think anything of telling him very personal details & even accepts gifts from him. It's all fun & games until Abby starts spending so much time with him online that she begins to neglect her studies & her real life. After a particularly nasty fight with her parents Luke suggests a weekend getaway to "teach them a lesson." Abby falls for it & begins a nightmare that she will never live down.

Want to Go Private? was a haunting tale that mirrors real life so much it scares me. Abby is a brilliant young woman who is at one of the most vulnerable stages in life. Feeling isolated & lacking self-esteem, she turns to the one person who knows how to make her feel better. Luke is a prime example of the scariest type of urban predator. He preys on vulnerable girls & uses their own issues against them, to hurt them. The storyline between these two characters was so authentic, I felt like I myself at 14 could have been wooed by his abilities.

This book is a bit more graphic than I was expecting simply because I wasn't 100% sure how far the author would expose the characters. Sarah Littman goes all in, sparing no detail to get across just how awful things turned out for Abby. The author also shows how things can be turned around & start to look up. While this is a difficult subject matter, the book was filled with hope & the message that we need to be just as careful electronically as we are in person.

An amazing read that I couldn't put down, Want to Go Private? is as striking & authentic as Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott. If the subject matter doesn't bother you & you want to read something gripping, then this is your book.

ARC graciously provided by Around the World Tours.

For more information on internet safety, please go to:
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Stay by Deb Caletti

Clara is in hiding. Christian, the love of her life, turned out to be a bit troubled (okay, a lot troubled), so her father has whisked her away to a remote island for the summer. She's been forced to get a summer job while she regroups about her college plans for the fall. With a famous author for a father & a long-deceased mother, Clara has been able to convince everyone in her life that they're touring Europe while he writes his latest best seller.

Things that Clara doesn't understand: how she let things get so out of control with Christian, what she's going to do in the fall, why her afraid-of-the-open-water father chose to spend the summer on an island, & how she really feels about sailing boy Finn. Regrouping is harder than she thought it would be because she spent so much time anticipating Christian's reactions & adjusting her behavior to suit his demands that she doesn't know much about who she really is on the inside.

When Christian starts calling her non-stop, despite changing her number several times, and she begins to feel like someone is watching her constantly, Clara decides that there is only so much hiding one can do before you must face your fears.

This was the first Deb Caletti book I've ever read & I think I may have been missing out on something. I thought this was going to be a gritty, emotionally taxing book, but Caletti only skims the surface of the dangerous relationship. She shows us all the signs of danger & really draws the tension tight, so much so that I actually gasped a few times regarding the characters' behavior.

Clara is not a helpless character at all. She is simply naive & a bit consumed by the idea of love. She wants to badly to be in love with Christian & to have something solid & consistent that she finds herself clinging to an even more unstable mess than her home life. Christian is not an unsympathetic character. I can see where a girl could be easily drawn in by him, but his actions spoke volumes. An even more compelling aspect of the book were the relationships between the adults on the island. They were so much more complex & foreboding that they really added something to the story.

Told with flashbacks to her relationship with Christian, Stay was a phenomenal book with just the right touches of everything. I hope you enjoy it too! Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Bitter End by Jennifer Brown

Alex is a level-headed girl for the most part. As level-headed as she can be for a girl raised with the ghost of her long-dead mother & a scarcely present father. The most stable thing in her life has always been her two best friends Zack & Bethany. This terrible trio has been bonded together by their love for one another & their constant graduation-trip-to-Colorado planning.

They spend almost all of their waking time together, until new boy Cole shows up and sweeps Alex off her feet. In just a matter of weeks this budding romance turns into a full-blown relaitonship that consumes all of Alex's free time. But as their relationship moves forward, Cole becomes more & more possessive of Alex & even becomes extremely jealous of her relationship with Zack & Bethany. Things worsened quickly as Cole lashed out at Alex for the simplest things: missing his basketball practice, staying late at work to talk to her boss. Any little thing could upset him.

Alex starts to sees these changes, but thinks that things will get better if she can be better. A slippery slope begins to form & Alex doesn't know where it will end. She wants to best of both worlds with her best friends & Cole, but she doesn't know how to make it a reality; or if she'll make it through Cole's next temper-tantrum.

I must say that, despite having read the summary, this was not quite what I was expecting. There was a lot more depth to the story than an abusive boyfriend. The elements of Alex's mother's "mysterious" death, her devoted best friends, & her manager at her job all add something more to the story than I expected. All these things added more complexity to Alex & the storyline in general. Zack & Bethany were exactly what I would want & expect in best friends, especially ones together for so long.

While the story was compelling, the writing style was not at all like Brown's remarkable work in Hate List. This one was just told straight up with no intermittent articles. While there was some poetry written by the main character, it was not enough to break the flow. I think I would have enjoyed it more had there been some variance.

Overall this was an incredible book about a difficult subject that seems to be coming up more & more often in YA lit. Hopefully it is not in response to a growing trend among teenagers in general. Have you read Bitter End? What did you think? What do you think about the premise in general?