Louder Than Words by Laurie Plissner review

The debut novel of an American original, Laurie Plissner's is both medical thriller and lyric love story in the tradition of magical realism

Since the snowy night when her family's car slammed into a tree, killing her parents and little sister, Sasha has been unable to speak except through a computer with a robotic voice. Nothing is wrong with her body; that's healed. But, after four years, Sasha's memory, and her spirit, are still broken. Then one day, she's silently cussing out the heavy book she dropped at the library when a gorgeous, dark-haired boy, the kind of boy who considers Sasha a freak or at least invisible, "answers" Sasha's hidden thoughts -- out loud. 

Yes, Ben can read minds; it's no big deal. He's part of a family with a host of unusual, almost-but-not-quite-supernatural talents. Through Ben's love, Sasha makes greater progress than she has with a host of therapists and a prominent psychiatrist. With him to defend her, bullies keep the world from ever understanding Sasha, he pulls away. Determined to win him and prove her courage by facing her past, Sasha confronts her past -- only to learn that her family's death was no accident and that a similar fate may wait for her, in the unlikeliest of disguises.

From Goodreads

I think this is one of those books that I read at the wrong time. I was hyper-sensitive to almost everything that happened in this book and took issue with many items.

First of all, there are 2 very aggressive and more titillating than is necessary sexual assault scenes. As I've stated many times, I am not anti-sex, but there is a time and a place for these kinds of incidents. This book didn't need it and it was far more graphic than the scene required. Another issue I had stemmed from these scenes because the female in question was completely helpless, forcing her would-be love interest into a "white knight" role. Again, not necessary & actually damaging to the character's character. Even worse, her best friend AGREED with her not to get the police involved. Encouraging that kind of behavior is just ridiculous. Sexual assault is something taken far too lightly, especially among teens (that whole "boys will be boys" adage).

Furthermore, the portrayal of psychiatry in this book is abysmal. As if it's not hard enough to convince someone to go to therapy for the help they desperately need, this book twists that relationship into a manipulative, ego-driven way. I also felt like the ending was very immediate. We were following a trail of clues to figure out what really happened the night of the accident and within the space of just a few pages BAM it's all over. It was definitely very abrupt, with a sense of confusion.

Now, all that being said, I did enjoy the mystery elements of the story. Sasha's hysterical mutism is a fascinating medical anomaly that I've never seen used in such a unique way. Even better are the different ways she communicates & how her attitude shows. You'd be amazed at the incredible power of words once you've lost the ability to use them.

I also really enjoyed  Plissner's writing style. The banter among characters and the attention paid to the details was well done. The word and events were quite convincing and helped me to move past the glaring flaws that lurked around every corner.

Overall I'd rate this one a pretty big dud. Fortunately this is the author's first book and she shows some promising talents. I hope that she can tidy up her closure & reevaluate her portrayal of certain instances. While not a "not to be missed" title, it's worth a read if you can move past the issues outlined above.

Anyone else read this one?

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch review

THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND ... 

A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen-year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey's younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and the girls are found by their father, a stranger, and taken to re-enter the "normal" life of school, clothes and boys. 

Now, Carey must come to terms with the truth of why their mother spirited them away ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won't let her go ... a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn't spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

From Goodreads

Carey has made as much peace as is possible with her "home" in One Hundred Acre Wood. She and her little sister Jenessa (Ness) have a (run down) camper, (some) canned food, a shotgun for self-defense and hunting, and most importantly each other. That's why she feels completely distraught when a man and woman show up at their campsite to take them away. With their mother MIA for several weeks now, on one of her worst meth benders in a while no doubt, Carey doesn't understand how the people knew where to find the girls and (more importantly) how they know the truth about the girls' mother.

Whisked away into the land of plenty by Carey's biological father, the girls find themselves overwhelmed by all the differences between their idea of normal and society's idea of normal. With a world of indoor toilets, light switches, and unfamiliar words, Carey and Ness begin to unravel the truth about their existence in the woods. The hardest part is sharing that truth with those who hold the power to destroy all that Carey loves in this world. Stuck between two worlds, Carey must help Ness find her voice and in doing so, find her own.

Wow. This is without a doubt one of the most triumphant and moving YA books I have read. While outwardly it seems to be such a simple premise, the contents of this book gripped me tight and made me see the truth of the story. It's not just about family, love, and hardship. It's about truth, beauty, and above all hope.

With the story being told from Carey's point of view, we get an encompassing tale. If the story were told any other way, I don't know that it would have had as much power. Carey is the key to the story since she is the only one to experience all the central events. She is the bridge that takes us from the woods, to town, and then into the past to explore the truth of the situations she is facing.

The incredible thing about the writing in this book is the detail. Emily Murdoch did a marvelous job conveying the girls' experience of such simple things that we take for granted every day. Light switches, hot water, opening a vehicle trunk, even bedazzled jeans were so foreign to these girls that the author had to convince you that they were experiencing it for the first time, but without boring you. She did an incredible job because I continually felt like I was in their shoes and never once found myself bored.

The author also took tremendous care with the subjects she broached in this book. Being a kidnapped child of a bipolar, drug-addicted parent is beyond my comprehension, but the more disturbing things that Carey and Ness had to experience were handled with the delicacy of a rare flower. Most of the gritty events the girls' endured are told through specific verb-age and euphemisms that get the gist across to the audience. While there is one scene (towards the end) where she spares few details, it's still presented in a manner I think most young adults who've ever seen an episode of Law and Order: SVU can handle.

In short, don't pass this one up. I know it's not even coming out until late March, but it'll be well worth the wait. You'll love the characters and you'll have the pleasure of reading one of the most poignant books of 2013.

Provided by Around the World Tours

Waiting on Wednesday: In Too Deep by Amanda Grace/Mandy Hubbard

Waiting on Wednesday recognizes that we as bookies pine for books. This post is about what I am impatiently waiting for right now. It was started by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

I seem to be feeling a bit edgier than usual, hence my WOW pick of In Too Deep by Amanda Grace/Mandy Hubbard. It's February 8th release date is fast approaching. Take a peak inside this dark & startling world.

I never meant for anyone to get hurt. All I wanted to do that night was make a play for Carter Davis. His heartless rejection was mortifying, but people got the wrong idea when they saw me leaving his bedroom, crying. That’s how rumors of rape started.

Now girls at school are pouring out their sympathy to me. Guys too. But not everyone’s on my side. The school has become a war zone and the threats are getting scary. What began as poetic justice has morphed into something bigger-forcing me to make a terrible choice.

From Goodreads

Wow... I'm rather speechless at the implications this book raises. I can understand onlookers' honest mistake of what might have taken place, but the fact that the main character doesn't immediately correct them shocks me. This dilemma reminds me of Testify where the main character doesn't actually see a crime, but agrees to testify to it anyway to protect her friend. If you get a chance, both of these seem to on the edgier side of YA & definitely worth a look.

What are you waiting on this week?

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.

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So Shelly by Ty Roth

Gordon & Keats would never have been acquaintances, let alone friends, if it weren't for Shelly. So when she turns up dead in an apparent sailing accident, the two boys are thrust upon one another to piece together the story of her life & her demise.

After stealing her ashes from the wake at the their high school, the boys embark on an adventure to fulfill her final wishes. Together they share their memories of her: from Gordon & Shelly's childhood skinny dipping to Keats & Shelly's encounter at the Planned Parenthood, & what Shelly was really all about.

Needless to say none of this can be done without copious amounts of self-reflection & analyzing how their actions affected Shelly. Only, there are some people who don't want to see the boys complete Shelly's mission. Time is running out for them to solve her jigsaw puzzle of an existence & fulfill her final wishes.

I wish I could say that I liked this book. Honestly I would compare it more to a car accident: you're horrified, but you can't seem to look away. I know that this book was supposed to be a play on the lives of the famous Romantic (as in Romanticism, not necessary hearts & flowers love) poets John Keats, Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) & an amalgamation of husband & wife pair Percy & Mary Shelley, but it was just weird. Had the characters been a little older, around college-age, I think I would have been more okay with most of the extreme sexual content (pedophile nanny, incest, rape, statutory rape, etc) & overall plot. While I know this was not supposed to be exactly "realistic fiction", I found it so unbelievable I was baffled. Not to mention the fact that, while I believe the author to be using common-to-the-era vocabulary for the characters, there were words even I didn't know that I had to look up. While that can be an occasionally cool thing, this happened about every 6 or 7 pages.

Now, with all that said, I do have to say the characters were very well built. By the end of the book I felt like I really had a firm grasp on who they were & what they were doing with themselves. It was a coming-of-age tale the really allowed the reader to follow the growth & development of the characters. Each of them were well-shaped & behaved as one would expect of their character.

While I think this is an interesting way to spin the lives of historical figures into modern times, this one's execution just didn't work for me. I look forward to hearing other people's thoughts on this novel.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Alice wants to be released. Alice wants to eat a real meal. Alice’s name is not really Alice.
In this all too real and vivid story, we find that Alice is a 15 year old, half-starved girl who was abducted from a school field trip at the tender age of 10. Having been held hostage and repeatedly abused by a man named Ray for the last 5 years, Alice is always looking for a way out, but she still believes that Ray will kill her family if she runs.

Now that she is getting too big for Ray’s tastes he has charged her with the obtainment and training of a new girl. In her search for the new girl, Alice meets some people who know that something is off and they try to help her. Fortunately for Alice, they do.
A disturbing read, this book is not for the faint of heart. Alice is often sexually abused by Ray and while the author utilizes a lot of allusion and suggestive details, it is very easy to imagine. In a way, the book is along the same lines of a car crash. You want to stop and look away, but you can’t seem to do so. Absolutely captivating, this book is on par, if not better, than Love You, Hate You, Miss You. Check out my review of that here.