In My Mailbox 25 or The One with the Armchair Travelling

Dear Blog,
IMM is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.
I got a lot of books this week, which is mostly the fault of the huge charity shop in the centre of town, which has shelves and shelves and shelves of secondhand novels. I've probably sung its praises before, and with reason.
A lot of the books I obtained are a sufficient transportation method to other corners of time and space; Japan, Korea, Greece, Russia, China and so on, which is entirely ideal because I've been wanting to read lots of books set abroad lately.

BOUGHT

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

The Last Day of a Condemned Man by Victor Hugo (read, review here)

Ten Thousand Sorrows by Elizabeth Kim

We The Living by Ayn Rand

Beijing Doll by Chun Sue

Stolen, er, BORROWED FROM MY MOTHER

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (she's reading this with her book club at the moment, and though I'm quite the Murakami fan I haven't read this one yet.)

FROM THE LIBRARY

The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery (currently reading. Entirely fascinating, but pretty heavy going)

So, there you go.  I'm off now to push on with The Teahouse Fire and write poetry.  Over and out.

Review: That Summer by Sarah Dessen

Dear Blog,

Summary (from Goodreads): For fifteen-year-old Haven, life is changing too quickly. She's nearly six feet tall, her father is getting remarried, and her sister,the always perfect Ashley,is planning a wedding of her own. Haven wishes things could just go back to the way they were. Then an old boyfriend of Ashley's reenters the picture, and through him, Haven sees the past for what it really was, and comes to grips with the future.

Review: I've been kind of ill on and off  over the last week or so, and Pride and Prejudice, which I'm currently reading, wasn't providing the sufficient sort of comfort reading that you need when you're ill.  So after re-reading all the Strawberry Marshmallow books two or three times each, I was like: "I know what I need!  Some Sarah Dessen will do the trick to cheer me up in a way that Elizabeth and Darcy's verbal sparring will not."  And I had That Summer on my bookcase, still unread, so, I read it.  And of course it provided sufficient easy reading.

This is Sarah Dessen's first novel, and was first published back in 1996.  Which means that you can't complain it being formulaic or repetitive, because the formula hadn't been set yet, even though to me it seems like I've read it before [which I haven't]. 
But for all the predictability, there is something refreshing about That Summer, and that's the fact that Haven herself isn't in a relationship. Certainly it might have been interesting if Haven and Sumner had gotten together; (one word: fanfic) but the five-year age gap and the fact that he's Ashley's ex would probably make things...a little awkward.
The story mostly revolves around love and marriage; but it pleased me that none of it was in fact Haven's, and that was entirely effective in making all the aspects of change and moving on all the more powerful. 

Speaking of Haven herself. How does Sarah Dessen do it?  How does she manage to write such convincing, entirely believable voices that have you instantly on the narrator's side? She writes with the wonder and concern of being fifteen and exposed to the big wide world, and the cool, reserved tone of adulthood, which works perfectly for some of her other protagonists, in particular Auden and Macy (Yes, that's my attempt at writing poetically  *awkward turtle*). 
I say that, but.  Every character has their flaws, every character has something that can find irritate the reader, and for me that was how Haven complained about her height on  every other page.  I'm 5'5", which isn't so bad for one of my age,  but height = a definite advantage.  For one thing, it means that you can reach the top shelves in Waterstones.

Haven's various friends and family reminded me a lot of Melinda's in Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson,  mostly because I detested all of them at one stage or another.  They frustrated Haven so much; so naturally I wanted them to just stop getting married and take into consideration how she felt about everything. Even her best friend seemed so thoughtless and self-centred.
Sumner, however, was particularly fantastic.  He was crazy and upbeat and...his outlook on the universe was just what Haven needed at the time.  He was, in a word; fun. But not entirely without enough thoughtful, deep substance to make him likeable.  Nay, he seemed to have reasons for the way that he went about life; not just that he couldn't be bothered to conform.

Even though That Summer is very much about moving on and the future, there's a very nostalgic feel about it, for years and summers and loves gone by.  The combination of the two is so balanced, like one can't be experienced without the other. And so the book concludes; Haven  thinks back to when her family was complete, and forward to how it might be.  It was an entirely satisfying (and predictable), but just what I was after, and just how everything should have worked out. 

In three words: sufficient Sarah Dessen.
Recommended for: girls.
Rating: 4.

FIVE challenge: Five Great Miracles...

...That Occurred To Get Me Reading More Contemporary Fiction.
So. Day nine of the Persnickety Snark FIVE Challenge, and with that,  I present you the five novels I read this year that got me reading more contemporary novels.
I've probably mentioned once or twice how now and again that contemporary fiction holds few thrills for me.  However, as the year's gone on I've noticed that I've been reading and reviewing more and more of it; a  And these books are why.

LOCK AND KEY or basically ANYTHING ELSE BY SARAH DESSEN
I discovered Lock and Key in February, and since then I've been rapidly devouring Sarah Dessens, occasionally all in one sitting.  True, when you've read a few they all start to become slightly formulaic, but who cares when it's that well-written? When the romance is that sweet, but when the story still touches on serious issues?

FAR FROM YOU by Lisa Schroeder
Also a book that confirmed that I was completely obsessed with novels in verse. I could ramble on for a very very long time about how poetic and well-written the book is, but I need to touch on the contemporary part of it because that's what I'm here for. 
Anyway.  The main character, Alice, is one of the main reasons that I love this book so. Because she starts off irritating, and then by the end has changed into the sort of person that you'd want to be best friends with.  Her general outlook on the world was very...ordinary, and so as much as I wanted her to get a grip at the opening of the book, I guess it's no different from me if I had been in such a situation.

HOLD STILL by Nina LaCour
There are numerous books nowadays about suicide, death, and any other variation on the theme.  So it's hard to say what it is that makes Hold Still stand out. Well, to me, many things; the writing style seems to have a big impact.  And the main character, Caitlin, changes.  She doesn't just grieve and mope.  She makes friends.  She changes. She grows into someone who has lived through such a terrible event as the suicide of a best friend and come out the other end.

FORBIDDEN by Tabitha Suzuma
Because, seriously;  How many YA books are there about consensual sibling incest? And how many, of all those, are so well dealt with that something I imagine would make people all, "move awaaaay from the controversial topic" has been hugely well-recieved.  Hear hear, I should say.

LOOKING FOR ALASKA by John Green
The first John Green book I read, and for that I will always love it.  True, it's slightly bizarre; a boarding school in which students go to classes in their pyjamas and wander round quoting François Rabelais and García Márquez.  However, for all that everything about it seemed very real.  Miles' voice (yay for male narrators in YA!), the romance, and the devastating event that marks Before and After.

 

Review: Along for the Ride

Dear Blog,

yet another review I wrote while I was away.

Summary (from Goodreads):  It’s been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents’ divorce—or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live.

A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town. Together they embark on parallel quests: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she’s been denied; for Eli, to come to terms with the guilt he feels for the death of a friend.

  Review: I am a BIG fan of Sarah Dessen's, as you may or may not know. Despite the fact that most contemporary fiction holds few thrills for me, I could easily devour one of her books in a matter of hours. Her books are deep yet fun, realistic and easy to relate to yet a perfect piece of summer escapism.   Along for the Ride was no disappointment. 

I really liked Auden, perhaps something to do with the fact that she was, well, unusual.  She never had a chance to be a child, she spent all her nights awake, and  best of all (call me shallow if you like), she was called Auden.  I know you're not meant to judge people, but if the main characters have names like Auden, Eli and Thisbe (yes, I said Thisbe), how can you not love them instantly?!  Anyway, as well as having an awesome name, Auden's seriousness, dry wit and backbone make her likeable.  I can forgive her over-achieving, for I suppose that's just her way of being perfect and making things right, not unlike Macy.
While on the subject of characters,  I had high expectations for Eli. He was a Sarah Dessen boy after all, and he was no anticlimax as a mysterious, enigmatic, and utterly charming sort of person. And he rode a bike!  Few male love interests seem to do that in books nowadays, and while it wasn't as huge an element as I thought it might be, it was still refreshing to read about. 

One of the things that makes this my favourite of the Sarah Dessen books I've read is the relationship between Auden and Eli. They just seem to be so complete and so right together, as if they were lacking without the other.   Eli helped Auden on her quest to become a teenager, and she helped him to recover following the death of his best friend.  Although, call me shallow if you like, I was slightly dissapointed by their first kissed.  It was sort of, "oh.  That's it?" Unlike, say, The Truth About Forever, which is all "ta-da!" and makes you want to punch the air.  Not to say that they weren't perfect together, which they were absolutely. 

The writing style is as ever fabulous.  It's like Sarah Dessen is still a teenager just recounting the day's events.  Her voice in the book is so clear and realistic, you have to ask yourself if this is actually a grown adult's work or the voice of an eighteen-year-old insomniac.  The two seem to sort of blend together as one, until even that is irrelevant and you are Auden, as if it were being told in the second person or you're looking back through one of your journals.  Such is the awesomeness.

As my one single criticism, I'll quote from  my review of The Truth About Forever:

"this is the closest I will ever come to criticising a Sarah Dessen novel: if you took all the pages out, threw them up in the air, and put them back in any book, you wouldn't really notice. There. That is the only bad thing you will hear in this review.
Anyway. I don't know a single Sarah Dessen fan who actually complains about the similarity between her books. It's true, when you've read one, you've sort of read them all, but I DON'T CARE! I don't think that any of her other fans do either. She is the master of such fiction: the sort you read on perfectly sunny day or at the beach, with an ice cream while wearing shorts and a t-shirt."

Criticism explained.  As well as this being a lazy excuse for me to not  have to rephrase that in this review, my explanation from that review seemed good enough.  If it wasn't, I'm sorry, but you've probably heard it before in some shape or form.

Along for the Ride was set mostly in the seaside town of Colby, the town that Colie stays in for the summer in Keeping the Moon/Last Chance, depending on which side of the Atlantic (in Germany it's called Crazy Moon. Maybe I just missed something, but I think it got a little lost in translation). Also, Jason from The Truth About Forever made a small appearance, and he was just as annoying and mean to Auden as he was to Macy. I wanted to hit him around the head with my four-hundred paged copy as much as I did in his last appearance. Although in some respects having one of Satan's minions whose only intention in life seemed to be Having these small similatirites in Sarah Dessen's books makes the characters' world even more familiar- sort of like meeting an old friend and catching up with them after weeks of not seeing them.

In three words: romantic, fun, wonderful.
Reccomended for: Sarah Dessen fans old and new.
Rating: 5. My favourite of her books so far.

Review: The Truth About Forever

Dear Blog,

I come with a review of The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen.


Summary (from Goodreads): Sixteen-year-old Macy Queen is looking forward to a long, boring summer. Her boyfriend is going away. She's stuck with a dull-as-dishwater job at the library. And she'll spend all of her free time studying for the SATs or grieving silently with her mother over her father's recent unexpected death. But everything changes when Macy is corralled into helping out at one of her mother's open house events, and she meets the chaotic Wish Catering crew. Before long, Macy joins the Wish team. She loves everything about, the work and the people. But the best thing about Wish is Wes—artistic, insightful, and understanding Wes—who gets Macy to look at life in a whole new way, and really start living it.



Review: I don't read much contemporary fiction.  This is mainly because I feel sort of alienated from the protagonists, seeing as much teenage contemporary fiction revolves around secondary/middle/high school*.  And I'm homeschooled.  Apart from the first few years of primary school, I have absolutely no knowledge of what it is to be in school.  Anyway,  I still don't read much contemporary fiction.  Maybe this is because I'd rather read about the end of the world or the English civil war.
Enough of my rambling. Despite that, I am a HUGE fan of Sarah Dessen.  The formal education is minimal, the protagonists are easy to relate to, the boys are swoon worthy while still having awesome personalities, and there's lots to be learnt from the story. 



Now then.  Before I go on to praise The Truth about Forever,  this is the closest I will ever come to criticising a Sarah Dessen novel: if you took all the pages out, threw them up in the air, and put them back in any book, you wouldn't really notice.  There.  That is the only bad thing you will hear in this review.  From here my review is 100% praise, so if you're one of those people who likes reading really bad reviews you can just leave now.  


Anyway. I don't know a single Sarah Dessen fan who actually complains about the similarity between her books.  It's true, when you've read one, you've sort of read them all, but I DON'T CARE!  I don't think that any of her other fans do either.  She is the master of such fiction: the sort you read on perfectly sunny day or at the beach, with an ice cream while wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  Though it would admittedly be cool if she played around with her plotlines and characters a bit more,  what she writes she writes well and there's no reason to complain.


One of the things I love most about Sarah Dessen books is the characters. They're incredibly easy to relate to, because unlike too many YA authors, Dessen writes like a teenager.  When you're reading, you forget that this is a New York Times bestselling author's sixth novel.  You feel guilty with her the morning of her father's death, bewildered when she first encounters the Wish Catering crew, and so on.  You, the reader, are Macy.  You're worried about your mother, you miss your father, you're worried about what's going to become of you and Wes when Jason returns.
Speaking of Jason.  He was the one character in the book I truly loathed.  But, well, I think the reader is supposed to loathe him.  But what did Macy see in him?  Perfection, obviously, but, well, why?!  If you've been together for a year and a half and haven't told him you loved him, I think you should know something was up.  


This is probably the deepest of the Dessens I've read.  There are so many lessons from Sarah Dessen books to be learned about life, love, death, friendship and everything in between. It's full of quotes like, "There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment."  and "...Some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the universe's way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It's how life is." It's full of wisdom and wiseness to get experience from, while enjoying a great story along the way.   The plot is, I suppose, simplistic, and with any other author it wouldn't be 392 pages, but Sarah Dessen writes about everything in such depth, making the boy+girl=life-changing summer seem much more complex.   


Summary: The Truth About Forever is as flawless as Macy strives to be. It's best read on a sunny weekend when you have nothing else to do and can just spend hours and hours devoted to it, and throw sleeping and eating to the wind. Rating: 5/5.




*With middle school and high school, shouldn't elementary school be called low school?

Covers=Beautiful

Dear Blog,
I don't know if anybody else does a post where they post their favourite book covers on a regular basis.  If they do, I'M SORRY and I do not mean to steal your idea.  But I am a relative newbie to the book blogosphere and I have yet to explore it all.
Either way. I thought once a month or so I'd post my favourite book covers, why I like them, reccomend the book, share them with the world or some such things.  And of course categorize them.  Cheesy covers, blue covers, spotty covers, covers with models, minimalist covers, etc. etc.  I thought I'd start with some truly beautiful/pretty/gorgeous covers. 
So.  Let it begin.  But first: Presume that all these mentioned are given their UK covers.  Because I live there, they're generally (and slightly obviously) the covers I get.

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen-and anything else by Sarah Dessen.  I love her covers just because of, well, their sort of simplicity at a first look, but when you look closer, you see they're bursting with stuff that relates to the book.  And more often than not the books are just as wonderful.  Though the formula is sort of similar in all her books (girl+boy+life changing summer=pretty much anything by Miss Dessen (except Dreamland, in which case it's girl+boy+abusive relationship), it's good fun.  It's nice to read a romance novel without vampires and creepy things lurking round every corner (I'll rant about urban fantasy later).  This is the first of her books I read and I loved it.  I read it in about two days.

River Secrets by Shannon Hale- again I mean pretty much anything in the Books of Bayern series (anyone know how many books are going to come out?).   This is the one I'm reading right now (and I'll do a review of later), but also the only one I could get a good picture of.  But no image on a blog does this justice.  The Books of Bayern covers are undoubtedly my favourite covers of any book.  They're so wonderful you want to put off reading them and just keep them in pristine condition.  It's been over 2 years since I read Enna Burning. but for one of those aforementioned 2 years I was travelling Europe so I guess it didn't count.  Anyway. 

The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett-They say you should never judge a book by it's cover.  Alas, despite my best intentions more often than not that's what I do.  But what are covers there for?  To pull us in and make us interested.  Exactly.  The publishers are just begging you to judge their book covers.  Well, this is the one book in today's list that you should not judge by its cover.  Despite the beautiful covers and illustrations inside, the story itself isn't good.  At all.  I suppose my main problem with it is the main character, Maddy.  She travels the world for the first five pages and then pines after Feather for the next 200 odd.

Cyrano by Geraline McCaughrean- is based on the famous French play.  I prefer to say "based on" than "adaptation" because more often than not adaptations are lame versions for kids, like a yummy freshly squeezed orange juice diluted with too much water.   I'm familiar with two covers for this, and both are equally wonderful.  This is one of them *points to shown cover*.  And the book is truly worthy of it.  Despite the short-ness, Cyrano  will make you laugh, cry, and reccomend it to everyone you know.  In that order. I've been meaning to read the play for a while, but in truth, it's one thing to read the script and another to see actors performing it in front of you.

   

The Declaration by Gemma Malley=a truly amazing dystopic novel.  The cover does it justice.  It has a certain stark beauty about it.  I would ramble for ages about it, but my little sister wants to use the computer now.  Alas.  I better go then.  All for now.