Review: Junk by Melvin Burgess

Dear Blog,

note: this is published as Smack in the US. 

Summary (from Goodreads): Like so many teenagers, Tar and Gemma are fed up with their parents. Tar's family is alcoholic and abusive, and Gemma feels her home life is cramped by too many restrictions. The young British couple runs away to Bristol in search of freedom, and finds it in the form of a "squat." This vacant building is also occupied by two slightly older teens who share everything with Tar and Gemma (including their heroin habits). For a while, everything is parties and adventures, but slowly Tar and Gemma find themselves growing more and more dependent on the drug--whose strict mandates are even less forgiving than those of the parents they fled. As Gemma says, "You take more and more, and more often. Then you get sick of it and give up for a few days. And that's the really nasty thing because then, when you're clean, that's when it works so well."

Review:  You know when you read those books that are set at another point in time, or in another country, but still feel like they could totally happen to you, right here and right now?  Yeah, Junk is one of those books.   Even though it was published in 1996 (?) and is apparently set in the early to mid 1980s , it feels like that it's still set in the present day.  It's so contemporary, and so much of it entirely universal.  The desire to get away from your parents and stand on your own two feet, and  the urge to have a good time.  Alas, though, you know that it's inevitable that Gemma and Tar aren't going to go about it the right way. You have to watch on as gradually things go from bad to worse and worse than that.

For much of the first part of the book, I didn't really like Gemma.    I mean, I pitied her, and I wanted her to emerge from her nightmarish experiences alive, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I liked her.   Especially at the beginning of the book, I often wanted to slap her.   She was so frivolous and shallow, and so careless and thoughtless for others, it was entirely frustrating.
About two-thirds of the way into the book, though that seemed to change, and by the end of the book she seemed to be the stronger character; determined to get clean of her heroin addiction.  The book is set over the course of about five years, so you could certainly see how she had matured from a bratty child to a woman.

Tar's character seemed to be the reverse.  At the beginning I thought he was the stronger of the two, more rational and thoughtful.  Plus I pitied him for the tough time he'd had at home;  he had reasons for running away from his family, and Gemma was just along for the ride. But in the latter part of the novel he seemed less likeable and weaker.  One thing stayed the same; I still felt sorry for him, but in a different sort of way, and I still wanted him to try and turn his life around.

If you've put up with my rambling for a while you'll know I am quite the fan of multiple-narrative novels.  Done well, they work fantastically.  Forbidden, Finding Cassie Crazy, Monsters of Men and so on are amongst my favourite books, and I probably wouldn't have liked them as half as much as if there had only been one of the principal characters telling the story.  Also, it particularly pleased me that some of the secondary characters like Vonny, Richard.  The look into Lily's mind was particularly creepy  insightful. 

The plot was pretty nightmarish. It's one of those books that you want to just keep reading into the small hours of the morning, and put it down and run as far away from it as possible.  It's dark stuff. Heroin, prostitution, homelessness, abuse, heroin, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, drunken all-night parties, and did I mention heroin?  In some respects you could think of it as overkill, like an overload of issues, but you can see how one leads to another.  It's pretty claustrophobic in parts, like you're in a dark tunnel, and you want to run to the end and get out into the daylight as fast as you can.  The ending to the book isn't entirely without hope, though, so you're left wondering how and if Gemma and Tar turned their lives around.
It's certainly not a book that I'll forget easily.

In three words: dark, hard-hitting, nightmarish.
Recommended for: older teenagers.
Rating: 4.5

Review: Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

Dear Blog,

I know my blog has been kind of dead lately, and for that I'm sorry. Outside of string ensembles and guitar orchestras I don't really have a life, so you'd expect I would have plenty of time for blogging, but the rest of my free time seems to be sucked away by Goodreads and Ravelry  other bits and pieces that appear out of nowhere.

Summary (from Goodreads): Aspen Springs Psychiatric Hospital is a place for people who have played the ultimate endgame. The suicide attempt survivors portrayed in this novel tell starkly different stories, but these three embattled teens share a desperate need for a second chance. Ellen Hopkins, the author of Glass and Crank, presents another jarring, ultimately uplifting story about young people crawling back from a precipice.

Review: You should know this by now, dear blog; I cannot get enough of Ellen Hopkins' novels.  The four that I've read have been so intense and hard-hitting that I finish them feeling all exhilarated and shocked.
But be warned: they aren't for the faint-hearted.  They're full of contemporary issues that make you think that Melinda in Speak has it easy.  Impulse is no different. The story begins narrated by some unknown narrator; one of the characters, or someone else entirely, you don't know.  The first of the characters to be directly introduced is Conner, who has ended up in Aspen Springs after trying to shoot himself following the end of an affair with a teacher. Soon afterwards, Tony is introduced; before he came to Aspen Springs he was among other things living on the streets and selling his body for drugs. Last but not least, there's Vanessa- a cutter with a dark secret.  When the three of them meet, their lives change in ways they could never have expected.

I think it's kind of impossible to properly dislike any of the characters, with the situations they're in and how vividly their thoughts and actions come off the page. That doesn't mean, however, that I liked them. Conner, for instance, was a complete train wreck of a character who seemed to be having the hardest time of the three emotionally.  I would have disliked the idea of him, nay, I do.  A rich boy who allegedly has it all but is struggling under the surface seems to be done so often nowadays, and his relationships and attitudes towards the other characters didn't really make me warm to him either.  He was also the character that didn't change or develop at all throughout the novel.
But I couldn't really dislike him. I just felt sorry for him, I suppose, just experienced his emotions so vividly it was hard to be like, "Ugh, just be likeable." So much as  "Confront your parents. Tell them how you feel.  Just speak to somebody." 
 I wanted to slap his parents.  Oh, how I hated them *insert scowling gif here*. So, I must have wanted the best for him if I felt that way. 

Tony was probably the character that I found both most likeable and the one with the most interesting story to tell; but as with all the characters I had to kind of piece together his story; nothing was really revealed straight out.  He was witty, observant, kind; He deserved happiness and a relationship with Vanessa (though I don't think Vanessa deserved him, if that makes any sense). 
Speaking of Vanessa; I thought she fell somewhere between the two of them.  I found it pretty hard to really sympathise with her, mostly because her thoughts often felt like she was keeping the reader at a distance...almost cold, in a way.  But conversely, her actions, and her emotions, seemed vivid; like how she felt when things were "blue", for instance. 

As for plot; this is one of those books where there isn't really a very distinct storyline; It's very much  a character-driven novel.  The writing style was slightly confusing at times; the narrative shifts every three or four poems or so, and often the three voices weren't very distinct and I ended up being like, for example, "Wait, but, Vanessa's the narrator at the moment isn't she?  Hmm, maybe not." quite often.   Still, it's great poetry- or rather, verse.  It flows like poetry, but it isn't really- it's too unsettling, too clever, too unusual and clear to really fit in amongst another of the YA free-verse books I devour so.

This is one of those books where I can't really talk about the ending, because it's so...yeah.  It's more closed and more obvious a conclusion than, say, Burned; but  more shocking and sudden and aaaargh.  For some of the characters, things end well; for others things are worse than when they first entered the story. And the last sentence; for a lack of a better, more professional word: Omigod. It is the conclusion to all conclusions, the most powerful and final last couple of lines I've read for months, probably.  
It's a good thing, then, that a companion novel, Perfect, is coming out in the autumn. I can't wait for another installment set in that same world, where among other people Conner's twin sister Cara takes centre stage. We'll see.

In three words: haunting, dark, riveting.
Recommended for: Mature teenagers.
Rating: 4

Review: Guantanamo Boy

Dear Blog,

Summary (from Goodreads): For Khalid, the war on terror  just got personal.

Fifteen-year-old Khalid likes seeing his friends, playing football down the park, the normal things. He isn't too excited about going to visit his family in Pakistan, but his mum and dad want him to come with them. So he goes.   And a living nightmare begins.

Khalid is kidnapped and forced to go to a place no teenager should ever see. A place where torture and terror are the normal things. Somewhere he doesn't know if he will ever escape from.
A place called Guantanamo Bay.

Review: I first saw this on my friends' bookshelf a few years ago.  I saw the cover and the title and I was like, OMG where did you get this book I must read it now.    And  then I found a copy in a library and, naturally, borrowed it.   

Well, where can I start?  Guantanamo Boy is the most difficult, disturbing book I've read in a long time.  Yet I read it in a morbidly fascinated sort of way to find out what was going to happen next- the sort of book where you both want to throw it out the window and go and watch a cheerful Disney movie instead, and both read on in the hope that something good might happen.  I won't give much of the plot away, because you'll have to read it and see for yourself. 

You can't not like Khalid, the protagonist of the book.  Because it's just so wrong that at aged fifteen he should be accused of terrorism and have to be subject to such torture- things like being tied to a board and then tipped backwards into a tub of water until he confessed to crimes he didn't commit, and being chained to the floor and having his eardrums practically burst and such.  It's kind of hard to describe such scenes- on one hand it was too terrible to be happening to an ordinary teenager, to anybody, but on the other I guess it could have been  a lot more graphic (I'm glad it wasn't).

I suppose in that case, then,  it's very emotionally draining.  So much of the book is focused on Khalid's thoughts and emotions.  Which makes sense for two reasons: 1) in the 2 years he is in Guantanamo, a lot of it was pretty uneventful, and 2) that makes him a much more believable character who you can really feel for, whose thoughts you can really see into.  I think that was the most affecting thing about the book.

The ending was...strange.  It felt very surreal, perhaps because the reader gets as used to the bleak solitariness (real word?  I guess not) of Guantanamo as Khalid does.  The conclusion seemed kind of rushed and "oh, that's it?"  It seems kind of hard to accept that after everything he's been through, the book ends at that stage, with everything (seemingly) wrapped up nicely.  It's supposed to be satisfying, I think, but the rest of the book was so difficult to read, it seemed a little irritating.

At first the writing style seemed to get on my nerves- it was so simplistic, with little description.  And when there is it's very basic indeed,  I guess to convey the stark nature of the book (which I think the cover sums up perfectly).  Also, Khalid is no poet but your average teenage boy, so the writing style, however basic it may be,  makes sense I suppose. 

This is one of those books that absolutely everyone should read regardless of age and background.  Whether you're a teenage boy or a 40-year-old politician then it will no doubt at least make you think.  It will certainly change your attitudes to terrorism. In that respect it's a very thought-provoking book without being overly preachy and "death to America."  Which was pleasing.

In three words: unforgettable, disturbing, heartbreaking.
Recommended for: everyone. 
Rating: 5.

Review: Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

Dear Blog,

I finished Forbidden yesterday and, well, it's kind of hard writing a review of it without just typing Ohmywordohmyword for the whole entry.  I need to explain everything in a logical, book-reviewer sort of way.

Summary (from Goodreads): Sixteen-year-old Maya and seventeen-year-old Lochan have never had the chance to be 'normal' teenagers. Having pulled together for years to take care of their younger siblings while their wayward, drunken mother leaves them to fend alone, they have become much more than brother and sister. And now, they have fallen in love. But this is a love that can never be allowed, a love that will have devastating consequences ...How can something so wrong feel so right?

Review: This is, understandably, a very edgy and controversial subject matter.  I first heard about it after reading a synopsis on somebody's Waiting on Wednesday post.  I forget whose it was blog it was, actually, so to whoever it was: you are the most awesome blogger ever for introducing me to one of the most mind-blowing books I have ever read. Anyway.  Even though I finished it last night, it's been on my mind ever since, and I'm really not sure where I ought to start. There's so much I want to say- so much to say- about Forbidden, my mind is in a whirlwind of thoughts.  Where to begin?  These 418 pages pack so much into them, but I raced through it in a day and a half.  Yes, it was difficult to read, but at the same time I tore through it to find out what would happen.

Well, the story alternates points of view between Lochan and Maya, which I think works really well for the story; you get to hear what both of them are thinking, how they really feel about one another.  Although, I guess, Lochan and Maya's voices sounded kind of adult considering that they were meant to be teenagers, and their voices didn't sound incredibly distinctive from one another.  This is something that happens quite often in a dual-narrative novel, but I can overlook this, I think, because the subject matter and the way it's handled is so excellent.

I can't remember the last time I felt so torn when reading a book.  One part of me desperately wanted for Lochan and Maya to be together for the rest of their lives, and I desperately hoped that they could, even though I knew that there wouldn't or couldn't be a happy ending.  I couldn't help but think: Why can't they be together?  Because, well, it's a free country isn't it? But the other half of me was squirming and thinking, eeeeeeeew!  I guess that the human brain has just got used to thinking that a relationship between a brother and sister is wrong.  In which case, it's a very disturbing book and gets your brain thinking about right and wrong.

The relationship between Lochan and Maya isn't even there at the beginning of the book. Their love develops very, very slowly, but you can see it getting bigger and bigger until it finally emerges, at which point you almost want to start cheering. It's tender, sexy, realistic, romantic and just so right, and in such moments you throw aside all thoughts about it being sick, twisted, gross, etc. But when they realise it's wrong, it dawns on the reader, too. 


It's not just their forbidden relationship that Lochie and Maya have to worry about. With their mother neglecting them more and more until she almost totally abandons them, three younger siblings to take care of, A levels and university looming, everything seems to be falling apart.  I couldn't make up my mind whether or not I liked Kit, their 13-year-old brother.  I know he was a pain to Lochan and Maya, but, well, I think what I felt for him was more pity than anything else. Willa, their 5-year-old little sister, was particularly sweet.  It was just so tragic that Lochan and Maya had to deal with all of it.


Strangely, I think that although there is a dual narrative, the book seems to be focused slightly more on Lochan out of the two, although Maya is probably my favourite character in the book because...she changes.  All good characters ought to develop and change and learn as they go along.  Not that I didn't like Lochan- he was clever, sweet and three-dimensional despite his social anxiety. 


And the ending?  Oh my word. It's devastating, heartbreaking, tragic, depressing, and...hopeful? Ish?  Right at the ending, the slight glimmer of wonder and joy made me want to curl up in a little ball and burst into tears, but I think I was too emotionally drained to even do that.  Forbidden is that powerful- after reading it you just feel like a big, empty void, uncapable of any emotions because they've been sucked out of you.  The last chapter before the epilogue...holy macaroni.  That's all I can  say. In my desperation for there to be some sudden twist in the plot to make everything turn out for the better, I didn't really realises the consequences of Lochan's actions.  But no more can I say, lest I start babbling and give everything away. 


*applauds*
Kudos for Tabitha Suzuma for dealing with such a tricky subject.  Who could have done it better? The answer is, probably nobody.


In five words (because Forbidden deserves more than three) : a disturbing, devastating emotional rollercoaster. 


Reccomended for: teens (probably older teenagers, as some parts of it are a bit, erm...graphic) and adults who don't mind the edgy and difficult subject matter.
Rating: 5, of course!