loociejj culture, love, romance

The Sun is also a Star – Nicola Yoon

the-sun book-cover-envy

Firstly, the book cover alone makes this book amazing. Look how they made it!

Secondly, I was a little disappointed with Everything, Everything and went into this book thinking that it would be sort of the same quality. Girl with some weird thing wrong meets boy with some issues, they fall in love super quickly and then live happily ever after. Well, the only similarity is that girl meets  boy and they fall in love super quickly – or at least one of them does. Prepare to be blown away by this book – it’s a-maz-ing!!

At the beginning of the book we meet Natasha. We learn that she lives in New York with her mum and dad and brother, Peter. She was born in Jamaica and her dad came to the US to make it as an actor. She and her mum follow him over when she is 6 and they outstay their visa. She is now in the position where, after her dad has been arrested for Drink Driving and told the police that he is living in the US illegally, they are 12 hours away from being deported.

Daniel is of Korean origin and lives with his mum and dad and older brother Charlie. Charlie has a big chip on his shoulder and hates Daniel (this is never fully explained, although Natasha has her own theory). Charlie has just been sent home from Harvard after one  term. Daniel’s dad owns a black hair care product shop in New York (apparently it’s a thing for Korean people to own black hair care shops New York). Daniel is on his way to get his hair cut before he has an interview for a place at Yale to study medicine. Unfortunately he doesn’t want to be a doctor, he wants to be a poet.

Natasha and Daniel meet through a series of events and Daniel falls in love at first sight. Natasha has a lot on her mind and is hoping that she can persuade an attorney to help overturn her case. She is also a scientist and doesn’t believe in the romantic notion of love at first sight. Daniel tries to change her mind through a series of questions and some time spent together in between their respective appointments.

The book is written as a split narrative so, although Daniel thinks he is having a hard time convincing Natasha that she likes him, we know he isn’t. There is also some lovely asides from bit part characters in the book, like Irene, the guard at the Immigration Centre or informative chapters about the meaning of Irie. The neatness of the way the author summed up what happened to the characters, the explanations by Natasha’s dad as to why he was doing what he was doing, all make for a really clever and involved book.

I read this book really quickly and the characters are people that I will remember for a long time. The weight of expectation on second generation immigrants really made me feel for Daniel. The helplessness of Natasha to stay just because her parents had made a mistake made me see the injustice of the immigration system. Natasha had lived more of her life in America then in Jamaica, she had no connection to it yet she also had no legal connection to America.

You will read this book and connect to the events going on in America at the moment. When racial intolerance is rife this book brings it back to us that America is made up of so many different nationalities and cultures and they can all live together under one flag but, they will always have their own culture and identity and we must respect and embrace that. The kids in this book don’t want to be what their parents want them to be, they want to just be themselves, and this is a struggle in itself. The cultural baggage that they carry round from their parents is heavy, and it weighs them down. This might be the clue to the problem with Charlie.  It also demonstrates how powerfully love can hit you, and change you, and when you fall in love for the first time it will blow you away. Maybe it already has…

Further Reading: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell and The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E Smith.

 

loociejj dystopian fiction, fantasy fiction

Maladapted – Richard Kurti

maladapted

Richard Kurti is a screen writer and director for television as well as an author. His first book, Monkey Wars, was shortlisted for the Hounslow Teen Read a couple of years ago and I had to read it. Now, I wouldn’t say this was a chore but if you have read my review of it then you will see that it wasn’t one of my favourite books. I think that I said it was a  bit silly. That is  not something that you can accuse this book of being.

Maladapted is set in the near future. Cillian is a 17 year old boy who lives with his father, Paul, who is a doctor. He is exceptionally good at maths and has  been fast tracked and is already at university. His brain seems to work differently to other people’s and he can problem solve like you wouldn’t believe. At the beginning of the book he is travelling on the train with his dad when there is a terrorist explosion and everyone on the train dies, including his father – except Cillian.

Tess is an orphan who has been indoctrinated by a strange religious  order called Revelation. They believe that the world has been taken over by too much tech and it is against God’s wishes. They want the world to go back to the way it was. Tess and Cillian live in Foundation City, a new kind of city where everything is really modern. This is at a cost to the old way of life and the people that live there. Everything is controlled by technology and you are followed and accounted for all the time. Even if you look at a shop it’s picked up and the authorities can track your movements. Revelation have also heard about a secret government program called P8 which they think is developing children with superhuman abilities.

Can you see the connection yet?

Tess is involved in  the bombing on the train and, once Revelation think that have found a live test subject from the P8 program (Cillian) they get Tess to befriend him to find out what he knows.

The book is written like a high octane film. You can almost imagine what the film will be like. Cillian and Tess go off and explore various things, manipulate people and print off a 3D gun (Cool eh?) and try and find out what is going on. It is definitely the first in a series as the book ends on a cliff hanger. It’s a little bit too disjointed for me and some of the characters were not really fleshed out. I would like to find out more about Cillian’s Dad and how he  became involved in the program. Also, the last chapter was full of twists that will make you want to read the next one, so it’s clever. All in all, I enjoyed it 100 times more that Monkey Wars. And it’s not silly at all….

loociejj grief, love, romance

Everything, Everything – Nicola Yoon

everything

I think the mistake I made with this book is that I read Holding Up the Universe first and really enjoyed it. Then I went straight on to this one and it fell a little short. Not because it’s not a good book but just because I got a little fed up of kids with things wrong with them who then fall in love with someone who also had something wrong with them. Why can’t people just fall in love….

Moving on… Madeline has this thing called Severe Combine ImmunoDeficiency or SCID which means that she can’t leave the  house because she is super allergic to everything and it could kill her. Her house has been specially adapted so that anyone coming in has to go through a special airlock and be screened. She lives with her mum, who is a doctor, and a nurse who comes in every day called Carla. Her dad and her brother were killed in a car crash and her mum is a little over protective (another helicopter parent).

One day she  hears moving vans and, when she looks out the window sees that a new family have moved in next door. One of them happens to be a boy called Olly, who is easy on the eye, really good at climbing things (parkour) and always wears black. He has the room across the way from her and they start communicating. He sends her his email address and they start to IM. A relationship develops and eventually they persuade  Carla to let him in the house. He has problems with his dad, who is a drunk and beats his mum up.

This is where things start to unravel and I’m not going to tell you too much more after this point because it will spoil the story. Needless to say, all is not as it seems. The ending was a little unsatisfactory as I wanted to know more about what happened. It is cleverly written and I liked the use of notes, emails and quick chapters. It makes the book go really quickly and you will finish it in no time. Sometimes that’s nice and satisfying!

I also liked the characters. Madeline wasn’t too whiny and Olly was a nice boy who you would like to have as your boyfriend (if you were 18) and I hope that his life is improved by meeting Madeline. All in all, a good debut novel but I can’t wait to read The Sun is also a Star (Nicola Yoon’s new book) and see if it is any better. A nice romantic book with a twist and I suspect, the start of some good things to come.

loociejj fantasy fiction, magic, mythical creatures

The Morphant: Gabriel Grant and the Ringmaster – Cornelius Fuel

the-morphant

This book is an ebook only and you can get it on Amazon or Ibooks. The author came to do an author talk at the school so I thought I would read it for background!

I started off by thinking that, if you have an ebook what does that mean? Does it mean it hasn’t been picked up by a publisher? Do you decide to publish it yourself and see what happens? How does it work? Well, I still have no idea but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless!

Gabriel Grant is a bit of a school loner. He is bullied by a pretty nasty group of boys and one day, in a bid to escape them, he runs into a factory place and is electrocuted by a power service station and ends up in hospital. When he wakes up he is confronted by a hells angel type bloke called the Searcher who tells him that he is a Morphant. A Morphant is a person that change shape at will; not like a shapeshifter though. The Searcher is also a Morphant and his favourite shape is an owl, which teaches Gabriel (in the shape of an angel) to fly.

Gabriel has special powers that enables  him to change into any number of characters that he has thought of. Like a stretchy man or a giant bubble man. He basically has a bit of fun with this until his parents are kidnapped by evil clowns and he needs to go and rescue them. He takes his feisty sister Ariel with him and they investigate. Ariel is a fun character that you will identify with and she is always giving Gabriel a hard time! Especially when he borrows money from her.

The book is a good romp; it has all the key elements that you want; adventure, excitement, baddies and killer clowns! The book is nicely set up for a sequel as well and the author was great at passing over his enthusiasm about the book to his audience. A quick and easy read that you will enjoy.

loociejj death, grief, love, romance

Holding up the Universe – Jennifer Niven

holding-up-the-universe

I have literally just finished this book and I only started it yesterday. It is 388 pages of sheer joy. I really super enjoyed All the Bright Places and wanted to really like this one too. In fact I read my review of ATBP just now to remind myself of why I liked it and at the end of it I wrote, ‘this book is life affirming’. Well hold on to your hats people, this one is even  better!

The book is written as a split narrative by Jake and Libby. Jake is a bit of a high school player. He has an on again off again girlfriend (see mean girls everywhere) and we first meet him through a letter he writes to Libby. Libby is the other narrator. In the letter, Jake tells Libby that he has a disorder called Prosopagnosia. It means that he cannot recognize peoples faces, ever. But, no one else knows that he’s got it so he can’t recognize his family, or friends or his girlfriend and he has a series of identifying features that means he knows who they are. For example he assumes that his parents are his parents because they are in his house every day. There is also his adorable brother Dusty, who wants to carry a purse (I think this is American speak for handbag) to school and gets beaten up for it and another brother called Marcus. He exudes this kind of confidence which is just a front for the fact that he cannot recognize anyone.

Libby is famous for being fat. Not just fat but so fat that they had to knock down half her  house to get her out because she was  too fat to fit through the door. She was hospitalized and hasn’t been to school for years. Before the house incident she was home schooled by her dad after her mum died from a massive brain hemorrhage. She has since lost 300 pounds (21 stone!) and has decided to get back in the game and go back to school. There she confronts the bullies who picked on her when she was 10 and after an unfortunate incident with Jack in the cafeteria, finds herself in detention for a few weeks. The POV of Jack is written so well that I would almost believed that the author had the condition herself.

What follows is an unconventional love story, but one that will warm your heart. It’s a little bit like Thanks for the Trouble in that it is redemptive. Both Libby and Jack need to be saved in different ways. Libby might not look like she needs much help; she’s smart and sassy and wants to take on the world, but she needs to feel valued and Jack helps her to do that. Jacks needs are more obvious. He needs help with his disorder and figuring out how he is going to get through life dealing with it.

Jennifer Niven writes in such a way that you will want to read on and on until the last page, and then miss the book and the characters once you’ve finished. I already miss Jack and Libby and their crazy world. I miss the way  that Jack describes Libby as being full of sunshine. I miss the way she goes through life hurting but willing to fix things, to change things. There are the usual mix of the mean girls and stupid jocks and geeks and nerds and bullies, but there is also Jack and Libby; and they are perfect for each other.

I know that you will love this book. I know that you will read it and take these two into your geeky booky hearts and keep them there. They deserve it, and you deserve to enjoy it with them. But I also want you to feel sorry for those people that say ‘I hate reading’ because they will never get to experience what you have just experienced.

Spread the word.

loociejj death, grief, love

Thanks for the Trouble – Tommy Wallach

 

 

thanks-for-the-trouble

I love Tommy Wallach. His writing is amazing. His descriptions of relationships is so good it makes me want to cry! He describes Parkers parents as ‘loving each other like the sea loves the sand. Slowly wearing it away…’ sad but so good.

Parker Sante is 17. His father died in a car crash and he hasn’t spoken since, he is an elective mute. He communicates by writing messages in notebooks, if he wants to communicate at all. He also doesn’t go to school and hangs out in hotels stealing things off rich people. This is how he meets Zelda. She is sitting in the hotel having breakfast and pulls out a roll of bank notes. She then leaves her bag unattended and he steals it. Unfortunately he leaves his notebook behind with all his contact information and, unusually for him, he also has a pang of conscience. He returns and they start to communicate. She tells him that she is going to spend all her money and then jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. She is just waiting for a phone call and then she’s gone. He is determined to stop her.

So begins a love story. Parker isn’t the most social of people but as you go through the book you realise that that’s because he has deliberately cut himself off. People are willing to give him time but he choses to isolate himself . His friend from Chess and War (it’s a club where you can read about war and play chess, perfect if you don’t want to talk to anyone!) are really geeky and nice. Parker realises that he wants Zelda to stay so tries to show her all the amazing things that life can offer. The problem is that Zelda has been alive for 246 years and has seen it all. She tells Parker that she is immortal and that she was born in Germany in 1770, been married, seen wars play out. She is tired of life and has decided that she wants to end it.

It’s up to you to decide whether she really is immortal or just at the end of the road. I’d like to think that she was but a small part of me also thinks that she needed to concoct a story that allowed her to make the decisions she makes. She sure has a good time though! This is a book about redemption. Parker and his mum needed someone to rescue them, even though Parker thinks he is rescuing Zelda it feels like it’s the other way round. Parkers mum is a mess after his father’s death and is drinking way too much, another problem for Parker to deal with.

It’s a lovely book. I really enjoyed We All Looked Up and it seems to be enjoying some cult status. Tommy Wallach’s way of speaking to the reader is so good you feel like he is sitting next to you reading out loud. Read it all in one go, you will want to go to San Francisco after! But you will also think a bit about why we love people. Treat people like it’s the last time you will see them, you might regret it if you don’t.

loociejj fantasy fiction, magic, mythical creatures

Bad Apple – Matt Whyman

bad-apple

I haven’t read anything by Matt Whyman before but you may have done. He wrote The Savages and The American Savages and they have been on the my ‘to read’ list for ages. This one I had to read for the Hounslow Teen Read and the other librarians were raving about it.

So, the basics. Trolls. Yes, Trolls. They live under ground and haven’t really had any contact with humans, except that they swap their babies  for human babies so that they can have a better opportunity in life. Their troll-ness, doesn’t manifest itself until the child turns into a teenager and starts to show troll like tendencies. These will be things like excessive violence, a complete disregard for rules and authority, they litter, swear and vandalise stuff. In fact, it’s fairly difficult to tell them apart from normal teenager which is why they have lived amongst humans for so long undetected.  But one day, someone’s house collapses down a troll hole and all hell breaks lose. DNA is taken from suspected trolls and all the ones that test positive are taken to holding facilities, like ghettos and left. There is a person in charge of the facility who is basically like a prison warder and the trolls are living in segregated communities and left to rot.

So far, so horrible. The book begins with a sixth form trip. The kids are all on a coach driving through one of the trolls ghettos staring out at the inmates and making fun of them.  The only one who isn’t is a boy called Maurice. He isn’t really sure how to feel about them but doesn’t think that they should be made fun of. Next thing you know, the trolls land on the roof of the coach make a hole in the ceiling and grab the teacher. Maurice jumps up to intervene and gets taken himself. Thus begins a roller coaster ride where essentially Maurice and his kidnapper, the lovable Wretch and a social worker with a conscience (Candy) race against capture to try and return Wretch to the underground home he was born in and make a bid to change society in the process. they are pursued by the hapless Governor and his horrible daughter Bonnie who always seem to be one step behind (nice twist there but you can guess what it is about half way though!)

Interestingly, I can think of a few kids that I have met over the years who could be trolls!  It’s kind of a tongue in cheek comment about teenage society and how horrible teenagers can be (you know you can so don’t be all offended!) and the humour in it is really well written. It’s not a book I would ordinarily have picked up but I’m glad I did. If you want to read something that will make you laugh then have a go at this.

loociejj fantasy fiction, magic, mythical creatures

Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch

rivers-of-london

Peter Grant #1

I read this book ages ago but was debating about whether to review it on here because I’m not sure exactly what genre it sits in. I read books 3 & 4 over half term and concluded that, although there is some sex and violence, it’s no worse than some other YA novels and the writer Ben Aaronovitch also writes Doctor Who episodes. Can you get much cooler than that?!

The book begins with PC Peter Grant. His mum is from Sierra Leone and his dad is a white jazz musician who probably takes a bit too much coke; which Peter has to ignore in his professional capacity. He is securing a crime scene in Convent Garden when he bumps into a ghost. He was previously unaware that he could talk to ghosts so it was a bit of a surprise. His partner is the switched on (and gorgeous) Lesley May and when he isn’t trying to get her in to bed she is giving him her sage advice about how to get on in policing. Peter is a born and bred Londoner and I suspect that the author is too because the wealth of information about London is amazing. Peter is absorbed into a section of the Met run by the enigmatic (look it up people!) Nightingale who seems to have been alive for a very long time. He drives a lovely jag and lives in a place off Russell Square called the Folly with his dog Toby and a very strange servant type lady called Molly.

As Peter starts investigating a murder and other magical goings on in London, Nightingale explains to him that all the previous magicians were killed in an offensive during WW2 and he is the only one left. Peter is the first apprentice magician for 50 years and magic takes an awfully long time to learn.

This book is witty, entertaining, funny, a little bit rude – and brilliant. If you love Doctor Who you will love this. The series is currently five books and The Hanging Tree is being published in the next couple of days. Aaronovitch is so knowledgeable about London, police procedure and rivers (this will become clear when you read the  books!) that you become absorbed in his world. The Faceless Man is a little like ‘he who shall not be named…’ and there is a lot of tongue in cheek references to HP but, if you enjoyed them and are looking for a new series to become obsessed with, look no further.

loociejj fantasy fiction, mythical creatures, Vampires, War

Battle Lines (Dept. 19 #3) – Will Hill

battle-lines

Spoiler Alert – MAKE SURE YOU HAVE READ THE FIRST TWO BEFORE YOU READ THIS REVIEW

 

 

 

 

Read them?

Ok, so Larissa is in America with SP9, Kate has joined a special unit that is investigating all the operators to try and find out who the leak is, Jamie is still angry and Matt is still working on the Lazarus Project and fancying a Russian girl. They are all still friends though. Jamie’s Dad is still locked up in the base in America and Larissa starts to get curious about who the mystery man is that’s in the cell, she starts to do some investigating of her own, while fending off the advances of a chap called Tim who wants to go out with her (never mind the fact that already has a boyfriend). She is, however enjoying being in America where people are a little more accepting of the fact that she is a vampire. She has also made some great friends as well and is in two minds about whether she wants to return to the UK, despite the Jamie situation.

In the meantime, Kate and Matt’s dads have made friends and have started to investigate the possibility that Dept. 19 actually exists. Several high security facilities have been attacked and all the patients have been turned into vampires. The problem is that they are much more powerful then normal newborns and Matt has some ideas as to why that is.

Lots of things happen in this book, despite the fact that they are all only about 17 the four main characters have all been promoted to Lieutenant and take on loads of responsibility. The interesting thing about this one is that one of them is starting to question the need to just goes out and kill vampires because they’re vampires. It’s likened to ethnic cleansing, which I suppose in a way it is. The team are starting to struggle a little bit with the concept of what they are doing. This is setting the last book up to be really explosive.

This is also a big book. At 701 pages it took me a week to read. I love the way they are written and really like the characters but, time doesn’t seem to move on very much and you kind of get the feeling that a lot is happening in a really short space of time, which in turn becomes a little unbelievable. It’s also a bit unrealistic to accept that grown up people with years of battle hardened experience listen to a bunch of kids. There is also the relationship between Jamie and Larissa, which is all a bit intense but at the same time, not.

That said, this is a great series and I really like it. I think it appeals to both boys and girls and has the right amount of horror to not make it too gory and the right amount of romance to make it not too gushy.

Another great book by Will Hill and I cannot wait to read the last one. The conclusion should be fantastic and I really hope that Dracula gets his comeuppance. He really, really deserves it.

loociejj death, friendship, grief

Unboxed – Non Pratt

unboxed

This book is lovely! It’s really small and shiny and printed on relaxing yellow paper; I read it in about an hour and it brought back lots of memories.

The premise of the story is that four friends are meeting up to remember their fifth friend Millie, who has died. They spent an amazing summer together when they were thirteen and put together a time capsule of all their favourite things about each other for them to open in the future. They hid the box on the top of the school roof. Five years have passed and their lives have changed quite a lot since then. Alix is still in the closet and isn’t sure how she is going to tell her friends (although in her world now it’s not a secret), Ben has moved to London and grown ( a lot!) Dean is still secretive and fighting against the world and Zara is there with her annoying boyfriend Ash, who just gets worse as the book goes along.

After a dramatic rescue of the box they gather in the local park with a bottle of vodka for courage. The box is full of memories; music, photos and little ‘in’ jokes that Ash doesn’t understand and certainly doesn’t like. Alix is texting her girlfriend and wonders whether she has made a mistake by coming, but as the night wears on they realise that they have really missed each other and, no matter how their lives have changed, they all still feel the same about each other.

This book is designed for people who don’t enjoy reading or for people that find reading a struggle – particularly dyslexic people. It is short and to the point, chucking you into the story on the first page. It also looks lovely and shiny and as a quick read will appeal to all.

This isn’t like her other two books. Remix is full of sex and drugs and Trouble is about a girl dealing with an unexpected pregnancy so, this is a break from teenage pressures and deals with the more weighty issue of grief. It’s quite unusual for young people to experience the death of a friend so this is an interesting read. It did remind of my misspent youth, sitting in parks with my friends and vowing to change the world. As an adult it is rare to spend time with your friends just having a chat so, take the time to appreciate what you have while you still have it.

A lovely book that will keep you company for a hour or so, maybe with some tea…. and a biscuit…. or two.