BOOK REVIEW: Girl In Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is August 30, 2016.

Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she’s already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget. The thick glass of a mason jar cuts deep, and the pain washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you. Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge

Charlie is one of those characters that I just wanted to wrap my arms around and give a big hug, you know? This book was so incredibly powerful and dark. There were times when I wanted to just shut my eyes because everything was too much.

The story begins after Charlie's friends dump her at a mental institution and take off. She is hurt and bloody and she doesn't speak at all. Charlie is a cutter. Charlie has been through so much. Her mom kicked her out, her best friend almost died from cutting and she spent some time on the streets, where she was barely able to survive. There aren't many authors that would just talk about the concept of cutting in such a gripping way. The author's note did indicate this was a very personal book for the author and I could tell. The author obviously knew what she was doing because I felt like I was in Charlie's head and I was able to feel her pain so clearly.

This book goes through Charlie's therapy and her time in the institution, followed by her release and her very long way to recovery. The book is told in first person and the narrative style of this story is very fitting for the character and it kind of evolves as Charlie does. In the beginning of the story, Charlie's thoughts are rambling and dark. Throughout the book, the thoughts become slightly less dark and a lot more focused. Charlie's recovery is long and I am so glad the author wrote about this subject. There is no quick fix here. Charlie makes stupid decisions and she struggles with whether to cut every single day, much like an alcoholic still struggles with the urge to drink. The romance part of this book kind of broke my heart. I wanted to root for Charlie and Riley, but they were two very broken people. There were parts of this story that made me hopeful and parts that were heartbreaking. This was a roller coaster of a book and if you can handle the subject matter, it is a must read.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one.

DISCUSSION: Can a character be too relatable?

We all talk about how we want our characters to be relatable. 

But is there such a thing as too relatable?

I have noticed that if a character is too much like me, I can find it annoying. Especially when some of these character traits are flawed ones (sorry to spoil the fun but no, I am not perfect).

I recently read a book where the girl constantly complained about her weight. It was mostly to herself, but it was still so annoying. The funny part is that I do that ALL THE TIME. Sometimes, I complain aloud to my husband but mostly it's this constant inner monologue that I have with myself. And yet, with faced with a character who does the exact same thing, I didn't empathize with her. I should have, I know. But it just annoyed me. 

I should have adored this character. 

She had issues with her weight, she hated her body, she was socially awkward and lonely . . . that was basically ME in high school. And yet, I found myself annoyed by her for the first half of the book. 

P.S. I did end up enjoying the book, despite this character flaw. 

I'll admit that most of the time, if I get annoyed by a character that is too much like me, it has to do with weight. I can relate to characters who are socially awkward or nerds or whatever and they don't annoy me. But this one did. 

It made me think that maybe having a character that you can relate to isn't necessarily a good thing, at least when it comes to things we hate about ourselves. Maybe that's the bigger issue: I know that constantly complaining about my weight (even just to myself) is something I need to work on, so the last thing I need is to read about characters who do the exact same thing. I have no patience to read about a character going through something that hits way too close to home. And maybe I just expect more from fictional characters than I do of myself.

Do you think a character can be too relatable? Have you ever found a character really annoying, despite the fact that you are just like them?

BOOK REVIEW: The Hawkweed Prophecy by Irena Brignull

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled release date for this book is September 6, 2016.

Poppy Hooper has managed to deceive her father into believing that there is nothing mysterious or unnatural about her. He ignores the cats that find her wherever she goes, the spiders that weave beautiful lacy patterns for her, even her eyes - one blue, one green with an extra black dot orbiting the pupil. Ember Hawkweed is a pitiful excuse for a witch. When the other girls in her coven brew vile potions, Ember makes soap and perfume. Fair and pretty, Ember is more like a chaff than a witch. When the two girls meet, Poppy discovers her powers, and finds out the truth. Bound by their unlikely friendship and the boy they both love, the girls try and find their place in the world. But the time of the prophecy draws nearer - and the witches won't give up the throne without a fight.

This review might seem all over the place, but that's because the book was kind of all over the place. The beginning of this book was beautiful. I loved the writing and I absolutely loved all the talk of magic and two mothers loving the wrong baby. It started off amazing. I just wish the book had kept up that momentum.

So Poppy is a witch, but Emma's not. But since they are switched at birth (this is revealed on the very FIRST page, so that isn't a spoiler), Poppy is raised by "chaffs" (witches' term for non witches) and Emma is raised by witches. Neither girl feels like they fit in. Poppy's mom is in an asylum because she had a breakdown or something and part of that was due to all the weird things that would happen around Poppy and she always knew something was different about her. Poppy goes from school to school because of all these weird things and her dad basically ignores her. I hated him a lot. Meanwhile, Emma doesn't have any of the powers that the witches around her have, so she gets bullied a lot. Her aunt Raven is the queen of the witches and the prophecy says either her daughter or her sister's daughter will be the next queen. Naturally, Raven wants it to be her daughter, Sorrel.

When Poppy and Emma met, I liked the friendship. I wanted to see Poppy learn about her powers and about magic from Emma. I wanted Emma to learn how to fit in from Poppy. Their friendship was sweet, but at some point it stopped being about the friendship and the magic and it started being about some guy, Leo. That's where the author lost me. First, Poppy liked him. Then Emma liked him. Leo liked Poppy, then he liked Emma. Then Poppy was going to "let" Emma have him because they're friends, then she was mad. Then Leo was using Emma to make Poppy jealous, then he actually liked her. Okay, you get how confusing that is right? In the meantime, all the magic and the world building with the coven that Emma lived with just got lost. Poppy borrowed magic books and learned about her powers away from Emma and they stopped spending time together. It was frustrating, especially with all the questions I had about the witches and their coven. One question was who were these witches procreating with? There were NO men in the village and women were given poison to get rid of the baby when it was a boy. Weird, right? So I just had no clue who fathered whom.

The whole "switched at birth" thing wasn't even very suspenseful because I knew that from the first chapter so it's really just a matter of waiting for the big reveal. Poppy's family was ridiculously neglectful so there was no emotion about potentially leaving them. And the ending for Emma was just anticlimactic. There was a struggle for power and some random clan trying to assassinate the real queen, but there was no suspense there either.

I did warn you about this review being all over the place. So basically a book that started about witches and magic and ended up being a love triangle with some cliche versions of witches thrown in every once in a while. 

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip this one.

Top Ten Tuesday - The one with the mixed bag

This is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. They feature a different top ten list every week. This week's topic is supposed to be favorite books in a specific setting. Well, my settings are kind of all over the place. I decided to do a mixture: these are my favorite books set in a dystopian environment and top books set in outer space. How's that for variety?

1. The Cage by Megan Shepherd

2. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Ellison

3. On The Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis

4. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

5. Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

6. Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff 

7. The Last One by Alexandra Oliva

8. The entire Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer 

9. Until the End by Tracey Ward

10. Return Once More by Trisha Leigh

What are some of your favorite dystopian books? Have you read many books set in outer space?

BOOK REVIEW: The Form of Things Unknown by Robin Bridges

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date is August 30, 2016.

Natalie Roman isn’t much for the spotlight. But performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a stately old theatre in Savannah, Georgia, beats sitting alone replaying mistakes made in Athens. Fairy queens and magic on stage, maybe a few scary stories backstage. And no one in the cast knows her backstory. Except for Lucas—he was in the psych ward, too. He won’t even meet her eye. But Nat doesn’t need him. She’s making friends with girls, girls who like horror movies and Ouija boards, who can hide their liquor in Coke bottles and laugh at the theater’s ghosts. Natalie can keep up. She can adapt. And if she skips her meds once or twice so they don’t interfere with her partying, it won’t be a problem. She just needs to keep her wits about her.

This book was not what I thought it would be. I thought I was getting a book about a girl struggling with mental illness and struggling with whether to reveal that information to her friends, especially after she meets a guy (Lucas) who was in the same psych ward. First of all, Natalie takes medication for schizophrenia despite the fact that she doesn't actually seem to have it. This is NOT a spoiler because it's revealed within the first 10% of the book, but Natalie started hallucinating after she took some ecstasy. That's it. She took some drugs and flipped out. There were no hallucinations before that and none after, but sure, let's give her some drugs. Did Natalie have to go to any kind of therapy. Nope, of course not. And people with schizophrenia generally see a therapist as well. 

Now Natalie's grandmother is suffering from the disease. I can understand why they would be concerned about Natalie having it, BUT SHE DIDN'T. Her grandmother also refused to take her medication and she was a handful. She would insult the family and accuse Natalie's mom of trying to poison her, etc. This would have been a MUCH BETTER book if the author had focused on her grandmother's illness and Natalie's worries that she was going to get it. So Natalie's grandmother definitely has the disease and she never takes her meds. What does everyone do about that? Not a damn thing. They don't try to get her to take her meds AT ALL and they never try to make her see any kind of doctor. Natalie's parents basically acted as if her grandmother was just old and there was nothing they could do. To make it worse, Natalie's dad worked all the time so Natalie's mom had to stay home and take care of her by herself. She couldn't even work because someone needed to be home with her. That was irritating.

The whole relationship thing with Lucas was ridiculous. It came out of nowhere and they had no chemistry. Then Natalie starts seeing ghosts or something and of course no one believes her and no one sees what she does. But I was confused because some people did believe in ghosts and no one thought they were crazy. And the ending was just . . . it was just wrong, that's what it was. I have the spoiler in my Goodreads review (it is hidden just in case you don't want to see it), so if you're interested you can check it out here.

It just bugged me that Natalie's family was super concerned about her and kept track of her meds and lectured her when she didn't pay attention to possible side effects and yet they did NOTHING about the grandmother. That was all kinds of wrong. It really just seemed like the schizophrenia diagnosis was a convenient plot device that was brought out because the author needed more conflict. I don't like that. I was not a fan of this one.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip it.

Top Ten Tuesday - Favorite Books This Year

This is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. They feature a different top ten list every week. This week's topic was kind of a freebie, so I thought I would make a list of my favorite books that I have read so far this year.

Are there any books on this list that would make your favorites list? What are a few of your favorite books this year?

Olympics Book Tag

I saw Shannon @ It Starts At Midnight do this tag and I knew I had to do it. I absolutely love the Olympics. My favorite events are gymnastics and swimming, but I also like watching beach volleyball and track and field. I am able to watch them even though I live in Italy. The only problem is avoiding spoilers since I watch the events the next day. Go Team USA!

Opening Ceremony: A Book You Loved From The Very First Page

The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay is one of my favorite books ever.

Cycling: Favorite Road Trip Book

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is a dystopian kind of road trip book. The road trip is actually a group of actors who travel from town to town performing Shakespeare. Cool, right? This is an excellent book.

Triathlon: A Book with a Good Love Triangle

Okay, I am not usually a fan of love triangles. But Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is one of my favorite book series and I thought the love triangle was handled well.

Handball: A Book You Didn't Really Get

Sorry, I know The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold gets a lot of rave reviews. I just thought it was boring.

Beach Volleyball: A Book Set In The Summer

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson is such a great summer read. It's also very sad. Consider yourself warned.

Fencing: A Book with a lot of Fighting/Bloodshed

The final battle in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling was pretty epic . . . and bloody.

Gymnastics: A Book with a lot of Plot Twists

I swear the twist at the end of The Uninvited by Cat Winters gave me chills.

Swimming: A Book that made You Sob

There are so many! The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah made me sob so hard.

Golf: A Slow Paced Book

I am one of the few people who didn't adore Red Rising by Pierce Brown. It moved way too slowly and I just didn't like it very much.

Trampoline: A Childhood Favorite

The entire Ramona series by Beverly Cleary. I still have such fond memories of those books. 

Equestrian: A Book Featuring Animals

Told from the POV of a dog, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is so moving.

Hurdles: A Book You Struggled To Finish

Who spread the crazy rumor that Withering Heights by Emily Bronte was a love story? It's not. I really disliked this book.

Synchronized Swimming: A Book with a Great Friendship 

In Denton Little's Deathdate by Lance Rubin, Denton's friends were hilarious. And also pretty awesome.

Bonus: Books That Actually Feature Olympic Sports

Anyone who loves the Olympics should feel free to do this tag!! Do you watch the Olympics? What are your favorite sports to watch?