BOOK REVIEW: Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay. Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space. Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.

So have you ever been scared that when you read a book for the second time, it will lose its luster? It has been almost one year since I first met these wonderful characters and the writing was just as beautiful as I remember.

Natsya has gone through a horrible trauma and she goes to live with her aunt. Her parents are not the typical absentee parents one usually sees in YA literature. They are kind of absent, but it is Natsya’s choice. She wants to go to a new school where no one knows her and live with someone she feels doesn’t expect anything from her. Every time her mom or brother tries to make an overture towards her, it’s heartbreaking. Her family wants to reconnect so badly, but the problem is that they want the old Natsya. And that Natsya is dead.

Natsya does everything she can to push everyone away. Her trick? She doesn’t speak at all. Natsya also dresses extremely provocatively. She wears really tight and revealing clothes. She figures any guy who pays attention to her will only want one thing and she is okay with that. She just isn’t okay with them loving her or expecting any kind of attachment. So it’s interesting that she manages to build friendships and a sort of family, even with the no speaking thing. She becomes friends with Drew, a harmless flirt, and Clay, an artist with a fascination for drawing her. Drew seemed like a jerk at first because of all the sexual innuendo he threw her way. But he was all talk. There was a scene where Natsya’s mom asked what she was to them and he said, “Family.” Awww. Try not to get emotional with that. Drew became so protective of her and it was really sweet.

As for Josh, I just completely fell in love with him and rooted so hard for their relationship. Josh has lost his entire family and he is now emancipated. He is very close to Drew’s family, but other than that, he tries not to get too attached. He doesn’t want to lose anyone else and that is his biggest fear. It’s not really that difficult to understand why Natsya feels safe with him. He accepts her silence and her company without expecting anything in return. Their relationship is ADORABLE. He starts calling her “Sunshine” at the beginning of the book, mainly because she dresses in all black and never speaks or smiles. I kind of loved that. And after they hang out in silence for weeks, she actually starts speaking to him. He is the only one she feels safe talking to. I also thought they were so cute on their first date. Because they both have issues, it was actually a first date for both of them and they had no idea how to be “normal.”

Of course there is drama because of Natsya’s past. She refuses to tell Josh anything about her past. She feels completely ruined and undeserving of what Josh is offering. I got so frustrated when she pushed him away and I just wanted them to be together again. I adored the very slow buildup of their relationship and was anxiously awaiting the reveal of what happened to Natsya. I thought the ending was absolutely perfect and I really can’t think of a single thing I would change about this book.

When I finished this book a year ago, I immediately wanted to read it again because I loved it so much. I felt the exact same way this time. I just did not want to let go of these characters.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: There is a reason this is one of my favorite books ever. If you haven't read this one yet, you need to. BUY THIS BOOK!!

BOOK REVIEW: If You're Lucky by Yvonne Prinz

I received the ARC for If You're Lucky by Yvonne Prinz from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is October 20, 2015.

When seventeen-year-old Georgia’s brother drowns while surfing halfway around the world in Australia, she refuses to believe Lucky’s death was just bad luck. Lucky was smart. He wouldn’t have surfed in waters more dangerous than he could handle. Then a stranger named Fin arrives in False Bay, claiming to have been Lucky’s best friend. Soon Fin is working for Lucky’s father, charming Lucky’s mother, dating his girlfriend. Georgia begins to wonder: did Fin murder Lucky in order to take over his whole life?  

I am going to start this review with just about the only thing I liked about this book: Georgia was a baker. I love food and more than that, I love sugar. So the description of her lemon tarts and lavender shortbread cookies made me very hungry. I’ll just ignore the fact that she mentioned she had never made a muffin before. What kind of baker doesn’t ever make muffins? Weird.

Now that we got that out of the way, I’ll talk about what I didn’t like. First, I could not connect with the main character at all. Maybe it was the writing style or the lack of emotion or maybe it was the fact that everything moved way too fast. There was no grief or mourning of Lucky by anyone really. It was kind of talked about, but I just couldn’t see it or feel it, so I didn’t really care. Fin shows up and has one conversation with Georgia and suddenly, she wants him. Then he starts meeting with Lucky’s girlfriend (Sonia) and she gets very envious. Of what, I have no idea. Sonia met with Lucky once and Georgia decided to ask if they had slept together. And why was that any of her business?? For a while, I couldn’t tell whether Georgia was attracted to him or suspicious of him.

I had huge issues with this author’s portrayal of mental illness. It didn’t just annoy me. It made me mad. Did this author do any research on paranoid schizophrenia? It doesn’t seem like it. Georgia hints at “episodes,” but there is nothing in her past that suggests schizophrenia. Yet, she does act a bit paranoid at times in the present. It’s weird and confusing. Years earlier, she had yelled at her teacher. The teacher sent her to the principal’s office, but she didn’t go. She snuck into the janitor’s closet and accidentally started a fire. She ran and hid because she was afraid. So they take her to a shrink, have all kinds of tests done, and make the diagnosis. To make it worse, Georgia says that part of the diagnosis probably came from her mom telling her therapist about her “symptoms”: hysteria, fits of rage, quiet, withdrawn and a loner. REALLY?!? WTH?!? NONE OF THAT EQUALS SCHIZOPHRENIA!! Here’s another thing that pissed me off: Georgia gets upset and says she is mad because Fin was sitting in Lucky’s chair and playing with Lucky’s dog and dating Lucky’s girlfriend. She thought he was trying to take Lucky’s place. What was the response? Call her therapist and INCREASE HER MEDS. Then her mom said that because of that “episode,” she couldn’t trust Georgia and had to monitor all her activities. WTH?!? An emotional outburst DOES NOT EQUAL SCHIZOPHRENIA!!! I am so sorry for the all caps, but that made me so MAD!!! I really hated the therapist too. Every single session was him making sure she was taking her meds. THAT WAS ALL. There was no talking about her grief or what she was feeling or anything. 

But here’s the thing: there would be episodes where Georgia maybe showed signs of some sort of mental illness because she would hint at hearing voices or something. Or she would have a hallucination. So most of the book consisted of stuff that had nothing to do with being schizophrenic and then the author would suddenly sprinkle in a hallucination here and a delusion there. I honestly think the mental illness part was a boring, stupid subplot to try and make the mystery more interesting than it was. It didn’t work. I was still bored. The ending wrapped up entirely too fast and it wasn’t even worth sticking around for.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Please just skip it.

BOOK REVIEW: All We Have Is Now by Lisa Schroeder

I received the ARC for All We Have Is Now by Lisa Schroeder from Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.

What do you do with your last day on earth? There are 27 hours and fifteen minutes left until an asteroid strikes North America, and, for Emerson and everyone else who didn't leave, the world will end. But Emerson's world already ended when she ran away from home last year. Since then she has lived on the streets, relying on her wits and her friend Vince to help her find places to sleep and food to eat. The city's quieter now that most people are gone, and no one seems to know what to do as the end approaches. But then Emerson and Vince meet Carl, who tells them that he has been granting people's wishes. He gave his car away so a woman could take her son to see the ocean for the first time, and he gives Emerson and Vince all the money he has in his wallet. Suddenly this last day seems full of possibility. Emerson and Vince can grant a lot of wishes in 27 hours --- maybe even their own.

This is one of those books that stayed with me long after I finished it. This book asks the question: what would you do with one day left until the world ends?

Emerson and Vince are homeless teenagers who have been living on the streets together for the last year and a half. They have been through so much together. They have seen each other at their worst and done everything they could to survive together. Now there is an asteroid headed to North America and they have twenty eight hours to live. Emerson and Vince aren't sure what they want to do in these last twenty eight hours, but they do know that whatever it is, they want to do it together.

Emerson and Vince meet Carl, a man who has spent the last few hours helping people make their wishes come true. Carl ends up giving them his wallet full of money and tells them to pay it forward. So they do. And Emerson and Vince spend the next several hours searching for people who have wishes or regrets and trying their best to make their wishes come true.

I absolutely loved the friendship between Emerson and Vince and I loved their developing romance even more. They were so incredibly sweet together. Actually, I loved all the characters. The book is about Emerson and Vince and it's also about Carl and all these other characters they come into contact with and change in some way or another. This book was so filled with emotion and suspense that I stayed up until 2 am reading this book because I just could not bear to put it down. I wanted to find out if the world really ended and what happened to all these amazing characters. This was such an amazing book. A must read! 

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one!!

Top Ten Tuesday - Authors I Am Dying to See Work Together!!

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 the top authors I would love see work together!!

1. Margaret Atwood and Louise O'Neill - These two women can write the hell out of some dystopian fiction. I would love to see what kind of crazy world they could come up with.

2. Marissa Meyer and Maggie Stiefvater - The Lunar Chronicles and The Wolves of Mercy Falls are both excellent series. I would love to see them collaborate.

3. Courtney Summers and Leah Raeder - These women are two of my favorite authors and I have gobbled up every single thing these women have written. Courtney Summers can write powerful and emotional stories and Leah Raeder has this ability to make you care about completely unlikeable women. A book between these two would be my dream.

4. Jandy Nelson and Katja Millay - The Sea of Tranquility is one of my favorite books of all time, no question. And I'll Give You The Sun is one of my favorite books from this year. Both books are beautifully written works of art. I would love to see what these two ladies would come up with. 

5. Gayle Foreman and Miranda Kenneally - Miranda Kenneally's Hundred Oaks series is wonderful and I absolutely adored If I Stay. I know these women could make some magic.

6. Blake Crouch and Michael Grant - These are my two favorite book series, no question. Both authors create these terrifying and crazy worlds. If these two men got together, I would be terrified in the best possible way. 

7. JoJo Moyes and Laura Florand - Jojo Moyes is the queen of historical fiction and makes me cry a lot. Laura Florand can write the hell out of a romance novel. Their combined abilities would be explosive!

8. Marie Lu and Lauren Oliver - Man, The Young Elites was absolutely amazing, as was Delirium. I actually love all the books written by both these women, so I know I could come up with something good.

9. Erin Bowman and Rick Yancey - As much as I loved Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave, I thought he had a bit of a problem writing for Cassie. There were a few spots I thought he may have had issues writing for women. Erin Bowman's most recent release, Vengeance Road, had a kick ass female character. I think both of their strengths would be awesome together.

10. Rainbow Rowell and John Green - So John Green is an amazing writer, but his ideas have gone a bit stale. Maybe Rainbow Rowell could help him out with that. And maybe she can help him tone down on the metaphor a bit too.

What author duos are you dying to see?

DISCUSSION: Striving for Ratings Perfection

I don’t use a star rating on my blog specifically because I don’t like them. But since Goodreads and NetGalley still use them, I am stuck. Lately, I have been wondering if I have gotten too picky with my Goodreads ratings. Have my standards gotten so high??

I have noticed that it is getting harder and harder for me to justify a five star review. In the last two months, for example, I have a read a total of 44 books. Of those 44 books, I have given out only FIVE five star ratings, while I gave TWENTY-TWO four star ratings. That is a huge discrepancy, right?

So why do those books not rate a five star? I do believe that I have become a perfectionist with my ratings. Or maybe I have just read so many amazing books that I can't help but play the comparison game. It seems like I am striving for perfection with my five star books. These are a couple of books that I recently rated five stars. 

These books were amazing in every way and I can't thing of a single thing I would change. Nothing at all. 

When I rate a book four stars, I absolutely loved the book . . . but typically, there are still one or two flaws. 

I think maybe the issue is that I am reading way more books than I did before blogging. Of course, I am unemployed now so that does add a bit of free time to my day. But reading so many books makes me raise my standards even more. When I read books like The Book Thief, which freaking destroyed me, I just can't help comparing other possible five star books to that one.

But I do think it's my personality. I am an obsessive compulsive perfectionist when it comes to just about every aspect of my life. So it is no surprise that I am applying that same philosophy to my books. But maybe I should stop the comparing and stop the strive for perfectionism. Maybe if there is a book I absolutely adored, but it had one or two minor flaws (such as Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers), maybe that book still deserves the coveted five star rating.

How do you decide which books to rate five stars? Do you think a book has to be perfect to receive the coveted five star rating?

BOOK REVIEW: Weird Girl and What's His Name by Meagan Brothers

I received the ARC for Weird Girl and What's His Name by Meagan Brothers from Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date is October 13, 2015.

In the tiny podunk town of Hawthorne, North Carolina, seventeen-year-old geeks Lula and Rory share everything—sci-fi and fantasy fandom, Friday night binge-watching of old X-Files episodes, and that feeling that they don’t quite fit in. Lula knows she and Rory have no secrets from each other; after all, he came out to her years ago, and she’s shared with him her “sacred texts”—the acting books her mother left behind after she walked out of Lula’s life. But then Lula discovers that Rory—her Rory, who maybe she’s secretly had feelings for—has not only tried out for the Hawthorne football team without telling her, but has also been having an affair with his middle-aged divorcee boss. With their friendship disrupted, Lula begins to question her identity and her own sexual orientation, and she runs away in the middle of the night on a journey to find her mother, who she hopes will have all the answers. Meagan Brother’s piercing prose in this fresh LGBT YA novel speaks to anyone who has ever felt unwanted and alone, and who struggles to find their place in an isolating world. 

I guess I am going to be a black sheep on this one. Almost ever single review gives five stars and I just don't get it. First of all, let's talk about those nicknames "Weird Girl and Whats His Name." The explanation that Rory gives for why they have those nicknames was ridiculous and it is still bugging me. Lula and Rory live in this small town in North Carolina, where apparently they live in the 1900's or something. Rory mentioned that people don't talk to Lula because her MOM lived in California instead of the South. REALLY?? And then he said that kids didn't like him because his mom married a YANKEE (yes, she actually used that word!) and was a divorced single parent. Okay, I grew up in a small town in Georgia and I rolled my eyes so hard at all of this, especially the term yankee. I have heard that term used ONCE in my life and it was ten years ago and the guy who said it was eighty years old. The author's bio says she is a "native" Carolinian, but it doesn't say how long she spent there before moving to New York City. My guess? Not very long. But here is the REALLY annoying part: this part of the plot was NEVER discussed again!! And it is quite evident that the reason behind Lula and Rory's isolation has nothing to do with their ancestry. So why even mention it?? Maybe the author wanted to emphasize the fact that they were from a small, southern town. But it was so annoying. 

The book is split into two sections: Rory's POV and Lula's. I wasn't a big fan of the writing style. It was too conversational or something. One example of this is "Not to get too detailed about it, but . . . well, remember how I said that Lula and I told each other almost everything?"And you know how they say writers should show, not tell? This author included way too much showing. The first two chapters of the book included Rory telling me every single thing he thought I should know about their friendship and their family problems and the secrets Rory was keeping. It was way too much information all at once. The fist part of the book was also kind of boring. Maybe it was all the information dumping, but I had to struggle to stay engaged. I just couldn't connect with Rory. Then Lula runs away and I was curious how Rory would handle it. Just when I was getting connected with him because of Lula's disappearance, the book switches to Lula's POV and there is a time jump of four months or so to Lula's return. I kind of felt slighted because I did not get to see those four months through Rory's eyes. Rory changed so much and went through a lot, but we only got to see that through Lula's eyes.

Now let's talk about the friendship. I couldn't really connect with either character, so it was hard for me to root for their friendship. Frankly, I thought both of them acted like jerks. The second half of the book was basically Lula living her life, being sad that Rory was not speaking to her and trying to search for her identity. Rory lied to Lula several times and I can get why she would be hurt by that. At the same time, Lula's reactions were a bit extreme and I could see why Rory kept stuff from her. Right before Lula runs away, they get in a horrible argument and he says some really mean things to her. Lula running away with no word or note to ANYONE was incredibly selfish, in my opinion. But did Rory acknowledge his part in it too? Nope. Actually, I spent most of the book waiting for both Lula and Rory to stop being so incredibly stupid. I wanted to shake both of them. 

There were a lot of issues with this book. Yes, I can see why Lula would want to find her mother and why she would have questions about her identity. She was super confused as are most teenagers. The problem was that these issues weren't really explored as deeply as they could have been. The resolution to all of the issues in the book were just wrapped up too neatly and in only a few sentences. Since some of these issues were major themes throughout the entire book, it was hard to wrap my head around a three sentence conclusion.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip this one.

BOOK REVIEW: The Storm (The Rain #2) by Virginia Bergin

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

“I’ll tell you a weird thing about apocalypses, a thing I didn’t even know until I was in one. They seem pretty bad, don’t they? Well, take it from me . . . They can always get worse.”

Do you know what I hate about NetGalley? I hate that they don’t always tell you when a book is part of a series. I actually didn’t realize this one was a sequel until I was a chapter in. By that time, it was too late. I was addicted to the story that quickly.

I was able to get the basics: there is some kind of illness in the rain that can kill you immediately. Does it seem realistic? No. But it made for a great story and sometimes that is all that matters. Ruby Morris is alone at her house and is waiting for her dad. Her mom and stepbrother are dead and her dad left her to get her grandmother but he hasn’t come back. So now Ruby is trying her best to survive.

One of the things I loved most about this book was the narrative. It was written entirely in first person, almost like a letter to her mother, and this allowed me to connect more with her. Sometimes it was almost like a stream of consciousness thing. She thought about typical survival stuff. She broke into the library to read everything she could find about survival and car maintenance. She got really good at hotwiring cars in a heartbeat. But she also thought about things like how she smelled and how her hair looked. She was worried about running out of shampoo so she just shaved her head so she wouldn’t have to worry about it. She was kind of a bad ass and I loved it. She was funny and sarcastic and hated anyone telling her what she should be doing (because, you know, she was the expert).

Things got a little confusing at times. Because it was a first person narrative and because things were so out of control, her thoughts were a jumble more often than not. She meets some fellow teenagers and kids and she tries to hide out until things get crazy. Now because I didn’t read the first book, I missed a little. But basically, there is an army base and several of her friends abandoned her to go to this base. The reason the soldiers didn’t pick her was because she was deemed useless. Umm . . . okay. I am not sure the army’s definition of useless, but it didn’t seem to fit Ruby. But yeah, then Ruby realizes the army is using people as lab rats to find a cure for the disease and the army realizes Ruby isn’t as useless as they thought. Then there is a boy that I guess she spent time with., Darius Spratt, and I guess they loved each other or something. This was hard to tell at times because they only ran into each other by chance two or three times throughout the whole book. I didn’t see any chemistry. Regardless, I am just really glad that the romance thing took a backseat. It was just Ruby trying to survive, trying to find her family, oh and taking care of a small child she kind of adopted, Princess. Princess was the one bright spot of humanity left for Ruby. She allowed Ruby to show her softer side, even while Ruby was trying to stay strong and tough.

I think that the book was super fast paced and sometimes it seemed like too much was happening at once. But it kind of fell apart a little with the ending. It seems as if there won’t be a sequel, so things were wrapped up. But they were wrapped up in a neat little bow and I am still not how they fixed everything or even if the way they fixed things was realistic at all. Then again, a killer disease that you get from touching rain is pretty unrealistic to begin with.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: So even though I didn't read the first one, I still think this is a book worth buying. I have read reviews of the first one and there was a huge consensus that Ruby was very annoying. According to the reviews of this one, she was not nearly as bad. Since I know what happens, I may just skip reading the first one.