REVIEW: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

            Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

            Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan….

            But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

            Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

            Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

            Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words…and she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

            For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

            I am livid and I want to vomit all at the same time. Fangirl is simply too perfect for this world and I am unworthy. Is the year 2016 or 3016? I don’t know if I, or the world, was quite ready for this book, but there is one this I know for certain. Rainbow Rowell be killing it! If this isn’t the new classic, then I don’t know what is. I know I wasn’t the biggest die-hard fan of Eleanor and Park, but Fangirl is still so much better. Not only is it one of the few books in YA dealing with the beginning of college despite the fact that there be turbulent waters there and the kids are all still teens, but Fangirl is also relatable and honest.

            It took a while for me to finally get around to reading this one, but I am so glad I did get to it because this book is absolutely one of my new favorites. I want to reread the book right now, and that’s saying a lot because I’m not the biggest rereader (I know, throw rotten produce at me). Rowell always seems to get her characters to perfection level. It’s amazing really, how incredible the characters are in Rowell’s books. She makes them and their problems completely relatable and honest and true.

            The protagonist is Cath, and she’s not the typical YA strong, independent, and sassy girl who fights off corrupt organizations and saves the world. No. She’s a girl in love with writing, and more so in love with writing fan fiction. I too am one of those girls, and I know there are countless more out there in the same shoes. She’s real, and it’s easy to see how all her personality traits tie back to her family and her upbringing. I think that’s the most extraordinary thing about Fangirl, that I know the exact moment that made Cath into the girl she is and exactly why she (and even her sister Wren) tick the way she does. And it was all show, not tell.

            I’m head over heels in love with this book, and I honestly do not have a single back thing to say about it. Every single character, moment, and action was perfection, and every single word made me begging for more. That’s all there is. Oh, and Levi is the most adorable human being ever. Done.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: Doll Bones by Holly Black

            Zach, Poppy and Alice have been friend for ever. They love playing with their action figure toys, imagining a magical world of adventure and heroism. But disaster strikes when, without warning, Zach’s father throws out all his toys, declaring he’s too old for them. Zach is furious, confused and embarrassed, deciding that the only way to cope is to stop playing…and stop being friends with Poppy and Alice. But one night the girls pay Zach a visit, and tell him about a series of mysterious occurrences. Poppy swears that she is now being haunted by a china doll—who claims that it is made from the ground-up bones of a murdered girl. They must return the doll to where the girl lived, and bury it. Otherwise the three children will be cursed for eternity…

            Now I won’t lie. This review might just be a little bit of a love letter to Holly Black, so be forewarned. Ever since I first read Tithe, I fell in love with Black’s style of writing.  She’s always able to turn the most mundane, non-special of settings into something completely magical. With Tithe there was the industrial-ness of the setting that made it deadly for the fae, but then there was still the magical undertones and secret world. Doll Bones really brought me back to that enchanting feeling, but in a new way.

            The setting in Doll Bones is really anything but magical. All the magic occurs in the minds of the three main characters—Zach, Poppy and Alice. I really connected with these three because I was absolutely one of those kids that played make-believe with dolls for “too long,” but I never really stopped. I just moved mediums and became a writer! But it was amazing to get to see this ordinary world through the eyes of a group of friends with extraordinary imaginations.

            Since the world was ordinary, there wasn’t a lot of apparent magic, just whatever the kids came up with. There was, however, that little pinch of creepiness that Black likes to sow in all of her book. Most all of the adults, when looking at the friends, saw four kids instead of just three because of Eleanor the haunted bone china doll. It was the perfect amount of eerie to take the book to the next spooky level.

            The book was really a perfect look at childhood and growing up (and how much it sucks). This quest to lay the china doll to rest is sort of these kids’ last chance to be together and go on adventures like they’ve done so often throughout their lives so far. This is the last quest before they have to grow up, and that makes the book almost even more terrifying.

            What I would have really loved to see in this book is a more omniscient POV. The majority of the story is told through Zach’s eyes and that made him immediately a dynamic character. Poppy and Alice, however, were not so dynamic. I found myself getting confused as to which girl was which, and I think getting to see a little more about them would have been great. Of course, at the same time I loved the mystery of being in one, singular person’s POV.

            I honestly didn’t find much else to be wrong with the story. I think everything worked really well and I absolutely adored it. Holly Black has yet to let me down.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

            Aza Ray is drowning in thin air.

            Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live.

            So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.

            Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found, by another. Magonia.

            Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—and as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war is coming, Magonia and Earth are on the cusp of a reckoning. And is Aza’s hands lies the fate of the whole humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

            I am actually astonished by how much I ended up enjoying Magonia. When the book initially began, I thought it was going to be one of those stories that have way too much extra fluff. A few chapters in, however, and I realized it was fluff but rather voice. Maria Dahvana Headley created such a unique and raw voice in this story that roped me in and didn’t let me go. The premise was gorgeous and ne: a girl drowning on Earth from the air because she belongs in the sky with a race of birdlike creatures straight out of Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. It was beautiful and poignant and I’m gasping for breath waiting for the next book.

            While the voice and imagery was brilliant, the story did go off on some tangents a little too much. While I loved Aza and Jason (actually just all of the characters and creatures), I thought there could have been a little less randomness and a little more plot. I think more could have been done with the development of Aza’s life in Magonia. It just felt like she accepted the world too quickly. I would have liked for her to try and escape or plot her return to Jason somehow.

            While I loved the addition of Aza’s Magonian love interest, there was nothing there. It felt like there should have been a little more chemistry between them or just something. I felt him change, but I didn’t feel anything from Aza. Also, Aza welcomed her birth mother back into her heart way too easily. For a smart girl, Aza was not nearly suspicious enough about Magonia and this war brewing between it and Earth. While the synopsis told me of a war in Aza’s heart over which side of this war to be on, the book didn’t give me any of that tension.

            The last thing that saddened me was the lack of emphasis and beautiful writing on Aza’s ability to finally breathe again. I expected that moment to be lush and vivid considering the beauty of the rest of the book, but I was a little let down. She’s down on Earth, drowning, and then she’s in Magonia, breathing. There was not excitement and that’s what I wanted for our previously dying protagonist.

            Yes, I can go on and on like so many other reviewers about the amazingly fresh history and mythology of this book, but I won’t. Anybody who has read this can tell you it was an amazing book (me being one of them), but you’ll just have to read it for yourself. Now excuse me while I go find my heart, because some bird just gobbled it up and flew away.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You by Ally Carter

            Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, a fairly typical all-girls-school-that is, if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses but it’s really a school for spies. Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in sever different ways, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she’s an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, or track him through town with the skill of a real “pavement artist”—but can she maneuver a relationship with someone who can never know the truth about her?

            Cammie Morgan may be an elite spy-in-training, but in her sophomore year, she’s on her most dangerous mission—falling in love.

            You know when you read a book and you know that only a total teeny-bopper-hopeless-romantic-uber-girl should like such a book? And then you realize that you’re 23 and apparently fall under that category because of how much you adore said book? Well I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You is one such book for me. I won’t lie. I’ve kind of avoided the Gallagher Girls series solely because it seemed a little too girly-chick-flick-ish for me and because of my fear that I’d love it despite such reasoning. I read Ally Carter’s Heist Society and then I read her All Fall Down and they were both really good, so I decided to finally give this one a chance. And here I am, giving this book five stars because I absolutely loved everything about it.

            All the details that were overkill for The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson, were on-point and just enough for this book. No detail was out of place or unnecessary, and that’s what I love about Carter’s work. She’s gives a lot of background detail and lingo like it’s everyday small-talk, but in such a way that there’s no overkill! It was perfect and I fell head over heels for the school, the world, and the characters.

            I wish I could have gotten to know Cammie’s classmates better because of the final exam. These were her sisters in a mission and I wish I’d known them like sisters. The stakes throughout the book could have also been higher, especially since the book is a part of a series. While I loved Cammie’s desires to be a normal girl, I still think there should have been more fear for the consequences. I was never worried that, assuming Cammie got caught, that she’d ever be expelled or given memory-erasing tea. I feared it more for her best friends, but not so much for the headmasters’ daughter. You feel me? There could have been a stronger motive behind Cammie’s desire to be normal of course, and there really could have been some sort of minute plot to carry on through this book and into all the others. These were all nit-picky things though because I though the book was solid. A little bit too stand-alone, but super solid.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: Winger by Andrew Smith

            Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school for rich kids in the Pacific Northwest. He’s living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he’s madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy.

            With the help of his sense of humor, rugby buddies, and his penchant for doodling comics, Ryan Dean manages to survive life’s complications and even find some happiness along the way. But when the unthinkable happens, he has to figure out how to hold on to what’s important, even when it feels like everything has fallen apart. 

            Winger was one of those books I had to throw across the room in complete anger and take a few days to get over before reviewing. It was a great book with an ending that made me bawl my eyes out I was so furious and anguished. I really did finish the book days ago, but I had to let the dust of my emotions settle before I could write this. Let me start out by saying that I really loved this book.

            The characters (especially Ryan Dean, a.k.a. Winger) were raw and totally real. I could absolutely believe that Ryan Dean was a fourteen-year-old boy and he was hilarious too! He had all these funny, and sometimes perfectly perverted, drawings that really brought his character to life in a new way. I could read about Ryan Dean all day. He was just a very relatable character and there were all these nuances to his voice that made him that much more real. Like how he felt stupid for being worried about Joey being gay. Or how he kept calling himself a loser for various things. Or how he thought Ms. Singer was a witch. It was all hilarious and the little bits of rugby were brilliant as well.

            One thing you should know about me is I love rugby because of Teen Wolf and now also because of Winger. It was rugby that kept the story going. It was the thing that tied Ryan Dean to all the parts of the story of his junior year. All in all, it was an amazing story to read and so very hilarious.

            Now let me move on to the things that bugged me. I never really understood when Ryan Dean and Annie’s relationship shifted from “never-gonna-happen-cause-I’m-fourteen” to “omg-this-is-flirting-this-is-real”. It was an awkward transition that I never actually saw. It kind of took me out of the story because I was confused as to when this relationship became possible. I mean obviously they’re meant for each other, but I wish I could have really seen what Ryan Dean did to change Annie’s view of him.

            Next, I felt that there was an over-usage of the word loser. It was funny, and at times I didn’t notice or care that Ryan Dean called himself a loser at least once every chapter, but it was definitely overkill.  I mean, Ryan Dean writes haikus to his friend, he could at least change up his words a little. At the same time, though, it did make his character consistent and likeable. I just wish it had been done every other chapter.

            And lastly, Joey Cosentino. I’m not going to say anything else on that subject because it will ruin the whole end of the book. Just, when you finish reading, come to me and we shall rant and yell privately.

            Overall, despite the cons, there was still way more good in this book and I would really recommend it to anyone. I would even give it to female writers trying out male voices because this one is spot on and a great starting point for similar characters. So please, read it and let me know what you think because seriously, Joey Cosentino. I’m done. With life.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

            I found myself whispering, “Do you think we’ll ever discover all the secrets of the universe?”

            I was surprised to hear Susie’s voice answering my question. “That would be a beautiful thing, wouldn’t it, Ari?”

            “Yeah,” I whispered. “Really beautiful.”

            “Do you think, Ari, that love has anything to do with the secrets of the universe?”

            Dante can swim. Ari can’t. Dante is articulate and self-assured. Ari has a hard time with words and suffers from self-doubt. Dante gets lost in poetry and art. Ari gets lost in thoughts of his older brother who is in prison. Dante is fair skinned. Ari’s features are much darker. It seems that a boy like Dante, with his open and unique perspective on life, would be the last person to break down the walls that Ari has built around himself.

            But when Ari and Dante meet, the bond. They share books, thoughts, dreams, laughter. They teach each other new vocabularies and begin to redefine each other’s worlds. And they discover that the universe is a large and difficult place.

            This is the story about two boys, Ari and Dante, who must learn to believe in each other and the power of their friendship if they ever are to become men.

            For me, this was that book that I literally had to hug after I finished it. I don’t think I’ve ever loved a book like I love this book. It shocks me how much emotion this little book evoked in me. I think I love coming-of-age stories. Not only that, I love homosexual ships that sail. This is a little-known fact about me.

            Aristotle, or rather Ari, was a great perspective to hear the story from. He was just a boy battling a war inside of him just like his parents were battling their own. He wasn’t a man yet, and he didn’t know when it would start. Ari’s voice was beautiful and the ending of the book had me crying from happiness.

            Then there’s his best friend, Dante. He’s charming and the kindest boy ever. He introduces Ari to a wealth of new things, and it’s amazing to see the beginning of their relationship. SPOILER: Ari saves Dante’s life and that’s where you see the cogs turning. The doctor asks why, when it could have killed Ari, and Ari responds that it was a reflex. Saving the love of your life should be a reflex. END SPOILER.

            The way AUTHOR wrote the book was also gorgeous. Every chapter ended on a sort of thinker from Ari. There were a lot of little moments like that throughout the book  where Ari was just trying to figure life out (his to be more specific), and I loved them all. I kept wanted to get to the end of the chapter because I loved them so much. But I also loved starting the next chapter. It was an endless cycle.

            The only thing I don’t think I liked were how Gina and Susie’s characters weren’t a constant or consistent thing throughout the book. They did their purpose, but I wish they’d been consistent. Granted, the only friend Ari ever needed was Dante.

            Did I mention the ending killed me? I have to go buy this book and read it again it was so good. It was heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. Beautiful, beautiful book, and I really can’t say more lest I look like an obsessed maniac. Everyone needs to read this book!

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: We are the Goldens by Dana Reinhardt

Nell worships her older sister, Layla. They’re one unit, intertwined: Nellayla. As Nell and her best friend, Felix, start their freshman year in high school, on Layla’s turf, there’s so much Nell looks forward to: Joining Layla on the varsity soccer team. Parties. Boys. Adventures.

But the year takes a very different turn.

Layla is changing, withdrawing. She’s hiding something, and when Nell discovers what it is, and the consequences it might have, she struggles. She wants to support Layla, to be her confidante, to be the good sister she’s always been. But with so much at stake, what secrets should she keep? What lies should she tell?

This book was raw. That’s the best word I can come up with for it. Nell feels like her Layla are one and the same. They’re practically like twins, and they’re what I would call “sibling endgame”. Kind of like Dean and Sam Winchester. And yes, in the beginning I thought there might be some Nellayla-cest coming my way. I wasn’t okay with that, and luckily it never showed up.

It was an amazing book though. In the beginning, I wasn’t too sure how I liked the structure of the book or Nell’s character. It’s written similar to a diary or a letter to Layla without chapter heads. So it’s told in first person from Nell to Layla (you). It was weird and confusing after just reading Killer Instinct (another book that uses a second POV of sorts), but I really got into it. And the reason, I see now, I didn’t like Nell initially is because she wasn’t her own person. She was the second Layla—at least she certainly tried to be.

It was very raw to see Layla pull away from Nell and for Nell to have to find herself and become a singular when she’d always kind of been a plural. Layla was always the constant in Nell’s life, and then she stopped. Anyway, it was really great. The way it was written gave great insight into the situation and into Nell’s internal struggles against the person she’d always been.

Plus, there’s Felix. Oh my did I adore everything about Felix. He and Nell are my one of my favorite ships. I don’t know if it will ever sail, but it did in my heart. I’m not sure if that’s a spoiler or not…. But it’s definitely a book to read. All the characters’ struggles really tore at my heartstrings. Even Layla was a great character to read. She was horrible to her sister in a lot of ways, but I know it made Nell a stronger person by the end of the book. Everyone in this book had growing up to do, and it was amazing to read.

As for what I didn’t particularly like, well, that’s hard to pinpoint. The setting was great, the writing was beautiful, the characters soared. It was all really awesome. Some things I would have liked to see would have been the reason behind the story’s style. Was it a letter to Layla? Was Nell an avid diary writer? The way it was written worked incredibly well but I wish I knew why it had been done that way. I also wish there’d been a little more familial conflict for the Goldens in that the parents are divorced and the father is remarried so there should have been a little bit of tension between those two.

These are really small things though. I didn’t think I was going to end up liking this book, but I really did and I hope everyone reads it just so I can talk about it to people.

XOXO Tia