Review: Fracture by Megan Miranda

Title: Fracture [Amazon|GoodReads]
Author: Megan Miranda [Website|Twitter|Facebook]
Standing: Stand alone novel.
Genre: Young Adult, Speculative Fiction
Published: January 17th, 2012 by Walker Children's
Format: Hardcover; 262 pages.
Source: Borrowed from my local library.
Challenge: Debut Author Challenge

The first time I died, I didn't see God.

No light at the end of the tunnel.  No haloed angels.  No dead grandparents.
To be fair, I probably wasn’t a solid shoo-in for heaven.  But, honestly, I kind of assumed I’d make the cut.
I didn’t see any fire or brimstone, either.
Not even an endless darkness.  Nothing.
One moment I was clawing at the ice above, skin numb, lungs burning.  Then everything--the ice, the pain, the brightness filtering through the surface of the lake--just vanished.
And then I saw the light.

Delaney fell through the too-thin ice on the lake one day.  She fell through, and she didn’t come back up.  Her best friend, Decker, pulled her out eleven minutes later.  Death was definite; she was blue, cold, and not breathing.  Even if by some miracle Delaney were to live, she’d be in a comatose vegetative state for the rest of her life.  Only she wasn’t.  She was fine.  Or as fine as you could be when you were supposed to be dead but weren’t, which I suppose is really not fine at all.

Fracture took me by surprise with its intense emotions, steady pace, and overall feel.  This was one of those books I was greatly looking forward to, and yet for some reason once I had it in my hands, I let it sit for two months before picking it up.  Once I did, I couldn’t put it down.  I read Fracture in a single sitting, I think I actually put the book down once when I realized I needed sustenance and went to the kitchen for a snack, but I’ll admit it even made bathroom runs with me.  

Fracture instantly grips you into Delaney’s emotional plight, as she miraculously recovers from what should have been death, but despite her being alive, she isn’t the same.  Physically, and mentally, there is something most definitely wrong.  Her brain scans light up like a Christmas tree with areas that shouldn’t be firing properly, but are.  She should have short and long term memory loss, but she doesn’t.  She shouldn’t have control over her body motions, but she does.  Delaney isn’t in top shape, she has broken ribs, intense headaches, and no short of trauma.  She begins to have intense feelings of itch and pull from inside her brain, that draw her to certain places, certain people, as her hands begin to shake.  Her parents and the doctors tell her she is having hallucinations, and believe that she is hurting herself, and hurting others.  Delaney can’t believe this, and with horror she realizes that the pulls are drawing her to death, and that she’s not the only one.

I was surprised at how moved I was by Delaney’s story.  I was expecting an edge of my seat type story, and I got it, but I wasn’t expecting the dive into depression that Fracture took.  Both Delaney and her mother experience intense changes after Delaney’s accident, and have to struggle not to drown in their own hopeless states.  I went in thinking Delaney’s drowning was over before I started, but I ended knowing Delaney had been grasping for the surface for the duration of the book.  She has to grapple not only with her new abilities and physical changes, but with a complete upheaval in her home life, her school aspirations, and her relationships with friends.  Delaney has a surprising sense of mortality for someone so young, even beyond the reality that she should by all rights be dead.

It was sad to me how few friends Delaney really seemed to have.  It was like she was part of a group, but Decker was really the only one she let herself be close to.  While this never hurt before, when Delaney and Decker begin struggling with their own emotions, she has no one else to turn to and Decker basically ‘wins’ their mutual friends by default.  This upset me in no small part because I really wanted to love Decker.  I totally fell for him in the first chapter, when he breaks down in utter relief at Delaney’s revival, but then his actions through the rest of the book frustrate me to no end, and I ended up despising him and all of their other so called friends.  And then, there’s Troy.  Troy, the one person who can really understand what Delaney’s going through.  I want to hate Troy as much as I want to love Decker, but again, I can’t.  More than anything, I pity him.  When he meets Delaney, Troy finally feels that he’s no longer alone in the world, and I cannot fathom that kind of relief and intensity of emotion.

Fracture, to me, was an interesting observation on life, death, and healing.  It recognizes that often in the face of tragedy, the person whose tragedy it is gets pushed to the side as those around them need comfort.  While I loved that Fracture was a stand alone novel, I will say my biggest disappointment was the end.  It felt abrupt, and too out of touch with the overall story.  I wanted a little more of an outlook to the future, or at least an acknowledgement that there would be a future, however difficult or easy or sad or happy. Fracture was one of those books that I was completely immersed in, and yet liked much less than I expected when all was said and done.

Likelihood that I'll be back for more:  I will happily read whatever Megan Miranda comes up with next.  Fracture was a solid debut, and judging from it Miranda has immense potential.

Recommended for:  People who enjoy unreliable narrators, and some twists to their contemporary reads.  I’d say Fracture has a similar set up to If I Stay balance-wise, but reads more like Fury.

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Review: There is No Dog by Meg Rosoff

Title: There Is No Dog [Amazon|GoodReads]
Author: Meg Rosoff [Website|Twitter]
Standing: Stand alone novel.
Genre: Speculative Fiction
Published: January 24th, 2012 by Penguin Group USA Inc (First published August 2nd, 2011 by Doubleday Canada).
Format: Hardcover; 256 pages.
Source: Borrowed from my local library.

Perhaps the way to succeed is to think of life on Earth as a colossal joke, a creation of such immense stupidity that the only way to live is to laugh until you think your heart will break.

You know God?  He’s kind of a dick.  It’s not all his fault though, he’s incredibly spoiled, and his mother won this planet for him ages ago in a poker game, even though he was completely unqualified for the job.  He’s only 19 after all, and like most teenagers, he mucks a lot of things up.  People created in his own image?  What was that about?  Tying the weather to his emotions?  Probably not the best move.  And the duck billed platypus just had to be the product of boredom and alcohol.  Luckily, Mr. B is always about to wade through the paperwork and attempt to keep some order.  This is next to impossible, however, when Bob (that’s God) decides he’s in love with (another) human girl.  He won’t be happy until Lucy loves him back, but how can he expect her to fall for him when he’s himself?

It is rare that one book can make so many different factions equally happy.  There Is No Dog will satisfy optimists, pessimists, atheists, religious people (okay, maybe it’ll insult quite a few religious people, but personally I loved it), etc.  Basically, it’s the perfect book for that old question--”Is the glass half empty or half full?”  

Okay, okay, maybe There is No Dog isn’t really the book for everyone.  It’s very quirky, whimsical, and off-kilter.  Some people might deem it just plain weird.  But me?  I loved it.  The spirit of it reminded me very much of some of my all time favorite reads, like Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens or Douglas Adams’s Long, The Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.  The entire time I was reading I was thinking ‘Jim Dale needs to do this audio’, as the tone reminded me very much of the narration to Pushing Daisies.

I adored the writing style of this book.  It’s written in third person omniscient perspective, in which perception flits from character to character in a way that many readers find unnerving, but I personally enjoy very much when done well.  In There is No Dog, it was done very well indeed!  We get to see into most of the character’s thoughts at some time, including into Eck’s, which was one of my favorites.  Eck is a furry penguiny ardvarky creature, who despite being an animal has some very real concerns about life (his in particular).  The characters are divided between the immortal, and the mortal, the practical, and the impractical, and I liked that the lines weren’t always cut and dry the way one would expect. I particularly loved that while Bob was seemingly the main character, he was so unlikable. We have zero invested in him or his success, and as such, get to love and cheer for so many of the other wonderful characters around him. I mean, how often do you find yourself actively cheering for the downfall of your protagonist?

While There is No Dog may have presented some questions about religion, it was ultimately a book about faith.  It was full of hope, wisdom, the miraculous, and a pleasant outlook for living life.  It was full of rich characters who were both selfish, romantic, goodhearted, and fun, though yes, it was a little weird too.

Likelihood that I'll be back for more:  Oh I’ve been meaning to read Meg Rosoff for ages, and now that I fell head over heals with There is No Dog I’ll certainly be pushing her other books up the pipeline.

Recommended for:  People who enjoy quirky reads ala Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, etc.  

Real life repercussions of reading this book:  Someone buy me an Eck, please!  Or you can buy your own.

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Review: Slide by Jill Hathaway

Title: Slide [Amazon|GoodReads]
Author: Jill Hathaway [Website|Twitter|Facebook]
Standing: Book one in a new series.
Genre: Young Adult, Speculative Fiction, Mystery
Published: March 27th, 2012 by Balzer & Bray for HarperCollins
Format: Kindle edition.
Source: ARC from publisher via NetGalley.
Challenge: Debut Author Challenge

...it’s wrong that death is a loss.  It’s something you gain.  Death is always there, whispering in your ear.  It’s in the spaces between your fingers.  In your memories.  In everything you think and say and feel and wish.  It’s always there.

Everyone knows Vee has a problem, they just don’t really know what it is.  Diagnosed as narcoleptic, Vee passess out on an increasingly regular basis.  What everyone doesn’t know, is that when she’s unconscious, she slides.  Vee finds herself looking through the eyes of other people, an unwilling passenger to their lives, unable to look away.  When her little sister’s best friend supposedly commits suicide, Vee’s the only witness who knows the truth--Sophie didn’t kill herself, she was murdered.  Now, Vee is forced to remain silent for fear of being labeled crazy, but she is compelled to solve Sophie’s murder and stop the killer before more harm can come to her sister.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Guy and girl are best friends, but their friendship is on the brink of unraveling because it’s pretty clear that one (or both) of them has feelings for the other beyond friendship, but they’re too wound up to actually talk about it and instead start pushing each other away.  New guy comes to town and sees said girl as ‘special’, and is totally into her even though she’s probably not hot/popular/his type enough for him and her life is completely screwed up right now, but he sees beyond all that to the unique flower that is her.

Sound familiar?  If so, you might find aspects of Slide as tedious and wrote as I did.  But (yes, there is a BUT), I will tell you that luckily, this played out love triangle is a considerably minor part of the plot.  For me, there was plenty more to Vee and the mystery and suspense of Slide to keep me turning pages at top speed until I reached the end, leaving me liking Jill Hathaway’s debut much more than I was expecting to when I was about ⅓ of the way through.

Thankfully, Vee Bell isn’t just about the boys in her life.  Vee is quite possibly one of the best big sisters I’ve encountered in recent YA.  She doesn’t smother her sister, she lets her make her own mistakes (though let’s face it, I did have that scene from 10 Things I Hate About You where Kat tells Bianca why she ‘quit’ being popular running through my head...they have just about the same dynamic), and yet she has her back and makes taking care of her when she’s down her top priority.  Of course, Vee doesn’t see that she has a choice.  Her mother has passed away, and her father is largely absent due to his job as a surgeon.  Vee has pretty much shouldered the emotional responsibility of an adult twice her age, which is common for the oldest children in this type of family, but the fact remains that she does have the option not to take care of everyone around her.  She’s strong and she does, despite her own cavalcade of problems, and this makes her a winning lead.

Of course, there’s also the mystery.  Slide was a fairly fast paced and thrilling read; Vee’s affliction in which she passes out and ‘slides’ into others was both unique and terrifying.  Vee is drawn into other’s bodies through an empathetic connection made when she is touching an object with emotional significance to another person.  This means she’s basically become OCD, avoiding other people’s belongings and used items (like books) with due care.  When she does slide, she is stuck in that person’s mind.  She cannot read thoughts, control anything, or look away.  As a result, Vee finds herself the only witness to a murder, and knows that if she ever tells she’ll be labeled ‘crazy’ instantly.  In order to appease her fears, Vee must learn to use her curse as a gift.

Slide, for me, brought up some interesting privacy issues.  Vee cannot really control when she slides, and despite her efforts to control who, often seems to overlook items that might direct her.  She realizes the secrets she knows about people because of her affliction are a horrible invasion of privacy, and yet, she also begins to feel that it is okay to invade someone's privacy if you have good intentions.  I had a hard time with this sentiment, although I could see the logic that brought her to this conclusion.  As someone who values our privacy and freedom with the utmost dedication, I found it hard to stomach the notion that this type of ‘spying’ might be justifiable in order to make someone feel better. It does help to solve the mystery, but it's also no surprise that it blows up in Vee's face as well.

I appreciated Slide’s nauseating typeface on the cover, but will say that I was disappointed in the story’s end.  It just seemed too convenient to me.  All in all, a take it or leave it kind of read.  It went very quickly, and I enjoyed it, but I didn’t have to have this book in my life. The concept for me was cooler than the actual story.

Likelihood that I'll be back for more:  Eh, not sure.  Upon finishing Slide, I remarked that I actually ended up liking it more than I thought I was going to, but at the same time I don’t really see the need to make this a series.  Not sure I’ll be reading the next installment, but who knows, maybe I will.

Recommended for:  People looking for mystery and suspense, but only if you’re willing to overlook some overplayed tropes to get it.  The book it reminded me most of ‘feel’ wise was Fracture by Megan Miranda.

Real life repercussions of reading this book:  For the love of all that is good, I cannot even think the title of this book without getting the Goo Goo Dolls in my head.  

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Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Title: If I Stay [Amazon|GoodReads]
Author: Gayle Forman [Website|Twitter|Facebook]
Standing:Book 1 of 2, followed by Where She Went.
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Speculative Fiction
Published: April 9th, 2009 by Dutton Juvenile
Format: E-book edition; 177 pages.  
Source: Borrowed from my local library.


Summary from GoodReads (because I don't have it in me to write one):

In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeen year- old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck...

A sophisticated, layered, and heartachingly beautiful story about the power of family and friends, the choices we all make -and the ultimate choice Mia    commands.

So for weeks I’ve been struggling with the notion of whether or not I was ever going to get a review written for If I Stay.  I couldn’t see a way to do it without making it somewhat personal, but then I read Rachel Hawkin’s amazeballs review of The Fault in Our Stars and felt totally inspired (yo...honest to God tears/laughing at the end).  I saw that sometimes when a book really hits home it’s okay to internalize it and let people know how it really affected you, because that’s what gives the book power.  

I wasn’t sure I was ever going to read If I Stay.  See, I knew it was about a girl who got in a horrible car accident with her family, and somehow got to determine whether she lived or not in the aftermath.  Do you ever avoid books that hit too close to home because you either don’t want those feelings dredged up again, or you don’t want someone who hasn’t been through that type of situation dictating how it feels?  I do.  On my twelfth birthday, my family got in a horrible car accident.  And just like in If I Stay, that’s what it was.  An accident.  We rolled our Suburban eight times down the middle of I90 in Montana at 85 miles per hour (yes, at the time, this was a legal speed).  My brother and I emerged miraculously unscathed.  Yeah, we were bruised, cut, and were picking glass out of our scalps for weeks, but nothing broken, nothing internally damaged.  Our mother was killed.  It sucked balls, it still sucks.  I’ve never been able to have a real ‘happy’ birthday since.  And to have to think ‘we were lucky’ because my brother and I were okay, and have people say ‘God has a plan for her, it was her time’ still makes me so unbelievably angry I could punch babies.  So I have a bit of a hard time reading books or watching movies about car accidents the way others have a hard time reading books about cancer.

I think that the number one thing I grabbed onto in this book for stability was the reality of the situation as an accident.  There was no drunk driver to blame it on, sometimes normal people under normal circumstances make a mistake that has very beyond normal consequences.  Thank you Gayle Forman for recognizing that.  Sometimes shit happens. It isn’t anybody’s fault, it just does.  

Also, I had Mia to hold on to.  I loved Mia, and I adored her family.  She was a quiet, introverted, musically inclined teen who actually liked hanging out with her family.  I grew up in a music loving family (both my parents are/were musicians, and my father owns the local music store) and I always loved hanging out with my family too.  Mia was mature beyond her years, but still was faced with one of the most impossible decisions imaginable.  The story cuts between what Mia is experiencing after the car accident and memories of her life before.  Her love for her family, her experiences playing cello, her best friend, and Adam, the love of her life.  If I Stay made me break down, and no book, not even Thirteen Reasons Why has made me do that in a very, very long time.  It was refreshing, like cleaning up the soul a bit.  It’s important to remember that sometimes what comes next doesn’t have to be answered.

My parents aren’t here.  They are not holding my hand, or cheering me on.  I know them well enough to know that if they could, they would.  Maybe not both of them.  Maybe Mom would stay with Teddy while Dad watched over me.  But neither of them is here.

And it’s while contemplating this that I think about what the nurse said.  She’s running the show.  And suddenly I understand what Gramps was really asking Gran.  He had listened to that nurse, too.  He got it before I did.

If I stay.  If I live.  It’s up to me.

All the business about medically induced comas is just doctor talk.  It’s not up to the doctors.  It’s not up to the absentee angels.  It’s not even up to God, who, if He exists, is nowhere around right now.  It’s up to me.

How am I supposed to decide this?  How can I possibly stay without Mom and Dad?  How can I leave without Teddy?  Or Adam?  This is too much.  I don’t even understand how it all works, why I’m here in the state that I’m in or how to get out of it if I wanted to.  If I were to say, I want to wake up, would I wake up right now?  I already tried snapping my heels to find Teddy and trying to beam myself to Hawaii, and that didn’t work.  This seems a whole lot more complicated.

But in spite of that, I believe it’s true.  I hear the nurse’s words again.  I am running the show.  Everyone is waiting on me.

I decide.  I know this now.

And this terrifies me more than anything else that has happened today.

Likelihood that I'll be back for more: I still can't decide! I have Where She Went, but I'm not sure if I'm ready yet to find out what happens next.

Recommended for: People in the mood for an emotionally powerful read, people with close families, and people who just want to be reminded that sometimes shit happens. This is a great one-sitting type read.

Real life repercussions of reading this book:  I’m sorry that this review was so personal, I usually try not to do that, but there was really no other way for me to talk about this book.  I could have gone on a lot more, but I did resist. On the bright side, I finally read it because I will get to see and meet Gayle Forman today at a library association meeting!

Review: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Title: Beauty Queens [Amazon|GoodReads]
Author: Libba Bray [Website|Twitter|Facebook]
Standing: Stand alone novel.
Genre: Young Adult, Humor, Speculative Fiction
Published: May 24th, 2011 by Scholastic Press
Format: Audiobook; 14.5 hours.  Read by Libba Bray
Source: Borrowed from my local library.

According to the acknowledgements, David Levithan at one point says to Libba Bray, “A plane full of beauty queens crashes on a desert island and....go!”  And she did.  

Here’s a rough outline of what to expect from the audiobook of Beauty Queens: The girls of Drop Dead Gorgeous get plane-wrecked on an island containing an evil volcano lair and meet sexy reality T.V. pirates. Kind of awesome, huh?  


Let’s meet the (surviving) Miss Teen Dream contestants!

Miss New Hampshire:

Adina is working as an undercover investigative journalist bent on taking the pageant down and exposing it for the misogynistic racket it is.  She’s overly caustic, sarcastic, jaded, bitter, and full of contempt for Miss Teen Dream and the other girls.

Miss Nebraska:

Don’t be fooled by Mary Lou’s extreme Fargo accent (sorry Libba Bray, people from Nebraska do not talk like that.  Neither do people from Fargo for that matter...my cousins from Wisconsin kinda do...), she’s not just the country girl next door.  Mary Lou observes all the Midwest niceties, but deep down she’s a wild one longing for adventures as a pirate queen.

Miss Texas:

Taylor is Texan through and through, and she takes her Miss Teen Dream seriously.  Deadly seriously.  She insists on continuing pageant prep, non-offensive language, chipper can-do attitudes, and no shenanigans.  There’s always been a Miss Texas in the Top 10, and Taylor plans to go all the way.

Miss Colorado:

Nicole is a pre-pre med student in it to place and garner some scholarship money.  Let’s face it, Nicole is black, and the only African American woman to ever win Miss Team Dream went down in shame.  It’s not likely to happen again.  

Miss California:

Shanti is fighting Nicole for the minority vote, presenting her case as the well-adjusted child of Indian immigrants.  She knows how to make papadon in the tradition of her grandmother, she has charming stories about her parents, her talent is traditional Indian dance.  And she hates when you call her “Bollywood”.  

Miss Michigan:

Jennifer is a juvie-turned-beauty-queen project of her guidance counsellor, and Miss Teen Dream is supposed to set her on a better path.  Jennifer is our mechanically inclined, comic-book loving lesbian, whose personal motto is: WWWWD?  What Would Wonder Woman Do?

Miss Illinois:

Sossi gets the handicapped vote for being hearing impaired (though she’s annoyed that people won’t just up and say ‘deaf’).  She is amazeballs because she started an all-hearing impaired dance troupe named Helen Kellerbration.  Puns may make terrible jokes, but they make fantastic group/team/roller derby names.

Miss Rhode Island:

Petra is the tall, big-handed, hormonally challenged secretive girl from the Northeast.  She knows every lyric to every Boys Will Be Boys song, has a heart of gold and patience to boot.  As a nearly 6’ girl myself, I find the insinuations that Petra is “big” to be a bit insulting, but yes, finding size 11 heals that don’t look like ass is hard.  

Miss Mississippi:

Tiara may not be able to spell Mississippi (or douche), but she represents with pride.  She’s the sweet resident ditz, who’s not nearly as dumb as she comes off (some of the time), and depending on your opinion of kittens you will either want to put her in your pocket or see her drown.

Miss Alabama:

Essentially, Brittani is Tiara’s twin, though she seems slightly more intelligent.  Also, non-essentially, she’s more-or-less a filler character.  So let’s address the other fillers while we’re at it:

Miss Arkansas, Miss New Mexico, Miss Ohio, and Miss Montana:

They’re just here for the show people.  They’re the group of friends whose experience on the island we don’t much acknowledge.  Oh and Miss New Mexico has a tray stuck in her forehead.

Looking for a rep of another state?  Too bad, they’re dead.  Check the floating bodies in the water or the frying ones in the plane fire.  Let’s get on with the story...

Up front, these beauty queens are pretty easy to pass off as a largely unlikable bunch.  Adina, and Taylor in particular, as the two extremes of pageantry garner the least sympathies.  However, as the story draws on, it’s easy to see that there is much more to these young women.  Each of them has entered for her own reasons, presenting us with a myriad of bad stereotypes and heartwarming truisms.  This book held an interesting dynamic for me, as I am not sure that the characters grew as much as I did while reading about them.  The girls certainly did change and come into their own, but my initial opinions of each of them changed more than they actually did  as I got to know them.  At the end of the book, there wasn’t a one of them I wasn’t rooting for, and luckily Beauty Queens wraps up with an awesome 80s-style flash-forward montage where we get to see how the girls grow up.

This book especially shined in its audiobook form, read by the author herself evoking the spirit of Effie Trinket.  Libba Bray was excellent at the accents (with the exception of the aforementioned Miss Nebraska, but a villain who talks like Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory more than made up for this), and voices were done in a way that made the speaker instantly identifiable despite the amount of characters.  The footnotes had the fun chime of an airplane announcement, and the commercial interruptions came with fitting music.  I find the use of footnotes in general to be annoying, but the chime certainly helped, and I tend to overuse parenthesis, so who am I to talk?  Besides, there was this:

Footnote 50: Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.

That said, Beauty Queens was positively dripping in satire.  I was torn between just enjoying the ride, and feeling I needed to think about what was being said with the thick and abundant placement of “The Corporation”.  In the end, I’m left wondering if Bray was really trying to say something with this book, or if it was all in good fun and just a laugh.  I truly believe I would have enjoyed this book more as a teen myself, when I was myself every bit as caustic and sarcastic as Adina (okay, so I still am, but I think I’m less jaded now).  

In the end, I felt that Beauty Queens had all of the quirkiness of a Bryan Fuller show without the charm.  It's a whole new world of pretty, people.

Likelihood that I'll be back for more: 100%.  Libba Bray’s upcoming book, The Diviners was on my Top Ten list of books I’m looking forward to reading in 2011.  I’m wondering which Libba Bray we’ll see here, the Going Bovine/Beauty Queens Libba Bray, or the Gemma Doyle Libba Bray.  Personally, I am hoping that she is able to find a happy medium between the two, and given the setting of the 1920s and promised ridiculousness, I’m thinking it just might be possible.

Recommended for:  People who like their satire laid on thick, or those who might enjoy a literary mocumentary. People who enjoyed Going Bovine.

Real life repercussions of reading this book:  The repeated use of the phrase “Beauty is pain.” gave me some horrible flashbacks to my childhood babysitter who used to say this as she French braided my unruly curly hair so tight I cried.