Review: A Corner of White

A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty
Publication date: April 1, 2013
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books

This is a tale of missing persons. Madeleine and her mother have run away from their former life, under mysterious circumstances, and settled in a rainy corner of Cambridge (in our world).

Elliot, on the other hand, is in search of his father, who disappeared on the night his uncle was found dead. The talk in the town of Bonfire (in the Kingdom of Cello) is that Elliot's dad may have killed his brother and run away with the Physics teacher. But Elliot refuses to believe it. And he is determined to find both his dad and the truth.

As Madeleine and Elliot move closer to unraveling their mysteries, they begin to exchange messages across worlds -- through an accidental gap that hasn't appeared in centuries. But even greater mysteries are unfolding on both sides of the gap: dangerous weather phenomena called "color storms;" a strange fascination with Isaac Newton; the myth of the "Butterfly Child," whose appearance could end the droughts of Cello; and some unexpected kisses...

I'm going to say that A CORNER OF WHITE is one of the most creative YA novels to be released this year. I might even already call it the most creative. GASP! Yeah, I went there.

Moriarty's fairytale world where Elliot lives is one I've never read about before. It's almost like the modern world in which we live, but with lots of magic and fairytale elements. It's not like urban fantasy, so maybe it's rural fantasy. Get it? Because Elliot lives in farming country? What I think I found the most interesting was the idea of color storms. In Cello, they have various color storms (i.e. red, yellow, purple) where each is more dangerous than the others. It's a new and creative idea. Or at least it is to me from all that I've read, because I haven't read everything. #Angiefact

As for Madeleine's world, which would be our own modern one, it's...well...our own modern one.

A CORNER OF WHITE contains Moriarty's witty dialogue and fantastic characters. The dual main characters Elliot and Madeleine are easy to sympathize and laugh along with. As for the secondary characters, I love when I can grow to adore them just as much as the protagonists, and the author didn't disappoint me here.

I like how Madeleine and Elliot connect with each other from two different worlds, and how their stories are intertwined. Speaking of stories, my main fault with the book is that I found the story to drag at parts which, unfortunately, didn't keep me reading sometimes. Unlike Moriarty's past books which I've loved (Feeling Sorry For Celia, anyone?) and couldn't put down. I give lots of Angie Points (I just created these) to the author for starting a series that I found to be completely different from what she's written before. I think the final product is a success, minus a few parts of the book I found to be slow.

Author Interview, Review, and Giveaway: Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters

Meredith Zeitlin's debut novel FRESHMAN YEAR & OTHER UNNATURAL DISASTERS comes out on March 1st! Check out my interview with Meredith below and my review afterwards (of the book, not the interview. If you want a review of that, well, it went quite smashing!).

Meredith Zeitlin is a writer and voiceover artist who lives in Brooklyn with two adorable feline roommates. She also writes a column for Ladygunn Magazine, changes her hair color every few months, and has many fancy pairs of spectacles.

If you want to know more about Meredith's voiceover work, check out www.mzspeaks.com.

Interview:
What is your favorite 9^th grade memory? 
Getting cast as Young Iphigenia in the fall play, "Iphigenia at Aulis." I'd started at a new school that year - a very competitive all girls' school - and wasn't sure exactly where I'd fit in, especially that early in the school year when I was still making friends. Seeing my name on the bulletin board, and being congratulated by my classmates, felt incredible.

What is your least favorite?
That would be later the same day, when I made the very large mistake of walking up to a junior (who had also been cast in the show) and living out the Julie Nelson cafeteria scene that is now in my book. She tortured me for the next two years. I kept my big mouth shut after that. Well, I tried to, anyway...

Review: Try Not to Breathe

Try Not to Breathe by Jennifer R. Hubbard
Publication date: January 19, 2012
Publisher: Viking

Sixteen-year-old Ryan is fresh out of a mental hospital and trying to figure out how to reboot his life after a suicide attempt. He spends most of his time alone at the local waterfall, partly to avoid his overprotective mother, but mostly because standing under the hammering water is the only thing that makes him feel alive - it's a way to test himself. Then Nicki charges into his world, brimming with life and energy, shattering the pane of glass that Ryan has built up around him. Nicki asks questions about Ryan's depression that no one has ever been brave enough - or cared enough - to ask. She's demanding and impossible to ignore. Ryan and Nicki quickly begin to confide in one another, sharing secrets they never thought they'd tell anyone. Those confessions have consequences neither of them expected, but trusting Nicki just might be the catalyst Ryan desperately needs to start living again.

Try Not to Breathe is a breath of fresh air (pun intended?). It gave me a nice break from all of the supernatural and dystopian YA books out in the world. Surprisingly, with the main subject of depression and suicide, it's not depressing so chances are you won't be balling your eyes out by the end. Yay, you can read it in public! I instantly connected with the main character Ryan. All of the characters are well-fleshed out and Ryan and Nicki are perfect foils of each other. The book is a slow build, but it never left me bored. Hubbard has a fantastic and very mature "show, don't tell" writing style. I enjoyed her writing up until the end. And by the way, there is a shocking "reveal" that I was not expecting.

Try Not to Breathe is a real book dealing with a real issue that most people don't talk about, so I enjoyed following Ryan's story. It's not a book that changed my life or taught me anything new, but I was so disappointed when I had to leave Ryan behind at the end of the book!

P.S. I've been trying to write this book review for four days. It's a book that resonated with me on a personal level so it was difficult writing the review without sharing too much personal information that I didn't feel comfortable with sharing. Hence, the feeling of disconnect and suckiness in the review. ;) I did like the book, though. I liked it a lot and just wanted to share it.

Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
Publication date: January 3, 2012
Publisher: Poppy

Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. She's stuck at JFK, late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon to be step-mother that Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's in seat 18C. Hadley's in 18A. Twists of fate and quirks of timing play out in this thoughtful novel about family connections, second chances and first loves. Set over a 24-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.

Let me preface this review by saying how much I love This Book. Let me also preface that I will be referring to The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight as "This Book" because the actual title is too darn difficult to type more than once.

I'm automatically drawn to anything related to the UK and I enjoy the thought of love, so I had to read the book. I specifically j'adore London and always have. I want to live there and work there and marry there and have English babies there with my English husband named Oliver (after reading This Book, his name has to be Oliver). Before delving into it, I assumed that the book was going to follow Hadley and Oliver's relationship, but I was surprised to see how little there is of Hadley and Oliver and how much there is of Hadley and her father. This is not a complaint, merely an observation. See, Hadley is on her way to London to attend her father's wedding as a bridesmaid to the woman who Hadley's father left her and her mother for. How AWKWARD is that?? That's a rhetorical question because obviously the situation is completely awkward. Anyway, the relationship that Hadley has with her dad really hit home with me and I may have gotten more emotional than some other readers, but that's probably because of my daddy issues. Moving on...how cute are Hadley and Oliver?? If your answer is SO FREAKING CUTE I WANT TO SQUEEZE THEM UNTIL THEY DIE then you are correct. From the moment those two get together, I knew that they were meant for each other and not just because the book told me that they were, though I'm sure that helped a lot. I think it shows great writing talent when an author can introduce love interests and have them fall for each other in a 24 hour period (or a 250 or so page book) and make it read naturally, not forced. The dialogue feels natural, the settings are brought to life with Smith's descriptions, the characters are three-dimensional.

I'm pretty positive that this is just a one-off book, but I know I wouldn't mind reading many many more books following Hadley and Oliver. In future adventures, they could be eating breakfast or could go to a baseball game or something like that. I don't even like baseball, but if Hadley and Oliver were doing it, I'd find it very interesting.

This Book can make you feel every emotion. It can make you laugh, it can make you uncomfortable, it could make you cry...it WILL most definitely make you want to jump on an airplane to somewhere in hopes that you'll sit next to your own Oliver, but honestly, in all probability, you'll end up sitting next to an inappropriate space hog like I did on my last flight.

Review: The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Publication Date: January 10, 2012
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile / Penguin

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

Books that make me the most emotional tend to be the hardest for me to review, so I don't know how I'm going to put my thoughts on The Fault in Our Stars in to words, but I will try. Maybe I'll start with adjectives: beautiful, heart-wrenching, heartwarming, hilarious, meaningful...there, that's a good start...

John does a fantastic job of balancing the humor and the dramatic and nothing ever becomes overdone. There is no melodrama which is an easy trap to fall into when writing on this topic. It's all too real of a novel. I immediately fell in love with Hazel and when Augustus entered the scene...GUH. LOVE. BOTH OF THEM. LOVE. I think that's all that I can express on that. The whole cast of characters are well thought out and create a great ensemble. This is definitely a novel that when it ends, you want to know what happens to every single person in the story: Who's dead? Who's happy? Who's dead and happy?

I laughed and cried and laughed and cried and cried and cried and laughed and finished the book sobbing. It is a novel that stays with you long after you read it. Gorgeous.

You know, I wish there was such thing as a John Green theme park. A theme park where I could meet all the characters in his books and have my picture taken with them and put their autographs in a little autograph book. Someone should get on this.

Review: Catching Jordan

Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally
Publication date: December 1, 2011
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Thanks to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the eGalley!

What girl doesn't want to be surrounded by gorgeous jocks day in and day out? Jordan Woods isn't just surrounded by hot guys, though - she leads them as the captain and quarterback on her high school football team. They all see her as one of the guys, and that's just fine. As long as she gets her athletic scholarship to a powerhouse university. But now there's a new guy in town who threatens her starring position on the team... and has her suddenly wishing to be seen as more than just a teammate.

I dislike sports, which means I dislike football. This book is full of American football. Football references are all over the place. And guess what?

I had so much fun reading it!!

I hated high school and this book made me want to actually go back to it, but only if I could live in the world of Catching Jordan and only if the characters could be my best friends. I've never been a huge fan of contemporary fiction but it's been authors like Stephanie Perkins and now Miranda Kenneally that are showing me how much fun it can be. I think this is the first time I've read a book and have loved each and every character (or at least the ones we are supposed to). Kenneally is great at writing natural dialogue and I love that she is so unapologetic about the football references. There's no explanation as to any terms or names used and I like this because it stays true to the narrator, Jordan. Jordan already knows what all of this is, so why would she explain it?

Even though I love the book, there is a problem I have with it. I feel like sex is treated too casually in Catching Jordan, almost like the act itself is not a big deal. I even have this problem in adult fiction, but those are just my personal views so I didn't let it affect my feelings towards it. My name is Angie and apparently I'm a prude.

This book is all about romance so if that's not your thing, then pass this one up. BUT if it's just something you're not looking for right now, go back to this. Remember my first sentence where I said I didn't like football? Well, I want to admit that this book got me interested and maybe, just maybe, it's not as boring as I once thought it was.

Content: language and sexual references

Review: Heist Society

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring Kat back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat, there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

I'm a little late joining the Ally Carter party, so please forgive me as I would like to one day be inducted into the Gallagher Girl club. All I ask for is more reading time! Heist Society is the first book I have read by Carter and I found it to be a fun and enjoyable read! It's almost like the author is tapped into what teen girls want and then gives it to them. Weeeird. Most importantly, I now know how to steal priceless paintings from high security museums. I just need to put together a great team. Let's see, I've got me, my two cats (wow, I'm already a "lonely" lady with cats) and, um, maybe the next guy who picks my pocket? He has to be cute though. I don't want no ugly people working with me.

I feel like it's impossible for anyone to hate the characters in Heist Society except for the ones you're supposed to hate. Loved Kat and Hale and the whole crew. I like Kat's and Hale's "will they or won't they" romance. Though I think the question is more of a WHEN. I love it. Heist Society is a great breezy book and I love all of its wit and quirk. It's sort of like a younger version of Ocean's Eleven and I love that movie. Why isn't this book a movie? Just let me know and I will write it for you. For seriousness.

So if you're looking for a good time...it's in most libraries and has been released in paperback, no excuses.