Say What You Will

Say What You Will

(Image from bubblegumpost.com)

Cammie McGovern

Trigger Warnings for the book: Death mentions, disease, alcohol use, drug mentions

Born with cerebral palsy, Amy can't walk without a walker, talk without a voice box, or even fully control her facial expressions. Plagued by obsessive-compulsive disorder, Matthew is consumed with repeated thoughts, neurotic rituals, and crippling fear. Both in desperate need of someone to help them reach out to the world, Amy and Matthew are more alike than either ever realized.

When Amy decides to hire student aides to help her in her senior year at Coral Hills High School, these two teens are thrust into each other's lives. As they begin to spend time with each other, what started as a blossoming friendship eventually grows into something neither expected.

Yes, I ripped the description off Amazon. Sue me, I hate trying to summarize contemporary books. Anyway, this book... *sigh, runs hand through hair* How to describe this book...

Let me start by saying I did not hate this book. I also didn't love it. But I can't say my opinion was neutral, either. There were a bunch of high points, but also some low points, and instead of cancelling each other out, it just dizzied my opinion on the book. So I'll section this review into two parts- positive and negative.

Positive

(I wish I could make that rainbow and sparkly, but, alas, I don't know how to do a glitter effect. Maybe another time.)

 Point One. This book was honest. I saw it compared to The Fault in Our Stars and just kinda... Well, the Fault in Our Stars isn't an honest book. It's pretty romanticized (listen as the nerdfighters gasp and plot their revenge against me). Say What You Will had an air of, "This is just how it is. There's no need to doll up the truth." Which, I've gotta say, I love. Thank you, Ms. McGovern, for giving the book the most genuine feel I've ever read.

Point Two. Stories about disabilities that aren't completely, "Look, people with disabilities! Existing! So brave!" are hard to come by. Inspiration may be nice, but there's no need to used disabled people as your pawn in the inspiration game. Another thank you to the author for not making Amy an object to gawk at. Amy (and Matthew) went way beyond the feel-good-story characters I expected.

Point Three. Not only were the characters people, they were good people! Interesting people! Honestly, if at the end of the book there was a little note that said "Surprise! There is no Cammie McGovern! This is a joint autobiography!" I might not actually be surprised. They sounded so real.

Point Four. Frrriiiieeeennnddddshhhhiiiiiipppppp. Instalove and enemies-turned-lovers are my two least favorite kinds of romance. Friendship based love is totally the best. It's realistic and warm and fuzzy without the lustity-lust-lust atmosphere I get from love at first sight, or basically anything where the Love Interest(TM)'s first description is that he/she was so hot that you'd melt looking at them.

Point Five. The romance was pretty darn great too. It didn't morph their relationship into something weird and unrecognizable. [Congratulations! It's a spoiler!] And then, when sex did come up, it wasn't an immediate take-off-your-clothes-we're-not-even-gonna-think-about-it thing. Why does that keep happening? I have no idea. But it's nice to get a break from it. [The spoiler disappeared, never to be seen again] Okay, I'm gonna have to say, it was pretty cute. There. You heard it from me, folks.

Negative

Sadly, we'd have to get to this eventually. Even with all the good stuff there was:

Negative Point One. [Wake me up... when the spoilers end] The baby. Yup. Third novel on here with a useless baby. It's not that it wasn't important to the plot, really, it's just there are so many better plot points that could have been used. I don't want another novel with the main girl getting pregnant. I don't need that. No one needs that. It's getting old, people. I'm also absolutely terrified that the book I'm reading now is going to do that. At least in this book the baby's put up for adoption. We really, really don't need another BABY. BABY ALL. ONLY BABY NOW. BABY LIFE. BABY BABY BABY. Story. [Goodbye, spoiler! We'll miss you! Write home!]

Negative Point Two. Near the end, the book went from awesome to a bit weird. Like the author wasn't sure what else to day after [Yeah, one more spoiler.] Amy went missing. [I knew your spoiler. It was a good man.] It became harder to really feel for the situation.

Negative Point Three. More of *sigh, flop onto the couch* The Other Girls. And here's the confusing part. Amy had a more mild case of The Other Girls syndrome than Matthew. She at least accepted them like people. Matthew went so far as slut shaming and acting like Amy was the only decent girl. That's, like, a stage four Other Girls case. All I can say is "no".

(If you total it up, it's two points. A mediocre book is zero points. So, uh, above average, I guess?)

~Corinne 

The Milk of Birds

The Milk of Birds

(image from its goodreads page)

Sylvia Whitman

Nawra, a refugee displaced by the Janjaweed's destruction, lives in Darfur, Sudan. K.C., an American teenager with a hatred of reading and writing, lives in Richmond, Virginia. Surely sisterhood can't reach over such a divide. But after K.C. is signed up for a nonprofit called Save the Girls, she is put in contact with Nawra. Through letters they bond, and over time they form a friendship no distance can conquer.

Okay, I just wrote possibly the cheesiest sounding summary ever. Okay.

The book was less cheesy. Its writing style was beautiful, littered with the letters between the two. The two points of views were distinct and both very nice. Actually, scrapping the word 'nice'. The views, the characters, the story was amazing.

K.C. is the kind of character I want to see more of. Instead of severe 'not like the other girls' syndrome and a thing for tea, her grades are subpar and her relationship with others in her school is realistic. Wooooooooooooo! I mean, I like tea and all, but it's nice to get away from the sniffy Manic Pixie Dream Girls every once and a while.

Nawra was a great character, but with one flaw. It's that whole no-contractions-poetic-speech thing again. However, she was still a fab PoV character. Love her.

The plot itself was kind of unclear. I'm not sure if there was a goal that was supposed to be reached or what. There was, however, a good amount of character development, so I'll assume it was a SOL (Snippet of Life). Okay, K.C. got a good amount of character development. I'm not certain how much of that attention should have been focused on Nawra.

Okay, I feel bad, because all of my grievances seem to be focused on Nawra, but I had one more thing behind the spoiler brackets. [Just ignore the rest of this (sarcastic after the first sentence) paragraph] Why is it that I have found two books in a very recent span of time that portray the teen character having a baby as super positive? Like, WOW, a BABY. HOW COULD YOUR LIFE GET BETTER than a BABY. BABYS ARE THE BEST. BABYS FIX EVERYTHING. Step aside, future, we've got a BABY. [*heavy, spoilerific breathing over*] Yeah, no, I don't like that. Stop.

Ignoring that, I liked the details that were in the story. The sayings, the details on food and culture. Am I the only one who really likes scenes with characters eating? It just brings me this sense that they're real people. I could be the only one who thinks that, though.

*Long sigh* Okay, I have exactly one more complaint. Just one. IT'LL BE IT, I SWEAR. It's the kind of white savior complex going on. Like the idea that K.C. is rescuing Nawra by being from America and having money. I didn't word it right, but it makes sense in context of the book, trust me.

The descriptions were fan. Not purple, for one, which I almost expected from Nawra's voice. Not beige from K.C.'s end. Very nice, very nice. *Golf clapping*

Also, subplots! I love subplots. And these were perfect, not distracting from the main plot (if there was one), but also not too minor to catch. Well-written subplots make stories feel so much better.

Last, romance. WOOOOOOOO IT WASN'T OVERLY DISTRACTING AND ANNOYING. WOOOOOO MY EXPECTATIONS ARE SO LOW THAT A DECENT ROMANCE IS SOMEHOW LIKE THE FOURTH OF JULY. Still, great!

(Oh my God I missed the second queue use noooooo.)

(There's a reference to my next review in here.)

~Corinne

(This failed to launch for some reason- here, I have to post it MANUALLY. UGH.)

The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls

The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls

(From julieschmaucer.com)

Julie Schmaucer

Adrienne Haus liked reading, she really did, just not with other people. And most certainly not when she's signed up for a mother-daughter book club. She has three other literary prisoners to keep her company- Jill, who was pressured into it because she 'needed to socialize', CeeCee, who bashed up her parents car and had her trip to Paris canceled, and Wallis who, for reasons unknown, actually wanted to come.
Of course, it couldn't be a regular book club where you eat fancy crackers and discuss classics. Book clubs can kill.
... Uhhh... Well, I've got to say, I can't explain it that well. I assure you it was a good book. I shall now review it.
I'm going to start in the exact way I do not enjoy starting- I LOVED this book. Correction, I loved the book after I was done. Not in a 'thank Moosamoset it's over' way, but because it took a while to really get into the book. And then it basically strapped you in, and in a gruff voice said, "You know you ain't comin' out again, right?" You, fortunately, have no control as to whether or not the car starts, since it was a rhetorical question. Then you laugh and scream and cry like a maniac.
And that's when the ride starts.
First turn, laugh. This book was awesome. It didn't try to force humor where it wasn't welcome and it didn't go bland. Though there were a couple moments which I think might have possibly probably were supposed to be jokes that didn't quite make sense.
Second turn, and you scream. I'm sorry, but somewhere in this review I have to mention the books weak points. None of them are actually scream-worthy, luckily. Just a couple of pet peeves  of mine that I must now whine on.
Okay, so I already mentioned that it was slow to get into. Yeah. Okay. Won't go farther on that. And you know how great I am at complaining about MCs, but there was only one little thing that irritated me about her, and I'm sure we've all seen this problem before: If she's such a bookworm, why does she only read classics? I get it, they're easily recognizable and their copyrights have probably expired, but still. Can one YA MC read, well, YAs? What kind can't you type up a bad summary of a random idea in the back of your mind and call it a book? You don't even need a title.
And then, per every book that wants to send a message, there is the drinking scene. I shall summarize all of such scenes, this book's included. Girl does not EVER NEVER drink. Girl is offered alcohol. Girl takes alcohol. Girl complains about alcohol, either in dialogue or in thought. Girl commences to drink a whole lot. Drunk scene. Faints. Hangover/consequence scene.
Thank you, thank you. I understand this time the scene was actually kind of important to Adrienne's development (shy, unassuming girl becomes rebellious that's just as unique as everyone else), but there could have been a better substitute. Come on, something. If anyone has any idea on a substitute for this scene, please inform me. It's getting boring.
Third turn, now we go up a hill, cry. You bounce along in your seat, both dreading and getting anxious for the inevitable drop you will face, along with the twists and loops of the following track. This is edging towards the climax, so the emotions are tight.
Very tight.
Very, very tight.
Tight as emo jeans.
I appreciate the change in tone from 'summer read' to 'book I will remember and author I will look up to'. This is when I actually grow attached to the characters, when I finally get a favorite. The emotions are right and are shown instead of told. *applause*
You've reached the peak of the hill, and the moment takes centuries of looking down the hill to drop. Then, in the blink of an eye, the climax is over and you're rushing towards the epilogue.
The ending.
The ending the ending the ending.
I LOVED the ending. Eeeeeeee! Plot twist! Twist twist! DON'T CARE.
Not like I get anything such as, say, a few, a lot of my questions answered, but that's part of the ride. You have to answer some of your questions yourself. It's practically inviting fanfiction and giving it a mint as it comes through the door.
Highly recommend it.

It's Raining Cupcakes

It's Raining Cupcakes

Lisa Schroeder

(Image from her website)

Small town girl Isabel is dying to get out of Willow, Oregon. When her mom opens a cupcake shop called It's Raining Cupcakes, she is inspired to enter a baking contest. The grand prize? A trip to New York for finals and a thousand dollars if you win. The only problem is that Isabel's best friend, Sophie, has entered the contest too, and both of them are determined to win.

Reeeeeeview time!

 So, I'll start out with stating the targeted age. It's for about nine to thirteen year olds. And that isn't in Diamond Willow's way that you can think of the main character as another age and have it seem like it's for you, too. It is very apparent who it is for. 

That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, though. It just wasn't 'classic' material. It was still funny and interesting, just not 'deep' or 'educational'.

We start out learning that Isabel's mom wants to open a cupcake shop in the old Bleach-o-Rama, having found a recent love for the art of cupcakes. This was, of course, not rushed at all. And, less sarcastically, not really well planned. Does she always rush headlong into things that are so big? We may never know.

Blablabla, we meet Sophie, a kind of two-dimensional perfect-girl character. She does whatever want and gets whatever she wants. And she introduces Isabel to the baking contest, which Isabel both does and doesn't want to join, since Sophie is joining and Sophie gets everything. Which is now a legitimate reason to give up, which seems kind of odd, since a major subplot is keeping Isabel's mom from giving up when she hears a chain bakery is coming to town.

Isabel's mom encourages Isabel to submit a cupcake recipe, but Isabel thinks that would be too unoriginal. She tries anyways, but doesn't like any of the end results. However, when a new neighbor comes back from England with jam tarts, she's inspired to submit a jam tart recipe without her mother knowing.

 Realizing it may hurt her mother's feelings if she didn't submit a cupcake recipe, though, she throws away the tarts. 

Stuff happens, Sophie steals Isabel's chance for fame in an interview with the family, Isabel laments for a bit, we learn something about the magic of friendship, spoiler, book ends.

Now let's be a bit more straight forward about how I felt.

This book was, no sugar-coating it, okay. Most of the characters were relatively two-dimensional and it wasn't a particularly emotion-inducing book. This may just be because it's for a younger demographic, but it was still somewhat disappointing.

It did, however, keep my interest throughout the story. While it didn't force me to turn the page, I did want to know what happened next and what would happen to our heroine next. 

I'll have to applaud the fact, also, that it wasn't in-your-face about the fact is was a tween book. Instead of some books *dramatic glare into the mist of horrible writing*, it did not act like the very life of all people under twenty was to mall crawl and text. The voice was believable and relatable, and I didn't want to punch the author in the face. Trust me, this is a big step up from how I usually feel about tween books.

The style was kind of beige (but at least it wasn't purple, right?), but it was still a good read for a rainy day. Eh, three stars, maybe add a half star for the ending (and the recipes, but shhhhhh). 

Also, in other related news, the author has another book called Sprinkles and Secrets, which is a sequel.