Book Review: Fangirl

Title: Fangirl
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Year of publication: 2013
Summary: 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? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?


Review:  Reading Fangirl was like peeking into an alternate universe of my life where I lived in Nebraska and had a twin sister. It was like staring in the mirror for too long. It was like being forced underwater mid-breath.

Did I cry? You betcha I did. I cried a lot, probably more than I have in any other book, and I didn’t even like Fangirl at the start. I thought Cather was too like me in all the boring ways and the plot didn’t move fast enough. But that all changed at the halfway point.

Rowell does a fantastic job weaving stories together. She uses foreshadowing just right – in the sort of way that you kind of want to smack yourself in the face with your e-reader because how did you miss that?

The characters were well fleshed out, and so were the relationships between them. Nothing felt contrived there. I liked Levi immediately, with all his smiles and friendliness. I don’t know how anybody could have not.

This book really hit all of my buttons. I worried for Wren, and Cath’s dad. I loathed Laura in the sort of way that hurt a lot, because she reminded me of my own mother. I loved Levi, and the sunshine that radiated off of his character.

This book deserves nothing less than four-and-a-half stars, rounding to five for good measure.

Rating: 5/5 stars
★★★★★

Book Review: Doppelganger

Title: Doppelganger
Author: Milda Harris
Year of publication: 2012
Summary:  Citrus Leahy is having a really bad day. First she's late to school. Then she runs into the girl who drives her nuts because she always calls her Orange instead of her name. To cap it all off, when Citrus finally makes it to class, she sees herself already inside. 

Wait. What? Citrus Leahy has a doppelganger! It's probably aliens taking over the world and her life has just turned totally upside down. Goodbye, normal. Hello, paranormal! Luckily, her crush Aedan has the exact same problem!





Review: **Copy kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

Doppelganger seemed like an intriguing and fun read, that ultimately fell short of expectations. This one is a hard one to review because honestly, there wasn’t much I liked.

The main character, Citrus, was horribly annoying. I guess I could say that the voice of the novel was unique or interesting, but it wasn’t in a good way. Citrus is an airhead and a motormouth - everything she thinks could be condensed in about half time, ridding the novel of the unnecessary rambling and maybe making her connection to the other characters more memorable. It was easy to forget she cared about anybody but herself and Aedan with all the dribble in the way.

All of the people in the novel felt two dimensional - they were nowhere near fleshed out enough, and came out bland and dry with no real flavor attached. I struggled through a lot of this book, there was just nowhere near enough of anything to keep me turning the pages.

The above paired with the author’s writing ability, was a recipe for disaster. Too many adverbs, not enough detail, and words/actions that repeated over and over again. To top it off, the story ended without any real explanation, on a cliffhanger to boot - albeit a bad one, as I have no desire to read on to find out what happens.

Overall, I’d give this story two stars as it was only just bearable. If you’re looking for a story about doppelgangers, there are much better ones out there so keep looking.

Rating: 2/5 stars
★★✰✰✰

Book Review: Appaloosa Summer

Title: Appaloosa Summer
Author: Tudor Robins
Year of publication: 2014
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Meg Traherne has never known loss. Until the beautiful, talented horse she trained herself, drops dead underneath her in the show ring.

Jared Strickland has been living with loss ever since his father died in a tragic farming accident.

Meg escapes from her grief by changing everything about her life; moving away from home to spend her summer living on an island in the St. Lawrence River, scrubbing toilets and waiting on guests at a B&B.

Once there, she meets Jared; doing his best to keep anything else in his life from changing.

When Jared offers Meg a scruffy appaloosa mare out of a friend’s back field, it’s the beginning of a journey that will change both of them by the end of the summer.


Review:  **Copy kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

Appaloosa Summer delivers a light, charming, read that is suitable for both Middle-Grade and YA readers. The horse-training and casual running of a B&B was on point, and the atmosphere of the story was beautiful. Tudor Robins clearly has extensive knowledge of both subjects, as well as the Wolfe Island/Kingston area.

I liked the main character, Meg, a lot. She was somewhat sparky, and her journey through her grief was believable, and definitely not rushed through and forgotten about. She felt like a real teenage girl living on her own for the first time, even if it was only for the summer. Her relationships with the other characters were palpable, and reading through her life was an enjoyable experience.

I enjoyed Jared’s character too. It was great having a love interest in the story who did not solely exist to add romance to the novel. His grief and story felt real, too, and I identified with his fear of leaving the island. As someone who suffers from anxiety, it was great to find it in another character without it taking over the whole novel.

I would have enjoyed having more of Slate in the story. I felt like we didn’t really know her that well although she interacted with Meg via text through a lot of the novel, but my personal head-canon due to the last couple of chapters is that she is totally queer (or at least that Lacey is), and as a queer person myself, I would have enjoyed potential confirmation of the fact.

I only really have minimal complaints about this story. One would be the lack of action in the story, another would be how that at points the characters felt very two dimensional, and the last would be how the timing of the story really wasn’t clear. At the beginning, I thought the story was taking place at the end of a summer, but instead it was the opposite.

As this is apparently book one in a series, I would expect for the action to pick up substantially in the next in order to keep the pages turning, and perhaps a little more drama as Appaloosa Summer was virtually free of it. Overall though, it was a worthwhile read, solid enough to make me want to read book two whenever it comes out, and earn itself three stars.

Rating: 3/5 stars
★★★✰✰

Book Review: Strings

Title: Strings
Author: G. Miki Hayden
Year of publication: 2014
Summary: In Strings, Robert, an ordinary boy, finds himself in a newly chaotic world. Buildings move when and where they please, and time jumps around according to no known laws of physics. For Robert, getting to his regular school in the morning is impossible, and as for getting home... But Holden, a boy he and his friend Nila meet in a cave, offers them a string. No, not twine—a string of the kind that forms the universe. Teeny and tiny, and invisible to the naked eye, this string will take Robert and Mila to their homes and way beyond, to other dimensions.

Robert doesn’t intend to save the world or to do anything except get by as best he can. Yet despite his hope to remain uninvolved, those he meets and where he goes draw him to participate. Robert’s companions on the journey through the multiverses include: the boy genius, Holden, who will defeat the alien Flatlanders at all costs; Nila, the girl next door, who doesn’t live next door just yet; Mr. Marvin, the clueless physics teacher, who considers the discrepancies they encounter to have a logical explanation; and Alfred Einstein (no, not Albert), more a nemesis than a companion, who still spends a lot of time traveling with the others. Hop on board an elusive string and see what the higher dimensions have to offer


Review: **Copy kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review** Strings tells the whimsical tale of Robert, who lives in a chaotic world where the buildings move around as they please. It wasn’t always like this, six months ago everything was as it should be, but now…

Beautifully crafted and wonderfully strange, this book reminded me a lot of Coraline, by Neil Gaiman in the way that it was written. Sometimes it was a little confusing in the way that it was written, but I think it added to the unusual genius of the story. Although it was a fantasy, it was written with such confidence, as if the author had been there herself and firmly believed in the existence of the worlds visited.

In my opinion, this was definitely more a middle grade novel than a YA one, but readers of any age will be wonderfully entertained either way as this story has enough detail and depth to draw any dreamer in. The characters are fantastic, each with a distinct flavor of their own to get used to.

Highly recommended, fans of Lemony Snicket, Dianna Wynne Jones, and Madeleine L'Engle will be delighted with G. Miki Hayden’s debut novel. A great addition to anybody’s bookshelf, and well worth a read.

Rating: 4/5 stars
★★★★✰

Book Review: Turning on a Dime

Title: Turning on a Dime
Author: Maggie Dana
Year of publication: 2014
Summary: Two girls from two different centuries and the horse that brings them together.

Teenage equestrian Samantha DeVries wants to be the first African American to ride in the Olympics. Her father, a successful trainer, pushes Sam to excel, while Sam’s academic mother tries to instill a sense of heritage in her headstrong daughter who’d rather be riding horses than studying history. But Sam’s beliefs and her carefully constructed world shatter like a jelly jar when she travels through a time portal and lands in the canopy bed of an 1860s Southern belle.

Even more surprised by Sam’s unexpected arrival is Caroline Chandler. She’s a tomboy who wears breeches beneath her crinoline and rides horses bareback, much to the dismay of her critical mother.

But neither girl has time to fret over petticoats and prejudice. The Civil War is raging, and soldiers from both sides are stealing horses. At risk is Pandora, Caroline’s beloved mare. Without her, Sam’s future Olympic horse, Nugget, might not exist in the present.

Neither will Sam if the slave catchers grab her.


Review:  **Copy kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

Maggie Dana delivers a smooth read, and a light story in Turning on a dime. It is more of a middle grade or childrens book than YA, and this is reflected in the prose and short chapters, but overall it is still a very good read.

The characters were well rounded and interesting - both girls were tomboys, which I appreciated. They also had fire in their blood, and fought back against the various antagonists at every turn, never taking no for an answer.

Sam’s room was legitimately my ultimate fantasy as an eight year old child. I was pretty much horse crazy and if my family had had the funds, it would definitely have showed.

I would have appreciated more about Sam’s dad, and maybe some more dialogue between them as at the beginning of the story it kind of led on that it would be about them and various issues to do with Sam’s Olympic training.

Another thing I thought the novel was kind of lacking in were scenes between the two girls. We missed a good chunk of their friendship developing, only to have the author give us snippets of things that had happened - like the two girls playing Angry Birds on Sam’s iPhone. Sometimes a lot of time passed between chapters, which was a little detrimental as I felt we missed out on integral development between the characters.

But overall, the story was light and charming, and would be a good addition to any middle schoolers bookshelf, especially if they love horses as much as the main characters do. Kudos, Maggie Dana, you’ve got a blue ribbon here.

Rating: 4/5 stars
★★★★✰

Book Review: Frenemy of the People

Title: Frenemy of the People
Author: Nora Olsen
Year of publication: 2014
Summary: Clarissa and Lexie couldn’t be more different. Clarissa is a chirpy, optimistic do-gooder and a top rider on the school’s equestrian team. Lexie is an angry, punk rock activist and the only out lesbian at their school.

When Clarissa declares she’s bi and starts a Gay-Straight Alliance, she unwittingly presses all of Lexie’s buttons, so Lexie makes it her job to cut Clarissa down to size. But Lexie goes too far and finds herself an unwitting participant in Clarissa’s latest crusade. Both are surprised to find their mutual loathing turning to love.

A change in her family’s fortunes begins to unravel Clarissa’s seemingly perfect life, and the girls’ fledgling love is put to the test. Clarissa and Lexie each have what the other needs to save their relationship and the people they love from forces that could tear them all apart.


Review: **Copy kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

Frenemy of the People was such an adorable, light read. I wasn't so sure I would like it at the start - the first chapter felt clunky and claustrophobic but it got progressively better from the second chapter out.

The story did have it's flaws though. The characters were unique - but yes, they had their initial stereotypes, even if they quickly became so much more. Clarissa was such a naive airhead in the beginning of the story, reminding me a lot of Bianca Stratford a la 10 Things I Hate About You, but like Bianca she slowly revealed that she did indeed have a brain in there, even if her moods gave me whiplash sometimes, and her view on homeless people was kind of disgusting.

Lexie was pretty brash, and said a lot of things that could be interpreted offensively. Such as: "You just realised? How do you really know? Have you ever even kissed a girl?" Look… Lexie, you’re gay. You should know what it feels like when people say this to you. You do not need to have kissed or done anything else with a girl to know you are gay or bi or pan or queer or whatever. It’s about attraction. Most of the time though, Lexie takes it upon herself to be educated about why what she has said is offensive.

I identified strongly with Clarissa's fears after Lexie asked her how she really knew [that she was bi]. Being told by somebody in the LGBTQ+ community that you have to have kissed a girl to really know you like them is a really harsh blow, especially if you've been told the same thing by people outside the community previously.

That being said though, you should probably not go up to random strangers and ask them for a kiss.

And you should definitely not throw rocks through bank windows, or bulldoze houses, no matter how angry or in love you are. Seriously, don't. You will wind up in jail. I can't believe neither of the girls really got busted for either of their actions.

I can't believe Lexie's parents didn't forbid her from going to homecoming after what she did, either. I get that her parents are not really good ones, but still, sheesh. That's being awful lenient considering their daughter drove a bulldozer into a house.

Overall, the novel really was charming though, especially Desi. It definitely is the type of story that leaves you smiling for ages afterward, and I think that this one deserves a wider audience than what it currently has. Actual rating = 3.5 stars, but rounding down for the sake of uniformity.

Rating: 3/5 stars
★★★✰✰

Book Review: The Culling

Title: The Culling
Author: JC Andrijeski
Year of publication: 2011 (Netgalley says 2014)

Summary: Jet is a 19-year-old skag, one of the humans still living free on Earth following an invasion of creatures called the Nirreth. Squatting in the ruins of Vancouver, Canada, Jet and her family eke out an existence underground, hiding from the culler ships. No one knows where the ships take the people they grab, but they never return. When a culler finds Jet, she may discover the truth the hard way.


Review: **Copy kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

The Culling presented as an exciting, diverse, new dystopian series with a kick-ass heroine who wields a sword. Unfortunately, in reality The Culling was anything but.

The prose was clunky and repetitive (the amount of times someone hardened their jaw, chuckled, or folded their arms, especially in the same scene, was super annoying) and it also contradicted itself time and time again. There is no real flow to the story - any time we start getting somewhere another info dump is forced upon us, instead of being weaved into the story. The author also spends far too much time telling, rather than showing, and they use broad descriptors such as; Japanese-style, Indian, and Native American, instead of anything with actual depth.

Another fault is with the characters - the main character, Jet, specifically. Jet has lived as a skag all her life, is supposed to know the rules, and at the beginning of the story she is presented as having good knowledge of the Nirreth and being street smart and savvy. Quickly, the reader finds out that this is a load of crock as Jet is kind of dumb, sacrificing her safety for a bit of alone time. She also seems to forget everything she is supposed to know about the Nirreth until whoops, it's too late. To add to insult, Anaze says further into the story that, "Jet is the smartest person he knows, except for his dad" -- uh okay, we've seen absolutely zero evidence in the story so far, but hey, whatever floats your boat dude.

Something that bothered me also was that we didn't seem to get a proper description of the main character anywhere. All I remember from the story was that she has long, black hair. The covers are not much help either, depicting two completely different girls - though as a general rule I don't think we should be relying on the cover to tell us what the main character looks like.

Andrijeski also has a habit of not mentioning things that may have been integral to understanding the story until later. Towards the very end of the book, Anaze and Jet are talking and he mentions something about how she acted in the raids... maybe this should have been said earlier, to give us more information on Jet, instead of randomly thrown in like the author has written the book off the top of their head and then not gone back to edit or flesh out the story and the characters more.

Add in a pointless love interest in the form of Anaze, who we only get scant bits of information about in the narrative, as if Jet doesn't really care about him too but in the end it's basically announced that no, they are totally besties, and also, he's in love with her. Plus Jet's pretty much total amnesia re: her brother who is only mentioned maybe a handful of times in the story, and we have a doozy here. The characters are horribly constructed and so is the story. Not even the scant action in the book with the dinosaur is enough to save it. Maybe if the author went back and did a total rewrite of the story, taking out the pointless information dumps early on and spreading out the necessary bits, as well as building upon the characters, this mess would be salvageable, but as it is it's just barely readable.

I'd give this book zero stars if I could, that's just how bad it is. As Andrijeski is seemingly a seasoned author, I don't have much hope for any of their other books, and I don't think I'd recommend this one to anybody.

Rating: 1/5 stars

★✰✰✰✰