Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My TBR For Summer 2015

As I said in the above video, I am a seasonal reader. In summer, I crave contemporaries like they're going out of fashion. Which they might be - it certainly seems that way, especially when you look at the YALC lineup. Discuss.

Anyway, regardless of current publishing trends or fan furore, in my mind, contemporary settings in books and summer belong together. It's not compulsory for the books be set during a summer, but I do find myself drawn to summery books because summer is my favourite season, as I rambled in another video, last year, and I want to make the most of it!

So most of the books on today's Top Ten Tuesday are contemporary, or contemporary with supernatural elements.. I might not get to them all, because I'm moving, and have to spend a lot of time going round furniture shops (Zzzzzzz...). Or I might devour all of them, because I don't have internet for weeks. Who knows!

Yeah, as if I have the space for a dedicated table for my TBR, a pair of sunglasses and a wrist cuff. 

Top Ten Books On My TBR For Summer 2015

1. Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian, by Eoin Colfer - I am FINALLY going to finish #FinishItFeb. In June.

2. This Is Not A Love Story, by Keren David - everyone seems really thrilled about this, so I can't wait to give it a go.

3. The Lost and Found, by Cat Clarke - this is an upcoming Bookish Brits Book Club selection. Lots of people I know absolutely rave about Cat Clarke but I've never read any of her books before so I'm excited to give it a go.

4. Subway Love, by Nora Raleigh Baskin - because I'm probably not going to go on holiday abroad this year, I figured I might as well go on a journey in my head to NYC. Also this is quite a short book, so it can be a little self-esteem booster in-between longer reads.

5. How To Be Bad, by E Lockhart, Lauren Myracle, and Sarah Mlynowski - because this is the only E Lockhart book I haven't read yet, and I just got this copy. I'm hoping to start it as soon as I finish my current read (The Girl on the Train).

6. Second Chance Summer, by Morgan Matson - another book that everyone seems to love, plus, it's set during a summer.

7. Rules of Summer, by Joanna Philbin - I got sent this unsolicited review copy a year or two ago, and I hadn't heard anything about it, so it languished on my TBR until Stacey at prettybooks recommended it.

8. Have a Little Faith, by Candy Harper, and

9. Dare You To, by Katie McGarry, because I should really start working on my List of Shame. We're more than halfway through the year, after all.

10. Under My Skin, by James Dawson, because the hot pink on the cover and the edges of the colour is such a summery colour. I mean, I'm looking forward to the story as well, but maintaining a summer aesthetic is important business...

Just the UKYA, chilling on my bed.

I hope you enjoyed this post! Let me know in the comments if you have read any of these and if you have any recommendations, and if you've done your own version of this list please share the link. Top Ten Tuesday was created and is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Book Review: Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak is a difficult book to review. So many other blogs and articles have featured it before that I am afraid that I will have nothing more to add to the conversation; however, it is a book that should be talked about often, and I will try to explain why!

Melinda, the narrator, is just beginning her first year at high school. She has no friends because of an end-of-summer party that went wrong when Melinda was raped by a older, more popular boy. She called the police but left the party before they arrived, and has never explained her actions. The other teenagers blame her for ruining the party and getting them into trouble, while Melinda's parents don't know what's wrong and get annoyed at her for being withdrawn. Speak is about how Melinda retreats into silence before finally finding her voice.

What I liked most about Speak is that it's not a harrowing read. Obviously, due to the subject matter, it can be uncomfortable at times, but Melinda is a witty narrator, which lifts the tone enough to stop it being relentlessly depressing. Her silence is largely due to fear and shame, rather than actual bullying. Her isolation is at least partly self-imposed. She thinks that nobody will understand what happened to her, and for a long time she tries not to think about it. She can't explain it to anyone else because she can't explain it to herself. Once she thinks about what has happened, and accepts it, she starts to be able to find the strength she needs to tell other people.

I also really liked the characters at school that Melinda interacts with. Her art teacher is a fantastic character, dealing with his own anger at the school board through his work. I also thought that Melinda's former friends were well-developed, interesting and believable characters.

It's not a book that I will read again - this isn't a criticism, because I don't think it's that sort of book. It's very much an 'issue' book, honest and realistic, but there are no exciting plot twists or enthralling love stories to entice me to re-read it. I think that the message it sends out is important and am appalled by the controversy - this is just the type of book that school libraries should stock.

Book Review: Pushing the Limits, by Katie McGarry

Echo Emerson wasn't always an outcast. Last year, she was popular, an accomplished painter, on the school dance team, and dating Luke, one of their school's top sports players. She had everything, at least on the surface,  though she was struggling to deal with her parents' divorce and the death of her brother Aires in Afghanistan. But that was all before the incident at her mother's house one afternoon that left her with scars on her arms and torso, and no memory of what happened. She knows her mother was responsible, and that now there is a restraining order to keep her away, but nothing more.The only thing Echo is looking forward to is leaving to go to university, but her father won't let her take art classes anymore, pressuring her to study accountancy at university instead.

Mrs Collins, the new school counsellor, doesn't seem much better than all the other professionals Echo's seen since the incident, but then she offers her an opportunity to make some money, which Echo desperately wants so that she can finish fixing up the car that Aires dreamed of getting running.

To earn this money, Echo has to tutor Noah, our other narrator: failed by the social care system, angry at the world, but desperate to gain custody of his younger brother once he graduates. Echo and Noah both resent this setup at first, despite their mutual attraction, but slowly they become an important part of each others' lives.

I have to guiltily confess that my expectations of Pushing the Limits were not that high. It's been changed on the final edition, but the tagline on the front of the proof copy (received at the first Mira INK bloggers' party) is 'A bad boy. A lost girl. An unforgettable love'. I do not generally like 'bad boys' as love interests, and despite all the positive reviews I'd read I just didn't think that Pushing the Limits could be that good. I was wrong. I loved it from the start.

I thought the characterisation was just fantastic. Of course I loved tentatively willful Echo, desperate to find out what exactly her mother did to her and struggling to break free from her father's control, and determined Noah, who is full of angry emotions yet loves his brothers above all else, but the secondary characters are interesting and well-developed as well. Mrs Collins is clever but flawed, excellent at understanding the teenagers but a terrible driver, and usually right, but not all the time. Echo's dad is demanding and controlling but we can see that he does want the best for Echo. Echo's mother, probably the most challenging character to portray fairly, is frighteningly believable. I also loved Echo and Noah's friends - beautiful Lila, who is always on Echo's side, provides a nice contrast with impatient and socially-paranoid Grace, and Isaiah and Beth are essentially Noah's true family, both caring towards him and self-involved at once. Even when the characters behave selfishly, they still have sympathetic elements, so no-one that features 'on screen' is easy to hate.

I loved Echo and Noah's relationship - yes, the scenario in which they get together isn't the most likely or original, but they seemed like a believable couple. They're in lust from the start but when their feelings develop, it doesn't seem rushed, and when they have relationship troubles, Noah gives Echo the space she needs, unlike some fictional couples that harass each other until they give in, something which is presented as romantic but isn't the healthiest or most successful technique in real life.

The novel is in first person; the chapters alternate between Echo and Noah's narration. Katie McGarry takes full advantage of this to show us the differences in the ways that Echo and Noah view each other, their relationship, their friends, Echo's father, and life. They very rarely agree on anything immediately, and the alternating chapters make it clear to the reader when they are interpreting events and the motivations of other characters through their own biased lens. For example, Echo sees her father as overbearing and controlling, and is convinced that he doesn't love her, but Noah sees him in quite a different way.

Some of the dialogue was a little stilted, and both narrators, but especially Noah, suffered from the oft-bemoaned YA cliché of mentioning eyes/hair/scent too much. I did roll my eyes every time someone's scent was mentioned, but then I always do because I almost never notice anyone's smell, and if it is them and not perfume, then it's terrible BO, cigarette smoke, or just a nice human-y smell. Not vanilla or cinnamon or woodsmoke!

In terms of plot, I have to admit that I guessed how things would work out for Echo and Noah at just a few chapters in, but there is so much else going on in this story besides the main plot that there were still plenty of small surprises, and the story is so convincing that I didn't mind at all. My only other criticism is that I didn't really get much of an impression of the town in which the story is set, but again, I don't really mind that much as the characterisation is so amazing, and as both a reader and a writer I treasure good characterisation above all else.

In short, Pushing the Limits is an incredible novel that far surpassed my expectations. It's rare that I read or watch or listen to a story and feel completely sure that the author knows every single one of her characters inside out, the way that Katie McGarry must do. I am thrilled that I already have Dare You To waiting on my TBR pile, and will look forward to her future work - hopefully she has a long and prolific career ahead of her!

Book Review: Fly on the Wall, by E. Lockhart

Photo by Kevin Bowman

Fly on the Wall is a loose retelling of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, narrated by Gretchen Yee, who feels like the dullest of girls at a creative arts school where everyone has big talents and bigger personalities. She spends her time drawing Spider-Man and crushing on the gorgeous Titus, while trying to ignore her drawing teacher, who disapproves of her comic-style work. Gretchen only has one close friend, Katya, who doesn't seem to want to hang out with her much anymore. When her parents announce their separation, she really starts to feel invisible. But then, in a moment of frustration at the apparently alien behaviour of boykind, Gretchen makes a wish that changes everything. She wishes she could be a fly on the wall of the boys' locker room.

At first, when Gretchen finds herself in fly form, it's quite funny. She has both human and fly desires - she wants to see what the boys have under their boxer shorts, but she also wants to sniff that delicious-smelling wet patch on the ceiling. She watches and listens as different classes arrive to get changed, and slowly she comes to realise that boys aren't mysterious, alien-like creatures and are in fact just people. Gretchen discovers what she has in common with boys that she had never had any interest in before, observes friendly banter, and finds out what boys keep in their lockers. The story turns serious as Gretchen sees both overt and subtle forms of bullying, and learns a few secrets that change the way she sees Titus and his friends forever.

Fly on the Wall is a thoughtful and entertaining novel, from Gretchen's first few tentative moments as a fly, to the confrontations she overhears about the homophobic words that Titus's friend Adrian throws about casually. E. Lockhart explores the dynamics of friendship beautifully, with the romantic plot giving the story impetus and direction.

E. Lockhart writes school settlings so well, and just as with Tate Prep, the Wildewood Academy for the Performing Arts, and Alabaster, I found myself absorbed quickly in the world of the Manhattan High School for the Arts. We don't really have many specialist schools in the UK but I did go to an arts university where at times I felt a bit like Gretchen does, the plain girl amongst the peacocks. I love it when people dress creatively so all those details were like delicious chocolate for me.

I think that setting most of the action in the boys' locker room was very brave, as it requires the mention of certain body parts, or as Gretchen calls them, 'gherkins', but its never gratuitious and before long Gretchen becomes more absorbed in the friendship politics and injustices she witnesses and her growing feelings for one of the boys.

I loved the ending, it was great to see how Gretchen deals with things when she is back in human form, armed with her locker-room knowledge, but to say any more would spoil the story. 

No surprise really, but I would recommend it Fly on the Wall to fans of YA contemporary and if you've loved any of E. Lockhart's other books, you should definitely get your hands on a copy as soon as possible!

Book Review: Bunheads, by Sophie Flack

Photo by Ollie Crafoord

Nineteen year old Hannah has devoted almost her entire life so far to dancing. Now a member of the corps de ballet at the Manhattan Ballet, she spends her nights onstage and her days exercising and practicing in the hopes of becoming an ever better dancer. She dreams of being selected for a solo role - the first step on the path to promotion.

But then she meets Jacob, a cute boy and a 'pedestrian' - a non-dancer. As Hannah spends time with him, outside the theatre, she starts to wonder if she is really cut out to be as dedicated a dancer as she planned.

I was really excited about reading Bunheads for three reasons. Firstly, I was fascinated by ballet when I was a child - mostly because of the costumes. Secondly, the protagonist is nineteen, which is unusually old for teen/young adult fiction. Finally, the blurb mentions that Jacob plays guitar and I just can't resist cute fictional musicians.

I wasn't disappointed by Bunheads, though it wasn't quite what I expected. The ballet scenes definitely lived up to my expectations, especially the dressing room scenes. I loved reading about the rivalries and tension between the dancers at different levels. The dancers have to deal with jealousy and the need to be competitive, even against their friends and other dancers they admire. I think that Sophie Flack chose a good range of personalities to include in Hannah's dressing room cohort. I was really intrigued by wealthy Zoe and excitable, easily-panicked Daisy.

I learned several things about ballet that I didn't know before, for instance, how dancers break in their pointe shoes, and that was very cool.

I also really liked the way that Hannah developed as a character and progression toward the decision she makes in the end. I had been a little bit afraid, before I started reading Bunheads, that it would be a story about a woman who gives up her career for romance (there are far too many of those going around), but my fears were not realised. In fact - and this is where my expectations divulged from what the novel delivered - the romance wasn't that big of a factor in Hannah's mind or in the plot. Jacob is the one that gives Hannah the idea that maybe she's missing out on something, but she doesn't do what she does for him, she does it for herself. I was pleased with that.

The only thing I found a little out of place was that although supposedly Hannah has little time for activities outside of ballet, she does a fair bit of designer-name-dropping and says that she found particular outfits in a thrift store. She doesn't mention fashion as being one of her interests, yet the inclusion of these details suggests that it is. This is only a minor niggle though and I probably only noticed it because I'm into clothes myself and know how time consuming 'thrifting' (as they call it in the US of A) can be.

I would recommend Bunheads to anyone who's ever had an interest in dance. It's not a novel that revolves around romance but I'm sure plenty of readers would really like Jacob. I'm really intrigued to find out what Sophie Flack writes about next, especially as it seems like Bunheads was at least partly autobiographical!

Thank you to Atom Books for providing me with a review copy.