Book Review: Blood Ties, by Sophie McKenzie

Theo has a bodyguard and he doesn’t know why. After his latest attempted escape, he demands that his mother explain. She confesses that the father he thought was dead is still alive, in hiding because of a terrorist organisation – the Righteous Army against Genetic Engineering - out to kill him to stop his genetic research. Theo can’t just accept this and wants to track his father down, and this leads him to Rachel.

Rachel feels fat, ugly, and stupid. She doesn’t have any friends and her parents are always comparing her to her sister Rebecca, who died before she was born. Then Theo turns up, and she fancies him immediately. She finds herself making excuses for them to be together whilst researching the connection between their parents. Rachel manages to organise things so that they go together to Rachel’s school disco, but are ambushed by RAGE and rescued by a stranger who takes them away to meet Theo’s father and discover terrible secrets about themselves.

I guessed several details in Blood Ties before they were revealed to the protagonists, Theo and Rachel, so I’m not sure how effective it is as a thriller. I don’t read thrillers very often, and I don’t think I’ve read a teen/YA thriller before. It has the right pace, I think, and the narration alternates between the protagonists, which kept me wondering what the other one thought and itching to read their reaction. I thought this was very effective in this story, because Theo and Rachel are quite different and have contrasting strengths and weaknesses which they use or are let down by and it was interesting to compare them. I think it also helps to make the book appealing for both male and female readers.

I liked the first third of this book better than the rest. I thought the scenes of Theo and Rachel at school or hanging out with Theo’s friends were really well done, and I wished the minor characters from these sections reappeared later on in the story as I really liked them! Once Theo, Rachel, and their mysterious protectors were on the run, I just didn’t find it as interesting, although the pace was faster.

I did hope Rachel would confront her body issues in a bit more of an upfront manner than she did, when she became fitter because her survival depended on it and found out her own secret history, I had hoped that she would realise that comparatively, looking good isn’t that important, or derive more confidence from what she has to go through. She does seem to grow a little bit in this way but mostly she changes because other people tell her she’s attractive rather than because she finds a way to believe more in herself.

I enjoyed reading Blood Ties but I don’t think I’m really suited to this genre. I like characters and personal dramas and less running and fighting!

Book Review: Everything Beautiful, by Simmone Howell

Book trailer.

When Riley Rose is caught by the police after breaking into a swimming pool with her friends, her father and stepmother decide they have had enough. Whilst they go on holiday, firmly atheist Riley is left at the Spirit Ranch – a Christian summer camp.  Without her mobile phone or best friend Chloe, she is determined to hate it from the start, deciding that she will be the Plague, glamourous, controversial and definitely not there to make any friends. She finds it easy to hate the vain Fleur, who asks Riley how much she weighs on their first meeting – but finds herself rescuing Olive from bullies and admired by shy Sarita. Then there’s beautiful Craig, and mysterious fellow angry-misfit Dylan, a camp regular who arrived this time in a wheelchair. Her own curiosity and kindness eventually start to get the better of her bad intentions.

I think Everything Beautifulis great. I’ve read it twice now and was just as gripped through the second time. I read Everything Beautiful for the first time a couple of weeks after reading Notes from the Teenage Underground, and so I’m not sure whether my inability to decide which one was my favourite comes from reading them so close together. They are actually very different kinds of stories, they are both comings-of-age but Everything Beautiful is less cultural reference-laden than Notes, and I think the plot is more straightforward.

Riley is a believer in the ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ and ‘they’ll stare anyway, give them something to look at’ schools of thought, modelling herself after her ‘over-dramatic’ late mother and Chloe. She dresses to stand out and express herself, in gothic lolita outfits, with her asymmetric hair dyed Ultra Violet. Riley takes pride in being a confident ‘big girl’, although it is clear to the reader that she’s actually not all that confident in the way she looks, when some of the other kids try to tease her she is offended rather than unconcerned.

Dylan is determined to appear tough and rebellious despite being in a wheelchair, making a big deal out of the pills he has to take and getting drunk and smoking. He lets his emotions come to the surface more than Riley does, avoiding people who used to be his friends because of the way they treat him now. They both care about other people more than they’d like to.

I’d recommend Everything Beautiful to everyone who likes to read about weird unpopular rebels! It’s a particularly good summer read, I think, but then I read it for the first time in July 2009 and read it again in June 2010. I suggest you read it during those days when it’s too hot to do anything else, or raining but still warm.

Click to read a review at Books, Time, and Silence that really puts mine to shame.

There is a discussion about the covers of Everything Beautiful at Once Upon a Bookcase.

Book Review: Fat Kid Rules The World, by K. L. Going

 Photo by mrgilles

Ever since his mother passed away, Troy has been putting on weight. He can no longer find much that he has in common with his ex-Marine Father, and his sports obsessed younger brother Dayle hates him. Troy is convinced that he is worthless, and all that he is is a joke to other people. Aged seventeen, Troy has decided to kill himself, but he wants to do it with dignity. Whilst he is trying to decide whether people would laugh if a fat kid jumped in front of a train, he is interrupted by a skinny punk boy who turns out to be Curt McRae, a school legend who hasn’t been seen for months. Curt insists that Troy owes him lunch for saving his life, and because he’s the Curt McRae, amazing guitarist and friend of Troy’s favourite band, Troy can’t say no. They embark on a strange friendship when Curt decides that Troy is to be his new drummer, despite the fact Troy hasn’t picked up a drumstick in years.

Fat Kid Rules the World is quite short, with quick chapters that often break mid-scene, which helps to keep the pace fast. The characters are well developed and easy to imagine, particularly Troy, constantly worrying about people noticing his size, and energetic, weird, Curt, and Troy’s unexpectedly brilliant dad. Even those that only appear in a few scenes, Curt’s friends and Troy’s brother Dayle, seem very real.

I did at times wish Troy would hurry up and ask Curt to explain certain things, even though I reminded myself over and over how in awe of Curt Troy would be and that he would be extremely reluctant to break the spell that held them together. I also wished there were some female punk musicians in the story, or even just one, as girls and women were only portrayed as fans in this novel.

I could relate to and understand Troy’s fear that people everywhere are staring at him and laughing, and could really feel his amazement when Curt tells him that actually, people aren’t looking at him. Troy finds in the punk rock scene a place where people don’t judge him, and only care about his talent, and as someone fascinated by subcultures, I liked this very much.

Fat Kid Rules The World did strike me as being a particularly American story. There are some stories that would remain essentially the same no matter where they were set, and I don't think this is one of them. The culture plays an important role in the book. If Troy and Curt were British, for example, things would have been very different for both of them. 

I enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it. The scenario is unlikely but ultimately believable, and so Fat Kid Rules The World stands out, having a particularly original plot, amongst all the other books I have been reading/re-reading for Body Image and Self Perception Month.

Book Review: Girl Overboard, by Justina Chen Headley

Everyone assumes Syrah Cheng has everything she could possibly want. She’s the daughter of the billionaire Ethan Cheng, which means she’s got a bedroom filled with specially chosen antiques, a place at an exclusive school, and designer clothes. But her parents are distant and her half-siblings can’t stand her. She only finds happiness when hanging out with her best friend Age and on her snowboard. After her heart is broken by a snowboarder who was only with her to get to her father’s money, she narrowly survives an accident on the slopes, and has to learn to live again.

Syrah is a sympathetic and interesting character who suffers from body image problems on two levels. After her accident, she finds it difficult to trust her body again, and she also worries about not being as slim and perfect as her mother and her half-sister, Grace. Her mum puts a lot of pressure on her to live up to ideals of beauty, making her wear girdles and trying to control her diet. Syrah avoids looking at herself in the mirror and wears men’s snowboarding clothes to cover up her body. She compares herself physically to the girlfriends of the boys she likes, and her manga alter-ego, Shiraz, is, as she eventually realises, ‘a stick figure with an ample chest’.

The book is quite slow paced at first, I found I had to be patient as there is a lot of scene-setting before the real action begins, about halfway through. At that point it picks up and then I was engrossed until the end. I don’t really know anything about snowboarding but Girl Overboard was really accessible, you don’t need any prior knowledge of the sport to understand what the characters are talking about! I also loved that there were references to Chinese culture, it gave me a strong sense of Syrah’s family history and background.

I did wish that more time was spent on Syrah’s relationship with her parents. Her relationship with Grace was drawn and developed really well, but her parents went from distant to more friendly in a few pages. There is a lot covered in this book though so I can understand why the author wanted to focus on the other issues. I thought that what Syrah learns about her body was really interesting and true.

I would definitely recommend this book, as I said before I think it requires a little patience at first but it is well worth it. I am really looking forward to reading Justina Chen Headley's other books.

Body Image & Self-Perception Month

Throughout July I'm taking part in Body Image and Self-Perception Month, as hosted by the lovely Jo of Once Upon a Bookcase. I really enjoyed reading Jo's Sex in Teen Lit Month back when I was a lit blog lurker so when she announced that she was thinking of doing another themed month this year I was delighted.

I decided to take part in this project when she announced the theme because it is a subject very close to my heart as someone who had various and many self-esteem issues as a teenager. I have read eight books so far and have another two to read; I am also planning various relevant discussion posts.

If you would like to see a full list of all the good stuff that I and the rest of the BI&SP month bloggers have planned, check out the introduction post, and for links to all the posts as they are posted, here is the schedule. To read about the inspiration and purpose behind BI&SP month, just click the banner above.

Edit 09/05/2013: Jo has altered her pages recently, for all the BI&SP month information and links, just visit this page.

I hope that you will participate and comment on my reviews and discussion posts, it should be loads of fun!