Review: Paper Valentine

Paper Valentine

Author: Brenna Yovanoff
Pages: 368
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: January 8, 2013
Source: Publisher for review

Description from Goodreads:
The city of Ludlow is gripped by the hottest July on record. The asphalt is melting, the birds are dying, petty crime is on the rise, and someone in Hannah Wagnor’s peaceful suburban community is killing girls.

For Hannah, the summer is a complicated one. Her best friend Lillian died six months ago, and Hannah just wants her life to go back to normal. But how can things be normal when Lillian’s ghost is haunting her bedroom, pushing her to investigate the mysterious string of murders? Hannah’s just trying to understand why her friend self-destructed, and where she fits now that Lillian isn’t there to save her a place among the social elite. And she must stop thinking about Finny Boone, the big, enigmatic delinquent whose main hobbies seem to include petty larceny and surprising acts of kindness.

With the entire city in a panic, Hannah soon finds herself drawn into a world of ghost girls and horrifying secrets. She realizes that only by confronting the Valentine Killer will she be able move on with her life—and it’s up to her to put together the pieces before he strikes again.

Paper Valentine is a hauntingly poetic tale of love and death by the New York Times bestselling author of The Replacement and The Space Between.

First Sentence: "My sister, Ariel, is sprawled upside down on the couch, pointing with the TV remote."

Review:
When I went to ALA in 2010, one of the numerous ARCs I picked up and took home, in a haze of disbelief that people would want to give me free books just because I was in training to be a librarian, was Yovanoff's debut novel The Replacement. The Penguin publicist I spoke to hyped it big time, I think because it was part of their Breathless Reads collection. Something I've learned about myself since is that I don't tend to be a huge fan of the most-hyped books put into those collections, though they do tend to do very well, they just are not my thing. Such was the case with The Replacement, which showed promise in the gothic tone and writing, but mostly fell flat. When I was sent a review copy of Paper Valentine, I really did not get that excited, but I did resolve to give Yovanoff another try, and I am so glad that I did, because she has grown a lot as a writer since her debut novel.

Ever since Lillian's death from anorexia, Hannah has been haunted by her best friend. Not by the memory of Lillian, no, but by her ghost. Lillian follows her around, giving her advice or criticizing her behavior, or both at the same time. Only Hannah can see Lillian, and, after six months of this, Hannah's pretty resigned to it, even though it can be an inconvenience and having ghost Lillian around isn't the same as having the real Lillian there.

Paper Valentine follows a lot of different plot lines, weaving them together expertly into a powerful novel. The first arc deals with friendship, with peer pressure, and with self-acceptance. Hannah and Lillian were incredibly close, best friends forever. They were also the most popular girls in school, making their own style and setting the trends. With Lillian gone, stuck with the rest of their group, now dominated by Angelie, Hannah's coming to realize that, much as she loved her, Lillian wasn't a very nice person all the time and that she could be a bad influence on Hannah. Watching Hannah come into her own as a person, both accepting the parts of herself wholly unlike Hannah and incorporating a bit of Hannah's advice made me so glad for her. Hannah needed a bit of Lillian's gumption, enough that she could tell off Angelie for being horrible and rude, but also needed to be Hannah-enough to not get too hung up on being popular.

Family, though a more minor thread certainly, still plays a crucial role in Paper Valentine. The parents are mostly absent, though the mother does ground Hannah for sneaking out and insist on meeting a boy before Hannah can go out with him. The relationship being dissected here is that of the two sisters, Hannah and Ariel. Though Ariel annoys her, understandably so, the two clearly have so much love for one another. Hannah can see how much Ariel tries to protect her and gets what Hannah is going through more than their mother and step-father do. I found their relationship touching, and loved that there was much more focus upon it than usual.

The book gets much creepier than just Lillian's ghost, however. Girls are being murdered, left in the park, heads bashed in, surrounded by the trappings of childhood, toys and candy. Next to each body is a paper heart. Needless to say Hannah will become wrapped up in the murders. Yovanoff does suspense and eerie settings very well, and there were some scenes that straight up freaked me out. What made Paper Valentine special, though, was how Hannah reacts when she finds herself in danger: she uses her brain and does not just collapse into a weeping heap waiting to be rescued. Unlike some heroines, she doesn't spend her doom-filled moments thinking of how much she loves some boy, but of ways to escape and of her sister and her dead best friend. As with when she fought back against bossy Angelie, Hannah held her own and refused to be cowed, and that just made me respect her and root for her so much.

Admittedly, I was quite skeptical of the romance at first, because I feared it was going straight down stereotype highway. See, Hannah has a secret crush on one of the bad boys. When we first see him, he's wearing a wife beater, even. He dyes his hair white-blonde with Clorox, has tattoos, and a missing pinkie. Early on, he shoplifts. I mean, not really swoon material. He never really does become the kind of guy I would swoon over, but Yovanoff makes him work, and I totally ended up shipping Hannah and Finny, who made me think a bit of Hanna and Caleb from Pretty Little Liars. Also, their romance reminded me a bit of Pushing the Limits too, only with less focus on romance, no pet names, and a murder mystery.

Yovanoff gives the reader a little bit of everything, and, after my lackluster first experience, I now plan to read The Space Between, her second novel, as well as whatever she has coming next. What a wonderful lesson in the importance of not writing an author off based on one book, especially a debut, because they have so much room to grow.

Rating: 4/5

Favorite Quote: "'It doesn't matter what you say,' she whispers. The words are icy, but her voice sounds almost sad, like she knows that whatever happens next is going to hurt. 'They're not going to believe you. No one ever believes teenage girls about things like whether or not the guy they're running around with is a killer. No one ever treats us like we know what we're talking about.'"

Review: The Opposite of Hallelujah

The Opposite of Hallelujah

Author: Anna Jarzab
Pages: 464
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Source: For review from YA Books Central

Description from Goodreads:
Caro Mitchell considers herself an only child—and she likes it that way. After all, her much older sister, Hannah, left home eight years ago, and Caro barely remembers her. So when Caro’s parents drop the bombshell news that Hannah is returning to live with them, Caro feels as if an interloper is crashing her family. To her, Hannah’s a total stranger, someone who haunts their home with her meek and withdrawn presence, and who refuses to talk about her life and why she went away. Caro can’t understand why her parents cut her sister so much slack, and why they’re not pushing for answers.

Unable to understand Hannah, Caro resorts to telling lies about her mysterious reappearance. But when those lies alienate Caro’s new boyfriend and put her on the outs with her friends and her parents, she seeks solace from an unexpected source. And when she unearths a clue about Hannah’s past—one that could save Hannah from the dark secret that possesses her—Caro begins to see her sister in a whole new light.

First Sentence: "When I was twelve, I started telling people at school that my older sister, Hannah, was dead."

Review:
Going into The Opposite of Hallelujah, I had mildly high expectations, knowing that my friend Katie of Blook Girl loved it. Still, I wasn't so sure about the subject matter, and just really didn't know that much about it, since I pretty scrupulously avoid reviews of books I plan to read, even from my favorite reviewers. Katie was completely right about this book. The Opposite of Hallelujah gave me so many feels: sadness, awkwardness, hope, and fangirling happiness.

My very favorite thing about The Opposite of Hallelujah, what makes it stand out so incredibly fresh and original to me, is that it centers around a family. Yes, there's romance and school and all of that, but Caro's relationship with her family members comes first, primarily that with her much older sister Hannah. Caro scarcely knew Hannah (eleven years her senior) when she went away to live in a convent when Caro was just eight years old. Caro didn't know how to deal with this, what it all meant, so she simplified things and told people her sister was dead. This came out, as such things tend to, earning Caro the nickname "Caroliar," which also gave Caro another grudge to hold against her sister, added to the sense of abandonment she already felt.

Fast forward a few years to the summer before Caro's junior year of high school. News comes to the Mitchell family that Hannah is coming home from the convent. Caro's parents, who have missed their daughter and been deeply hurt that she left them, even for a vocation, are thrilled to have her back. Caro, on the other hand, wishes Hannah, and the whole big, confusing, mess of resulting emotions had never come back.

That sounds mean, but Caro doesn't know this woman who appears off the train. Caro feels like an only child, and she doesn't appreciate her parents' orders that she behave a certain way to Hannah. Honestly, Caro does not feel that Hannah deserves to be so easily accepted back into the family, since she abandoned them so utterly. Immediately, Caro falls back into her old pattern, lying to people at school about her sister. She does not even tell her best friends or boyfriend that Hannah's back from the convent. Later, when it's outed that Hannah is back, she lies about where Hannah was.

When I first started reading, I was momentarily put off by the writing (not personally my favorite style) and the formatting (obnoxiously large font to make the book seem longer than it is), but I soon stopped noticing or caring about any of that, because Caro's character is so powerful. She has such a strong, authentic teen voice. All of the stupid things she does make a messed up sort of sense, because you're seeing through her eyes and you know how her mind works. Besides, aside from the lying, she's such a funny, clever, strong-spirited girl that you just root for her so hard to work through her issues.

The Mitchell family feels so much like a real family: they have awkward moments, they fight, they love. It's just so beautiful, and so rarely depicted in young adult fiction, because so much of it needs the heroine to be accomplishing some gargantuan feat, not living through daily life. Her parents love both of them so much. They make mistakes, of course, because that's what parents do, but they're always there to help or to punish as needed. Jarzab includes some very typical parent-child fights that totally had me flashing back to my teen years.

At the beginning of the book, Caro has a boyfriend (or, at least, she thinks that's what he is), Derek, who has been gone at camp. When he gets back, he doesn't call, and she does what any self-respecting girl would do: freaks out and calls her best friends for advice. Reb and Erin agree: this is bad news, and that she should probably dump him before he dumps her. She decides to do that, and goes to his house, where he beats her to the draw. I share this to illustrate how high school and realistically awkward it is. There are so many scenes that struck a perfect chord.

Anyway, stupid Derek dumping her cleared the way for a wonderful, adorable guy. Pawel is, stereotypically, the new guy at school. Yes, I rolled my eyes at this, but he's so damn adorable, that I got over that really quickly. For one thing, he's Polish and has an impossible to pronounce name (Caro's friends just call him Polish), and, for another, he is one of the most sweet, caring guys I've encountered in YA. He and Caro have an immediate connection, but don't declare it right off the bat. You guys, I totally said awwwww out loud so many times reading about them.

Another well-drawn character is that of Pastor Bob. Religion is, obviously, a huge theme in this book, what with Hannah's return from a convent and everything. I can be a bit touchy about this subject, but it was handled marvelously here. Pastor Bob does not force anything on anyone, and he's a genuinely caring, helpful guy. The discussions of religion are more theological than specifically Christian in nature. He and Caro develop a real friendship that I found very touching.

This review is approaching epic proportions, so I'll wrap things up. In short, if you are a reader who bemoans the lack of real family interaction in YA, you should probably get your hands on it right now. Anna Jarzab has just joined my list of authors whose books I must stalk.

Rating: 4.5/5

Favorite Quote: "I had felt closed before, hunkered down with my familiar friendships and rigid schedule, but I felt it now, the widening of a space I hadn't know was there. I'd been split open like a log. It was uncomfortable and scary, but painless. The best part was that now that I knew the space was there, I realized how much room there was left over for new and beautiful things still to come."

Review: Touching the Surface

Touching the Surface

Author: Kimberly Sabatini
Pages: 352
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: October 30, 2012
Source: Publisher for review via YA Books Central

Description from Goodreads:
Experience the afterlife in this lyrical, paranormal debut novel that will send your heart soaring.

When Elliot finds herself dead for the third time, she knows she must have messed up, big-time. She doesn’t remember how she landed in the afterlife again, but she knows this is her last chance to get things right.

Elliot just wants to move on, but first she will be forced to face her past and delve into the painful memories she’d rather keep buried. Memories of people she’s hurt, people she’s betrayed…and people she’s killed.

As she pieces together the secrets and mistakes of her past, Elliot must find a way to earn the forgiveness of the person she’s hurt most, and reveal the truth about herself to the two boys she loves…even if it means losing them both forever.

First Sentence: "My body smacked the water."

Review:

One of my very favorite subgenres of fiction deals with stories about the afterlife. I spend a rather indecent amount of time considering what life after death might consist of and my only completed work of fiction dealt with that topic. Touching the Surface has been on my radar because of its subject matter, its beautiful cover (which looks like the work of my friend Annie and fits the book perfectly), and the author's participation in the Apocalypsies. As ever when embarking upon a book with high hopes, I dreaded disappointment, but instead found a beautiful, quirky, emotional, clever, sweet, dark, magical read.

Sabatini's vision of the afterlife enthralled my imagination completely. She combines familiar concepts into something fresh and compelling. The concept of reincarnation has always called to me far more than most religious ideas, so I loved that Sabatini included that. She also put her own spin on it with the idea that, on a soul's third failure to reach some sort of enlightenment and whatever next step that brings, the soul's memories are wiped. This forces delving, a slow recapturing of the previous life's memories that allows for deeper reflection and analysis, removing preconceptions and errors kept in ordinary memory. Delving is also a group experience, not just a personal one, so that others can try to help the Third Timers figure out what has kept them from moving on.

Another fascinating element of this is the bodiless nature of the characters. They are all technically embodied throughout the book, but they have not always worn that body. In her first life, Elliot and her best friend Julia were twin brothers named Arty and Jim. The souls simply continue to wear the body and use the name of their last life until they reenter the stream to a new one. The souls can idenitfy one another by their scent that remains constant from body to body. Though she occasionally comments on appearances, the personality obviously factors in much more in how others seem to her.

The other main delightful quirk about the afterlife is the ability to manifest the mind's landscape physically. Thoughts can be created, from a lake to a mountain to a book the soul wants to read. Within the Obmil, this afterlife, the body cannot be injured and seems to have so much power. Not gonna lie, I would want to stay there and would try to get my friends to stay too. Of course, when you have a bad day, you literally will be stuck in a storm cloud of your own devising, but that's a small price to pay for the perks.

Alright, now that I'm done fangirling over the world building, I should probably discuss the plot a bit, shouldn't I? At the outset, I was a bit concerned that the book was heading for a stereotypical romance plot line: a rift between two best friends, a beautiful boy she feels inextricably drawn to (Oliver), a hot, angry boy who also seems to be part of her past (Trevor), and a love square between the four. Thankfully, this got cleared up pretty quickly and the characters did what was right for them, rather than conforming to tropes. Though the emotions become intense alarmingly quickly, it helped set the scene and conveyed the confusion Elliot felt being confronted with people who remembered her that she could not yet recall.

Elliot is a great character. She doesn't kick butt. She's sometimes weak. She's selfish, and sometimes a bully. All of that makes her who she is, and, even at her worst, I still felt for her and got her motivations. She manages to feel utterly real, especially in her struggle to find a sense of self, and her blithe unawareness of how she can steamroll others. Elliot wants to move on, hates having come back as a Third Timer, but she fears delving into her memories. Obviously, death in one's teen years doesn't signify a happy story.

The book alternates between the fantasy lanscape of Obmil and flashbacks to the characters' memories of their previous lives. This allows Sabatini to confront both gritty real life issues and psychological struggles. The flashbacks also explain why the characters feel the way they do about one another in the beginning, often for reasons even they don't know. This storytelling method adds a lot of tension to the tale and kept me flipping pages.

I dearly love Trevor. Oliver may be the nice one, though he shows some darker moods too (which I like), but I always have been drawn to the moody ones. Watching Trevor open up is delightful and he definitely puts hummingbirds in my stomach, let me tell you. What I love best is the way he changes the slogan on his t-shirt to match his emotions, generally with a smartass comment.

Ending books about the afterlife is generally pretty tricky, more so than with other genres perhaps. Sabatini's ending worked perfectly, I felt. I didn't anticipate quite the direction it would go in, and I really appreciated that. Nothing's wrapped up exactly, but it feels complete.

Kimberly Sabatini's debut blew me away and I know Touching the Surface is a book that I will be rereading. For a book with similar themes that does some wholly different things, check out Level 2 by fellow Apocalypsie Lenore Appelhans.

Rating: 4.5/5

Favorite Quote:

"'Damn it, Elliot, do you ever make kissing easy?' he said, cupping his nose.
   'Maybe you should learn not to be such a tease and get to it a little quicker,' I shot back.
   'So, I've got to get to the kissing before you start thinking too hard about something else?'
   'Something like that,' I said, reaching to check his nose. He winced.
   'You'll heal in a minute,' I said with a smirk."

Photograph - The Verve

Never Enough

Author: Denise Jaden
Pages: 372
ARC Acquired from: Simon Pulse in exchange for an honest review

Description from Goodreads:
From the author of Losing Faith, a novel about two sisters and the eating disorder that threatens to destroy their family.

Loann’s always wanted to be popular and pretty like her sister, Claire. So when Claire’s ex-boyfriend starts flirting with her, Loann is willing to do whatever it takes to feel special… even if that means betraying her sister.

But as Loann slips inside Claire’s world, she discovers that everything is not as it seems. Claire’s quest for perfection is all-consuming, and comes at a dangerous price. As Claire increasingly withdraws from friends and family, Loann struggles to understand her and make amends. Can she heal their relationship —and her sister—before it’s too late?

First Sentence: "They say you shouldn't try to be someone you're not."

Review:
Going into this, I had completely forgotten what it was about, and I've never read Jaden's first book, Losing Faith, so I went into Never Enough blind. I love being able to do that, and reading this book was an amazing experience. I really hope I can do the novel justice with this review, and apologize in advance in case I don't, since I'm exhausted and filled with pre-BEA jitters.

Never Enough captured me and held me rapt all the way through. The book also surprised me constantly. I wouldn't really call anything that happened a twist so much as people acting in believably unpredictable ways. Rarely have been so unsure of what was going to happen in a book. There was really only one plot point that I saw coming. Not being able to predict the ending is so rare, and Never Enough was all the more meaningful and profound for the masterful storytelling.

Loann, the main character, is a wonderful heroine. She's an average teen: she doesn't look like a model (in fact, she describes herself as looking like a potato), she is not popular, and she has middling to low grades. At first, the story is about her and her troubles with her friends. For a while, she is friendless, and I empathized with her so much. Loann lives her life in the shadow of her older sister (a senior to her junior), who she thinks has the perfect life. Claire is pretty, popular and dating Josh, the guy Loann has had a crush on for ages, before Claire even met him.

As the book moves on, the book tackles more and more serious issues, although the primary one is eating disorders. Lovely Claire is wasting away, physically and mentally. Her life is constructed around lies that keep others from noticing that she's not eating. Having pretty much no food intake, she has no energy and simply drifts through life unable to figure out what to do, even though she's capable of so much. Seen through Loann's eyes, Claire's condition is unbelievably heart-wrenching, as she watches the sister she's always envied disappear. I loved how Claire's gradual change was captured in the state of her hair, slowly losing it's shininess.

These two sisters form a sort of classic pattern, the two people who secretly envy one another, unaware of what each has to offer. They both suffer from such incredibly low self-esteem, and it was unclear precisely where this came from. Jaden does not point to a particular root cause, instead showing their lives, allowing the reader to draw conclusions. She is not at all heavy-handed or preachy.

Two other things I need to talk about before I can wrap up this review are photography and Marcus. Loann is rescued from her friendless, useless (in her eyes) life by both of those. For her birthday, she receives a camera, a fancy one. She studies and learns how to use it, and discovers a natural talent for photography. The descriptions of Loann taking pictures are so loving and totally convey her passion for the art.

Marcus is a loner who she slowly befriends. There friendship has such a slow, but real, progression. Neither one is especially social or trusting by nature, so it takes some time for them to plant roots, but their friendship is so powerful once they do. Marcus is a wonderful character. He's a great guy, dependable, hard-working, and clever. However, he also feels like a real person with his strange interests, and his difficulty letting people in. Like Loann, he stands out amongst the usual YA characters.

Jaden handles seriously dark issues honestly and beautifully. This is a must read for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson. If you like your books painfully honest, do yourself a big favor and procure a copy of Never Enough. You won't be sorry.

Rating: 5/5

Favorite Quote: "I fiddled with the buttons on my jacket, hoping the question would disappear. But it didn't. It just hung there, unavoidably stuck in midair between us like the Goodyear Blimp."

"And if you want beautiful, pitiful, have me in a picture"

Hunger Strike - Temple of the Dog

Hunger
Riders of the Apocalypse, Book 1

Author: Jackie Morse Kessler
Genre: fantasy
Pages: 177
ARC Acquired From: Houghton Mifflin booth at ALA 2010

Brief Summary:
Lisabeth Lewis thinks she is too fat. She exercises constantly, counts calories and envies the self-control of her bulimic best friend Tammy. Lisabeth is anorexic, although she will not admit it; she does not believe someone as fat as she is could be anorexic. Her friendship with Tammy arose when her previous best friend accused her of being anorexic. Tammy understands her in a way Suzanne never did. Her eating disorder becomes more severe all the time and her boyfriend and parents are starting to take notice, which is causing arguments and tension. When Death shows up at her doorstep, stopping a suicide attempt, to give her the scales of Famine, she thinks she has imagined it. Until he shows up again and she goes for a ride on the invisible (to everyone else) horse on the lawn. Performing the role of a Horseman of the Apocalypse may just provide some much needed perspective on Lisabeth's life.

Review:
While the book does eventually come out on the side of not being anorexic, reading the sections where Lisabeth (what kind of a name is that anyway?) wishes she could be bulimic is (pardon the incredibly awful pun) nauseating. Add to this the constant interruptions of the Thin voice, which constantly reminds Lisabeth that "Anorexics don't have muffin tops," so she is not anorexic. The voice tells her not to eat and mocks her. This may be how it feels to have an eating disorder, as the author reveals at the end that she suffered from bulimia for a time. but it drove me crazy.

Perhaps worst of all are some of the delightful scatalogical scenes that come along with a book centered largely on anorexia and bulimia. After her first night working as Famine, there is a lovely description of Lisabeth's really painful poo. Later, when she spends time with Tammy, the reader is treated to an even more detailed description of vomiting. Certainly this might be off putting to a teen considering throwing up as a method of weight loss, but it also urged me to keep far away from any other books this series may have.

Although this book is technically fantasy (and I marked its genre as fantasy for lack of a better heading), Hunger is far more about eating disorders than about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In fact, the whole fantasy frame story could easily be read as a dream that motivates Lisabeth to change her ways. The fantasy elements never feel real and are only a vehicle for keeping the book from being preachy.

I do not particularly recommend this book. If you really like books that deal openly with tough teen issues, like Speak does, then this book may interest you. This not being my niche area, I am just glad the book was really short.

"I don't mind stealing bread
From the mouths of decadence
But I can't feed on the powerless
When my cup's already overfilled"