Review: The Murmurings

The Murmurings

Author: Carly Anne West
Pages: 384
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: March 5, 2013
Source: For review from Simon & Schuster via YA Books Central

Description from Goodreads:
A teen girl starts hearing the same voices that drove her sister to commit suicide in this creepy, suspenseful novel.

Everyone thinks Sophie’s sister, Nell, went crazy. After all, she heard strange voices that drove her to commit suicide. But Sophie doesn’t believe that Nell would take her own life, and she’s convinced that Nell’s doctor knows more than he’s letting on.

As Sophie starts to piece together Nell’s last days, every lead ends in a web of lies. And the deeper Sophie digs, the more danger she’s in—because now she’s hearing the same haunting whispers. Sophie’s starting to think she’s going crazy too. Or worse, that maybe she’s not….

First Sentence: "I'm supposed to wonder why Gregor Samsa is a cockroach."

Review:

It's pretty safe to say from the reviews that have already come out and from what my own expectations were that The Murmurings is not the book most readers will be expecting. The cover and the blurb suggest and incredibly eerie, horror-filled read, but that really isn't how West's debut is. In fact, The Murmurings is largely a slower-paced contemporary on the nature of insanity, with a bit of horror and paranormal towards the end.

The best part of The Murmurings is the writing. West achieves a sort of distance in Sophie's narration that perfectly suits her mental state and desire to keep herself apart from everyone. Below that frosty surface, you also get a sense of how open Sophie probably used to be. Both the contemplative and faster-paced scenes during the climax scenes are well-handled.

The concept of the murmurings creeps me out for sure. Sophie's sister Nell was put into a mental institution because she heard voices and saw weird things in the mirror. Nell ended up escaping with one of the orderlies, but then is found dead in a nearby town, hanging upside down. Sophie has started hearing the murmurs too, and Dr. Keller of Oakside, the mental hospital, keeps calling to talk to Sophie's mom. West sets up a seriously creepy concept and makes you curious to find out what's going on at Oakside.

The mental hospital has a sort of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Vibe. The workers are all horribly creepy and rude, obviously uninterested in the rehabilitation of the patients. They give out drugs to make the patients pliable and run painful experiments. It's like only Nurse Ratched works at this place. Other than the fact that it seems to be really easy for patients to sneak out of their rooms, the mental hospital was sufficiently creepy and upsetting.

Sadly, I feel like the paranormal elements could have been a bit better-explained. I'm still not entirely certain what was going on, especially why victims ended up hanging upside down in impossible positions. Creepy? Most definitely. However, it leaves me with a lot of questions. Of course, I suppose all of it could be in Sophie's mind as she sits, drugged, in the mental hospital...

If you're looking for a gruesome, terrifying, fast-paced read, you might want to look elsewhere, but, if you like atmospheric novels and can deal with a slower pace, I would recommend The Murmurings.

Rating: 3/5

Favorite Quote:

"He said there's a chance.
I say, What's the point?
He points to me."

Sadie Hawkins Sunday Review #2: Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet, Book 1

Author: R. J. Anderson
Pages: 303
Publisher: Orchard
Source: Library
Chosen by: Blythe Harris of Finding Bliss in Books

Description from Goodreads:
Once upon a time there was a girl who was special.

This is not her story.

Unless you count the part where I killed her.

Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sectioned in a mental institute for teens, having murdered the most perfect and popular girl at school. But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison’s condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can’t explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori—the next she disintegrated. Into nothing. But that’s impossible. Right?

First Sentence: "Once upon a time there was a girl who was special."

Review:

Almost everyone I know loved this book and recommended that I read it super soon, including the wonderful Blythe. Ultraviolet is one of the books that makes you question everything and consider the world in a different light. It will likely surprise you, and it's rather difficult to review without spoilers. I will try my damndest not to spoil anything, however.

Alison suffers from synesthesia, though she doesn't know that's the name for her condition. I say "suffers" not because I think synesthesia is a curse, but because Alison does, her mother having punished her for mentioning what she could see and others could not. Alison has always thought she was crazy, and her mom has always loved Alison less for being an odd child. I love the descriptions of Alison's synesthesia throughout the book. They're beautiful, poetic and almost like sensing another dimension.

The story opens with a bang. Alison wakes up in a hospital, about to be transferred to a mental institution. A classmate of hers, Tori, disappears, last scene fighting with Alison. Next thing anyone knows, Alison shows up ranting that she killed Alison, disintegrated her into a million pieces. Alison is a mess, a danger to herself, thus being sent to the mental hospital. When she first wakes up, she remembers nothing, but the memories soon come flooding back.

This premise is utterly compelling. Mental institutions and insanity are just such wonderful subjects for fiction because the reader never knows precisely where they stand. A first person narration in such a case is never entirely reliable, because, not matter how the MC thinks they are, they might not be. For all I know, Alison actually spends the entire course of the novel whacked out on some powerful anti-psychotics and projects her guilt or delusions onto someone else or her dream self. I find this sort of mindfuck endlessly fascinating.

Pretending Alison is on the level and reliable, the story is an engaging one, filled with creepy subject matter and a matching eerie tone. Anderson sets tone in a way that reminds me a bit of Brenna Yovanoff, though their books are quite different. The murder mystery and the curiosities of the various characters kept me rapt throughout the novel.

However, I do have some concerns with regards to where the plot goes. I'll speak about them very generally to avoid spoilers. Basically, the plot takes a turn at one point, and I really wish the book had continued along in the vein where it began. Anderson might convince me that it was necessary in a later book, but I'm not there with this one.

Perhaps more frustrating is that I feel like too many things come too easily, too simply, and too unevenly. Alison's synesthesia seems to come and go; there will be a paragraph laden with synesthetic description, followed by bunches with none, which seems a bit weird, since she would always feel the world that way. On top of that, her synesthesia helps her with a lot of things that I don't think it would aid and she learns how to do these things with little more difficulty than snapping one's fingers. The romance, too, comes together so simply, without any thought on the part of the heroine, and just generally upsets me all around.

Now, I may not have loved this book as others did, but I definitely enjoyed it and appreciate its uniqueness. Also, though I may not be sure about the direction the book takes, in this sort of series, anything, and I do mean anything could happen, so there's no way that I could stop reading this series until I get to the end, whether it ultimately satisfies or not, though I hope it will. Those looking for mindbending reads will not want to miss Ultraviolet.


Rating: 3.5/5

Favorite Quote: "I could spend the rest of my life studying you, and there wouldn't be a moment wasted."

---

Up Next:
The next Sadie Hawkins Sunday book will be Our Happy Hours, a manga by Sahara Mizu and Gong Ji-young!

Want to tell me what to read? Fill out THIS FORM with a book suggestion! For more details, check this post.

Review: Lucky Bunny

Lucky Bunny

Author: Jill Dawson
Pages: 384
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Source: Publisher via TLC Book Tours

Description from Goodreads:
'Crime's a man's business. So they say. Who was that small figure then, slender enough to trot along the moonlit track, swift and low, virtually invisible? Who was it that covered the green signal with a glove to stop the train, while the two others took care of the driver and his mate? Could it have been one Queenie Dove, survivor of the Depression and the Blitz, not to mention any number of scrapes with the law?'

Queenie Dove is a self-proclaimed genius when it comes to thieving and escape. Daring, clever and sexy, she ducked and dived through the streets of London from the East End through Soho to Mayfair, graduating from childhood shop-lifting to more glamorous crimes in the post-war decades. So was she wicked through and through, or more sinned against than sinning? Here she tells a vivacious tale of trickery and adventure, but one with more pain and heartbreak than its heroine cares to admit. Yes, luck often favoured her, but that is only part of the story.

First Sentence: "Queenie's not my real name, of course."

Review:
I went into this novel with such high hopes. Audra of Unabridged Chick loved it, and I typically find that I agree with her on books. Unfortunately, my experience of this one was quite different, partly, I think, because of my prior reading history and because of the way the book was billed. For me, this book was slow and torturous, the characters utterly loathsome.

Your enjoyment of this book will likely hinge on how you feel about Queenie Dove. If you find her clever, cool and alluring, then everything will be copacetic. If, like me, you find her obnoxious and really don't care what happens to her, the book will drag on seemingly endlessly. In part, my distaste stemmed from her name, as I read another book with a Queenie at the lead earlier this year: Code Name Verity. That Queenie has so much personality, strength, intelligence and charisma that this one paled in comparison.

My other problem with regards to expectation was that I thought this was a novel about World War II. It's mentioned in the blurb and on the back of the book it's described as "a world war II-era narrative," which may technically be true, but is quite misleading. World War II doesn't matter too much in Queenie's life, though she lives through it. She was evacuated briefly toe the country and survived one tragic bombing, but that's pretty much the extent of it.

Of course, had I read the synopsis more closely, I would have noted what the book is actually about: hoisting, theft, in so much as it is about anything. You see, this book doesn't have a plot. AT ALL. I have liked plotless books in the past, because if the writing and ideas and characters are marvelous than I don't need a plot to pull me through to the end of the book. Without it in this instance, it was a struggle to get to the last page. I had similar difficulties with David Copperfield, another fictional biography. Perhaps that subset of fiction is not for me.

I will say that the book improved when Queenie got older. The first 150 pages or so, though, were so entirely boring to me. A large portion of the book is devoted to Queenie's tragic childhood, I guess to promote sympathy in me and make me care about her. Well, that didn't work. Yes, her life sucked (gambler dad, insane mother, etc.), but I still found Queenie off-putting.

Precisely why I disliked Queenie so much, aside from expecting her to be like that other literary Queenie, is a bit hard to place my finger on. I suspect that lies in her narrative style. The book is written in a style that simply didn't work for me, filled with odd slang and long sentences. I read a little selection of it to my parents, who found it pompous and said it sounded like she was 'trying too hard.' The cadence of the sentences just didn't come off particularly naturally. With a really good narrator, though, I imagine this could be a marvelous audiobook.

As much as there was one, the main conflict of the book regarded domestic abuse. Like her mother before her, Queenie settles down with a man who beats her. He first hits her in public and not just once, yet she stays. In the narrative, she considers how much other people blame the abused woman for allowing the abuse, for staying; she calls this victim blaming. She has a point, of course, but I still feel wholeheartedly that she should have kicked him to the curb the first time he slapped her.

Undoubtedly this book will work for others and I urge you to check out Audra's review, which I linked to up above, for another viewpoint. The whole book just rubbed me the wrong way.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote: "I've never been one of those women who looks at herself in the mirror and takes everything apart, critical, you know. What a waste of time that attitude is! Young girls today make me sorry for them, always dissecting their own bodies, like they're one of those maps of a cow in a butchers' shop. Me, I take my lead from Gloria. I look in the mirror, slap my lovely fat behind and say to myself: yep, Queenie, looking good!"

Review: Middle Ground Blog Tour

Middle Ground
Awaken, Book 2

Author: Katie Kacvinsky
Pages: 336
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: November 20, 2012
Source: ARC for blog tour hosted by The Readiacs

Description from Goodreads:
In this provocative cautionary tale for teens, the sequel to Awaken, seventeen-year-old Maddie’s rebellion against the digital-only life grows dangerous. Maddie is in Los Angeles, trying to stay out of trouble. But one night, a seemingly small act of defiance lands her in the place she fears the most: a detention center. Here, patients are reprogrammed to accept a digital existence. Maddie is now fighting for her mind, her soul, and her very life. Once again, Katie Kacvinsky paints a disturbing picture of our increasingly technology-based society.

Series:
1: Awaken (Goodreads|Review)
2: Middle Ground

First Sentence: "I have over one hundred online profiles."

Review:
There's one thing pretty much every blogger I know agrees on: those early reviews are terrible. We all grow and change all the time, influenced by lives, friends, books, television shows, evolving new writing styles and review formats. My tastes have changed so much over the two years I've been blogging, and I don't always know how much to trust my own opinions from a couple years back. Sometimes it's even difficult to trust more recent opinions, because if you catch a book in the perfect mood, you'll love it, even if 9 times out of 10, you would rather feed yourself to a velociraptor than sit through it. This is my long-winded way of saying that I really liked Awaken at the time, and very much wanted to read the sequel, but feared that it probably wasn't as good as I thought then. Well, truth be told, I wouldn't like it as much now, but I did still enjoy Middle Ground with more dystopias under my belt.

What I like most about this series is the writing. Kacvinsky achieves a nice teenage voice, I think, not overly simple or complex. Maddie really does read a like teen, complete with incorrect assumptions based on her narrow-minded worldview and obsession with boys, or one boy in particular. That sounds bad, but, let's face it, she's young and still learning, but at pretty much every point feels like she knows everything, even when the reader can tell she super doesn't. This rings true with what I remember of being a teen, that feeling that pretty much everything was an external problem and that you had everything worked out. The older you get, it seems the less anything seems to make sense, at least for me.

From what I can gather from some review reading, my memory not permitting me to recall Awaken clearly and time not permitting a reread, romance rather took the front seat to the dystopian plot in the first book. In this one, I think they were a bit more even. Maddie, like Eve from Anna Carey's trilogy, does spend a lot of time thinking about Justin, but she does actually turn her mind and her strength to real problems. There are scenes where female characters discuss things that aren't boys, so hurrah Bechdel test passed.

Still, the world building is pretty weak and vague. Basically, Justin's group of rebels opposes DS (Digital School), because they think people need to get out and live their lives. The problem with this is that you're only in school for part of your life, and I have no idea what grown ups' lives are like in this world, with the exception of the people working for digital school; the education system just doesn't seem as huge a foe as, say, the government as a whole, though I do get their point that if you are inculcated in the belief that it's better to stay inside all day, then you'll continue to do so. Where does food come from, I wonder? No idea. There's so much left unsaid.

Still, lame world building happens a lot in dystopias, sad though that is to admit. What makes it worse here is how preachy Kacvinsky is about it. The horrors of DS, of a life fully digital, are constantly outlined, like a kid trying to write a paper about technology gone bad. All of the deep discussions come across heavy-handed, as though the answers are being passed down to you, rather than provoking a feeling or thoughts within the reader. It would have helped to see some examples of people gone too far into their digital lives, unwilling to leave their chairs and drowning in their own filth or something. All we really see are perfectly functional people, none of whom seem to suffer from a fear of the outdoors. Sure, it's odd that people would go to a club and plug into the computer to talk to one another as avatars even though they're physically in the same room, but so what?

The book improved when Maddie got taken to the LADC (Los Angeles Detention Center). In there, we do get a better sense of why the system is horrific. This section reminded me of A Clockwork Orange a bit. This added a much harsher, more realistic feeling to the series. Prior to this, it felt a lot more like a girl rebelling against her daddy because he didn't like her boyfriend (though they weren't officially together at the time).

I expected to be seriously annoyed by the romance, and, certainly, there were moments where I wanted to kick them both in the shins. For example, at the beginning, he's disappeared for months without a word, randomly shows up, and she acts like nothing happened. She does eventually lecture him about communication, but he should have gotten the cold shoulder first. *sassy finger waggle* Then later there's a lot of special snowflake stuff where she's afraid of people and he's the only one she can touch. I hate when the reason for things is 'the power of love,' even when it happened in Harry Potter.

However, all of that does get counterbalanced by Maddie actually learning through the course of the book. In Awaken, she basically shifted from obedience to her father's will to obedience to Justin's. This was bad. As this book goes along, she comes to realize the importance of independence and doing things for herself. She makes choices Justin doesn't entirely approve of and becomes more of a partner to him than an inferior. There are even times where he lets her take charge, and I really appreciate this relationship took a turn for the healthy. Though again a bit preachy, I thought this character arc felt real utterly realistic, especially for a girl with daddy issues.

I realize this all comes off a bit ranty, but, as I said, though I could snark about this more, I really did like reading it. The authenticity of Maddie's voice, naive though she may be, kept me wrapped up in the story. I think this series will be a big hit with readers who enjoy the Eve series by Anna Carey or The Pledge series by Kimberly Derting, dystopias that focus a bit more on romance than world building.

Rating: 3/5

Favorite Quote: "You can always make time for people. The point is, you have to want to."

Maybe Sprout Wings - The Mountain Goats

Above

Author: Leah Bobet
Pages: 368
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Publication Date: April 1, 2012
Source: Library

Description from Goodreads:
Matthew has loved Ariel from the moment he found her in the tunnels, her bee’s wings falling away. They live in Safe, an underground refuge for those fleeing the city Above—like Whisper, who speaks to ghosts, and Jack Flash, who can shoot lightning from his fingers.

But one terrifying night, an old enemy invades Safe with an army of shadows, and only Matthew, Ariel, and a few friends escape Above. As Matthew unravels the mystery of Safe’s history and the shadows’ attack, he realizes he must find a way to remake his home—not just for himself, but for Ariel, who needs him more than ever before.

First Sentence: "My last supply duty before Sanctuary Night, I get home and Atticus is waiting."

Review:
What on this crazy, polluted planet did I just read? Seriously, I just finished reading this and I have no freaking clue. If this book were a person, it would likely end up in a straitjacket, trapped in the sorts of institutions many of its characters have been at one point or another. Mix together One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Dust Girl, and I think you've got something that roughly approximates Above.

The world depicted herein does have interesting features. For example, there are people with powers, like Jack and his lightning hands. Others are part animal, like Matthew and his scales. Some of these Freaks, those that aren't normal, have formed a community, hidden beneath the earth in tunnels, safe from the doctors and the institutions. They call their community Safe, and Atticus is their leader.

This basic premise could have made an outstanding book, but it didn't. The lack of explanation caused me to get stuck in questioning mode, unable to suspend disbelief. So far as I noticed, there was never once any sort of description of HOW society came to be this way. People don't just suddenly get born with lion feet for no reason. I'm not even asking for much. Just give me something! Really, I would have been a bit more positive towards the book had their been just a sentence telling me that these changes were the result of drugs, chemicals in the food, pollution, SOMETHING.

The character of Ariel, pictured on the book's cover, proved to be another insurmountable obstacle for me as a reader. While I can easily accept some of the curses (or so they call them) that the people of Safe possess, like wielding lightning or speaking with ghosts, I had major difficulty with the animal hybrids. Still, I could accept to some degree at least Atticus' claw hands and Matthew's dad's lion feet. Fine. Ariel, though, I could not fathom. You see, she is not precisely as pictured. She looks completely normal sometimes, entirely human. However, she can TURN INTO A BEE. Her ability differs from everyone else's greatly, and I couldn't deal with the whole conservation of matter issues. Sure, I've read books where I wasn't bothered by things like that (Harry Potter, for example), but this aspect just seemed out of place within Bobet's own world. Why was Ariel so unique?

Matthew is a meh main character, which is unfortunate, especially considering that I still found him to be the most interesting character. Everyone feels flat and I don't get a sense of any real emotion anywhere, even in the scenes that I know were meant to be gut-wrenching. Perhaps this stems from the way Bobet chose to tell the story, as Matthew's autobiography, thus creating a sense of removal from those moments?

Matthew has a momentous crush on Ariel, although it's never put into those terms. I will give the romance credit for not being remotely like any other YA romances. However, that does not make me ship them any more. Again, it's hard to root for them when I have no sense of who they really are. Ariel, especially, does not seem to much care for anyone and would probably be best off alone.

The writing teetered on the edge of dialect but, except for one brief section, remained normal enough that I didn't want to stab my eyes out with one of my stiletto heels. Her long (mostly about forty pages) chapters made my eyes cross. I was constantly flipping ahead to see how many pages of the chapter remained, and the answer was usually too many. Additionally, I did not care for the Tales told at the end of each chapter, a brief story of how some of the key characters came to be in Safe. The characters chosen seemed entirely arbitrary, with some important ones having been skipped and some we never even meet getting a section. Many of these didn't add to the book for me at all. I feel like it would have been stronger to integrate them into the rest of the text.

There were some ideas in Above that I really liked, some shining possibility from amidst the weirdness. I really wish that Bobet hadn't made this a paranormal. As an issues book set in a dystopian future with a crackdown on crazy people (like The Glimpse), this could have been so powerful. The paranormal elements detracted from the serious themes, like the abuse Ariel has suffered and the inhumane treatments perpetrated by the Whitecoats.

About all I can say having finished Above is that I didn't completely hate it. However, I have so little positive to say that I cannot even rate it a meh. Some readers surely exist who can appreciate Bobet's vision, but I am not that reader.

Favorite Quote:

"Jimmy was big and broad; all the better for keeping her papa away. Jimmy was seldom smiling; well, it mattered more when he smiled just for her. And Jimmy had a place down in the city, lock and key secure between her and the world, and nobody looking in or telling where she'd gone.
   This is the way the Tale goes, that it's good for a while. That there's someone to hold you at dusk and a quiet space to stay, someone to careful, careful drag you back from the nightmares and glittering cut-sharp edges of your smashed-up broken nerve.
   It good short of forever.
   It gets real bad. It gets bad in ways you know on you skin, and this time you picked it. You didn't look close enough, so this time it's just you to blame. So it's bad on back and shoes in hand to tiptoe late-night out the door, and no time for somewhere to run to; no time to wait for the real thing. There's only time to go.
   There's running and running 'til you can't outrun your skin."

"I thought of old friends
the one's who'd gone missing
Said all their names three times
Phantoms in the early dark
Canaries in the mines

Ghosts and clouds
And nameless things
Squint your eyes and hope real hard
Maybe sprout wings"

Remember: Every comment on a post during Dystopian August is an entry to win one of fourteen dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels IF you've filled out the form from this post.

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

The Glimpse

Author: Claire Merle
Pages: 300
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Source: Faber & Faber via NetGalley

Description from Goodreads:
In a near future, society is segregated according to whether people are genetically disposed to mental illness. 17-year-old Ana has been living the privileged life of a Pure due to an error in her DNA test. When the authorities find out, she faces banishment from her safe Community, a fate only thwarted by the fact that she has already been promised to Pure-boy Jasper Taurell.

Jasper is from a rich and influential family and despite Ana’s condition, wants to be with her. The authorities grant Ana a tentative reprieve. If she is joined to Jasper before her 18th birthday, she may stay in the Community until her illness manifests. But if Jasper changes his mind, she will be cast out among the Crazies. As Ana’s joining ceremony and her birthday loom closer, she dares to hope she will be saved from the horror of the City and live a ‘normal’ life. But then Jasper disappears.

Led to believe Jasper has been taken by a strange sect the authorities will not intefere with, Ana sneaks out of her well-guarded Community to find him herself. Her search takes her through the underbelly of society, and as she delves deeper into the mystery of Jasper’s abduction she uncovers some devastating truths that destroy everything she has grown up to believe.

First Sentence: "Sometimes, when Ana hovered on the edge of sleep, she heard the patter of feet along the school corridor; she felt her best friend Tamsin close by—a near, warm presence like the imprint on a bed recently slept in; she saw the Board's saloon car pulling up outside the front of school, a white envelope glowing through one of their leather cases, whispering her name, her disease."

Review:
Unsurprisingly, I was really looking forward to The Glimpse, because of that magic word dystopia, and because I seriously love the cover. It's both simple and fantastic, even if it does seem much more suited to the plot line of Delirium. My hopes definitely went down as I saw some reviews rolling into the blogosphere. None of the reviews I saw were overly positive, and I was pretty bummed. Still, I determined to read it myself, because I do try to read all of the dystopias.

Anyway, I actually liked The Glimpse, although I can see why it might have given other readers some trouble. What pulled me through the book was definitely the concept, which was something pretty new to me on the dystopian front, always a plus. In this future, the world has been divided up into the haves and the have-nots, only the dividing line is not race or wealth or attractiveness: it's sanity.

Society is divided up into Pures, those without any genetic markers indicating a disorder (ex. depression, bipolar, ADHD, etc.) and Crazies. The Pures live within beautiful communities and have pretty much everything they need. Their society isn't much different from ours, although they now get married through an antiquated process called Joining.

I found the whole division based on mental stability entirely fascinating. Imaginging society spazzing out about the ever-increasing number of people suffering from some sort of mental disorder is not really a stretch at all. That could definitely be something that a despotic government might want to control. Basically, this could be a way of helping Darwinism along by trying to get the healthiest people to stick together and procreate.

Though I really liked that, the characters never really felt real to me at all. I wasn't especially invested in them. I wanted to know what happened, but I didn't particularly care whether the main couple made it work or if they won out against the bad guys. They weren't terrible characters. Really, on paper, I should have liked Ana, but...meh. Whereas in a lot of books, the dialog is what makes the book move along for me, in this one it was definitely the longer paragraphs of description here.

Perhaps what distanced me from the characters was due to some weakness in the plotting. I often felt like the characters, mostly Ana, made completely illogical decisions. Not in a real life, people do stupid things kind of way, but in a wtf just happened kind of way. Ana would think things over and decide that the obvious choice in some situation was X, and I would be sitting there going, "Why would you ever do that in response to this situation? FACEPALM."

To sum up, the world building was really cool, but I thought everything else could use some more work. Despite thebook's limitations, I do think I will probably be reading the sequel. This one definitely isn't for everyone, but, if you like the premise, you may want to give it a go.

Favorite Quote: "'How can anyone prove they're not insane to people that are?'"

"And when you're out there 
Without care, 
Yeah, I was out of touch 
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough 
I just knew too much 

Does that make me crazy?"

Remember: Every comment on a post during Dystopian August is an entry to win one of fourteen dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels IF you've filled out the form from this post.

I Don't Want to Be - Gavin DeGraw

What's Left of Me
The Hybrid Chronicles, Book 1

Author: Kat Zhang
Pages: 356
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: September 18, 2012
Source: Kat Zhang Signing at BEA

Description from Goodreads:
Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t…

For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable–hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet…for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything.

First Sentence: "Addie and I were born into the same body, our souls' ghostly fingers entwined before we gasped our very first breath."

Review:
Often, as I'm reading dystopias, I am making a list of all of the elements borrowed from a prior dystopia. Having read so many, coming across a truly original idea is a bit startling and exceedingly impressive. Kat Zhang's book is like none I have read before. What's Left of Me is a story that questions what it means to be a human, to be a soul, and to be normal.

Author Lauren DeStefano is blurbed on the back of my ARC as saying, "A shockingly unique story that redefines what it means to be human." Usually, I ignore blurbs, because they often say so little, and they're often meaningless. This one I agree with wholeheartedly. That sentence captures the essence of What's Left of Me. This dystopia takes on philosophical questions and is one of the most thought-provoking books I've read this year.

In this world, a sort of alternate universe, two souls are born into every body. At the start of life, there are two people in each human frame. As time passes and the body grows, one of the personalities takes over, asserts dominance, and the other one dissipates, gone as though never there. By the age of ten, there should be just one soul where two used to reside; they should settle. Up until that point, the two souls trade off, so that body is sometimes the one and sometimes the other.

Some souls, though, do not settle. Neither soul goes away entirely. These people are called hybrids, and they are unacceptable. Hybrids are dangerous, unstable within themselves, thus unstable in society. The United States does not stand for this, because they are sick of the wars that hybridity brings, as evidenced by the war-torn, hybrid-filled, foreign nations.

Eva and Addie never settled. Eventually, Eva faded into the background and they pretended to be an I instead of a we, an us instead of a me. Eva can do nothing but watch and listen as her sister controls their body, can converse with no one but Addie, in their mental language. What does it mean to be a soul? To be a person? Is it Addie/Eva that's broken or society?

Told from Eva's perspective, What's Left of Me is daring in its storytelling. Never have I read a book written quite this way, just as I've never considered how different life would be with two people inhabiting the one body. Most of the story is told in first person plural, even though we're in Eva's 'mind' so to speak. This writing style never ceased being odd to me, but it always made sense.

Unlike a lot of dystopias, What's Left of Me does not have a ton of action, though there is some. The joy of this novel is philosophical and psychological. There isn't much romance at all, though there are some hints. Of course, how can you have a healthy relationship when your body doesn't belong just to you? Seriously, how crazy to think about is this?

Aside from Eva, and perhaps Ryan, I didn't get a great feel for most of the characters. Eva, our narrator, is so deep within her own thoughts that she doesn't necessarily have a great feel for anyone. I really didn't get a reading on Addie, except to wonder how she became the dominant personality. I suspect Eva probably should have been and may have faded back to save her Addie's soul, but that's all speculation.

Some spoilery thoughts that you'll have to highlight to make legible: The main issue that I had with What's Left of Me was that some things were too easy. When they're all trapped in the mental institution, they get out so simply. You know why? Because the freaking doors to the rooms weren't locked, so they could have late night powwows in the halls. The furniture wasn't nailed down. What kind of institution is this? If they think hybrids are dangerous and might try to escape, they're not going to have such weak security. Speaking of, the place wouldn't almost entirely empty of staff on some nights either.

For those of you that enjoy cerebral reads, What's Left of Me is not to be missed. I am truly in awe of Zhang's mind for coming up with such a creative, astounding idea.

Favorite Quote: "I was terrified. I was eleven years old, and though I'd been told my entire life that it was entirely natural for the recessive soul to fade away, I didn't want to go. I wanted twenty thousand more sunrises, three thousand more hot summer days at the pool. I wanted to know what it was like to have a first kiss. The other recessives were lucky to have disappeared at four or five. They knew less."

"I don't have to be anything other
Than the birth of two souls in one
Part of where I'm going, is knowing where I'm coming from
I don't want to be

Anything other than what I've been trying to be lately
All I have to do
Is think of me and I have peace of mind
I'm tired of looking 'round rooms

Wondering what I've got to do
Or who I'm supposed to be
I don't want to be anything other than me
I'm surrounded by liars everywhere I turn

I'm surrounded by imposters everywhere I turn
I'm surrounded by identity crisis everywhere I turn
Am I the only one who noticed?
I can't be the only one who's learned"

Remember: Every comment on a post during Dystopian August is an entry to win one of fourteen dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels IF you've filled out the form from this post.

Possession - Sarah McLachlan

Blue Asylum
Author: Kathy Hepinstall
Pages: 270
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via NetGalley

Description from Goodreads:
Amid the mayhem of the Civil War, Virginia plantation wife Iris Dunleavy is put on trial and convicted of madness. It is the only reasonable explanation the court can see for her willful behavior, so she is sent away to Sanibel Asylum to be restored to a good, compliant woman. Iris knows, though, that her husband is the true criminal; she is no lunatic, only guilty of disagreeing with him on notions of justice, cruelty, and property.

On this remote Florida island, cut off by swamps and seas and military blockades, Iris meets a wonderful collection of residents--- some seemingly sane, some wrongly convinced they are crazy, some charmingly odd, some dangerously unstable. Which of these is Ambrose Weller, the war-haunted Confederate soldier whose memories terrorize him into wild fits that can only be calmed by the color blue, but whose gentleness and dark eyes beckon to Iris?

The institution calls itself modern, but Iris is skeptical of its methods, particularly the dreaded "water treatment." She must escape, but she has found new hope and love with Ambrose. Can she take him with her? If they make it out, will the war have left anything for them to make a life from, back home?

Blue Asylum is a vibrant, beautifully-imagined, absorbing story of the lines we all cross between sanity and madness. It is also the tale of a spirited woman, a wounded soldier, their impossible love, and the undeniable call of freedom.

First Sentence: "When Iris dreamed of that morning, the taste of blood was gone, and so was the odor of gunsmoke, but her other senses stayed alive."

Review:
Nothing makes me more feminist smashy than reading historical fiction where women who dare to be themselves and not the obedient pet society wanted them to be are thanked for their strength by being sent to an insane asylum. Iris isn't even that radical (by modern standards); she does want a man to take care of her, but not her evil, slave-owning husband. Even though later in the story, I don't necessarily agree with all of Iris' decisions, I can't help sympathizing with her because I can see what she's been through.

Just the other day, Heather of Coffee-Stained Pages and I were discussing historical fiction that dealt with the topic of slavery. Basically, we agreed that most of the books on slavery have the exact same viewpoint and narrative, whereas other historical fiction (like that of WWI or WWII, for example) is much more creative. Well, here comes Hepinstall with an exception to that. Although slavery is a central topic, along with the treatment of women, this story is nothing like any that I've read before. I love the comparison she draws between women's issues and slavery.

The writing was beautiful, and I had a lot of lovely quotes from which to choose. Ultimately, I went with the one that speaks to my life most. I love that phrase 'ecstatic loneliness,' because, as an introvert, it really describes how I feel most of the time. No wonder reading is my favorite pastime. Plus, who can't sympathize with a person who wants more out of life? Don't we all?

The way that Hepinstall also focused on the other residents of the mental hospital was fascinating. All of the 'lunatics' made a certain amount of sense, and yet there's just no way they can hope to function. Most of them were actually lucky to be there. For a mental hospital, this one was really nice, definitely not Nurse Ratched material.

Blue Asylum is a beautifully-written book that explores insanity and slavery, both of women and African Americans. Hepinstall walks familiar territory but weaves something new (I know I'm mixing my metaphors but I don't care!). Her book will likely appeal to those who enjoy Jessica Maria Tuccelli's Glow, especially those who don't like dialect much, or The Yellow Wallpaper.

Rating: 4/5

Favorite Quote: "Her childhood had been magical, hours spent in ecstatic loneliness in the apple orchard, dreaming of foreign lands and wild adventures.. Everything was new, down to bird song and grass blades. By the time she had reached adulthood, the town around her was like a grandmother who had used up all her stories and now simply rocked on the porch. The same flowers, the same streets, year after year. She longed for someone more exotic. A prince. A pirate."

"Through this world I've stumbled
So many times betrayed,
Trying to find an honest word,
To find the truth enslaved,
Oh you speak to me in riddles and
You speak to me in rhymes
My body aches to breathe your breath,
Your words keep me alive"

My Immortal - Evanescence

Drowning Instinct

Author: Ilsa J. Bick
Pages: 352
ARC Acquired from: Carolrhoda Lab via NetGalley
Brief Summary:
Jenna Lord has just awakened in the hospital, having nearly died for a third time. Her life has been an incredibly difficult one, with an overbearing father, a drunken mother, the only person she's really close to, her brother, in Iraq, and herself recovering (?) from psychological issues. The detective investigating her case gives her a digital recorder and asks her to explain how she got to this hospital. The story is her transcription.

Review:

Whoa. What an incredibly dark and well-done novel. I have absolutely no doubt that Ilsa J. Bick will come to be recognized alongside authors like Laurie Halse Anderson. She clearly has no problem plumbing the darkest and most terrifying of human emotions. Like Anderson, she also focuses on teens, on the bad stuff - not the shiny vampires and the sweet first loves.

Reading this book...it's going to hurt. Jenna is incredibly messed up. You learn this up front. She's spent a year in an institution, put there after it was discovered that she'd been cutting. So yeah, going into it you know her family's a mess and that she is too, but you don't know the full extent of it. The awfulness just keeps on rolling; I only wish that there were not people out there who have likely actually lived lives like Jenna's.

The main plot is about Jenna's relationship with an older man, her science teacher Mr. Anderson. Obviously, this too is a completely dark and forbidden thing. At the outset, you don't know what's going on exactly, but you definitely have your suspicions and you're pretty sure it's bad. Bick does an amazing job of highlighting the difficulties of understanding such a case.

Nothing in this book is black and white. For one thing, Jenna is not an especially reliable narrator. It's hard to know how much of what she believes to be true is actually true. Such realizations can be just as mind-blowing as reading through the book itself is. I got completely sucked into her story and to seeing from her point of view. Then, when I would step back and think about it, I had to face the fact that things may not be what they seem at all.

Fans of Laurie Halse Anderson or Patricia McCormick will love undoubtedly love this book. Do not read it without due preparation: i.e. tissues and/or something super sappy and happy to help you recover afterwards.

Rating: 5/5

"These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase"

I Kissed a Girl - Katy Perry

Wildthorn

Author: Jane Eagland
Genre: historical fiction, young adult
Pages: 349
ARC Obtained From: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via netgalley.com

Brief Summary:
Louisa Cosgrove, a British girl with a large nose wants nothing more than to be a doctor. Unfortunately, very few people support girls as doctors in her day and age. In fact, they sometimes have girls like her, ones who want silly things like independence, shut up in mental institutions, because, if you do not want a man to tell you what to do all the time, you must be insane. Louisa's life in that time period is made no easier by her being in love with her cousin either, her female cousin (they were totally okay with male and female cousins hooking up).

Review:
Wildthorn is not an ideal choice for those in search of happy fun times all the way through, but definitely an interesting topic not much touched on in teen literature. The first half of the novel switches between Louisa's experiences in the mental institution and her memories of her life and how she ended up there. Louisa is very sympathetic for a modern audience. The portrayal of the mental institution clearly reveals the horridness of that setup. Troublesome women truly were shunted off into these institutions and they could do nothing to escape. Most poignant is the impossibility of proving one's sanity. How do you convince people that you are not crazy when they keep calling you by a name that is not your own?

The lesbian angle was interesting too. Finding LGBT fiction for teens can be difficult; I took a course on young adult resources and in the week on this topic, we had no books about lesbians. This book fills a gap in teen literature and does quite a good job of it. Eagland does not shy away from the topic, nor does she overdo it. The story manages to be sweet and serious, a solid, slightly more deep than average teen read. It also has a beautiful cover!

Recommended if you like Sarah Waters, since this seems much like a teen version of Fingersmith.