Reality Boy Review

Reality Boy by A.S. King

Title: Reality Boy

Author: A. S. King

Series: None

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: October 22, 2013

Genre: Realistic Fiction; Contemporary; Romance; Young Adult

Pages: 353

Format: Hardback

goodreads

Gerald Faust knows exactly when he started feeling angry: the day his mother invited a reality television crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he’s still haunted by his rage-filled youth—which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle—and his anger issues have resulted in violent outbursts, zero friends, and clueless adults dumping him in the special education room at school.

Nothing is ever going to change. No one cares that he’s tried to learn to control himself, and the girl he likes has no idea who he really is. Everyone’s just waiting for him to snap…and he’s starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that.

In this fearless portrayal of a boy on the edge, highly acclaimed Printz Honor author A.S. King explores the desperate reality of a former child “star” who finally breaks free of his anger by creating possibilities he never knew he deserved.

Reality Boy is my first A.S. King novel. And I can’t really say that it bodes well for any future King books.

Gerald Faust has a messed up family in a messed up life. And it all started the day his mother invited in the TV crew of a hit reality show. “It’s supposed to help,” his mother said. “It’s supposed to fix things.” And by “things”, she meant Gerald. Twelve years later and nothing’s been fixed, nothing’s been changed. If anything, it’s made things worse than they actually are. The only thing the TV crew seemed to bring were reasons for Gerald to be ostracized in his own home and plenty of clinically diagnosed anger management issues. Gerald grew up thinking he was nothing and didn’t deserve to want things. Now, he must break free of his restricted life and finally fight for what he wants.

This was weird. Really weird. And not the good kind of weird. The kind of weird that makes you go, “What the f-- am I reading?” The plot line was too strange for me to actually like reading it. The characters were bizarre, unrealistic, and strangely unfeeling. For example, Hannah, Gerald’s love interest, was so unsympathetic to his life. Even when he obviously needed someone to comfort him, she just left him, basically saying that her life was just as bad, but she got over it and so should he. Which it not the case. She was rude, selfish, and obviously not a very good friend. Basically, I really disliked her as a character. Plus, there was, like, no chemistry between Gerald and Hannah.

While I didn't like the mood or atmosphere in the novel, the questions it raised were good ones. The questions about mental illness, and living with mental illness, not only as the patient, but as the people around the patient. While the victim of a mental illness might be the only one diagnosed to be dealing with the disorder, it is the whole family that has to live with and work around it also. They are not left unaffected, and I think this book does a good job of pointing that out. Plus, it points out that children who behave badly do so for a reason, which I think is a widely misunderstood concept.

Even with the awareness it brings about issues such as mental disorders, bad home life, and the effects of been stuck in front of the public eye, this book was just too strange for me to enjoy. I’m pretty sure Reality Boy is just one of those books that you either love or hate. And let’s just say that I definitely didn't love this book. 

We Were Liars Review

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Title: We Were Liars

Author: E. Lockhart

Series: None

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Publication Date: May 13, 2014

Genre: Realistic Fiction; Contemporary; Romance; Mystery; Young Adult

Pages: 227

Format: Hardback

goodreads

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
 
We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

The epitome of class and style. The personification of erudition and grace. That is how I would describe Lockhart’s books. I haven’t read one of her books that I didn’t end up loving. Well…all two of them.

Cadence Sinclair Eastman can’t remember the last summer she was in Beechwood. All she remembers is waking up alone on the beach, cold and wet from the sea. Her mother won’t tell her what happened. Everyone, including her cousins and her beloved Gat, is tiptoeing around her like she is an explosion with mass casualties waiting to happen. When she finally returns to the beach house on her grandfather’s private island, she is determine to remember. What she finds is nothing like what she thought, and will change her life in ways she’s not sure she’s ready for.

Ambiguity is one of my favorite ways authors start a book. When they just drop you in the middle of the story and it’s up to you to figure out the beginning and the end. Keeps me intrigued. It also exercises the mind, and that’s always fun. And let me tell you, did this book keep me entertained! There wasn’t a dull moment in We Were Liars. And I was always guessing. Constantly working out what exactly happened those two summers ago. And I was way, way, way off. I could not have been more wrong. And the twist! The oh-so-infamous twist! Oh, my God! It was so weird, but in the way that makes you go, “Holy-mother-of-everything good-in-the-world, I can’t believe that just happened!” It was so genius and yet so tragic; I honestly did not know whether I loathed or loved the author in that moment. I’m still on the fence, actually. My feelings change day by day.

The lyrical prose and elegant language that Lockhart used was to die for. It was so beautiful. You could feel and touch the emotions of the characters, fully understand the frustration and sadness of Cadence (mostly because you were just as frustrated and depressed from not understanding anything in those first few pages). While this book was in no way a poetry book, there were moments it seemed like it was. Lockhart effortlessly combined all the splendor of poetry with the fullness of an everyday novel. It added some spice and flavor, and, I have to say, it was delicious and supremely satisfying.

I would recommend this to all readers of Melina Marchetta (especially to the lovers of Jellicoe Road). I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Marchetta’s and Lockhart’s writing are so similar. I love both, and I think others should make it a point to read them. This book was exquisite and one of my favorites. Plus, John Green read it, so who was I to say no?

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender Review

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Title: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

Author: Leslye Walton

Series: None

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Publication Date: March 25, 2014

Genre: Fantasy; Supernatural; Romance; Young Adult

Pages: 301

Format: Hardback

goodreads

Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga.

Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird.

In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naïve to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the Summer Solstice celebration.

That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo.

First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.

Really, the title says it all. This book is so…strange…but at the same time so…beautiful. There are no other words to describe it.

Ava Lavender is not like any other teenage girl. She is different, not just because of her wings, but because of her familial tendency to attract broken hearts. Love is not something that the Roux women do well. Her mother’s kept a tight leash on Ava's life ever since she was little, not letting her do the things normal teenage girls would be doing. In fact, Ava’s never done much of anything. Her urgent need to be normal, to do normal things makes her pretend to be something she’s not. She sets out to find who she is and what her past holds, and, while doing so, learns to love herself for who she is. Then life comes crashing in, bringing Nathanial Sorrows and devastation along with it. But the main question always stays the same: Will the Roux women ever keep love from slipping between their fingers?

This is one of the hardest reviews I've ever had to write. Thinking about this book is almost like dreaming a dream. It’s there, and you can feel it, but you can’t exactly…touch it. It’s hard to explain why it is so difficult to write a review for a book like this. Maybe because it's almost impossible to put beautiful things into words that'll do it justice. Or maybe it's because remarkable things aren't meant to be described-they're meant to be lived. Whatever the reason, all I can say to you is that this book was fantastic in more ways than I can name. 

The book may be titled The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, but it is about all the women of Roux family. Chronicles of unrequited love, star-crossed love, and any other type of doomed love that exists, is all written in this book. The title holds true when it mentions “sorrow”; there is a lot of sadness and tragedy in this book. But at the same time, there is so much beauty. The writing, the characters, the setting, the story–it’s all stunning. I don’t think I've ever read a novel whose title is so perfectly matched with its plot line.

Only a few books ever have the capability to make the reader feel as if they are in a dream. Even fewer can transport them into a fog of fantasy and magic. To make them forget they were even reading anything in the first place. To me, this book was one of those. It seems only the really gifted writer have that ability, and Walton is one of them. I wonder if there is some kind of secret to it all, and, if there is, if I'll ever know what it is.