Insta(gram)-Love

…I wish I had a scar or something from the crash. Something that would make my parents see I’m not a miracle. That I’m whatever the opposite of a miracle is.

I wasn’t planning on reviewing this book today—I had a different post planned.

But, I started and finished Elizabeth Scott’s newest novel, Miracle, last night and just had to share my thoughts on it as soon as possible, especially since it’s, inexplicably, not gotten the attention that it deserves.

This quiet, yet raw, little novel (it’s just over 200 pages) tells the story of Megan (or Meggie, as most people call her) who’s the lone surivivor of a plane crash near her small town. She is found wandering on a country road, with no memory of the event. Everyone calls her a miracle—Miracle Megan.

The thing is, despite that she is physically unscathed, Meggie isn’t okay at all. She floats through life, quickly losing interest in everything: school, soccer, friends, family. And then the memories of the plane crash start to return and she stops sleeping, lost in the trauma of what she survived.

“I’m happy to be home,” I said over and over again, until it sounded like less than words, like it was nothing. ‘I’m just so happy.”

The thing was, I didn’t feel happy.

I didn’t feel anything.

The effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder feel incredibly immediate in Miracle.

Jul 18

Jul 18 {Review} Angelfall by Susan Ee

Beads of water cling to him like in a dream. The combined effect of the soft light behind him from the bathroom and steam curling around his muscles gives the impression of a mythological water god visiting our world.

Angelfall by Susan Ee This is not a mythological water god, rather it is Raffe, an agnostic angel created by Susan Ee in her post-apocalyptic self-published novel, Angelfall.

Penryn or Pen, whose world has turned into a nightmare of gangs of roaming scoundrels, witnesses the brutality of celestial beings de-winging the handsome angel Raffe who becomes her ally in working to regain the world she once knew. She wraps his wings in a bundle to protect them from more damage. They’re carried with him as he navigates with Pen this frightening new world.

Without wings, Raffe is vulnerable. With them he is nearly invincible. Pen’s theory is that they can be reattached like a human’s thumb. Together they search for an angel-surgeon to perform the feat.

Angelfall kept my interest with its fast-paced action and unusual characters.

Raffe (the wingless agnostic angel) plays a central role in the story. Angels have swept the earth creating an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it shattered existence. Food, shelter and safety are only memories. Broken lives along with literal debris from a once a thriving world litter the pages like dominoes scattered across a playroom floor.

Pen, from whose eyes and mind the first-person story evolves, struggles as she always has to hold her family together. She’s a teenager who’s versatile, strong, savvy and determined. Her mother’s mental instability and paranoid insanity means that monsters and demons have been her constant companions for years, therefore this new world’s not new to her.

Paige, Pen’s sweet and dearly loved sister, at eight years of age is confined to a wheelchair. Pushing Paige through the debris strewn streets and all the while keeping her mother under some semblance of control is not an easy task. Then, Paige is ferreted away by angels who do not have much use for humans while her paranoid mother wanders off on her own path.

The basic plot is breathless and absorbing.

Jul 12
Jul 12 Reflections on Sparking the Love of Reading

Opinion

Credit: Primer in the Classroom, Flickr CommonsAfter twenty-six years of teaching language arts in a public high school, I arrived at the conclusion that there is no one method or book that’s appropriate for all young people.

Department meetings and informal conversations about how best to teach students always circled back to the same topics: What should teens read? What will most develop their reading skills? A typical exchange of ideas could get a bit testy. This is a rerun of a typical conversation about reading lists:

Everyone must read Shakespeare or they’re culturally illiterate.

Wait a minute. What’s the purpose of reading? Is it to carve out identical thinking, minds that we’ve crafted into whatever it is we believe is in their best interests?

It’s not developing reading skills for kids to require them to read something that we must interpret for them just to get at meaning.

I believe we must stop, sit back and think logically about what it means to read and how to help students become critical thinkers.

But, we’re doing them a grave disservice if they haven’t read the classics!

Why worry? They should just read, regardless.

What about free choice? Can’t we open the door to more selections, especially the free reading time in the summer?

And so it went, on and on and on with no resolution.

With everyone and their uncle writing columns about summer reading, I thought I’d throw in my two cents on this idea of reading lists, and the concept of “right” reading choices, based on my experiences in a high school classroom (I retired a couple of years ago).

Jul 11

Jul 11 Review: Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

The TV said you should ignore bullies and they would stop harassing you. In practice this worked about half the time. The other half, you ended up with two tall boys shadowing you through a trailer park, their fingers taking little nips at your clothes, like dogs.

At first glance, Jennifer Echols’ new YA novel, Such a Rush, has all the tell-tale signs of a typical YA romance: two attractive boys, absent parents and high-stakes drama.

And, yet, between the covers (and what a gorgeous cover it is), you’ll find a sensitively-crafted story of an 18-year old girl, who’s never had it even remotely easy, trying to figure out what sort of person she’s going to be.

Leah is a girl who’s grown up in trailer parks, most of which have been by airports. She lives with her mother who floats from town to town based on promises from each new boyfriend—promises that never come to fruition. Often facing eviction because her mother rarely works, Leah’s life has always been in upheaval. That is until at age 14, she and her mother move into the trailer park next to the Heaven Beach Airport.

Leah’s world opens up when she gets a job working in the office at Hall Aviation, a company that tows banners in the air up and down the beach. Mr. Hall, the owner, takes Leah under his wing (ha! puns!) after she starts saving her paychecks for flying lessons. Eventually, after years of working at Hall Aviation and flying with Mr. Hall, Leah is eighteen and ready to start working as a banner plane pilot she graduates—it’s her ticket to a better future.

However, all of those dreams are threatened when Mr. Hall dies of a heart attack shortly after his oldest son is killed while serving in the military and the Hall twins, Grayson and Alec, take over the business.

Leah is certain that Grayson and Alex cannot keep the business going, so she starts looking for another pilot job—her best bet being working as a crop-duster pilot for another company at the same small private airport. Those plans are derailed when Grayson (the trouble-making, reckless twin that Leah’s always crushed on from afar) blackmails Leah into flying for Hall Aviation during spring break. Oh, and she doesn’t just have to fly for the company—she has to try to date his brother (the golden boy).

Okay, so I know that sound likes a triangulated love fest, but it’s not—I swear.

Jul 6
Jul 6 {Book Matchmaker} Tracey Seeks Romance, Dystopia & Urban Fantasy Featuring Strong Female Characters

Book Matchmaker

Tracey, our latest Book Matchmaker victim lucky participant, filled out our extremely sophisticated Book Matchmaker questionnaire in search of recommendations for some fresh reads with romance, but also with strong female characters.

You’d think this would be an easy one—but snooping on her Goodreads profile, Tracey had already read a lot of our go-to recommendations. But we came up with some good ones—or at least we hope so.

Tracey’s Responses

YA or Adult: Surprise Me

Genres: Romance, Urban Fantasy

Multiple POV

Swoon Factor: 4

Gross Out Factor: 3

Smut Factor: 4

Fluff Factor: 4

Likes: “On the Island, loved the character development. And multi-POV. Hunger Games, Graceling, Wicked Lovely, Enders Game, Feed, Divergent! Strong women, romance—but great characters and strong writing are a must”

Dislikes: No quest books, no sagas that need maps and a glossary to keep track of everyone! Bad writing and bad character development.

The Results

Thumped by Megan McCafferty

Bumped & Thumped by Megan McCafferty (YA)

I know. It’s shocking to think that the government would try to stick its nose in our ladyparts.

This satire by the author of the fabulous Jessica Darling series is recommended by Laura as a great read for someone looking for a something fresh in the cluttered dystopian shelves.

Jun 29
Jun 29 {Book Matchmaker} Victoria Would Love Some YA with a Dash of Mystery

Book Matchmaker

Mystery is supposed to be the next paranormal, right?

Well, our latest Book Matchmaker victim participant, Victoria, wants a bit of both, plus some quality contemporary reads— only YA need apply, please. And add in a dash of romance for good measure!

Victoria’s Book Matchmaker Responses

YA or Adult: YA

Genres: Contemporary, Dystopia, Romance, Paranormal, Mystery/Thriller

POV or Narrative Style: First Person, Third Person, Multiple POV, Epistolary, Male POV, Main Character or Narrator, Female POV, Main Character or Narrator

Likes: Patrick Ness, Courtney Summers, Sarah Dessen, JK Rowling… probably my favourite authors EVER!

Dislikes: Instant love

Smut Factor: 2

Fluff Factor: 2

Swoon Factor: 4

Gross Out Factor: 3

We had a ton of fun with this matchmaker, since all of us love YA.

The Results

Stolen: A Letter to My Captor by Lucy Christopher

This is a genre-bending psychological novel that’s very challenging. It’s YA, but mature, and told in second person, in the form of a letter from a kidnapped girl to her captor. It takes place in the Australian outback and the landscape adds to the atmosphere of the novel.

{Buy at Amazon | Add on Goodreads}

Jun 26
Jun 26 {Early Review} Don't You Wish by Roxanne St. Claire

Laura

When my parents moved to the United States from Korea in 1974, they originally planned on moving back to Korea after my dad’s medical residency was finished.

Instead, for various reasons, my father accepted a job at a hospital in Western New York (the same hospital where I was born,) and they remained in the US, becoming citizens in 1981.

My parents’ decision to stay in the US and raise their children in the Rust Belt has been the root of the most enduring “what if” of my life:

What if my parents had returned to Korea and I had been raised there, on that tiny peninsula on the other side of the world?

What kind of person would I be?

Would anything about my personality, my beliefs, that which I consider to be the core of my being, be the same?

Or would the difference in culture have resulted in a completely different person, unrecognizable from the person I see in the mirror everyday?

But while I find myself curious about the idea of parallel lives and universes, I am FAR too lazy to study quantum physics and the actual scientific possibilities of their existence. (Research + controlled experiments + advanced gobbledegook science = *shudder*)

So instead, I indulge in cheesy forms of entertainment that explore the idea of,

What if I was THAT person, instead of the person that I am and lived in THAT world instead of this one?

Jun 22
Jun 22 {Book Matchmaker} Kate Needs Some Quality Reads with Deep Themes

Book Matchmaker

Our latest book matchmaker victim participant is Kate, who loves good young adult fiction. This is one of the most fun book matchmaker posts we’ve done, since Kate’s tastes appear to be very similar to Laura’s and mine. She’s looking for YA novels that have either historical or contemporary settings and have some depth.

The biggest challenge was finding books to recommend that Kate hadn’t read yet!

Kate’s Responses

Adult, YA or Both: YA

Genres: Contemporary, Historical, Romance

Narrative Style & POV: First Person, Multiple POV, Present Tense, Past Tense, Male POV, Main Character or Narrator, Female POV, Main Character or Narrator

Swoon Factor: 4

Gross Out Factor: 1

Fluff Factor: 3

Smut Factor: 3

Likes: “Favorites include: The Summer books by Jenny Han, Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, Nicholas Sparks. But I also books with deep themes, such as dealing with death, etc. I’m really up for anything. Just not a huge fantasy fan!”

Dislikes: Vampires, made-up creatures, really improbable plotlines :)

The Results

All the Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg

This is a novel in verse recommended by Laura that deals with several big issues and has a semi-historical setting (the 1970s—which I can’t really comprehend as “historic,” but oh well). This is an emotional book in which the author makes every word count.

Jun 20
Jun 20 On YA + Sophistication

In the News, Opinion

Oh, hi there, ASkars. via EWI have a confession: I am an avid reader of Entertainment Weekly.

I love EW. So much so that I am perpetually mad at my letter carrier for delivering it several days late. (I’m convinced he’s reading it in his postal truck.)

Love. It.

Honestly, most of the time I don’t know who the hell they’re talking about, but there’s something delightful ridiculous about the whole magazine. However, in the midst of all the ridiculousness, there’s actually a pretty decent book section. I know, right? Who knew? Stephen Lee is pretty knowledgeable about young adult novels in particular, and I usually really enjoy his pieces in the magazine and on the EW blog.

However, as a paged through last week’s issue, I was disheartened to read some pretty disappointing comments about young adult fiction in a short feature (not available online, sorry) about authors that usually write in the adult category making the move to YA. There were several comments with the undertone that YA literature is “easier” or less sophisticated, but the one that really struck me was from Elizabeth George, who said,

My adult novels, plot-wise and linguistically, are very complicated. I had to alter that and create a much more straightforward way of telling my story.

—Elizabeth George in Entertainment Weekly

Excuse me?!

Jun 19
Jun 19 {Review} Flirting in Italian by Lauren Henderson

Rebeca aka Renegade

Editor’s Note: Today we’re thrilled to welcome our newest contributor to Clear Eyes, Full Shelves, Rebeca. She’s joining us as our Official Romance Correspondent, and you may remember her from the Book Matchmaker feature a few months ago. We’ll be posting a little introduction soon, but in the meantime, welcome to CEFS, Rebeca!

Do Italian boys really drive purple Vespas? Do I really need to answer that?

Can one book simultaneously be a Gothic mystery, a contemporary YA novel and travel writing?

Lauren Henderson has tackled this interesting mash-up with Flirting in Italian.

Violet, the protagonist, has recently graduated from secondary school and aims to attend Cambridge in the fall. Her plans do not include a mysterious painting, a trip to Italy or a brooding prince. (Bad planning on her part, in my opinion.)

Luckily for both Violet and readers, her life takes a sharp turn for the more adventurous.

While preparing for her art history A-level, Violet stumbles across a painting in a museum that could be her mirror image, circa 1790. This would be remarkable enough, but she has long wondered over her lack of resemblance to either branch of her family. The painting lures her to Italy and the secrets that await her there.

Henderson does a good job establishing a tense, mysterious atmosphere in which the somewhat improbable plot makes more sense.

The heavy oak kitchen door at the far end of the long room swings open with such force that it slams against the wall. Sunshine floods in, and I realize how dark it was in here, how little natural light this kitchen has. A figure’s silhouetted against the brightness outside, tall and lean, and in the next moment it tears toward us threateningly, footsteps ringing loudly on the stone flags.

Just don’t hold your breath for all the answers as this is only the first book in a series.

Jun 12
Jun 12 {Review} The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour

Laura

When we are young, we are whimsical dreamers.

Our parents and the adults in our lives encourage this fanciful mindset. They tell us that with hard work, we CAN INDEED be elected President of the USA, possibly even without winning the overall popular vote. We WILL INDEED see our favorite football team win the Super Bowl in our lifetime, since there’s no way they could possibly lose 4 years in a row.

But as we get older, we are encouraged to break up with our dreams in favor of “attainable goals”. Instead of President, what about Mayor’s administrative assistant? Instead of a Super Bowl win, how’s about rooting for a playoff berth? Scratch that. How’s about rooting for a .500 season? And so on.

About the same time we begin to realize that all the smizing practice in the world won’t make us skinny or tall enough to fulfill our dream of competing on America’s Next Top Model, we realize that we have to figure out what to do with ourselves with our limited 5’2” frames, we have no idea what that should be, and the combination scares us shitless, though we are loathe to admit as such.

Hence…

The Stages of Upper Middle Class Adolescence

Jun 8
Jun 8 {Review} Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

It’s been a long time since I’ve been as emotionally invested in a book as I was in Cara Chow’s Bitter Melon.

It’s a difficult story of a Chinese-American mother and daughter living in San Francisco, yet it could be about any family where the parents do not allow their children to fly free, to find a life that will give the child joy and satisfaction. It’s about caging the soul of a beautiful mind as a battle ensues to find the sweet taste of freedom.

There are jewels of truth, of humanity, of hope and of sorrow glittering throughout this lovely book. Regardless of what touches your heart when you read, it will be found in Bitter Melon, including a beautifully-crafted story, realistic characters, a plethora of emotions, finely-tuned language.

Fei Ting, the daughter, holds two names. Fei in Chinese means fly. Ting means stop. Fei Ting tinkered with the meaning of her name, its nuances.

In Chinese, she thought, if she should try to fly, she would be stopped.

Her English name Frances means freedom. Fei Ting wants freedom, wants to soar with nothing holding her back but is held in emotional bondage to her mother. Her mother’s controls were built methodically, mooring every move and choice Francis sought to her angry mother’s dream of wealth and success via her own daughter’s efforts to satisfy her insatiable mother.

You will makes lots of money and buy us a nice house so I can quit my job and tell your father’s family to go to hell.

Frances hears such phrases over and over from her mother’s harsh lips, as if she is being beaten into submission with the strength of words,

You will become a doctor. You will support me, care for me.

Francis has always been the obedient daughter, bending to her mother’s will, to her wishes.

Imagine living the first eighteen years of your life fed by a vitriolic and hateful analysis of your qualities by your own mother. You’re not smart enough. You’re not pretty. You’re too fat. You’re ungrateful.

This is the way Frances’ mother teaches her child to achieve.

May 29
May 29 {Rookie Reads} Finding Sarah Dessen

Laura

Rookie Reads

I began harassing Sarah (not Dessen) for book recommendations via twitter about a year or so ago. Among her earliest recommendations were 3 contemporary young adult novels. Since then, I have read 31 contemporary young adult novels. As I continued to add contemporary YAs to my Goodreads shelves, I noticed a certain name pop up with increasing frequency: Sarah Dessen.

Eventually, Goodreads recommended…all of her books. Goodreads also recommended all books which include any and all variations of the proclamation “Fans of Sarah Dessen will love this one!” in the jacket description.

Of course, I couldn’t just blindly follow my Goodreads recommendations.

I absolutely had to get the advice of Sarah, who, in addition to being Queen of Everything, is my Super Special Book Doppelganger (SSBD). So upon meeting in person for the first time —for a contemporary YA book handover, of course—we browsed around an adorable specialty children’s bookstore. When we came upon a rack dedicated solely to Sarah Dessen books, I pointed and said,

Goodreads keeps telling me to read Sarah Dessen. Do YOU like Sarah Dessen?

At this point, my SSBD’s eyes crinkled and her voice went up an octave as she shrieked reverently declared,

I LOVE Sarah Dessen.

May 21

May 21 {Early Review} Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

But what has been done can’t be undone. My best friend is dead and I’m never going to be the same Travis Stephenson.

Trish Doller’s remarkable debut, Something Like Normal, is one of those rare books that I recommend to nearly everyone. It’s an important, timely novel—one that’s lingered with me in the months since I read it.

Well before SLN was published (it’s out on June 19), I found myself on seemingly every social media site insisting the everyone—absolutely everyone—read this novel about 19 year-old Marine Travis Stephenson, who’s home on leave in Florida following a tour-of-duty in Afghanistan where his best friend, Charlie, dies before his eyes. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (a fact kept hidden from the Marines, as that would torpedo his military career), Travis finds himself feeling like and outsider in his own home and hometown.

As we head toward the beach I notice the differences in the landscape of the city. New businesses that weren’t there last year. Old businesses that are gone. It’s like a whole chunk of time has just … disappeared. The songs on the radio are different. The faces on the celebrity tabloids at the airport newsstand were people I didn’t recognize. There’s even a new American fucking Idol.

May 15

May 15 Review: Cinnamon Rain by Emma Cameron

It stings—
sulphur tears
in cinnamon rain.

Emma Cameron’s Cinnamon Rain embodies the Trifecta of Awesome in my reading heart: a contemporary older YA, Novel in Verse, from Australia.

Fortunately, after a long (very, very long) wait for my order of this book from Fishpond, the Trifecta of Awesome didn’t disappoint—Cinnamon Rain is one of my stand out reads of the year.

Cinnamon Rain interweaves the stories of three friends: Luke, Casey and Bongo (yes, Bongo—his real name is David). They live in a rural town in Australia, each hoping to escape their lives. Luke plays cricket, hangs out at the beach and pines away for Casey. Casey’s dream is to escape their town and everyone she knows, while Bongo drinks to avoid his abusive stepfather and the memories of his little brother taken away by social services.

The whole group seems lifted
by one small success.

Each character narrates a third of Cinnamon Rain (this seems like a more common narrative style in Australia than in the U.S. or U.K., am I right?), painting a rich picture of three lives in transition. We follow them separately out of their hometown in their first steps into adulthood.

But somewhere in the mix,
I realise that
she’s not just running away.
Her life has focus.
I’ve got nothing.

Apr 29
Apr 29 {List-O-Rama} Novels in Verse Week

Listorama, Verse Week

verse: I love you so

not really poetry but

yet still poetic*

Laura and I both have a relatively newfound, near-obsessive love for novels in verse. And, seeing as how April is/was National Poetry Month, we thought we’d usher in May with some love for novels in verse.

This week, we’ll be celebrate all that we love about novels in verse, highlighting some of our favorites and talking about what it is that makes verse novels so very special.

We hope you enjoy Clear Eyes, Full Shelves’ celebration of novels in verse—we’re thinking that we’ll make this an annual tradition of sorts, expanding it next year to include other folks as well.

To kickoff Novel in Verse Week we have…

Five Truths About Novels in Verse

1. It is a known fact that novels in verse > poems.

Okay, okay… so some folks will probably disagree with me, but hear me out. Poetry is pretty nifty: you have rhyming (sometimes), meter, interesting structures and language plays. With novels in verse—you get all of that, plus a whole story! Plus, novels in verse often play with many different poetic forms in a single novel. (One of my favorites, Love & Leftovers by Sarah Tregay, does this brilliantly.)

Apr 26
Apr 26 {Early Review} Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker

Melissa Walker’s new novel had an uphill battle with me.

You see, it managed to remind me of The Worst Earworm Ever. During my sophomore year of Professional Nerding School (aka college at American University), Toni Braxton’s Un-Break My Heart was everywhere I turned. I’d hear it playing on MTV in the dorm lounge, on the radio in the cafeteria, blasting on “boomboxes” (yep, we still had those in the nineties)… everywhere.

Toni’s soulful crooning* drove me nuts for months on end.

However, don’t let this book fool you like it did me.

Unbreak My Heart is a charming, heartfelt read about friendship, family, first love and second chances.

Apr 24

Apr 24 {Early Review} The Year of the Beasts by Cecil Castellucci + Nate Powell

Book Art, Books

I don’t know what I was expecting from The Year of the Beasts, but I definitely didn’t anticipate having my heart ripped out and stomped to bits in this slim, heart-wrenching novel-meets-comic.

Young adult novelist Cecil Castellucci and comic artist Nate Powell teamed up to create a fascinating story told in alternating chapters. Castellucci’s chapters are straight-forward narrative about the changing relationships between two sisters as they both navigate their first romantic relationships; Powell’s chapters are beautifully drawn comics of an alternate reality in which a girl with snakes for hair navigates a new school year.

Eventually the two storylines merge, and that’s when the heart ripping and stomping hit.

I can’t write a review of The Year of the Beasts without first discussing the format.

Apr 19
Apr 19 {Review} Tiger Moon by Antonia Michaelis