All tagged Must Reads

{Review} Come See About Me by C.K. Kelly Martin

{Review} Come See About Me by C.K. Kelly Martin

Sarah Moon
Books

Love is real and real love lasts. I used to feel sorry for people who didn’t believe in it—the people who were lonely with someone else or lonely alone. For awhile I was was one of the lucky ones.

C.K. Kelly Martin, who’s written several marvelous young adult novels, couldn’t find a traditional publisher for her first book for adults, Come See About Me.

According to Martin, no one knew how to market a novel with a 20 year old protagonist. Come See About Me certainly isn’t a teen novel, it’s mature and addresses themes that are not seen in the YA category. And since “Adult” fiction typically features older narrators, not a recent college dropout, it couldn’t be marketed as “Adult.” Essentially, a marketing problem* prevented this novel from hitting bookstore shelves. 

This is absolutely perplexing to me.

Luckily for us, Martin couldn’t keep to herself the story of Leah, a young woman who’s life has wholly stalled following the death of her boyfriend, Bastien, who was killed while crossing the street in Toronto. She flakes on her job, fails out of school, hides from her friends and family—she can’t move forward because of the loss. She wants to be alone with her memories and sadness over what should have been, over their lost future together.

Alone is what’s easier. Everyone else would prefer that I pretend my life hasn’t been hollowed out. They believe their expectations should carry some weight with me. Only Bastien truly carries any weight and people try to use that fact against me too and tell me what he would want for me. Some of the things they say about that might be right, but since he’s not here he doesn’t get to decide how I should handle his absence.

The early chapters, in which Leah recounts her relationship with Bastien, were incredibly difficult for me to read. The two went to high school in British Columbia together, though they weren’t even friends—acquaintances is a better description—and connected later, when they both went to college in Toronto. Their love was the forever sort, not the college dating temporary sort.

{Early Review} Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

{Early Review} Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

Sarah Moon
Books


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.

Review - The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder

Review - The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder

Sarah Moon
Verse Week, Books

Many times
when I read a book, 
I want to savor 
each word, 
each phrase, 
loving the prose 
so much, 
I don’t want it 
to end. 

Other times
the story pulls me in, 
and I can hardly 
read fast enough, 
the details flying by, 
some of them lost 
because all that matters
is making sure 
the character
is all right 
when it’s over.

This day
is like the best
of both kinds 
of books.

The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder

I could say the same for Lisa Schroeder’s beautiful, moving novel in verse, The Day Before. This short novel, spanning just a day, is firmly entrenched on my list of favorites. 

Amber’s life has taken an unexpected turn, and everything is going to change for her in just 24 hours. So, she heads to the central Oregon coast alone, seeking refuge. There, she meets Cade at the Oregon Coast Aquarium shark tank. He’s a boy her age facing his own “day before,” and the two spend their day on the coast together. 

What’s so stand-out for me in The Day Before, is the strong sense of place Lisa develops within such a relatively short novel.

{I Love} The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Sarah Moon
I Love, Books
Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. 

People have written really amazing and thorough reviews of John Green’s latest, The Fault in Stars, because it’s really, really wonderful and readable and gut-wrenching. 

I, however, have been left unable to form a coherent thought about this book—nearly two months after finishing reading it. But nevertheless, I feel like I need to say something about it, because the book (as well as attending the Tour de Nerdfighting) really hit me and actually changed my thinking.

For real.

Anyway, like I said, since everyone’s reviewed it, I thought I’d just share a few of my reflections on this special novel. I mean, there’s a big blobby tear stain in my book. And I kind of think I’m too old to be crying over books, because, you know, I have to deal with real life and all that stuff, but geez… I guess I’ll never stop crying over books. The Fault in Our Stars also made me laugh out loud. Especially the thing about the Swedish rap. Which is why it’s so good, because any book that can combine all those things is so, you know, “wow.” 

Why I ♥ The Fault in Our Stars

{I Love} Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar

Sarah Moon
I Love


Editor’s Note: I reviewed this novel on Goodreads last year, and refreshed it for Clear Eyes, Full Shelves—because Raw Blue is such an important book. This is a hard book to acquire, but if you love high quality, contemporary fiction that tackles tough issues, it will be well worth your while. I left in the off-handed comment from my original review about starting a book blog for the laughs (I believe I made the same comment in my Goodreads review of Freefall, mentioned early in this review). This is the first in an ongoing series entitled “I Love,” in which we profess our love and devotion for books, authors, themes or anything else bookish we love.

I’m not even sure how to begin a review of this Raw Blue—this is the kind of novel that makes me feel like I should start a book blog to tell the world about the amazing books* they’re missing.

Given that it was a tremendous pain in the ass to acquire this book, the bar had been set pretty pretty high—and it certainly met those standards, and will be permanently filed under “True Book Love.” 

Why I ♥ Kirtsty Eagar’s Raw Blue.

{Review} Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Sarah Moon
Books

Author’s Note: I read the Australian edition of this shortly after it was released. It is my understanding that the U.S. edition has some significant differences from the one I read.

This is one of those books that make me sound like a crazed superfan.

When I finished Graffiti Moon, I got out of bed, went to my laptop and emailed some friends a breathless message along the lines of,  

Alert! Alert! Omigod. You have to—have to—read Graffiti Moon immediately!

I love, love, love this novel that much.

{Review} Love + Leftovers by Sarah Tregay

Sarah Moon
Books

I ordered Love & Leftovers soon after I finished Audition because I’d really enjoyed that novel in verse and I’d remembered that April had really enjoyed this one as well. The verse in Love and Leftovers is actually far more enjoyable than in Audition, as it plays with form to build tension throughout the novel. If you’re nerdily interested in that sort of thing, L&L is worth reading for that aspect alone.

What I was really surprised by was how compelling and “edgy” (ugh, I hate that word) this one is. The marketing for L&L made me assume it was a “cute/sweet” read (I’ve got no problem with that at all), but it actually dealt with a lot of issues in a realistic manner, particularly teens and intimacy in many of its forms. Marcie is dragged on a permanent vacation from her hometown of Boise to New Hampshire by her mother.

{Review} Freefall by Mindi Scott

{Review} Freefall by Mindi Scott

Laura
Books

FNL Character Rating: Vince Howard!!!!!

{Editor’s Note: This is one of my favorite all-time novels, and one I recommend to people who think they don’t like YA fiction. I recommended this to Laura and I was thrilled that she loved it as much as I do. What’s even better is that Laura got different things out of it because of her own experiences with music, so it was doubly awesome to read her review. ~Sarah}

The first thing I loved about this book was the voice.

It is so rare and refreshing to read a YA book from a male POV. Author Mindi Scott, manages the very difficult task of making me, a 31 year old female adult, relate to a 16 year old teenage boy’s POV. It is seriously freaky how Mindi Scott managed to write wrote the male version of me (personality and humor) wise into a book character in Seth McCoy. 

{Review} Bittersweet by Sarah Ockler

Sarah Moon
Books

Fangirl squeal!!!

I’m a bigtime Sarah Ockler fangirl. Big. Time. Her books just speak to me—she writes about family, and places, and relationships and life in a way that makes me think, “That is my life/family/hometown/whatever.” Plus, one time I “talked” to her on Twitter about Friday Night Lights (as well as her editor and Melissa C. Walker), so she’s completely rad simply for that reason, natch.

I have a feeling that Bittersweet will be one of those books that people read in very different ways. Some will read it as a “cute” book with a cupcake theme, some with grasp onto the sports themes or the small town story, while others will see it more as a divorce novel. It certainly took me by surprise—I loved Sarah Ockler’s other books, but since most of the early reviews I’d read of this one had focused on the cupcake/bakery theme, I was expecting something less emotional—Bittersweet has a lot of depth and it really surprised me.