Book Babble: Kate’s Top 5 Irrepressible Sidekicks

Sometimes, you can’t rely on the protagonist in a book to carry the day. Or, if you can, you run into a minor character who steals the show. For example, when I was a little girl, I couldn’t stand The Little Mermaid‘s Ariel but Sebastian? I would’ve paid money to see Sebastian: The Movie, even though I was too young to really understand the concept of money as a whole. And in a book, a good sidekick character is worth his (or her) weight in pure, unblemished gold.

So submitted for your approval, Memiorites, here are my top five irrepressible sidekicks.

Boomer, Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares

Ordinarily, a character I’d essentially just met wouldn’t even place on a list like this, but I am in love with Dash’s best friend Boomer. Not in a creepy way, but in an I-wanna-squish-him way.

One of the things that works best about Dash is his sardonic, cynical outlook on life in general. I think Levithan and Cohn captured the essence of teenage boy perfectly when they wrote Dash. He’s sarcastic, snide, a little broken, and a lot resentful of what the world expects from people, especially teenaged boy-type people. But the best part about Dash, for me, is Boomer.

Boomer is the classic foil. He’s clueless almost to the point of you wondering if he has a bit of a developmental problem; he loves kids’ movies; he’s almost cavity-inducing in his earnestness and sincerity; he’s incredibly kind. He serves as a window into Dash’s world, too, because when you start the book, you think to yourself, “Dash probably hangs out with people just like himself. An army of little Dashes, snarking at the universe.” And then, you meet Boomer.

I would’ve like Dash & Lily if Boomer hadn’t been there, make no mistake, but he was that little push I needed to stop liking the book and start loving it. He’s a little something extra-special in an already really great book.

Helen Walsh, Anybody Out There?

In a lot of ways, I think Anybody Out There? is one of Marian Keyes’ heavier books. It deals with a lot in a short span of time and it’s almost suffocating in the veins of pain that run through it – and in how absolutely brilliantly it’s done. But more than the actual plot of the book, which I can’t really say anything about without spoiling it, I loved the secondary, mirror plot belonging to main-character Anna’s youngest sister, Helen.

Helen, of the five Walsh sisters, is the irresponsible, lackadaisical, drifts-from-job-to-job-and-drives-her-parents-mental one, but in this book she is absolutely the perfect relief the whole damn time. Her mother recounts most of her exploits as she works as a private eye investigating an infidelity case (which, as it usually goes with the Walsh sisters, spirals entirely out of her control), and oh my stars and garters, it is hilarious. Literally laugh-out-loud-until-you-hurt (LOLUYH?) funny.

And Keyes is brilliant, as an author, in that she places the Helen sections perfectly amid all of Anna’s struggles. Just when you think you literally cannot take another step in Anna’s journey without your heart falling on the floor, there’s Helen, putting herself in mortal peril when all she was supposed to do was take a few photographs. Her mother’s dramatic retellings are even better. It’s absolutely perfect.

I’ll admit that of all the sisters, I was least sold on Helen for a long time, if only because I didn’t feel like I knew her as well as I knew Rachel or the others, but Anybody Out There? had me changing my mind. She’s the one sister who doesn’t have her own book, too, but I don’t think I want one. I think I love Helen as the comic relief, the secondary plot, and the mirror to her sisters’ worlds. Plus, I don’t think anything could top her role in Anybody Out There? No, seriously, I don’t.

Jean Tannen, The Lies of Locke Lamora

I’m not sure if Jean is technically a sidekick. I mean, that’s like saying Brad Pitt’s character in Ocean’s Eleven is a sidekick, and I’m not sure I fully agree with that. But clearly, The Lies of Locke Lamora is entirely focused on Locke as the protagonist, lives-eats-sleeps-and-breathes Locke, and leaves me no choice but to address Jean as a sidekick. Which is okay, because it gives me a chance to talk about Jean, or, as I like to refer to him, my literary boyfriend.

Jean is a thousand things rolled into one, a bit of a high fantasy Hank McCoy but with less fur. He’s a brilliant fighter with an unconventional weapon of choice (seriously, they’re hatchets, how cool is that?), he reads poetry and thinks deep thoughts, he’s unfailingly loyal, and he’s absolutely brilliant. I knew from the very first moment that he appeared in The Lies of Locke Lamora that he would be my favorite character, and I was absolutely right.

But don’t be fooled by my simplistic description of Jean; he’s not just a throwaway loyal henchman with cool weaponry but a fully-developed character. One of the book’s greatest strengths is the fact that every character has a past, a hook, and a real personality, and Jean is no exception. The sequences about his past made my heart ache and sing at the same time. And that’s part of the magic of The Lies of Locke Lamora: it’s not just high fantasy meets con-artistry, a sort of pseudo-medieval Leverage, but rather a tale of well-developed people that fits together like the pieces of an expensive puzzle.

And seriously. Can Jean please be real? I will even take the killing people and the being a con-man if I can have a guy like him in reality. No actual person even comes close.

Rosie, Water for Elephants; Mogget and the Disreputable Dog, Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen; Koko and YumYum, The Cat Who… series; the Death of Rats, Reaper Man; Ghost, Summer, Grey Wind, Nymeria, Shaggy Dog and Lady, A Game of Thrones

I just cheated, but I have a good reason for it.

Animals in books – animals who matter in books – are one of my all-time favorite things. I think if you incorporate an animal and do it well, as an author, you have done something special. I’m not just talking about “And Frank had a black cat who slept with him at night” animal-inclusion, either, but ones that actually become characters. Animals that are so intertwined into the actual narrative that you can’t imagine the story without them, those are the animals I love.

As I was trying to decide who my final sidekick was going to be, I was incredibly torn. I thought first of Mogget, from Sabriel, the cat-who-isn’t that makes Sabriel’s journey so engaging and absolutely blows your mind by the end of the book, but to talk about Mogget without mentioning the Disreputable Dog seemed wrong. Then I considered ignoring both of them and talking about Ghost, from A Game of Thrones, but you can’t talk about Ghost without talking about the other direwolves and I wasn’t going to put all five of them into a single sidekick entry! (Plus, sorry Elle, I think Summer might be my favorite of the wolves, not Ghost.) And then I thought of the Death of Rats, who made me happy throughout Reaper Man, and I realize there was no way to just pick one animal. Not unless I wanted to pick all of them.

To go completely into why I love each of the eleven (eleven!) pets-slash-companions-slash-friends I just listed would make this painfully long. I mean, I could write a thesis-length treatise on why Water for Elephants wouldn’t be the same without Rosie, or why Koko and YumYum have instilled in me a desperate need for a Siamese cat, but I think those of you who have read books with integral animals know exactly what I mean. The world would be a far sadder place without direwolves howling in the night and YumYum licking photographs, or without Rosie’s irrepressible spirit and the Disreputable Dog’s running commentary, and I think that’s the essential function of a sidekick. It’s not whether you could live without them, because after all, Batman is Batman even without Robin, but whether the book would be as good without them. And in every case listed above, the answer is an unequivocal no.

Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Dragonlance: Chronicles

Tasslehoff – Tas to his friends – was the first fantasy character I ever fell readily and truly in love with. It’s funny, because I read Chronicles at the same time as a female friend of mine, and while she was drooling after Tanis Half-Elven from page ten onward, there was no character I adored more than Tas. Chronicles consists of the first trilogy of books in what is now a sprawling universe of stories I can barely untangle anymore, but the rest of the books almost don’t matter because they don’t feature my Tas.

Tas is a kender, which is the Dragonlance answer to a halfling, and is a four-foot-tall mini-human with a ridiculous top-knot of which he is very proud. He’s a kleptomaniac but with the best of intentions (and usually he doesn’t mean it anyway), he’s sometimes a bit naïve, and he often throws himself into horrible situations without realizing that he’s about to encounter a dragon or any other number of potentially horrible ways to die. And that’s why I adore Tas in ways I can’t fully describe to you: you just can’t keep him down.

But don’t be fooled by my recounting his madcap adventures (there is seriously one of the spin-off books about him helping to solve a murder! It’s like the Dragonlance Santa Claus brought me my favorite things!). Tas also has a hidden depth. He is a character who made me cry on more than one occasion – and I am not a book-crier. There is a scene with Flint Fireforge, the dwarf who is to Tas what Gimli is to Legolas, that I can’t think about without my heart feeling weak. And I think that’s really testimony to what a good sidekick should be: a little funny, a little serious, a lot unforgettable.

Book Babble: IMM May – Part 1!

In My Mailbox (IMM) is a weekly feature organised by The Story Siren. IMM is a post where you can show which books entered your house and it also gives you a chance to say thank you to the people that kindly sent them. To find out more about how you can join in click here.

Books mentioned in this post:
The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato | Goodreads
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta | Goodreads
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan | Goodreads
Gillespie & I by Jane Harris | Goodreads
Before I Sleep by SJ Watson | Goodreads
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins | Goodreads
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins | Goodreads
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins | Goodreads
Die For Me by Amy Plum | Goodreads
If I Stay by Gayle Forman | Goodreads
Where She Went by Gayle Forman | Goodreads
The Returning by Christine Hinwood | Goodreads

Books I got which were not mentioned in this post:

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath | Goodreads
The Robber Bridge by Margaret Atwood | Goodreads
A Season of Eden by Jennifer Laurens | Goodreads
Winter’s Passage by Julie Kagawa | Goodreads

Book Babble: Elle’s IMM April edition!

In My Mailbox (IMM) is a weekly feature organised by The Story Siren. IMM is a post where you can show which books entered your house and it also gives you a chance to say thank you to the people that kindly sent them. To find out more about how you can join in click here.

Books mentioned in this post:
A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler | Goodreads
…Then I Met My Sister by Christine Hurley Deriso | Goodreads
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys | Goodreads
Party by Tom Leveen | Goodreads
Stay by Deb Caletti | Goodreads
Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe | Goodreads
Becoming Nancy by Terry Ronald | Goodreads
I Am J by Cris Beam | Goodreads
Boyfriends With Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez | Goodreads

Kindle books not mentioned in this post:
Strings Attached by Judy Blundell | Goodreads
Impulse by Ellen Hopkins | Goodreads
The Silver Locket by Margaret James | Goodreads
House of Silence by Linda Gillard | Goodreads (Thanks, Angie!)
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan | Goodreads

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

 

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares

by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Review by Kate

 

Publication Information: Knopf Books for Young Readers / 26 October 2010 / 272 pages

Format: Kindle edition, because that’s how I roll.

Where I heard about it: Elle, who at this point just needs credit for everything I read. (Though in my defense, the cover would’ve attracted me without her!)

Spoilers: A few more than average, but I am dedicated to keeping them vague.

 
 
Review:

“I’ve left some clues for you.
If you want them, turn the page.
If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.”

Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. But is Dash that right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations across New York? Could their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions? Or will they be a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?

 

I’m a sucker for the non-traditional novel. You can blame Meg Cabot for this; during undergrad, I plowed through everything she’d written in about a six-month time frame, never once coming up for air. A variety of narrators? Letters, notes, and e-mails? Yes, please! I’m pretty sure this is what attracted me, at first blush, to Dash and Lily: by the end of the first Dash-narrated section, there are notes! In a notebook! With witticisms! Sign me up, I’m in for the long-haul!

But the non-traditional quality has almost nothing to do with why I love this novel. It’s like the white curlies on the top of a Hostess cupcake: you enjoy them, sure, but they’re not the reason you eat it. (And if they are, you’ve got a malfunction there, buddy.) No, the reason that this novel sucked me in and then kept me coming back was more than just notes in a red Moleskine. It’s the instant love-ability of the characters. Because I don’t care who you are, Dash and Lily will charm you. As proof, I offer up a segment for you:

 
 

And it’s not entirely true that I’ve never been in love. I had a pet gerbil in first grade, Spazzy, whom I loved passionately. I will never stop blaming myself for bringing Spazzy to show-and-tell at school, where Edgar Thibaud let open his cage when I wasn’t looking and Spazzy met Jessica Rodriguez’s cat Tiger and, well, the rest is history. Goodwill to Spazzy up in gerbil heaven.

 
 

I’ve probably said it before, and if I haven’t, let this be the first time: it takes a special author to create characters who sing from the beginning. I don’t know what kind of Bayou black-magic Cohn and Levithan do in their spare time, but both Dash and Lily are absolutely lovable and addicting from their very first pages. And, considering that their stories are parallel for a significant part of the novel, criss-crossing only through the notebook, I can go so far as to call this book extra-special in that both of them manage to be compelling in separate corners. They don’t need each other, like so many dynamic duos do; if they’d never met, and the book was Dash and Lily Go About Their Day, I would love each of them anyway. The You’ve Got Mail-type disconnect between them adds a layer to the story, sure, but they’re both strong characters with strong supporting casts and strong plots.

And both of them are undeniably teenaged. The attitude, the personal struggles, the ebb and flow of emotions – all are perfectly, unquestionably teenaged. Lily nicknames Dash “Snarl” based on his level of perpetual grump, but as the book wears on, we discover that there’s a lot more to Dash than his crankiness. And Lily, who is bubbly and lovely, reveals a less flowery inner heart as the story goes on. I’ve always thought that it’s hard to write a character who effectively “fronts” the way teenagers (and other humans) do, but these two are pitch-perfect almost always.

I’d go with a flat-out always, too, but Dash – Dash’s voice is sometimes a bit too verbose. Too old for a sixteen-year-old. And while this is partially explained through the story, it’s jarring early on to read a teenager going-off like an English major who gets a kick out of making people feel stupid by using big words.

 
 

“If you tell me, I will leave you alone,” I said. “And if you don’t tell me, I am going to grab the nearest ghostwritten James Patterson romance novel and I am going to follow you through this store reading it out loud until you relent. Would you prefer me to read from Daphne’s Three Tenders Month with Harold or Cindy and John’s House of Everlasting Love? I guarantee, your sanity and your indie street cred won’t last a chapter. And they are very, very short chapters.”

 
 

But Dash’s dictionary-spitting isn’t my only quibble. While I think Cohn and Levithan got it almost perfect, there’s an odd, uneven quality in the pacing. I admittedly didn’t notice it when I first read, but thinking back to the book, I can’t deny it. The first half builds in a fever-pitch, bringing you along on this roller coaster of emotion that actually made me answer a “What’re you doing?” text message with “Shouting at the book I’m reading because a character’s being stupid!” – and then the action hits an unnatural lull, almost as though the authors realized they were going too fast and had to slam on the brakes. Cruising along after such stomach-clenching, Kindle-shaking emotional investment is hard, and while the story recovers, I felt disappointed for the “eye of the storm” chapters.

Worse, though, is the pacing towards the end. One of my biggest frustrations in literature is when a story either rushes the ending or drags it out, and somehow Dash and Lily manages to have elements of each complaint. There’s an artificiality in the resolution, an open-endedness where I’m not sure there needs to be. It’s like a dinner of Chinese food without the fortune cookie, creating a little hole in my overall enjoyment. And while I won’t say it knocked the book from a keeper to something I will give to Goodwill after letting my cat claw it, it – could’ve been better.

I won’t be saying that about most of the book, though.

 
 

But isn’t this a dance? Isn’t all of this a dance? Isn’t that what we do with words? Isn’t that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it’s choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest – the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

I am trying to embrace danger…

 
 

Pacing and Webster-regurgitation aside, Dash and Lily offers all my loves and so few of my hates that I can’t give it a truly negative review. Because at the end of the day, it’s a fresh, lovable, quirky look at being a teenager and figuring out who you are, and I wouldn’t trade it for a better-paced book in a million years.

 

Overall rating: 7 double-stuff oreos:

A book that comes with high recommendations.

(For more rating information see here.)

Book Babble: Elle’s Recently Snaffled Books

It’s a shame that the webcam cut off halfway through! It picked a timely bit for all of it to strangle me but nevertheless here we go. Elle’s pre-orders and a pimp from le Angie at Angieville. Enjoy!

The Great Big Sample Post: Part 1 ft. Kate

 

 

Over the last few weeks, while my school life was far too frantic to even look at my Kindle, I found solace in amassing samples. Non-fiction, YA, fantasy, sci-fi — you name it, I sent something in the genre to my Kindle in hopes of reading it later. As it turns out, “later” was a week of plowing through more than 40 samples, trying to decide what I did and did not want to read.

(I haven’t actually gotten through all of them, but non-fiction and books that are tangentially related to school can wait!)

For that reason, I present to you the five very best and five very worst samples I read, not necessarily listed in true order of preference. The top five is actually more a top 10 that changed every third time I looked at the list, but I think I’m solid now.

Maybe.

We’ll see.

Love It, Lick it, Buy it (Devour it, Never Let it Go):

 
 

 
 

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares

by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I think, rather than try to explain why I loved this sample (and in fact told Elle to read it immediately), I’ll let Dash do the talking:

Wherever I went, I was on the wrong end of the stampede. I was not willing to grant ‘salvation’ through an ‘army.’ I would never care about the whiteness of Christmas. I was a Decemberist, a Bolshevik, a career criminal, a philatelist trapped by unknowable anguish–whatever everyone else was not, I was willing to be.

I’ve always felt that teenagers in fiction have a habit of not coming across as teenagers. Their cynicism (and joy!) comes across as muted and disingenuous, reminding you constantly that this is an adult trying to recreate their younger years. Both Dash and Lily, from the first page, feel real to me. Damaged and genuine, which is just how I like my characters. Plus, the book’s set in The Strand, that famous New York City bookstore, and features the characters writing back and forth to each other in a red moleskine. C’mon, bibliophiles. How could I resist?

 

 

Heist Society

by Ally Carter

Here comes the big confession: I can be an incredibly shallow reader. Sometimes, I just need pretty-funny-shiny to grab me and suck me in. Combine this with my lifelong love of heist movies, and I think Heist Society was meant for me. The setup is laugh-out-loud funny even if the premise is a bit out there (teenage con artists?) and every word just sung. From the fate of the Headmaster’s car to the introduction of Hale, I was sucked in. Even if it won’t ever be the most heart-wrenching, life-changing read, I’m a law student. I appreciate flirty, frivolous, and fun.

 

 

 

 

Bleeding Violet

by Dia Reeves

It takes a special author to write a character who grabs you from the first moment. It takes an especially special one to do the same with a deeply damaged character. Hanna, from the first page, is broken. It’s not even a spoiler to say that; from the first instant, something is wrong with Hanna. Full stop. But somehow, despite that — maybe because of that — you want deeply to care about her while she tries to make a home for herself with the mother she doesn’t know.

I set my bag on the floor and unpacked: seven purple dresses, purple underclothes, my purple purse, the big wooden swan Poppa had carved for me, and my cell phone. Since the room had no closet, I placed everything on the built-in shelves along the wall opposite the door, including my pills, which took up almost all the top shelf. I put the few toiletries I’d packed into the medicine cabinet. And that was it.

I was home.

There’s something beautiful in the choppy, disconnected way Hanna tells her story. In her imperfections. And that’s special.

 

The False Princess

by Eilis O’Neal

Imagine a Disney movie made into a book. Now imagine it with fewer talking animals and a girl whose life is about to be turned upside down, and you have The False Princess. High fantasy can feel like a trope parade down main street, but something about Princess Nalia and her trouble-making best friend Kiernan is addictive from the first. What starts as two teenagers trying to keep themselves amused by looking for an invisible door leads to Nalia discovering her entire life is a lie. One part prince-and-pauper, one part just solid fantasy, this book promises to wrap me up in its world and I’m desperately looking forward to it.

 

 

 

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

by Josh Berk

Long before I met Elle, a friend accused me of preferring male characters over females. I’m sure Elle would agree. When a man (or boy!) is written well, when I feel he’s real — I don’t think I could really ask for more than that. And Will Halpin, a deaf boy who’s embarking on his journey to mainstream school, is written perfectly.

Arterberry keeps turning around or covering his mouth with his flabby arm while writing on the board. Plus, although I realize that the American with Disabilities Act can’t force him to get rid of his bushy lip beast, a basic sense of fashion and/or hygiene should compel him to at least trim his ‘stache.

The class ends before I have any idea what era of history we were even talking about.

Will’s disability, too, is dealt with realistically and feels teenage (like stashing the hearing aids he promised to wear). You might as well just call the book This Will Make Kate Shell Out Her Cash, because really, that’s what it is.

 

Honorable mentions (the rest of the “Top 10″, really):

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A. S. King, Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott, Paper Towns by John Green, Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles and White Cat by Holly Black.

[Editor note: Elle would like to point out that 7 of these were recs by her and that she owns a pretty copy of White Cat, too. Neener.]

 

Burn it (and Then, Burn the Ashes):

 
 

 
 

Tutored

by Allison Whittenberg

I once read a book about a “fat” girl (bear with me) that promised to be an uplifting story but really focused on the horrors of being fat. This sample felt like that with poverty. Oh, the story is one of my favorites — bright girl from a good home, poor boy who struggles in school — but something about the tone of the book just made my skin crawl. Without going so far as to say poor people are icky, it felt that way and I couldn’t detach myself from that connection. There’s no sympathy for Hakiam, the “downtrodden” boy of the story, even from the prose itself, and that’s a problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elegance of the Hedgehog

by Murial Barbery

Elle informed me this was a translation from the original French after I read and loathed the sample, which explained a lot. Namely, why this book is so unreadably verbose. Every paragraph beats you over the head with ten-dollar words, which would be great if the story was about winning a Scrabble tournament but not so much when it’s about — uhm. Well. I’m not even sure what it’s talking about, half the time.

I then obligingly flaunt these pauper’s victuals–now much improved by the noteworthy fact that they do not smell–because I am a pauper in a house full of rich people and this display nourishes both the consensual cliche and my cat Leo, who has become rather large by virtue of these meals that should have been mine, and who stuffs himself liberally and noisily with macaroni and butter, and pork from the delicatessen, while I am free–without any olfactory disturbances or anyone suspecting a thing–to indulge my own culinary proclivity.

Worse, both the fifty-four-year-old concierge and the twelve-year-old who lives in the building sound exactly alike, florid language and too-long rambling about everything. I honestly couldn’t figure out that it’d moved from one character to another until the girl said she was twelve. I’d say this is either the world’s worst translation, or someone liked thesaurus.com a bit too much when writing.

 

The Adoration of Jenna Fox

by Mary Pearson

Elle told me this sounded like a me-book, and maybe it would be were it not so incredibly choppy. Reading the sample — which attempts to set up how Jenna lost her memory and remembers nothing of her life — is like trying to understand a television show by flipping the TV off every few minutes. The narrative is choppy and jumps around too unevenly for me to really engage. Really, that’s the issue: it’s not poorly written (though sometimes, the sentences are so short and jerky, I think Hemingway is probably rolling over in his grave) as much as it is distracting. Instead of being intriguing, the tiny-boat-in-a-storm feeling made me give up on the sample halfway through. I think I might’ve enjoyed it otherwise.

 

 

 

Willow

by Julia Hoban

If you’ve watched my Book Babble, you’ve heard this rant, but if not, it goes something like this: the introduction of plot shouldn’t feel like being beaten to death with a baseball bat. From the first page — literally, the very first page, this isn’t exaggeration (for once) — Willow is so obsessed with cutting and scratches and pain that the book might as well have a giant THIS IS ABOUT CUTTING! sign. Maybe with fireworks, just in case you missed it.

But Willow’s eyes are riveted by something else: an angry red welt, about three inches long, that runs from the girl’s elbow to her wrist. If Willow squints hard enough, she can just about make out a few flecks of dried blood.

How did she get it? She doesn’t look the type.

Maybe she has a cat. A whole bunch of kittens.

Yeah, that’s it. Playing with her kitty. That’s probably how it happened.

Willow slumps down in her seat.

(And in case that’s not enough blunt force trauma, she’s crouching in the school bathroom and cutting herself by the end of the first chapter.)

I’m not against books about timely topics, and definitely not about getting the issue of cutting out there, but this feels more like an 80s after-school-special than a book. Shallow and painful for it.

 

The Maze Runner

by James Dashner

I should love this book. A bit dystopian, a bit Lord of the Flies, about boys being taken to a strange place and forced to survive by cultivating land and raising animals. But in trying to make the reader feel what Thomas feels, waking up in the elevator that delivers him to his new life, the book ends up leaving the reader in the total dark. There’s no frame of reference or context for anything that’s going on, and the book isn’t written tightly enough for the reader to feel Thomas’s situation. It ends of reading like poorly-written YA fiction, all bombastic confusion and no real meat. I couldn’t even get through the sample, so what does that say for the whole book?

 

 

 

So what about you? Do you download the Kindle sample or does it feel like cheating like the gals from The Book Memoirs? Do you hoarde them? And what’s on your radar?