Pink by Lili Wilkinson

Oh, this book had such potential.

I like its concept, I really do. There are plenty of books about the shallow popular girl embracing who she really is and becoming different. I suppose that really this is just another story about a girl in high school finding her place (maybe that's why it disappointed me) but the protagonist Ava is already a gothic lesbian who is super alternative and hip. Rather than tell the story of someone realising they're gay, this story focuses on someone who is a lesbian trying to work out whether that's what they really are. I like the idea that it's just as okay for someone to change their mind and want to be like a stereotypical teenager as it is for someone to decide they want to be different. There's nothing wrong with wearing pink and being 'popular' if that's who you really are. Or at least, I think that's the message the book started off with.

Oh book, why did you have to let me down?

Here's my main problem with Pink-Ava is a goddamn idiot. Okay, so she changes schools so she can start again and find herself. That I can sort of accept for the sake of the book. But after that it's all downhill. She suspects she's not 100% lesbian so what does she do? Decide that straight away she's going to try to get a boyfriend at her new school. Without a trace of guilt or even a second thought spared for her current girlfriend who she claims to really care about but apparently not enough to care about cheating on. Sure, when she eventually does cheat she reacts with mild horror. But it's not like it was a surprise! She's been planning to cheat for about 50 pages by that point and only now is she thinking of her girlfriend???

Another part of Ava's plan is to get in with the popular kids. Miraculously, she manages it on her first day with three of the most popular girls in school taking her under their wing. So far so good. But oh no, all the popular kids are in the musical and force her to audition! After embarrassing herself at auditions, Ava decides that is it and she must resign herself to hanging out with the losers of the school...despite the fact that actually, none of the popular kids care that she failed her audition. Seriously, no one mocks her for it, her new friends aren't bitchy in the slightest and yet for some reason she acts as though they're being the stereotypical bitch squad of the fictitious high school world.

Okay, so Ava joins the loser squad and continues to mope for most of the book even though a) she still hangs out regularly with the popular kids and b) the loser squad is awesome. Ava mopes and mopes until the third act of the book starts and suddenly everyone is a bitch!

No, really.

Queen Bee girl starts playing the part (which seems really weird and out of place given how nice she is for the rest of it) and her girlfriend Chloe also dials up the bitch and makes unreasonable demands so the plot can justify Ava cheating on her. The whole thing is very messy and feels totally wrong since these aren't the characters we've been reading about the whole book. After everyone goes briefly mean, in rolls the (kinda) happy ending and almost everything is resolved/reverted to the status quo.

I say almost everything because surprise surprise, Ava doesn't actually get with the blatant loser love interest that she pretended not to be interested in the whole time even though she clearly was and he clearly liked her which explains why he was being so weird and distant and erratic. Nope, Ava actually insists that since she doesn't know what she wants, she just wants to be friends with the guy until she's figured out whether she likes boys or girls.

Erm, bisexuality is a thing book. Stop acting like she has to make some big choice, she's entitled to like both! It's actually more common than you think.

Anyway, I would like this ending except for the fact that Ava hasn't been able to make up her goddamn mind the whole book and so it just comes across as her being incredibly indecisive, as well as leading the guy on. She waits until he's confessed his love and she's confessed hers before saying that she doesn't want to be with him and even after he says he doesn't care if she changes her mind later, she still says no. This is a perfectly understandable course of action but my problem is with the execution. Instead of seeming smart and practical, Ava just seems to wimp out.

Ultimately, my main problem with the book is that at the end, Ava hasn't really learned anything. Sure, she fixes all the problems she caused (plus a few she didn't) but ultimately she's in the same position at the end that she is at the start. She still doesn't have a solid friendship group, she still hasn't figured out her sexuality and she's still moronic in all her basic decisions. Honestly, I could accept her being an idiot so long as by the end, she realised how idiotic she was. Instead we just have a story about an idiot who doesn't grow and doesn't really do anything remarkably worthy of a whole book.

I feel like I've been very harsh throughout this review so I would like to say that I didn't hate this book. The side characters were interesting and pretty varied, a welcome change from the usual cookie-cutter losers in high school fiction. I liked that the popular people weren't all bitchy and vapid. Sadly though, I couldn't help but be annoyed by it more than I liked it. In the end, its merits did not cancel out its faults.

Overall Score:

.5

The Hit by Melvin Burgess

Melvin Burgess is one of those authors I've always meant to read but somehow never got round to doing so. Many of his books are about intriguing, flashy topics and The Hit is no different. It's the tale of revolution and a little pill called Death that can give you the best week of your life on the condition that you die at the end of it.

It's an interesting enough idea (though Burgess admits it wasn't his) but sadly this book is lacking. While it's entertaining enough, the characters feel very...flat. They have personalities but a third person narrative combined with no focus on their emotions makes them seem very distant to the reader. This could be because the characters weren't Burgess's either but until I read another of his books, I can't really say whether this is the case.

Also the main guy Adam is just an asshole. I found it very difficult to root for him or even care about what happened to him much because he was such a douche. Lizzie was slightly more compelling but again, underreactions to her situation made it hard to relate to her. Less detailed characters could be acceptable if the plot was strong enough to carry the book but honestly? It's decent enough but you get the feeling it could have been so much more. A lot of the book is people talking about the revolution and how things are going to go/have been going with the occasional angry mob mentioned in the background. With the exception of the opening scene, the characters are never actually in an angry mob. The only people actively involved in the revolution are side characters and their role is very small in comparison.

The writing style too was annoyingly simplistic. I did wonder if maybe it was aimed at the younger side of YA fiction but the bleeped-out swearword on the front and the frequent mentions of sex/drugs suggest otherwise. Perhaps the simplicity is just the author's style, I don't know.

All in all, The Hit didn't wow me. Maybe the fact it wasn't the author's story made it suffer but either way, it fails to deliver the excitement the blurb promised. Is it bad? No. But the whole thing feels very meh.

Overall Score:

Gerald's Game by Stephen King

Holy crap.

Let me get this straight. I have read a lot of Stephen King books. He's one of my favourite authors and his particular brand of weird just appeals to me. I can honestly say that Gerald's Game is the one book of his that has actually managed to scare me and I mean, really scare me.

I'm not entirely sure why this is. On the surface, this is a simple tale. A woman gets handcuffed to a bed during sexytimes but things quickly go awry when her husband dies, leaving her trapped and alone. What follows is tense survival mixed with psychological horror and a dash of the supernatural. Along with trying to escape, the protagonist Jessie must also cope with trauma from her past and a mysterious figure who visits her at night.

This book made me tense in a way I rarely feel with books. I read almost half of it in one sitting it was that engaging, and the only thing that made me put it down was sleep. There's not really much else to say about this book. It's told in King's usual style and there are a lot of his trademarks present so if you like his work then you'll probably like this. One thing to warn you about though is how brutal this book is. It deals with a very sensitive topic in a graphic way which could make it hard to read for some people. There is also a very graphic violent scene near the end which I actually had to read in chunks it was so disturbing. These parts only add to the book for me (horror should be horrifying after all) but it is worse than most of King's stuff and it might be too much for some people. If you're not into that sort of thing then I suggest looking up spoilers before reading to make sure you can stomach it.

My only other comment is that the ending does drag somewhat. I'm very glad for the bit after the main story and the light it casts on the plot but I guess for some people it might 'ruin' the horror a bit. Overall though I found it very hard to find fault with this story. One of King's best.

Overall Score:

.5