History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

Let me start this review by saying this is an extremely well-written book. I want to get that out there because honestly, it's hard for me to articulate what I thought of this book and I want to sing its praises before I seem too negative. All the characters in this book are so compelling and fleshed out and it's because of this that the emotions created are so strong. The author skates dangerously close to 'John Green' syndrome (pretentious characters that don't speak or act like real people) but skilfully manages to avoid it. I spent almost this entire book feeling like it should be irritating me and yet finding myself unable to put it down.

History is All You Left Me is the story of Griff, a gay teenager dealing with the sudden death of his ex-boyfriend and best friend Theo. It addresses his regret at initially ending the relationship when Theo went off to college, as well as his mixed feelings towards Theo's current boyfriend Jackson. This is utterly unlike any other book I have ever read plotwise and that certainly helped it a lot. It also has a very subversive plot compared to typical YA romance. While admittedly I did see most of the 'twists' coming, I probably wouldn't if I were the intended audience and I thought they were handled very cleverly. All the 'twists' were incredibly understated and woven very naturally into the narrative, so that even if I had found them surprising I would not have been rudely jerked out of the story. The fact remains that this book tells the kind of love story not often seen in YA fiction and it felt very mature and realistic because of it. I loved that Griff also got over his first love and had to cope with his guilt about that fact, despite being very close with Theo still.

Aaaaand now for the negatives. As much as I did enjoy this book, there were several elements that felt...off. I absolutely HATED (spoilered though you can guess from the back) the fact that Griff and Jackson slept together. It didn't really seem to fit in with the plot or characters and honestly, I think it's something the author had in mind from the start but didn't adapt once he actually started writing it. I also found it hard to identify with Griff a lot of the time. He just seemed to make bad decision after bad decision with no real self-awareness/attempt to rectify these bad decisions. Having said that, I did enjoy his character a lot. I think the only character that didn't seem all that well-developed was Wayne who was another of the slightly-off elements.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book. It is commendable alone for the positive and varied portrayal of LGBT teens/relationships, but it is also so much more than that. A fascinating book and one I will not be forgetting in a hurry.

Overall Score:

Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

This book is extremely well done. I don't necessarily mean well-written, although it is that too. But seriously, how many authors could make a book like this work? How many could make a character who regularly sleeps with other people's boyfriends into not only a likeable, but a sympathetic one?

Mercedes is one of the most complex and compelling characters I've ever seen in YA fiction. I totally got what was going on inside her head at any given moment which is very impressive considering she spends most of the book making the wrong choice. Even though the plot is fairly predictable, there are plenty of new elements to stop it feeling samey. I must admit, I didn't care much for Faye. Something about her was...off. I didn't get her the same way I got the other characters. Angela's boyfriend also gets demonized to a ridiculous degree, although I am glad they didn't make it a rape thing.

Having said that, this book is a weird one and I can get why people might not like it. I've seen a lot of arguments as to whether this book is sex-positive or not and honestly, I don't really know the answer. Angela is not portrayed as wrong for wanting to wait until marriage and Mercedes does enjoy sex when she's doing it for the right reasons. Ultimately I'd say it is more sex-positive and definitely more frank about sex than many other YA novels and I can only see that as a good thing. It's maybe not the portrayal of someone who enjoys sex and so has a lot of it that some people wanted to see, but it's complex and I'm not sure that's what the author really wanted to do anyway. I always put story before messages and this one has a story that I very much enjoyed. I would highly recommend giving it a try if the blurb intrigues you.

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Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

'But it wasn't like you had to really search for the philosophy. It was pretty straightfoward, I thought.'

^ That quote up there pretty much summarises Perks perfectly. I knew I was not going to love this book, purely from the kind of book it is. I was pleasantly surprised to find I enjoyed it more than expected. Perks is one of those 'life lesson' books, complete with the usual detached and 'intelligent' protagonist who somehow knows very little about actual life and yet gets to have all these experiences.

'The thing is, I didn't know what it said even if it said it very well.'

Perks has exactly the opposite problem of that. There is no way in hell you could miss the (admittedly good) messages in this book, mainly because they are all just stated by the narrator with no finesse or attempt to show and not tell. Every single one is presented as something really profound that the main character has discovered and must share with you. Newsflash-this book has nothing very meaningful to add in terms of messages. Sure, it makes several good points but it's nothing we don't all know from a) our own life experiences and b) much better media. Having the narrator announce basic life lessons as though they're something new and deep is just annoying at best.

Ah yes, the narrator. I do not buy Charlie as a super intelligent person. I genuinely thought he was 12 for most of the book and was shocked to find out he was 15/16. I know intelligence takes many forms and presumably his detached, childlike style of narration was a deliberate choice by the author but I'm sorry, it doesn't work for me. He knows so little about everything it seems and apart from reading apparently advanced books (Is To Kill a Mockingbird really that advanced/hard to understand?), his intelligence is not depicted at all. It makes his teacher just seem naive for singling him out.

Those two issues aside, Perks is mostly a hipster dream. For me, a book needs strong character voices in order for me to truly love it and that just didn't happen here. I found it interesting and I didn't hate it but it covers so many traumatic issues without actually covering them properly. They're plot devices to be dismissed a few pages after they happen, nothing more. In the end, Perks didn't disappoint me but probably only because I expected so little.

Overall Score:

.5

Girl Online by Zoe Suggs

Expect my choice of books to get a whole lot more diverse because I have joined a book club. Hence why Girl Online is the book I'll be talking about today.

Okay, so reading this wasn't my choice which isn't a great place to start from to be fair. But hey, I was optimistic. I've been known to read and occasionally enjoy my share of crappy YA books. Why should this one be any different?

Oh dear god, this book is a sugary wonderland of tween fantasy. I can never eat more than one marshmallow at a time because it hurts my teeth and this book was like someone had stuffed a hundred in my mouth at once. There is no substance whatsoever in this. The author is so terrified of conflict that any drama introduced before the last few pages is immediately solved, just in case the readers start to worry that things might not be perfect after all.

Let me make one thing clear-I am a hopeless romantic. The key being 'hopeless'. Everything is just a little too perfect here. Like I said, it's a tween fantasy sold in a shiny pastel package. The main character (whose name I have already forgotten) manages to solve her anxiety, get the guy, gain self-esteem and become a fairly famous blogger all in just over a week. It's a shame because the conflict at the end could have been interesting but not when the story has been so irritatingly perfect so far. Also it felt like the story completely changed plots when she went to America. I guess it was on purpose but it was still a bit odd somehow. Not sure why.

I'll give this 2.5 stars because a) I appreciate I'm not the target audience and b) the writing is okay and the characters are at least semi-interesting (or different from each other). Maybe I'm being too kind but if you're not allergic to fluffy, soulless marshmallows like me, you might actually find something to enjoy here.

Overall Score:

.5

All the Rage by Courtney Summers

One of the many things I love about Courtney Summers as an author is that her books always, always have something to say. They're brutal and ugly and almost painful to read in their honesty yes, but each one says something that needs to be said. Unfortunately, I don't think All the Rage follows this trend.

Rape books. Rape is a tough subject to write about and I am not one of those people who think you shouldn't write about something just because of that. But rape has been covered so many times in YA fiction that honestly, I don't see why we need another book about it. Yes, the majority of rape books cover the subject so badly that it shouldn't be allowed. Yes, All the Rage actually manages to cover the topic well and doesn't shy away from the unpleasantness of it all. But it's still a rape book and, as a story, we all know how those go. I don't think anyone thinks rape is right (what constitutes as rape is a different matter but that's not touched on here) and so, what does this book say that is new?

Don't get me wrong, this is still a fantastically-written story and it does have some interesting elements presented in the usual raw style. It doesn't pull any punches. If you read any book about rape it should probably be this one. I just think in comparison to Summers' other books (particularly Some Girls Are which is very similar but infinitely better) it falls a bit flat.

My other main problem with it was the ending. Summers' usually ends books abruptly and without resolution but this was one of the worst examples I've seen. While with the others I can usually make some excuse for it, this book was definitely lacking. That doesn't mean I don't understand why it ended where it did but it was incomplete in a way that doesn't justify it. I felt the story owed me more that it gave and there was no true payoff to getting emotionally invested in it.

The bottom line? If you only read one book by Summers, go for Some Girls Are. Otherwise this is sill miles better than most YA fiction out there, if not deeply more uncomfortable to read.

Overall Rating:

.5

No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale

I didn't realise until I finished this book just how odd it was. I mean, it's a murder mystery where a teenage girl is killed horribly on the first page and yet it doesn't take itself all that seriously. You know the events the words are describing are awful and yet they don't seem that bad.

Probably one of the first things I should say is I loved this book right up until a certain point. For those of you who have read it, that point is when Kippy goes to the mental asylum. After that, everything just went sort of downhill.

Let's start with the positives. Kippy-I adored Kippy as a character (even if I did think she was a boy for the first five pages which was somewhat jarring when I discovered she wasn't). She's so weird it should be off-putting and yet she remains delightfully likeable and somehow down to earth throughout the whole book. Yes she has issues (everyone has issues basically) but they're just a part of her. She's definitely one of the less annoying YA narrators.

Unfortunately, this strength is also the book's main downfall. I just didn't feel the emotional side at all which is downright weird in a murder mystery. When the actual murderer is revealed, it's almost done with no fanfare at all. There was no emotional impact because the character didn't seem to feel an emotional impact. In fact, everyone reacted just a bit too normally to the brutal murder at the start. Kippy is sad for her friend obviously but the author doesn't focus on what anyone thinks about the actual method of murder. Even at the end in the big reveal, it's just presented as another fact.

Now this alone wasn't enough to make me dislike the book since the first three-quarters are so strong and hey, it almost feels like it could be a stylistic choice done on purpose. But it is a shame when a murder mystery book decides not to make a song and dance about the murder. I would still greatly recommend this book and I'm so glad I read it but if you're hoping for a dark read, you're going to be disappointed.

(Also, final spoilery rant: Does the murderer really have to be the loner kid who was sad after his parents died and collects a bunch of nerdy/weird stuff? Because that stereotype hasn't been done enough)

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Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

To give this book some credit, it was not as bad as I expected. That is to say, it's not as bad as Beautiful Disaster which is the standard I now compare all these sorts of romance books to. Having said that, boy is this book one steaming pile of clichés.

Brittany is your typical blonde girl perfectionist, Alex is your typical bad boy Mexican gang member. They get the hots for each other, they fight, they finally get together, some ridiculous conflict gets in the way...there's nothing new here is what I'm saying. But on the whole, it was marginally better than the worst I've seen of these bad boy books. So what didn't I like?

1) The romance-Okay, this might seem a bit obvious at first. But what I mean is, unlike some examples the courting of these two star-crossed teens is actually okay. There's no stalking (just mild kidnapping), boundaries are respected and they don't even kiss for like a 100 pages. But the second these two get together it all falls apart. Literally, for the two or three chapters they're 'happy' before the standard conflict kicks in, all they do is fight and prove how different they are. How I'm supposed to think they have a happy future is beyond me but thank god for the epilogue to prove me wrong!

2) The epilogue-Alright, the kid thing was cute if not entirely clichéd. I'm talking more about the fact they went to the same college and both decided to take Chemistry and then developed a not-quite-cure for Alzheimer's, presumably together. Because you know, the book went to such lengths to show us how much they love and are dedicated to that subject. Also GET IT THEY HAVE CHEMISTRY LOL

3) ALL THE GRATUITOUS SPANISH.

Yes, Alex is Mexican. We get it, Mexicans are hot. But literally, every scene with them has so much Spanish sprinkled around that it feels like burritos are being jammed down my throat as I read it

4) The 'mystery' of Alex's father's death-Because it was so obvious.

All in all, this book has some nice elements. I liked Brittany's sister and I think she added an element not usually explored in YA fiction. Also unlike some romances, there were actually quite a lot of prominent side characters and the main characters definitely had a life outside their relationship. If you like this genre then you could do far worse than this book. If not, well you're probably not going to read it anyway

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They All Fall Down by Roxanne St. Claire

Not gonna lie, I fully expected this book to be terrible.

Oh come on, the description was so blatantly riding on the coattails of Pretty Little Liars. So why did I read it? Well, I'm a sucker for a good mystery and I was secretly hoping this book would do what PLL failed to-create a good mystery with interesting characters.

This book sucked me in instantly. For the first half I couldn't put it down. Instead of having the main girl be your typical popular girl like in PLL, the author opted to have a more average nerdy girl voted onto the list. This certainly helped with making the character likeable and the narration more bearable. The other characters were less interesting but the only one I hated was Kenzie's friend. She was your typical jealous friend type who only seemed to exist solely to create drama and screw up the plot.

The second half of this book though...oh god, it was hard to swallow. I'm going to keep this review spoiler free so all I'll say is that the resolution to the mystery was not what I wanted at all. It was very original I'll give it that but still, it wasn't the kind of genre I normally read. Thankfully the writing was good enough to save it...just.

One thing I did like is that the main character's stupidly reckless behaviour was somewhat excused by her paranoid and scared-of-life mother. It might not have worked 100% but it was a nice touch and much better than just having the main character act like an idiot for no reason.

On the whole, They All Fall Down is a curious one. It isn't the horror I wanted nor the kind of murder mystery I like but it was enjoyable enough and much, much better than I thought it would be. Pretty Little Liars it isn't and it's almost a shame it's been marketed this way. It's a good book but I feel a lot of people will be disappointed with how it plays out based on the blurb.

Overall Score:

.5

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

After reading heaps and heaps of reviews about how people loved this book, I can't help but feel like I'm missing something here.

Did we read the same book? Honestly, I don't see how I'm supposed to feel anything reading about this relationship (if you can call it that). From the start it was painfully clear that these two weren't meant to be together. Min is a pretentious film-lover, Ed is a typical jock. ON THE FIRST DATE he isn't getting her. I never believed they were in love for one second, let alone 300-odd pages.

This leads me to another problem. This entire book is Min writing her ex a letter about their relationship. Except their relationship didn't even last two months. This coupled with the way she narrates it just implies to me that she became waaaaaay too obsessed and for no real reason. Ed isn't attractive, he isn't charming or witty or charismatic in any way. Am I supposed to see this as Min being a silly teenager? If so, then the execution is very poor because it felt accidental. Also, why write a book about it and make the prose so very literary?

The writing style is maybe the only thing that made this book tolerable and that's not saying much. It's pretentious, the sentences go on far too long and Min spends way too much time getting to the point. I can't say I felt particularly attached to any of the characters. The illustrations are nice I guess? All in all, a flimsy book held together by pretty artwork and presentation. Not worth spending time or money on.

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Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither

Argh, this book was so frustrating!

Don't get me wrong, it's a decent read. I just feel cheated somewhat in that the story promised was not the story delivered in my eyes. There are so many books about cloning and I've never had much of a desire to read them but the blurb of this book was so inviting that I had to give it a look. And like I said, it's not a bad book. But oh, the author just had to go for the bigger picture.

Here's what I wanted from the book-an intriguing, philosophical look at the implications of cloning using the family unit as the basis for the story. Here's what happens-it starts off well and then soon descends into the usual 'rebellion' plot line that The Hunger Games has made so popular.

Listen to me YA authors, you don't always have to threaten all of society to make an interesting story. I picked up this book on the basis that I wanted to hear about what one girl thought about her sister being replaced with an identical clone (and a potentially dangerous one at that). I wanted to see the problems the clone had with fitting in, the kind of prejudices she would encounter. I did not want a story about taking down society and deadly assassins and stuff like that.

On the whole, Falls the Shadow is a perfectly acceptable book. I'd go so far as to say I even enjoyed it. I'm just disappointed by the fact that I feel like it could have been something so much better, something different. Instead we get the same-old rebellion story, albeit told well. It might not be better but hey, it could be a whole lot worse.

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Ghost House by Alexandra Adornetto

This book left me so torn. On the one hand, it was a total pile of clichés. On the other hand...damn it, it worked somehow.

Ghost House tells the story of Chloe, a girl with the power to see ghosts. After the death of her mother, Chloe's father is unable to cope and so sends her and her brother off to England to stay with their grandmother. Whilst there, Chloe becomes entangled with a vicious ghost called Isobel and falls in love with another ghost, Alex.

I had the strangest sense of deja-vu whilst reading this. Maybe it's just the fact it is a cliché storm but I swear I've encountered this exact story before. That aside, I couldn't help but really enjoy this book. It's predictable but the writing style and the characters manage to save it somehow. The only part I had trouble swallowing was the end. That was one cliché too far for me.

Am I glad I read this book? Despite that I feel like I shouldn't like it, yes I am. It's an absorbing little tale and better than your average YA book. It's just a shame that it couldn't be a bit more original in its plot.

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