#meg leder

[quillaffinity]

summer solace - promare blazing summer (day 1)

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you are - not as i thought

you’ve become - what i find solace in

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Promare is a film directed by Imaishi Hiroyuki  and produced by Studio Trigger

web weave for @promareblazingsummerfever​ - DAY 1: NATSU MATSURI

promare / meg leder / promare / gang of youths, “keep me in the open /  iain s. thomas / promare / c.s. lewis / promare

[-outofcontext-]

Letting Go of Gravity #OutOfContext

[theheartofabookblogger]

What are you up to this weekend?

Exciting book mail arrived this week! Thank you so much, @sbennettwealer, for sending me NOW & WHEN and LETTING GO OF GRAVITY! I’m looking forward to reading both!

[literatureonline]

That's what friends do-they remind you of who you are underneath all the stuff people believe about you, all that stuff you believe about yourself.

Meg Leder, Letting Go of Gravity

[melanchallina]

I stared at Eph, envying the fact that he already had a costume, though whether it was actually qualified as a costume was debatable. He was dressed in all black- black jeans, black knit hat, black boots, long-sleeved, black T-shirt, black thermal on top of it. "I'm the dark night of the soul. Or a black hole. Or something like that," He'd said when I'd asked him earlier. "You're copping out," I said. "How is being in more than one costume copping out? I'm actually so investing in this, I am in an infinite number of costumes. It's meta and crap.

© Meg Leder "The Museum of Heartbreak"

[caraalwaysreading]

“The Museum of Heartbreak” by Meg Leder

"His smile was deep and dark, like a thousand books begging to be read, like the doorway to Narnia." Beautiful. Words streamed from the mouth of a poet. Alas, this book is far from poetry.

Geez, that made me sound like a class-A jerk, huh? I can't help it! This book was, to my complete surprise, one of the worst books I've read this year. I tried so hard to like the writing styles and the characters, but there really wasn't any redeeming qualities in my opinion once I hit the halfway mark.

Told through the point-of-view of sixteen-year-old Penelope, "The Museum of Heartbreak" sets out to tell a story and pull us, the readers, back to the days of first loves and teenage drama. Though it does have its share of relationships and feuds, platonic and romantic, the story really lacks in any authentic emotion-evoking material.

My main quarrel with this book was that the characters were just insuffarable. It came to the point half-way through the book that I was actually rooting for the antagonist to get a good snide-remark in. Just saying.

Penelope, our protagonist and narrator, just seems to be so much younger than what we're informed. Now, I'm not saying it's a terrible thing to like childhood things (I still binge Zoey 101 when I can catch it on). All I'm saying is that there is a fine line between "young-at-heart" and just completely childish. (Everyone burps and farts, Penelope. Get over it.)

As for our protagonist's friends, they aren't much better. Audrey, Penelope's supposed best friend since elementary school, is an a-double astrick-hole in all ways when it comes to friendship. Ephraim (or Eph, as he's referred to the majority of the time) is a little better on the scale of loyalty. His main problem was the lack of character. We were shown the surface, and the surface was all we were shown.

Against this cast is what the book attempts to be antagonists. First we have Cherrie (who I'm still not sure how to pronounce. Cherry? Sherry?) who was who I aformentioned a few paragraphs ago in regards to snide remarks. There isn't much to her besides the stereotypical high school mean girl. (There is A LOT of tropes just like this throughout, by the way.)

Our other antagonist is Keats, the "love interest" of Penelope (I use quotes here because throughout this entire story Keats doesn't seem to show one itsy, bitsy sign of romance in his being). He was a little deeper in character than Eph or Cherrie, being the "eccentric" or "indie" kid. Though, last time I checked being eccentric does not also mean you can be sexist (this is obviously not a jab at the author of the book, just the character in general).

Now, despite the numerous flaws of this book, there were some redeemable qualities, the first being Grace and Miles. These are two characters met a little further into the novel, though it doesn't spoil anything (don't worry). Their being in the story was, to be frank, the only reason I was able to bare finishing. It was Grace's complete cool demeanor and Miles's snarky, gay self that kept me entertained when I was becoming bored. (Thank the Gods for these characters!)

The other good things about this book were minor, but still impactful. The inclusion of paleontology was really interesting, especially the parts about Willo the "maybe-has-a-heart" dinosaur. Alongside this, Eph's art ability was a bit entertaining, if somewhat repetitive after a while.

Despite ALL of this, "The Museum of Heartbreak" is a cutesy, light-hearted read. Being Meg Leder's first fiction novel (that I can find in her biography), it wasn't the worst thing ever written. So, maybe my comment from earlier was a bit too harsh.

Anyway, overall, the story was okay. There wasn't much depth to it, so it could easily be read by middle school aged kids (though I will warn that there is numerous uses of the "F-word" throughout).

Would I recommend it? Sure, if you're looking for something that doesn't drown itself in development and can easily be swept through in a couple of hours. It just wasn't my ideal type of story. For that, I'm giving this book a solid 3 out of 5 stars. Sorry, book. You're just not my kind of heartbreak.

Support the author and purchase "The Museum of Heartbreak" by Meg Leder here.

[mysecretbooksworld-blog]

[danithebookaholic-blog]

NEW RELEASE! - Letting Go of Gravity

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Letting Go of Gravity

By Meg Leder

Published by: Simon Pulse Publication date: July 17th 2018 Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

Synopsis:

“The anticipation and slow burn of Parker and Finn’s relationship is electric…[an] absorbing novel that will appeal to fans of Rainbow Rowell.” —Booklist

Parker struggles to reconnect with her twin brother, Charlie—who’s recovering from cancer—as she tries to deal with her anxiety about the future in this powerful new novel.

Twins Parker and Charlie are polar opposites. Where Charlie is fearless, Parker is careful. Charlie is confident while Parker aims to please. Charlie is outgoing and outspoken; Parker is introverted and reserved. And of course, there’s the one other major difference: Charlie got cancer. Parker didn’t.

But now that Charlie is officially in remission, life couldn’t be going better for Parker. She’s landed a prestigious summer internship at the hospital and is headed to Harvard in the fall to study pediatric oncology—which is why the anxiety she’s felt since her Harvard acceptance is so unsettling. And it doesn’t help that her relationship with Charlie has been on the rocks since his diagnosis.

Enter Finn, a boy who’s been leaving strange graffiti messages all over town. Parker can’t stop thinking about those messages, or about Finn, who makes her feel free for the first time: free to doubt, free to make mistakes, and free to confront the truth that Parker has been hiding from for a long time.

That she keeps trying to save Charlie, when the person who really needs saving is herself.

Goodreads

Purchase:

Amazon / B&N / Kobo / iBooks

 Author Bio:

A former bookseller and teacher, Meg Leder currently works as a book editor in New York City. Her role models are Harriet the Spy and Anne Shirley. She is the coauthor of The Happy Book, and spends her free time reading, looking for street art, and people watching. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads

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From one bookaholic to another, I hope I’ve helped you find your next fix. —Dani

Have a book you’d like to suggest or one you’d like me to review? Please feel free to leave your comments down below.