"words are life"

Books belong to their readers. // Reviews by Lydia and Chloë.

[themayorslibrary]

Title: Afterworlds

Author: Scott Westerfeld

Published: September 2014, Simon & Schuster Childrens Books

Summary: “Darcy Patel has put college and everything else on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. Arriving in New York with no apartment or friends she wonders whether she's made the right decision until she falls in with a crowd of other seasoned and fledgling writers who take her under their wings...Told in alternating chapters is Darcy's novel, a suspenseful thriller about Lizzie, a teen who slips into the 'Afterworld' to survive a terrorist attack. But the Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead and as Lizzie drifts between our world and that of the Afterworld, she discovers that many unsolved - and terrifying - stories need to be reconciled. And when a new threat resurfaces, Lizzie learns her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she loves and cares about most.”

Review

Cover art: It’s simple and eye-catching and makes you look at it more than once to spot the faces.

Premise: The idea of a novel within a novel was an interesting one, and I wanted to see if it worked or slowed down the main story.

Characters: The main character, Darcy, was almost as flat as her own character Lizzie in some ways. She was made up of jealousy about writing, worrying about if she matched up to everyone else’s standards of a successful writer and adult, and unrealistically sudden romantic/sexual devotion to Imogen. In a reflection of Lizzie waxing lyrical about Yamaraj’s beauty in her novel, we know more about Imogen than we do Darcy, and Imogen is perhaps the most fleshed out character in the whole book. Their idiosyncrasies (mostly Imogen’s, actually) and quirks of speech (mostly Nisha’s, but occasionally Darcy’s) gave the book more of a personality. Again, Darcy’s old friends are developed as little as Lizzie’s best friend Jamie.

Plot: Darcy’s story is a progression of moving to New York, making new writer friends and being in love while attempting to meet deadlines for rewrites of her first novel, as well as a draft of the sequel. In her novel, also named Afterworlds, Lizzie’s story involves her learning how to travel on the ‘flipside’ and interact with ghosts after almost dying in a terrorist attack. The alternating between chapters made the pace of both seem very slow across the 600 pages of the whole book. There were some very creepy moments in Lizzie’s story, but the romance aspect of the paranormal was terribly dull and predictable. The romance in Darcy’s life began almost as unrealistically abruptly, but her relationship was developed much more successfully. Overall the pace was inconsistent and the story was both lacking and choppy, but it had its moments.  

Other comments: The strength of the book lies in its meta qualities; it seems to be a double-layered commentary on the tropes in YA lit. It was entertaining to see the way Darcy's experiences affected her rewrites of Lizzie's chapters. I liked it a lot more than I would have otherwise due to the featuring of a girl/girl relationship rather than the ubiquitous special snowflake girl/darkly mysterious boy relationships, one of which was present in Darcy’s own novel.

Score: 6.5/10

[inbetweenfictionandreality-deac]

Books you might not know are being turned into movies

Done deal

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Eleanor and Park

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

The 5th Wave

Paper Towns

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Stolen

Fallen

Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

On the Jellicoe Road

Strong Possibilites

Uglies (TV show)

Gone (TV show)

Legend

The Night Circus

The Lux Series

The Covenant Series

Heist Society

Weak possibilities

The Summer I Turned Pretty (TV show)

This is not a Test (TV movie)

The Infernal Devices (TV show)

Gallagher Girls

Got any more?

[themayorslibrary]

Title: The Dark Inside

Author: Rupert Wallis

Published: Jan 2014, Simon & Schuster Children's Books (e-book provided via NetGalley)

Summary: "The House on the Hill has been abandoned for as long as James can remember. So when he discovers Webster, a drifter, hiding there, he's instantly curious about the story behind the homeless man. What is he running from? Afflicted by a dark curse, Webster is no longer who he used to be. But there is said to be a cure and it might just be that by helping Webster, James will find some solace of his own. Together they embark on a journey, not knowing that what they discover will impact them both in ways they never imagined...A gripping and haunting story about loss and hope, perfect for fans of Patrick Ness and David Almond."

Review

Cover art: It's very simple and would probably have been more striking if it was black and white.

Premise: The mention of a curse and the comparisons to Patrick Ness and David Almond made me curious.

Characters: The protagonist, James, is a sweet but naive young boy who is struggling to deal with his mother's death in a car accident while facing abuse and blame from his stepfather, who we learn was driving the car and likes to drink a lot (though these may be unrelated facts). Webster is an apparently homeless man whom James meets in the abandoned house on the hill, where he goes to get away from his stepfather. Webster has been attacked by someone or something and seems to be running from them, and this is what begins to drive the story, because James is running too. The travellers chasing them, Billy and his old mother, bring a paranormal aspect to the story with his mother's strange magic. We mostly see from James' perspective, but we find out just enough about Webster to form a sympathetic idea of his character. Webster helps James to understand a little more about life, and James helps Webster to come to a conclusion about what he needs to do after what he's been through - but in the end, it's up to the reader to decide for themselves about Webster. 

Plot: When James meets Webster and finds out the travellers want to get him for an unknown reason, he helps the older man to escape and ends up running away with him as he feels he has nothing and no home to go back to. He doesn't quite believe Webster's story of how he was attacked, and the reader will be equally sceptical but interested in James's attempts to do research and help Webster find out how to remove his "curse"; all the while the travellers, including the old woman with her eerie magic, try to find Webster so they can imprison him and profit from the curse they also believe in. It seems hopeless when the only solution given to them is for Webster to find his attacker and simply forgive him, because Webster doesn't know who it was. This leads to a heart-aching moment when an old man they meet tries to help Webster at his own expense.

After running from the travellers again, Webster abandons James, and when he goes looking for him on the moors, James is attacked in the dark by someone or something he thinks is Webster. The travellers capture James and think he is cursed too, but they know that there is another more costly way for Webster to remove the curse from James. In the end, they find that forgiveness was the most important thing after all, and even though Webster may not be able to forgive himself, through him James is able to realize that he needs to forgive not only himself, but his stepfather. The final scene made me cry in its powerful simplicity, and though the book ended on a sad yet hopeful note, there were a lot of unanswered questions about the paranormal aspect and what was true and what wasn't. A sign of a good book is when you're still thinking about it long after you've finished reading, and there is a lot of thinking to be done about The Dark Inside.

Other comments: This book was well written with several quietly tender moments which were beautifully descriptive in a simple way. I would definitely recommend it for fans of David Almond and Patrick Ness.

Score: 7.5/10

[themayorslibrary]

Title: Icons

Author: Margaret Stohl

Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2013 (e-book provided via NetGalley)

Summary: "Everything changed on The Day. The day the Icon appeared in Los Angeles. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting. 

Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside with fellow survivor Ro-safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid. They're different. They survived. Why? When the government discovers their secret, they are forced to join faint-hearted Tima and charismatic Lucas in captivity. Called the Icon Children, the four are the only humans on Earth immune to the power of the Icons. Torn between brooding Ro and her evolving feelings for Lucas, between a past and a future, Dol's heart has never been more vulnerable. And as tensions escalate, the Icon Children discover that their explosive emotions-which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses-may actually be their greatest strengths."

Review

Cover art: I thought it was a great cover, like a movie poster, that promised an exciting story.

Premise: I liked the first book in the Beautiful Creatures series and was interested to see what Stohl could do on her own. Alien invasion is difficult to approach originally and I'd seen many unfavourable comparisons to Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave, which I enjoyed, so I wanted to see how Stohl approached her alien-inhabited world.

Characters: I'm sorry to say that the characters were very disappointing. With the exception of the omnipresent AI Doc and his creator Fortis, they were all flat. The main character, Dol, wasn't unlikeable but she was bland and forgettable, and her romantic feelings towards others weren't developed, rather just presented suddenly in a way that made no sense in the story. The other Icon children were the same; they were meant to embody one main emotion, but this just made them very limited. Ro's constant quick temper and blundering into situations mindlessly with his fists up was boring, and his possessiveness of Dol wasn't endearing. Lucas was all over the place with little to no explanation for his motivation in flip-flopping between loyalty to the Icon children and the Resistance and to his mother The Ambassador and her Embassy. Tima was the least developed of the Icon children, and it felt like she was just dropped or shoved aside when the love triangle (why was this necessary?) was forced between Ro, Dol, and Lucas. The only characters who seemed to give the story any feeling or drive were Fortis, who dropped in when he was needed with some wisecracking and vague hints at the truth, and his intelligent computer Doc, who helps the Icon children like a friend and even tries to make jokes.

Plot: Overall the explanation for the alien takeover is vague and unsatisfying. We never see the Lords, the aliens, themselves, only descriptions of their ships, and the Icons they planted in cities to control electrical and chemical activity, and even these weren't described much. We get snippets of information about how they arrived like a meteor and interacted with somebody in the government before arrival, which suggests some kind of conspiracy, but anything further along this plot point is left for the next book. The Icon children themselves aren't explained well either; they have dots on their wrists to mark them as different and have emotional powers that can control others, but the origins of this and their purpose aren't clear at all. I was left feeling like I'd missed something important when reading. 

The world-building was enough to engage me at first; set in what used to be Los Angeles, a lot of Hispanic culture is still left, but the new world is lacking technology (apart from the Embassy, under the control of the Lords) and is full of suffering. People are kept under control by the Sympas, the Embassy's military force, and shipped off to the Projects to build something unknown for the Lords. Dol is living quite happily in a Mission in the countryside until she and Ro are captured and brought to the Embassy for an unknown reason, which does not become any clearer throughout the story. The sense of urgency at the beginning, when they are kept prisoner and tortured in a way by the brutish general Catallus to gauge the extent of their powers, dissipates when suddenly they can wander around the Embassy pretty much as they like. The pace slows to a limp and there is no character development to make up for it. A few action sequences help to revive it a little, but the interactions between the Icon children seem pointless. One scene had me cringing with secondhand embarrassment when Tima tried to insinuate a relationship between herself and Ro to make Lucas and Dol jealous. They were meant to be a team, discovering the secrets of their creation and how they can take down the Icons, and instead they're sitting in the Embassy cafeteria playing silly games over who likes who? Due to these earlier scenes the final action sequence attacking the Icon felt like too little, too late, reinforced by the romantic choice Dol makes right afterwards when there was no chemistry present. 

Other comments: I wanted to like this book and it seemed like it will make a good movie, but it just felt so formulaic and underdeveloped that I couldn't really enjoy it. There were some interesting aspects, such as the recovered Grass Rebellion documents and Doc's Embassy reports between the chapters, but overall I felt like this book was a letdown.

Score: 3/10

[themayorslibrary]

Title: Burn

Author: Julianna Baggott

Published: Headline, Feb 2014 (e-book provided by Headline via NetGalley)

Summary: "With his father now dead, Partridge has assumed leadership of the Dome, one of the last few refuges from the ravaged wastelands of the outside world. At first, Partridge is intent on exposing his father's lies, taking down the rigid order of the Dome, and uniting its citizens with the disfigured Wretches on the outside. But from his new position of power, things are far more complex and potentially dangerous than he could have ever imagined.

On the outside, a band of survivors faces a treacherous journey to Dome. Pressia carries with her the key to salvation. If she can get it to the Dome, the Wretches could one day be healed and everyone might be able to put the horrors of the past behind them. Bradwell, the revolutionary, cannot forgive so easily. Despite Pressia's pleas, he is determined to bring down the Dome and hold its citizens accountable for leaving the rest of the world to burn. El Capitan, the former rebel leader, wants to help Pressia save as many lives as possible--but he's struggling to reconcile his newfound compassion with his vicious past. 

As former allies become potential enemies, the fate of the world is more uncertain than ever. Will humanity fall to destruction? Or will a new world rise from the ashes?"

Review

Cover: I really like the simple yet striking covers in this series, especially the title font.

Premise: This is a dark and gritty series that had sucked me into its world deeper than I'd realized until I was left feeling strangely empty after finishing Burn, the final book in the Pure series. It's sometimes difficult reading but worth it, and I really wanted to know how it all ends.

Characters: One of the things that left me confused about Burn was the way some characters seemed to devolve into people unrecognizable from who they had been (mainly Partridge). The pressure of trying to decide what is best for his people seems to warp him, even as he's concerned about not becoming his father. Mostly I just felt sad for Partridge, shunted into a useless fake life because he wasn't really in control at all, and everybody else seemed to get the better of him. I did not like his storyline with Iralene at all.

There was continued development for El Capitan and Helmud, and when Helmud manages to say on his own his brother's name from before the Detonations it's a very sweet and sad moment. El Capitan has an almost religious epiphany and absolution which makes his choice to stand with Bradwell after all important.

Now the opportunity to destroy the Dome is a possible reality, Bradwell finally has to decide who he really is and what he is going to do after holding onto his anger and guilt about his parents for so long, and whether he can reconcile with Pressia for trying to 'purify' him and wanting to heal everyone. At first I felt that Bradwell's ending was all wrong and unnecessary, but after thinking about it it seems like after everything he'd been through and what he'd become it was the best thing for him.

Pressia also has important decisions to make; after opposing Bradwell's and El Capitan's desires to punish those in the Dome rather than focusing on the healing of the wretches for the wellbeing of he society as a whole, Pressia has to begin to understand the importance of their history and that what has happened cannot be erased and is necessary to accept before they can move forward. 

The character I felt the most for in this book was actually Lyda. She was more of a prisoner than Partridge, and unlike him she knew what she wanted for her future and refused to be kept hidden or institutionalized. She was not afraid to fight for herself and her baby's future, and comes to rely on herself enough that she makes an important choice concerning her dependence on Partridge. She had the most to gain of all of them out of the Dome being taken down, so I couldn't blame her for instigating it.

Plot: Pressia, Bradwell, and El Capitan return from Ireland with the formula to find their city burned into a new wasteland, the result of further attacks from the Dome. They don't know that it's Foresteed controlling the military and are reluctant to believe it's Partridge, but they all have to make the choice of what they're going to do, now that Kelly has provided them with a weapon that can take down the Dome physically once and for all. Inside the Dome, people don't want to face up to the lie they've lived and the things they've done, and Partridge loses control quickly. It's kind of poignant that in his desperation to not be like his father, he fails completely as a leader and becomes the kind of weak person who is just as bad.

The story is paced quickly enough that the ending seems to come too soon, and is far too fast and unsatisfying. I wasn't expecting happily ever afters all around, of course, but I still felt so discontent with many characters' endings, and the fact that some didn't really get an ending at all - what about Pressia's father, after she spent so long wanting to find him? There were so many unanswered questions and no real resolution - it seems to be up to the reader to imagine how the Pures would survive with the wretches and if any progress at all could be made. The final few chapters were almost heartbreaking in the simplicity of the destruction of everything we had known so suddenly, and we don't know what happens next. I feel like there could have been another book showing how they rebuild again but differently this time, showing what the enigmatic Arvin Weed can do sealed away in the Dome labs... Burn just didn't feel like it was enough; after so much building, of characters and the world, the standoff was somewhat anticlimactic. 

Other comments: While I was immediately dissatisfied with the book, I keep thinking about it, so the story still resonates. I would still recommend the whole series - it's something dark and different, with strong characters and insights into humanity.

Score: 6/10

[themayorslibrary]

Title: Fuse

  Author: Julianna Baggott

  Published: Headline, 2013

  Summary: Partridge has escaped the safety of his father's empire and left the Dome, where his people - the Pures - have sheltered for so long. He has ventured into the destroyed world inhabited by the Wretches, who live crippled by their injuries.

  Pressia, a Wretch, is desperate to decode the secrets of the past and, together with Partridge, she must seek out the answers that will save all their futures. But Partridge's actions will not be forgiven. As the Dome unleashes horrifying vengeance upon the Wretches, Partridge has no choice but to return to face the darkness that lies there, leaving Pressia to continue searching for the truth that will change the fate of the world for all time.

  Review

  Cover art: As with Pure, I like the simplicity with the small details in the title font.

  Premise: Having already become familiar with the savage world that captures the attention in Pure, the sequel has more work to do to engage the reader again. I was still invested in finding out Willux’s secrets and how Pressia and the others could overpower him, and though this book moves a little further in this direction it still felt a little too slow.

  Characters: Again, this book relies heavily on character development and the relationships between them. This time Bradwell and Pressia’s relationship had more space and time to bloom. Unfortunately I was less invested in Lyda and Partridge’s relationship; I didn’t like the direction that storyline took, although individually I loved Lyda’s development in terms of becoming more independent. El Capitan’s role was again one of the most interesting, as his change of heart and direction from his position in the previous book is not necessarily understood and believed by the people who used to fear him; I did not like one particular development in his attachment to Pressia as I felt it was unnecessary, but at the same time it did show development in his character to be less selfish, especially as he cares for his brother more too. I liked the way Helmud also become more of his own person and was treated as such by everybody in the group. Partridge took a long time in coming to the conclusion he needed to in regards to what he has to do in the Dome, but the next book will see how that has changed him as a person.

  Plot: The book seemed very thin in terms of plot, as the few events that occur in the progression of the story seem stretched across too many pages. The pace is consistent enough to keep you reading but not quite satisfying. The reaction of the Dome to Partridge’s further escape sets the story going and recaptures the horror and dehumanization of the first book, but after that is resolved things slow down a lot. The group is split up on various paths, and while Partridge returns to the Dome and struggles to accept the mission the resistance within has assigned him while his father plots against him using a sinister cryogenically frozen family and operating on Partridge’s brain, Pressia is left to take their mother’s research and use the black box Fignan’s information to track down the rest of the formula Willux needs. This involves stealing an airship and flying to Ireland, which is the first time we discover anything about what happened in the rest of the world during the Detonations. What happens there creates enough intrigue to have the reader wanting the next book immediately to see how it can be resolved, and especially how it changes Bradwell and Pressia.

  Other Comments: It feels like there is a lot of build-up and not enough payoff, though it is enough to keep me wanting to read the next book in the hope that finally more answers will be unravelled. The ending of Fuse, like the previous book, is setting up for a larger war.

  Score: 6/10

[mockingjace-blog]

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.” -Gustave Flaubert [x]

[themayorslibrary]

have you ever read sabriel by garth nix? i think you might enjoy it, or at least hope so! :)

I did read it (and the Keys to the Kingdom series) when I was a kid, but I don’t remember much from it so maybe I should reread it :)

[themayorslibrary]

Title:  Pure

  Author: Julianna Baggott

  Published:  Headline Publishing Group, 2012

  Amazon Summary: "We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar, benevolently.

Pressia Belze has lived outside of the Dome ever since the detonations. Struggling for survival she dreams of life inside the safety of the Dome with the 'Pure'.

Partridge, himself a Pure, knows that life inside the Dome, under the strict control of the leaders' regime, isn't as perfect as others think.

Bound by a history that neither can clearly remember, Pressia and Partridge are destined to forge a new world."

  Review

  Cover art:  The version I bought caught my attention because it was very simple, and the flaming font on a black background with the small designs (Pressia’s grandfather’s fan and Bradwell’s birds) hidden in the letters, it was intriguing. Of course the “love The Hunger Games, love Pure” label on it helped.  

  Premise:  The world as we know it (or at least the US) was destroyed in a series of bomb blasts known by survivors as the Detonations. Some were lucky enough to be taken into the Dome, full of “Pures” who escaped the bombs and live a comparatively normal, though stifled, life. Outside of the Dome, among the cities of rubble, survivors of the blasts suffer mutations and fusions. Pressia, who has mild burns and a doll’s head fused to one hand, escaped lightly compared to some of the “beasts” and those who were fused to the ground or to other people. It’s interesting to see how life would continue in that world; markets and trade still exist, there are small religious groups and some form of government or army known as the OSR who are believed to oppose the Dome. There is a lot of world-building which might make this book too heavy and complicated for some teenagers, so it has been marketed as an adult book over YA despite the ages of the main characters.

  Characters: Through the eyes of the main character, Pressia, we are introduced to the world she has known as long as she can remember. The small games of “I Remember” she plays allow us to see what endures of the world familiar to us and how trivial things like balloons and sunglasses seem in comparison to the stark brutality of the post-Detonations world. We see the other side of that life through Partridge, who is equally naïve, living a sheltered life inside the Dome. Their two lives both seem unappealing – those outside the Dome have freedom, and while they think the Pures must have it perfect, those in the Dome are relentlessly controlled. When they meet, it seems inevitable that they are going to try and forge a new world from those ruins. There is a host of other characters who helped to populate the ashes of Pressia’s world; Ingership with his half-metal face and his wife in her body stocking are just as disturbing as El Capitan, with his “halfwit” brother Helmud fused on his back for eternity, and the Dome’s mutated Special Forces. I was wary of a love triangle being forced between Pressia, Partridge and Lyda, and was glad that didn’t happen. Lyda wasn’t developed much as a character and the deviations to her POV seemed pointless. Bradwell was interesting, as someone older who remembered more of the old world and had been resisting the Dome all his life. However, his bitterness and constant lectures got old quickly, and though there were a few genuine moments between him and Pressia I don’t think their relationship was developed enough for their feelings at the end of the book to be that valid.

  Plot: There isn’t much of one. The story focuses so much on building the world, comparing it to the one that came before, contrasting the Dome to the world outside it, exploring conspiracy theories involving Partridge’s parents and dragging along a couple of love interests just to round it out that it takes a while for anything to actually happen. Even by the end of the book, not much has been resolved, so at least it ensures that you have to read the sequel to get any answers. The book is driven more by small moments between characters (like El Capitan finding out what Helmud was really doing literally behind his back, or Partridge having to sacrifice a body part, or Pressia’s curiosity about Bradwell and longing for family).

  Other comments:  Overall this book seemed to be setting up its sequel more than anything.The science is much closer to fantasy and requires some suspension of disbelief.  I would still recommend it, though people should be aware that despite the marketing strategy it’s nothing like The Hunger Games, aside from being set in a destroyed future world.

  Score:  7/10

[wannagivemysoul-blog]

[beccadarren-deactivated20130517]

[themayorslibrary]

an endless list of perfect books ↳The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

“The consequence of this is that I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.” 

[likeafieldmouse-deactivated2015]

[blua]

Candida Hofer - Libraries (published 2005)

[lizthefangirl]

tHIS IS NOT APPROPRIATE 

THINK OF THE CHILDR EN

[earpwave]

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” - Oscar Wilde

[themayorslibrary]

Title: Skinny

Author: Donna Cooner

Published:  Electric Monkey, 2013

Amazon Summary:  “Happily ever after? Or never ever, Ever. Ever's mom loved fairy tales, but at fifteen-years-old and weighing 302 lbs, Ever Davies is sure that "happily ever after" was never written for her. She lives under the constant scrutiny of everyone around her, and "Skinny" - the voice in her head - makes sure she never forgets how fat and ugly she is. That is, until Ever decides to take drastic action. With the help of her long-suffering friend Rat, Ever embarks on the risky, terrifying journey of gastric surgery. But while Ever's body gradually changes on the outside, she soon finds that changing the person on the inside is much harder. And silencing Skinny is the hardest task of all.”

Review

Cover art:  I liked the way it portrayed the way the negative voice in your head can overwhelm, but the fact that the girl on the cover is yet another pretty thin girl is kind of contradicting the point of the book.

Premise:  I’ve never actually read a teen book which focuses on weight loss surgery, but I have read books which looked at the mental repercussions of health disorders, and I was interested in how these things would be portrayed in this book.

Characters: It’s easy to pity the main character, Ever, as she struggles through high school and home life being judged by her peers and family for her overeating, which is a coping mechanism for dealing with the death of her mother. Her secret love of music and singing made her endearing. However, there were points where her own hypocritically judgemental attitude towards others could get annoying, as well as her ignorance of her best friend’s feelings which were completely obvious throughout the book. Her stepsister Lindsay was an interesting character and served to show that being thin and pretty isn’t everything because you can still have other problems and be unhappy, which is something Ever needed to learn.  

Plot: The story is somewhat a retelling of Cinderella, with a transformation and ‘ugly’ stepsisters and a Prince Charming. Overweight teenager Ever makes the drastic decision to undergo gastric bypass surgery to finally lose weight. Her best and only friend Rat helps her through the difficult process of maintaining the weight loss after the surgery, and Ever finds that a physical change isn’t enough to make the negative voice in her head, which she names Skinny, away. Skinny preys on Ever’s confidence, and the point of the book would seem to be Ever confronting this voice and learning to control it, but this is actually kind of pushed aside in favour of some stereotypes, such as the mean girl becoming her friend and giving her a makeover, and the popular boy Ever was crushing on finally asking her to prom while she ignores her best friend. I thought this book was a good attempt at looking at weight loss issues, but it was too quick a read to have a significant resolution.

Other comments:  Overall I think the book was a little too rushed and oversimplified, and the best friend cliché and underwhelming ‘final confrontation’ with Skinny made it seem like the book would work as a kind of cheesy feel-good high school film.

Score:  5/10

[themayorslibrary]

Title: Butter

Author: Erin Lange

Published: Faber and Faber, 2013

Goodreads Summary:  “You think I eat a lot now? That's nothing. Tune in December 31st, when I will stream a live webcast of my last meal. Death row inmates get one. Why shouldn't I? I can't take another year in this fat suit, but I can end this year with a bang. If you can stomach it, you're invited to watch ... as I eat myself to death.

So starts Butter, the story of a lonely 423-pound boy everyone calls 'Butter'. Worse than being ridiculed for his size at high school, he is simply ignored. Desperate, he pledges to eat himself to death live on the Internet - and everyone will watch. When he makes this announcement online, he expects pity, insults, or possibly sheer indifference. Instead, his classmates become morbid cheerleaders for his deadly plan.”

Review

Cover art:  I was attracted to the book in the shop by the brightness of the cover – aptly butter yellow.

Premise:  Cyberbullying and eating disorders are unfortunately very common issues, especially among high school age kids, and I was morbidly curious as to how this would turn out.

Characters:  The main character, Butter, is well written. He unflinchingly describes the bullying at school, his binge-eating tendencies and the family dynamics of a mother who tries to show affection through overfeeding him and a cold distant father, but we don’t even find out his real name until towards the end of the book. His humour helps to make his mindset relatable, and his passion for saxophone brings his personality to life. The high school students who bully him and support his suicide mission are also written with more depth than your stereotypical high school jocks; it makes you think a lot about group behaviour and the difference between being a bully and being an onlooker.

Plot: The story is very relevant in terms of high school attitudes and online identity. Butter pretends to be someone he is not to talk to the girl at school he has a crush on in a chatroom, and he uses the internet to declare his intentions to eat himself to death, which is what gains him a strange kind of popularity at school. Butter enjoys the sudden ‘positive’ attention so much, he almost lets himself believe they are actually his friends and that they really accept him. But the fact is that it won’t last if he doesn’t meet the deadline he set himself. You have to keep reading as the days tick down to find out if Butter will go through with it – and how his peers will react if he does or doesn’t.

Other comments: I liked the way that Lange presented Butter as his own problem as well as delving into the darker behaviour of teenagers in real life and on the internet; a lot of Butter’s problems are self-created and he realistically has to face up to that eventually.

Score:  7/10

[kaibas-enormous-ballsack]

I have a large collection of books and I am moving soon and sadly cannot take most of my books with me.

Thus the only option I see fit is a GIVEAWAY!!!

Here are the rules:

1: You do not need to follow me, but people who are following always have a higher chance of winning.

2: You must be comfortable with giving me your address if you do win(this information will NOT be given out to anyone).

3: When you reblog you are automatically entered.

4: Winners will be chosen at random off of the list of people who have reblogged.

5:if you win I will contact you & you can give me an overview for your tastes in books or you can let me choose a random book for you ❤

6: Before shipping the book I will let you know the name & if you have the book already I will choose another one.

There will be roughly 25-30 winners & you can win more than once. Most of these books are sci-fi, fantasy, fiction, short stories, & manga. Don’t worry, no Twilight, no 50 Shades!!!

I will pay for everything, so do not worry about any costs to you.

I have more books than in this picture alone.

Giveaway will end on July 1, 2013.

[themayorslibrary]

Title: Undone

Author: Cat Clarke

Published: Quercus, 2013

Goodreads Summary: “Jem Halliday is in love with her gay best friend. Not exactly ideal, but she's learning to live with it.

Then the unspeakable happens. Kai is outed online ... and he kills himself.

Jem knows nothing she can say or do will bring him back. But she wants to know who was responsible. And she wants to take them down.

A searing story of love, revenge and betrayal from a bestselling author.”

Review

Cover art: It’s certainly dramatic, and I like the appropriate unravelling ribbon font.

Premise: I have read both of Clarke’s previous books and she is usually good at addressing difficult issues, so I was interested to see how this would work out.

Characters: The main character, Jem, is hard to like and hard to understand. She spends most of the book pretending to be somebody she isn’t, so even in the flashbacks we don’t get much of an idea of who she really is. It would be fair to say that she is confused after her best friend’s death, but I still felt like there was a disconnect between her as a character and the reader, because her reasoning for things is never quite fully explained. As for her best friend Kai, I felt that despite being a driving force in the plot, that was all he was. Despite the few flashbacks and letters, I didn’t think he was given enough time to develop, as if he and his suicide were just there to serve as the springboard for the rest of the story. The radically named ‘Team Popular’ characters are all quite bland, apart from one scene close to the end when head mean girl Sasha gives us a bit of insight into her thoughts, which then felt like it was just thrown out to try to make the reader care more about what happened to her. The only character who was actually intriguing was Kai’s younger sister Louise, who was probably explored the least; it was disappointing that her motives were never properly examined, especially because I thought Clarke would be addressing homophobic attitudes.

Plot: From the blurb we know that Kai is going to kill himself, so really the first few chapters are just waiting for it to happen while Jem tries to build up an idea of their friendship with a few flashbacks. I thought the story started off well, with the idea of Jem planning to stay alive for a year while she got revenge on the people who had driven Kai to commit suicide. The problem was that she didn’t do much detective work, and the evidence she based her entire plan on was so flimsy it was unbelievable that she wouldn’t even try to corroborate it before believing it. The rest of the book reads like a typical American high school movie, despite the fact it’s British – girl has makeover, infiltrates popular kids, tries to take them down from the inside without them knowing. It was far too simplistic, and Jem’s ‘revenge’ was often self-serving and could barely be counted as revenge. From the very beginning of the book it is almost blatantly obvious who was actually involved in the video, so Jem’s blundering attempts at messing with her new friends (TW - including some really messed up lies about being raped) were painful. Maybe this was the point, to emphasize how badly she ruined her own life before the tragic ending. The ending was very unsatisfying in terms of the disordered state everything was left in.

Other comments: I do think Clarke has a strong writing style which is mostly successful in portraying a teenage voice, but in this instance I don’t think it worked as well as her previous books, which I would recommend over this one.

Score: 5/10