Review: Anatomy of a Boyfriend

Anatomy of a Boyfriend - Daria Snadowsky

 published 2007 - 259 pages

From the book jacket -

Before all this happened, the closest I’d ever come to getting physical with a guy was playing the board game Operation.  Okay, so maybe that sounds pathetic, but it’s not like there were any guys in my high school who I cared to share more than three words with, let alone my body.

Then I met Wes, a track-star senior from across town.  Maybe it was his beautiful blue eyes, or maybe my hormones just started raging.  Either way, I was hooked.  And after a while, he was too.  I couldn’t believe how intense my feelings became, or the fact that I was seeing - and touching - parts of the body I’d only read about in my Gray’s Anatomy textbook.  You could say Wes and I experienced a lot of firsts together that spring.  It was scary.  It was fun.  It was love.

And then came the fall.

Daria Snadowsky’s unflinching dissection of seventeen-year-old Dominique’s first relationship reveals the ecstasy and the agony of love, and everything in between.

My thoughts -

When Daria Snadowsky contacted me and so graciously offered to send me a copy (autographed, no less!) of her first novel to review, of course I jumped at the chance.  I have to say that although this isn’t the type of book I would typically pick up on my own, I did really enjoy reading it.  What Dom and Wes go through in their first real relationship is so familiar to me, as I experienced a lot of the same thoughts and emotions when I was in high school, with my first “real” boyfriend.  I think that many teens will find this novel comforting, as it is strikingly similar to what I believe are many peoples’ (especially teens’) experiences with relationships.  Also, I felt that Snadowsky did an excellent job of allowing the reader to get to know and love the characters - especially Dominique - in a relatively short amount of time (250ish pages).  Because of this, I truly felt for Dom when the inevitable eventually does happen (they go off to separate colleges, etc…), and I was rooting for her to figure things out, to mature out of the relationship, and to continue on with the amazing opportunities that were in store for her at college and beyond. 

Some other bloggers have mentioned the amount of sex in this book and questioned its appropriateness for younger teens.  I have to agree with them in a way.  While I will readily admit that I read books just as graphic as this one at age 14, I’m not quite sure that I’d encourage my 14 year old to do the same (if I had children, which currently I do not).  I’d recommend holding off on this one until age 16 or so, or at least - for all you parents of teenagers - skimming through the book to determine its appropriateness for your particular teen.  I think all kids are different - as a teen, I could have easily flown through this book without “getting any ideas”, but I know that other teens probably handle things differently than I did.  So, just a word of caution for all the parents out there and/or younger teens.

Overall, a solid YA book with great characters and a very decent plot that I think many will find enjoyable and even comforting.

Also reviewed by: Holly at On My Bookshelf and Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews.

Review: Rain Song

Rain Song - Alice J. Wisler

scheduled for publication October 2008, 192 pages in my ARC

From the back cover -

Nicole Michelin avoids airplanes, motorcycles, and most of all, Japan, where her parents once were missionaries.  Something happened in  Japan… something that sent Nicole and her father back to America alone.  Something of which Nicole knows only bits and pieces.  But she is content with life in little Mount Olive, North Carolina, with her quirky relatives, tank of lively fish, and plenty of homemade pineapple chutney.

Through her online column for the Pretty Fishy website, Nicole meets Harrison Michaels, who, much to her dismay, lives in Japan.  She attempts to avoid him, but his e-mails tug at her heart. 

Then Harrison reveals that he knew her as a child in Japan.  In fact, he knows more about her childhood than she does!  Will Nicole face her fears in order to discover her past and take a chance on love?

My thoughts -

I received this book from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program - the first book I have got since I joined the program.  I have been dreading writing this review because, unfortunately, I really did not much enjoy this book.  I wanted to like it.  Even though it is short, if I hadn’t committed to reviewing it, I probably wouldn’t have finished it… but I slogged through, trying SO hard to enjoy it the entire time. 

Ok, so what in particular did I not like about this book… well, first of all, there was one thing that I DID like, and that was the character of Nicole.  She seemed very real and likeable to me.  That’s about it, though.  I didn’t particularly enjoy the story - I felt that it moved along too slowly, and not enough happened to keep my attention throughout the book.  Also, this whole Japan thing - the book centered around the question of will she go or won’t she go, and if she goes, what will happen when she gets there?  Well, I’m going to spoil it for you right now - she goes.  However, Nicole being in Japan was only about the last seven pages of the book.  I’m not kidding.  So, so, so anticlimactic.  I wanted to know SO much more about her time in Japan, about her past, about Harrison, but nothing.  You get a few answers to questions about Nicole’s past, and boom, the book is over.  This, for me, was very disappointing, because I kept reading the book in order to find out what would happen once she got there… and I should have just stopped early into it because there wasn’t anywhere close to enough Japan story for me.

I will say this - if you like Southern fiction, you may want to give this a try.  There’s “Southern wisdom” type stuff about every other page.  I’ve never been into those types of books, but I hear that it’s a pretty popular genre, so maybe that is the audience of this book… if so, give it a try.  Most likely, I just didn’t click with this book and others would still enjoy it.

I feel bad not liking the book, but what else can I say?  It simply wasn’t for me.

Review: The Girls

The Girls - Lori Lansens

published 2005, 343 pages

From the book jacket -

Since their birth, twin sisters Rose and Ruby Darlen have been known simply as “The Girls”.  Raised by Aunt Lovey, the nurse who took them in after their mother abandoned them, they have lived all their lives in the small town of Leaford, in an old farmhouse bordered by cornfields.  This is the story of their shared life, two sisters who are ordinary in most respects but who have a relationship of profound and unmatched intimacy.  For Rose and Ruby are conjoined twins, connected inseparably, facing the world side by side.  The Girls is the affecting chronicle of their incomparable life journey, a heartrending story of love between sisters.

Now nearing thirty, Rose and Ruby are soon to be history’s oldest conjoined twins, and Rose decides it is time to write the story of her short but extraordinary life with Ruby.  From their awkward first steps - Ruby’s arm curled around Rose’s neck, her foreshortened legs wrapped around Rose’s hips - this is an unmatched story of the most intense love imaginable.  As Ruby watches Rose write her memoirs, she decides she wants to tell her part too; for though they are as close as two people can be, their lives and voices are wonderfully, powerfully distinct.  Every experience of growing up comes rushing through in their telling - their first loves, their painful choices, losses, and triumphs - but every experience is doubled, sometimes joyfully and sometimes painfully.

The Girlscharts the depths of a miraculous friendship, unsettling and beautiful in its closeness.  As the two stories parallel, diverge, and intertwine, building to an unforgettable conclusion, Lansens aims at the heart of human experience and the fundamental joy of connection.

My thoughts -

This was definitely an enjoyable book for me.  When I first started reading it, I wasn’t sure what I was going to think about the book because something about Rose’s voice, her story, didn’t click with me.  I think my initial problem was that she was telling SO many stories from their childhood when I really just wanted to get to know the two of them as they were in the present - how they lived their day to day lives as 29 year old conjoined twins.  But once Ruby joined in, the story really started to pick up and go back and forth between their past and present, and I began to get involved with the characters and care about them.  Once that happened, I fell in love with these two extraordinary women and their story.  Lansens did such an amazing job writing their two voices so distinctly different from one another, and I actually came to enjoy one twin more than the other, which was kind of interesting.  There weren’t a lot of secondary characters in this novel (besides their “parents”, Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash), but the ones that were there played an important part in the book and helped tie everything together. 

I’ve been meaning to read this book for so long now, and I’m very glad that I finally got to it.  I can’t say it’s the best book I’ve read or anything, but it is a very sweet and heartwarming story with wonderful characters as well.  I would definitely recommend picking this one up.

My first Sunday Salon

I have never before participated in The Sunday Salon, mainly because I simply don’t have a lot of time to read on Sundays.  But I really feel like sometimes I need a day to post randomly, about my progress or stuff I’ve received in the mail or whatever, without it having to be a review.  So I’ve decided to join.

First of all, I finally finished Lori Lansens’ The Girls, which I’ve been reading for almost a week now.  I really enjoyed it, and will probably post a review later on today.  Upon completing that, I promptly got started on Alice Wisler’s Rain Song, an ARC I received from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program.  It’s a pretty short book, so I’m hoping to have it finished sometime today or tonight.

I also plan on spending some time working on my blog today - Trish was amazing enough to email me step by step instructions on how to play around with pictures and links and such, and I’m really excited to see if I am smart enough to figure out said instructions (chances are, I will have lots of trouble, but I will certainly try).

Last, I’d love to share with all of you the four books I received in the mail this week from Bookmooch.  I got two by Sarah Dessen (a newly discovered author to me), The Truth About Forever and That Summer, as well as Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Jeff Guinn’s The Autobiography of Santa Claus (recommended to me by my District Manager at work).  Add these to my already staggeringly full TBR shelves (I counted today - 142 - I am embarassed yet thrilled at the same time), and I have way more books than I can get to anytime soon.  But it certainly won’t stop me from trying.

Review: Swallow the Ocean

Swallow the Ocean - Laura M. Flynn

published 2008 - 277 pages

From the book jacket -

As a little girl, Laura Flynn thought her mother could do no wrong.  A strong, free spirit, Sally Flynn sparked her daughter’s imagination with games and stories of her youth - when she’d set off for Paris in 1960, met Laura’s father, and criss-crossed Europe.  The couple settled in San Francisco and had three daughters, embarking on what might have been the most charmed of family lives.

Instead, by the time Laura was eight, Sally’s hold on reality began to slip.  She turned to her dreams for messages and portents, set strict rules for what her daughters could eat and wear, and came to believe her husband was the devil himself - or at least that he was under the devil’s power - that he had “crossed the line”.  After Laura’s parents divorced, her father struggled to gain custody, while Sally waged a pitched battle for her daughter’s souls.  Forced to make impossible choices, the three girls retreated to books, stories, and elaborate games, creating a powerfully protective world of imagination.

Set in 1970s San Francisco, Swallow the Ocean is the beautifully written true story of what it’s like to experience a parent’s schizophrenia through the lens of a child who has no language for mental illness.  Most of all, this stunning memoir is a tribute to the ingenuity of children in the face of catastrophic events.

My thoughts -

First of all, this is a memoir but it’s written like a novel.  Honestly, Flynn’s writing is just so beautiful - she captures each moment with just the right words and stunning phrases, I really look forward to whatever she writes next, whether it be fiction or not.  So for those of you not such big fans of memoirs, this may be a good one to pick up simply for the novel-esque quality about it.

Second of all, I was especially intrigued by this book because I have an undergraduate degree in psychology and mental illness is something that I’ve studied and that I’m very interested in.  I also spent two years in college volunteering at a crisis/suicide hotline, where in addition to receiving calls from suicide victims, we also spoke with several “regulars” who were sufferers of different types of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia.  The behaviors Flynn described her mother doing were very similar to what I saw in the people that I had worked with who suffered from schizophrenia.  It was heartbreaking (yet also interesting) to read about this disease from a child’s perspective, and to see the utter destruction it caused in these three girls’ lives.  It made me sad to read about the first time Flynn’s father attempted to gain custody, when her mother put on such a good show that the courts threw his case right out - keep in mind, this was in a time when the mother ALWAYS got custody, so it was of course a long shot to begin with.  But all the same, how sad to be a child in this terrifying situation, when even your own father cannot rescue you?

The ending of this book is ultimately triumphant, although sad at the same time.  I feel for Flynn, being a thirtysomething woman and not having a mother to talk to - personally, my mother is one of the most important people in my life.  But it seems as though she has truly come to terms with her mother’s condition - she spoke of the closeness she now has with her sisters, father, and stepmother, and it didn’t seem like Flynn really felt she was missing out on much in her life.  This book really shows how growing up in an adverse situation can truly create your personality - Flynn and her sisters’ lives were shaped by their mother’s schizophrenia, and this book is a wonderful testament to what we can make of our circumstances, even the most awful ones.

Review: Someone Like You

Someone Like You - Sarah Dessen

published 1998 - 281 pages

From the book jacket -

Halley and Scarlett have been best friends ever since they met.  Halley has always been the quiet one, Scarlett braver and more outgoing.  Halley has always turned to Scarlett when things get rough, and Scarlett has always known just what to do.  It’s the perfect setup.  But everything changes at the beginning of their junior year.  Scarlett’s boyfriend is killed in a motorcycle accident; then she finds out she’s carrying his baby.  For the first time ever, Scarlett really needs Halley.  Now Halley has to learn how to be strong for Scarlett.  It won’t be easy, but Halley knows that she can’t let Scarlett down.  Because a true friend is a promise you keep forever.

My thoughts -

This is the first of Sarah Dessen’s that I’ve read, and I’ll definitely be reading more of her books in the future.  I REALLY liked the style of the book, the way she wrote these characters, and the story here.  I mean, this woman knows how to write teens in a way that many authors do not.  Every word was just so completely real.  It hasn’t been too long since my teen years (I’m 24) and I can easily imagine how my friends and I would have felt and behaved in a situation similar to the one in the book, and what I imagine is pretty darn close to the way Halley and Scarlett were.  I’m not going to lie to you people - the ending to this one totally made me cry.  I have a love/hate relationship with books making me cry - on the one hand, it means that I got emotionally involved and really felt for the characters, which means it was probably a really good book; on the other hand, I don’t much enjoy crying, especially if it’s about something sad.  I’m not going to spoil the ending, but let’s just say that in this case, it was a worthy cry, and not one I felt resentment about.  Go read this book, especially if you are a YA fan - it’s a very good one.

Also reviewed by Sassymonkey at Sassymonkey Reads.

Review: Awakening to Mindfulness

Awakening to Mindfulness: 10 Steps for Positive Change - Richard Fields, Ph.D.

scheduled for publishing 2008 - 169 pages

From the back cover -

Mindfulness is a state of consciousness that fosters heightened awareness of the self, of the senses, and of the outside world.  It is a state of being “aware.”  Reaching and sustaining this state is what makes or breaks successful recovery, according to Dr. Richard Fields.

In this highly engaging and highly practical book, Dr. Fields, an accomplished mental health and addictions counselor and speaker, “awakens” the reader to new, positive, healthy life changes and possibilities.  He clearly explains how mindfulness and meditation practices can help us all to a better, more enlightened life, a life of freedom from our addictions and delusions, a life with compassion for self and others.

My thoughts -

I received this book from Fields’ PR rep, who contacted me because I had done a review of one of her other clients’ books, and she thought I might want to review this one as well.  Overall, this was not my favorite self-help book, but let’s start with what I did like about it.  The subtitle in this book is 10 Steps for Positive Change, and one thing that I appreciated about this book was that Fields broke his theory down into ten, easy to follow steps that should be used in order to achieve mindfulness in one’s life.  I also like how the book was infused with Buddhist thought and Buddhist teachings, which I’ve always been intrigued by.  At the end of each step was a meditation script, so that one could understand and deeply explore that step while meditating.  There was also a mantra attached to each step, so that while in the car, the store, or getting ready in the morning, one can repeat this mantra to more fully divulge into that step throughout an ordinary day.

Now, on to what I wasn’t crazy about.  My main issue is that I think the majority of this book is common sense.  When I read self-help books (and honestly, I don’t read too many for this reason), I expect to be wowed by some idea or principle that I hadn’t thought of before.  I expect to be hit over the head with what exactly I need to do to achieve whatever goal the book wants for me - and I expect it to be new-to-me actions and practices that will help me get to this point.  Maybe it’s because I have a degree in psychology, but this book was nothing new to me.  For example, some of the things that Fields suggests we need to do to achieve positive change are feeling compassion for others, accepting yourself as you are, and embracing healthy habits like eating right and exercising… none of which I was shocked by.  I feel like this might be a good book to have around in an addiction/recovery place (which I think is one of Fields’ intended uses of it), and maybe a prison or other type of rehabilitation center where the people there NEED to know how to make positive changes, but for the average person, I just think the tips and tools in this book are mostly common sense.  Although, “common sense” isn’t always so common, so I could be wrong.

Would anyone else be interested in reading/reviewing this book? I’m thinking of giving it away…. just let me know.

Review: House Rules

House Rules: A Memoir - Rachel Sontag

published 2008 - 261 pages

From the book jacket -

At an early age, Rachel Sontag realized there was something deeply wrong with her father.  On the surface, he was a well-respected, suburban physician.  But questioning his authority led to brutal fights, disobedience meant humiliating punishments.  When she was twelve, he duct-taped her stereo dial to National Public Radio, measured the length of her hair and fingernails with a ruler, and regulated when she could shower.

A memoir of a father obsessed with control and the daughter who fights his suffocating grasp, House Rulesexplores the complexities of their compelling and destructive relationship, and his equally manipulative relationships with his wife and other daughter.  As Rachel’s mother cedes all her power to her husband, and her sister fades into the background of their family life, Rachel fights to escape, and, later, to make sense of what remains of her family.

 My thoughts -

It’s hard to know what to say after reading memoirs of abuse.  Saying that I loved this book doesn’t seem right somehow, because it is a sad and troubling portrayal of a person’s real life, and it was somewhat of a disturbing book to read.  But I did love the way Sontag wrote about her family, the way she put it all out there and let the reader experience what she (unfortunately) experienced in her life.  I have no doubt that her father was every bit as terrifying as she made him sound, probably more so, and reading this book simply made me feel sad for her.  I actually truly feel for Sontag, because when I was growing up, I went through similar types of things with my father… he wasn’t anywhere NEAR as abusive and controlling as hers, but he did do some of the same kinds of controlling and abnormal behaviors with myself, my mom, and my brothers and sister.  So coming from that perspective, I truly understand and appreciate her telling this story and needing to tell it in order to heal from her past.  At the end of the book, Sontag explores her relationships with her mother and sister as they stand now, and I truly hope, for her sake, that those three women are able to patch up their relationships with each other and lean on each other.  I’ve learned through my life that the only people you can really count on are your family - and when some members of your family are less than ideal, you really need to stick by those family members who ARE there for you.  So I hope that they can forge a friendship with one another from here on out.

I’d definitely recommend this book, especially if you like memoirs, this one is a really good, quick read.

Also reviewed by: Bookroomreviews at Bookroomreviews’ Weblog.

Review - The Subtle Knife

The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman

published 1997, 235 pages

 

 

From Amazon.com -

The Subtle Knifeoffers everything we could have wished for, and more. For a start, there’s a young hero–from our world–who is a match for Lyra Silvertongue and whose destiny is every bit as shattering. Like Lyra, Will Parry has spent his childhood playing games. Unlike hers, though, his have been deadly serious. This 12-year-old long ago learned the art of invisibility: if he could erase himself, no one would discover his mother’s increasing instability and separate them.

As the novel opens, Will’s enemies will do anything for information about his missing father, a soldier and Arctic explorer who has been very much airbrushed from the official picture. Now Will must get his mother into safe seclusion and make his way toward Oxford, which may hold the key to John Parry’s disappearance. But en route and on the lam from both the police and his family’s tormentors, he comes upon a cat with more than a mouse on her mind: “She reached out a paw to pat something in the air in front of her, something quite invisible to Will.” What seems to him a patch of everyday Oxford conceals far more: “The cat stepped forward and vanished.” Will, too, scrambles through and into another oddly deserted landscape–one in which children rule and adults (and felines) are very much at risk. Here in this deathly silent city by the sea, he will soon have a dustup with a fierce, flinty little girl: “Her expression was a mixture of the very young–when she first tasted the cola–and a kind of deep, sad wariness.” Soon Will and Lyra (and, of course, her dæmon, Pantalaimon) uneasily embark on a great adventure and head into greater tragedy.

As Pullman moves between his young warriors and the witch Serafina Pekkala, the magnetic, ever-manipulative Mrs. Coulter, and Lee Scoresby and his hare dæmon, Hester, there are clear signs of approaching war and earthly chaos. There are new faces as well. The author introduces Oxford dark-matter researcher Mary Malone; the Latvian witch queen Ruta Skadi, who “had trafficked with spirits, and it showed”; Stanislaus Grumman, a shaman in search of a weapon crucial to the cause of Lord Asriel, Lyra’s father; and a serpentine old man whom Lyra and Pan can’t quite place. Also on hand are the Specters, beings that make cliff-ghasts look like rank amateurs.

Throughout, Pullman is in absolute control of his several worlds, his plot and pace equal to his inspiration. Any number of astonishing scenes–small- and large-scale–will have readers on edge, and many are cause for tears. “You think things have to be possible,” Will demands. “Things have to be true!” It is Philip Pullman’s gift to turn what quotidian minds would term the impossible into a reality that is both heartbreaking and beautiful.

My thoughts -

Another great installment in this highly acclaimed trilogy.  I’m very happy that I’ve exposed myself to these stories because they keep getting better.  The Subtle Knife dives deeper into Lyra’s story, exposing the reader to more characters, more worlds, and more details as to what this series is really about.  I don’t know much else to say about these books since I’m pretty sure most everyone on the planet has read them, but I really am enjoying this series and am looking forward to the third and final book!

Also reviewed by: Charley at Bending Bookshelf.

Review - Leftovers

Leftovers - Laura Weiss

published January 2008, 232 pages

 

From the back cover -

Blair and Ardith are best friends who have committed an unforgivable act in the name of love and justice.  But in order to understand what could drive two young women to such extreme measures, first you’ll have to understand why.  You’ll have to listen as they describe parents who are alternately absent and smothering, classmates who mock and shun anyone different, and young men who are allowed to hurt and dominate without consequence.  You will have to learn what it’s like to be a teenage girl who locks her bedroom door at night, who has been written off by all the adults around her as damaged goods.  A girl who has no one to trust except the one person she’s forbidden to see.  You’ll have to understand what it’s really like to be forgotten and abandoned in America today.

Are you ready?

My thoughts -

I really, really liked this YA novel, much better even than Weiss’s first, Such a Pretty Girl.  Blair and Ardith (love that name, btw) just seemed so real, such truthful portrayals of teenage girls, that their story seemed heartbreakingly common.  They both were raised in abusive homes, although the abuse both suffered was of two completely different types.  Blair lived in a home where every single thing she did was controlled by her parents, the image they were trying to uphold was more important than her personhood or their family’s happiness, while Ardith lived in a home where she was basically invisible - drunk parents, parties all the time, and a brother who both ignored and tortured her at the same time.  The sad thing about this story is that I know these kinds of families are not that unusual in today’s world - I knew plenty of girls who have suffered similar teenage years, in one way or another.  Just reading Blair and Ardith’s stories was very emotional, I was sucked into their lives from the first words, and to be honest, I didn’t much care about the conclusion, about the “unforgivable act” they committed together.  Yes, what they did was pretty terrible.  But set against the backdrop of their heartbreaking lives, I wouldn’t call it unforgivable by any means.

I’d definitely suggest reading this book for yourself, even if you are not typically a YA fan, this one will get you.  It’s very well written, and such a crazy good portrayal of teenage girls living in pain.  Such a great one.

Also reviewed by: Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews