Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles and all sort of things

Oh I missed being here, hopefully I will start post regularly again  although nothing is quite settled right now I’m my life, I rent an apartment in Milan and one in Dublin, my husband is currently in London, I have a new manager and my team will probably undergo a re-organization (again!), and I will  soon have very BIG NEWS…I am so looking forward to december, this year I simply CANNOT WAIT but as my mum says “Patience is ‘the’ virtue of the strong ones” (italian idiom “la pazienza è la virtù dei forti“).

So here it’s the thing about Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles, I was hoping for distraction but all I got is a mild sense of annoyance, Carlos got on my nerves due to his self absorbed personality and poor listening skills, I couldn’t get into him and this is a big issue because this is a romance so the main male character is the focal point of everything.

This is not entirely Elkeles’s fault, it’s clearly one of those situations in which I read a good book at the wrong moment, lately I’ve been noticing that people always say “I am here if you need to talk” but are they really there? Don’t they just pretend for a few minutes so that they can then have their payback time which might take hours if I am the one listening on the other side of the coffee table.

Ok I am rambling… back to Carlos and Kiara all I can say is that attraction might have been in the air (not as overwhelming as in Perfect Chemistry) but love surely was missing and if the epilogue didn’t bother me too much in PC, here I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking “not again“.

I am quoting the super-quotable Carla:

“because we all know there is a BIG difference between love and lust and I just never felt like they crossed that particular line, I felt like I was told they did”

Precisely!

The opposites-attract routine never fails me but this time Kiara was a little too nice and understanding, I would have appreciated some  attitude.

Plus the whole sub-plot regarding gangs’ dynamics wasn’t engaging , it felt a bit like something that Elkeles had to throw in there somehow without too much conviction.

Other reviews:

The Crooked Shelf

Chachic’s Book Nook

Angieville

The YA YA YAs

My grade: 3/5

Em

How I live now by Meg Rosoff

Things Happen and once they start happening you pretty much just have to hold on for dear life and see where they drop you when they stop.

A while ago I read What I was by Meg Rosoff and I was enchanted by Rosoff’s writing style, there was one passage that I will never forget (ever) but the plot itself was weak and its magic faded away as the narration progressed. I approached How I live now fearing a similar response, I shouldn’t have worried, I loved it.

From Goodreads:

Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she’s never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives. The next day bombs go off as London is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy. As power fails, and systems fail, the farm becomes more isolated. Despite the war, it’s a kind of Eden, with no adults in charge and no rules, a place where Daisy’s uncanny bond with her cousins grows into something rare and extraordinary. But the war is everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way.

The writing is superb, I immersed myself in the streaming consciousness of Daisy’s narration and breathed after 10 hours or so.

When Daisy described nature I could feel the touch and the smell of it, when Daisy described her auntie’s house I was right there, the food made me hungry, I  rejoiced for her love  and suffered for her loss.

Daisy  is a sharp sarcastic new yorker whose only weapon against oblivion is food-deprivation,  when she visits her cousins in England she senses that everything is different there, she lets herself be one of them, she loves them, little Piper who  is impossible to resist (I smiled every time she appeared on page) and her cousin Edmond, who she is irremediably  attracted to.

Daisy is overwhelmed by their attention, their intensity and pureness:

Edmond : “he turns the car up onto this grass and then drives across to a sign that says Do Not Enter and of course he Enters and then he jogs left across a ditch and suddenly we’re out on the highway”

Piper: “...the presence of Piper with her big eyes and pure soul made hims feel like all he wanted was a chance to die to protect her”  “Piper could smell wild garlic and onions in a meadow and she came home with armfuls of the stuff” “I came across Piper deep in conversation with Jet one afternoon and when I asked what they were talking about she shrugged and said Dog Things”

Isaac: “At times I thought he was more animal than human. For instance if you were walking in town on market day and there were tons of people milling around, you would never have to worry about losing him in the crowd even if you totally forget we was there and got separated for ages”

And then  War Happens.

And Rosoff is  super smart because Daisy’s voice stays fresh and consistent. This is not so much about the war itself,  it’s about Daisy and Piper, how they survive the war and how it affects them.

The story is simple, there is very little action (and a relationship of sexual nature between cousins. It didn’t make me uncomfortable) , the ending is gut wrenching,  it’s perfect, it filled my heart with tenderness, compassion, understanding. This is what love is all about.

You won’t read another story like this, not in a while.

Other opinions:

Things mean a lot

The Book Smugglers

Book Harbinger

Write Meg!

My grade: 5/5

Em

The Summer I turned pretty by Jenny Han

The Summer I turned pretty has been around for a while but it has one of those “not-so-catchy” titles and the one I got from the bookshop has an awful cover, this one I admit is pretty:

Plus I recently read and disliked The Boys next door by Jennifer Echols and I was thinking not another silly story about summer romances … don’t get me wrong I am all for summer romances but I prefer them in real life than on paper (while college  I prefer it on paper that in real life).

Then I stumbled into this review by Kay and I was intrigued. I don’t know why it took me so long to read The Summer I turned pretty, I found it refreshing, well written and utterly enjoyable.

From GoodReads:

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer — they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

It’s a character driven story told from Belly’s prospective, I found Belly’s voice honest and realistic. While reading this book I found myself remembering the excitement I experienced every time my family was driving into our holiday camping.

I spent my summer vacation in the very same place for 18 years and I can’t help smiling remembering the feeling of belonging to a different community for a few weeks every year, the knowledge that your body has changed and something it’s bound to happen (I shared my first kiss there), the realization of being pretty.

What I really liked about this story:

* the style , Jenny Han is a very talented author and I appreciate the way she keeps things straight and simple, there aren’t long description or annoying diversions but through dialogues and observations Han manages to build real three-dimensional characters;

* the relationship between Belly and her brother Steven. I have an older brother and I found Steven very believable,  you can’t trust older brother to not making embarrassing comments, older brothers have to speak up their mind especially when hanging out with  hot friends;

* the force of a crush. Belly is 15 and she has a crush on Conrad, a very powerful one. I don’t know if Conrad is worth it but I guess I’ll find out in the following books;

* there is no triangle, not really;

What I didn’t like is the fact that Savannah (Conrad and Jeremiah’s mother) is very sick, I wish it did not have to go like that.  As I stated before I have a problem with ya books that try to deal with issues like cancer, so I can either pretend that there wasn’t a mother terminally ill with cancer in the summer house and keep liking those characters or I can think about what really happens when there is a mother who is terminally ill with cancer,  this changes everything, you couldn’t possibly turn pretty in a summer like that.

I choose the first option.

Other opinions:

Steph Su Reads

The Crooked Shelf

My grade: 4/5

Em

I wanna be your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert

Two months ago I started reading I wanna be your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert, I couldn’t really get into it so  I left it after a few pages (my heart wasn’t into this kind of story).

I picked it up again on the ferry in Greece and I simply couldn’t put it down, even now I can’t stop thinking about my visceral reaction to this gripping  story that shouldn’t be labelled as “ya” .  I suppose the Irving Welsh’s note on the cover should have given me a better idea of what to expect.

I wanna be your Joey Ramone it’s a coming of age story that revolves around Emily Blake’s family, rock n’ roll and a place called home.

Narration is mainly told from Emily’s prospective in a first person narration but some chapters are about Louisa’s story (Emily’s mother) in a third person narration.

“You’re sixteen years lost and I’m sixteen years found. You couldn’t teach me how to live but I figured out how. I figured out how!”

Nothing is superficial about this novel: the friendship between Emily and her best friend Reagan, the relationship between Emily and her father Michael, the lure of the big city when you are born into a small town, the mixture of pain and regret Louisa condemned herself to.

Each and single character feels real, the intensity of their emotions overwhelming, I believe it’s called empathy… my favorite character would be Michael, Kuehnert gives  a poignant portrait of a father and of a man.

Life can sometimes complicate itself, this novel doesn’t simplify leaving space for laughter, love and ultimately hope.

Emily is one of the best female heroine I came across to in a really long time: an angry feminist, a slut, a punk rock musician, she finds the way to channel her inner emotions into music and save herself in the process.

Characters are important and sometimes they make a novel but I wanna be your Joey Ramone is also about places and music.

Places have a symbolical value in this story (as I believe they have in real life): River’s edge (a warehouse in Carlisle where local bands play their angry punk), small farming town Carlisle, Chicago, downtown and the suburbs.

“Punk never became the mainstream in Carlisle. People wore flannel but it was no fashion statement. The jocks that ruled our school called Kurt Cobain a fag because he wore a dress in a music video. Carlisle was stagnant but at River’s Edge the air felt electric and full of promise”

Often when we are born into a small town there is a phase of life in which a surrounding close minded mentality feels like a prison becoming a trigger for rebellion.

I think many readers will relate to Emily but I like the way this novel  goes beyond the obvious  and  hints at the other side of the story, what happens when people find themselves estranged in a big city.

Music…well read it and you’ll understand what I mean, Kuehnert’s passion for music it’s all in there.

Emily sings and plays guitar, her band is called “She laughs” and here it goes my playlist for this story (inspired by the book):

Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash

Train in vain by Clash

Don’t take me for granted by Social Distortion

Ask the angels by Patty Smith

Lust for life by Iggy Pop

Rape me by Nirvana

I wanna be your Joey Ramone by Sleater-Kinney

for a second opinion I recommend Lit Snit.

My grade: 5/5

Em

Wake by Lisa McMann

Wake is the first book in a trilogy by Lisa McMann.

From Amazon:

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people’s dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie’s seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can’t tell anybody about what she does — they’d never believe her, or worse, they’d think she’s a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn’t want and can’t control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else’s twisted psyche. She is a participant….

I liked the preview of this book and the dark cover:

I probably would have loved this book as a teen, it’s very intense and while reading I found myself experiencing a feeling of exhaustion, the same feeling that dominates Janie’s existence and the whole narration.

I am not saying this in a bad way, what I am trying to explain is that I wouldn’t pick up this book to sit & relax,  I felt tense and drained the whole time.

This is a third person narration, McMann organizes the book as a chronicle in real time which means that situations and dialogues play in front of the reader, the pace is fast, intense.

Janie has a unique quality that is cursing her existence: she is a catcher which means that she gets involved into other people’s dream as a spectator, most of the time she can’t sleep unless she is on her own and this is the way she discovers  that Cabel Strumheller (a boy at her school, a stoner, a trouble maker) is day dreaming of kissing her.

It also means that over the years she built huge barriers to protect herself and get on with her regular life.

Until Cabel ends up in her dream  and she finds herself being able to confide into him and getting close to him.

From this point the rhythm intensifies and there is an actual mystery storyline (I don’t want to give spoilers).

I won’t probably read Gone and Fade, as much as I enjoyed Wake and the concept behind it I don’t think it has what I am looking for in a YA and it didn’t emotionally involve me as deeply as I would have hoped.

My grade: 3,5/5

Em

Nobody’s girl by Sarra Manning

I love everything about Sarra Manning’s books: writing style & characters & references (songs and general culture). J’adore Sarra Manning and I have all her books on my bookshelf.

Nobody’s girl is a coming of age story in which 17 years old Bea, the most boring seventeen-year-old in the world, embraces  a journey that will take her to Paris backpacking with a group of american students.

Every time I pick up a book from Manning I feel a perfect connection with her characters, she writes YA that makes my heart beat faster, it’s intense, it’s compelling.

Bea is a very different character from Edie or Molly (to mention two of my favourite heroines) , at the beginning  I was afraid that she was too passive and mild for my taste, if you find yourself thinking the same do not worry as Bea really grows through the story and she will prove to be a strong minded, kick ass, passive-aggressive girl you’ll find yourself rooting for.

Toph is adorable (he is Texan not just American), again I was surprised by his personality, over the years I got used to Sarra’s toxic boys (moody troubled characters that won’t commit easily) , yet an outspoken, easy going, friendly young man like Toph is a welcome addiction to the YA romantic gallery.

You have to read this because:

* Bea is a dreamer, if you enjoy daydreaming and playing adventure inside your head you’ll probably connect to her deeply;

* there is a great playlist, you can check it out on Sarra’s blog;

* most of the story takes place in Paris, it will encourage you to pack your bag and book an inter – rail in one of the most beautiful city in the world;

* it’s real, this is the kind of adventure that can really happen when you are 17  (when I was 17 I was actually backpacking between Barcelona and Lisbon and that experience was unique and unforgettable);

* it’s a love story;

* once you start you will feel compelled to stay up all night and finish it;

* once you read a book written by Sarra you will feel want to read all the others, she is amazing and it will be worth it;

You can read others interesting reviews on Chicklish and on So Many Books, So Little Time.

My grade: 4.5/5

Em