Come See About Me: A Snapshot

Come See About Me by C.K. Kelly Martin

"Twenty-year-old Leah Fischer's been in a state of collapse since the moment police arrived on her Toronto doorstep to inform her that boyfriend Bastien was killed in a car accident. After flunking out of university and cutting herself off from nearly everyone she knows, Leah's saved by Bastien's aunt who offers her a rent-free place to stay in a nearby suburban town.

Initially Leah keeps to herself, with no energy for anyone or anything else, but it's not long before her nurturing neighbours begin to become fixtures in Leah's life and a much needed part-time job forces her to interact with other members of the community. And when Leah is faced with another earth-shattering event, her perspective on life begins to shift again. Soon Leah's falling into a casual sexual relationship with Irish actor Liam Kellehan, who has troubles of his own, even as she continues to yearn for her dead boyfriend. Clearly she's not the person she thought she was—and maybe Liam isn't either." (from Goodreads)

The subject: a 20-year-old girl dealing with the aftermath of the death of her boyfriend.

The setting: primarily the small town of Oakville, Ontario (yay for a Canadian setting! It's nice to actually get a lot of the references for once.)

Shutter speed: a snail's pace. Unfortunately, this book really dragged for me (admittedly I was in a bit of a reading slump, which probably didn't help matters). Perhaps the author wanted to keep the realism factor high, but most of what Leah discusses is very typical, day-to-day kind of stuff. Can I relate to having to go to the dentist or the supermarket? Sure. Do I want to read about it? ...Not really.  

What's in the background? Some true-to-life personal insights about things like grief and connecting to others. I think C.K. Kelly Martin nailed it in terms of highlighting these nuggets of truth without being patronizing.

Zoom in on: Leah's friendships (aside from Liam) and interactions with her parents. 

Also, it would've been nice to have some more humor (provided by side characters, if not Leah) since the tone of the story weighs quite heavily towards the serious, depressing end of the spectrum. 

Anything out of focus? The relationship between Leah and Liam. Their no-strings-attached, friends-with-benefits "understanding" made this less about romance and more about sex. I like a good dollop of romance, so I just didn't find their relationship swoonworthy. I also took issue with some of the decisions Leah made regarding Liam (spoilers, highlight to read: I'm sorry, but having unprotected sex with a virtual stranger, Leah? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???)

Ready? Say... slooooooow.

Click! 2.5 shooting stars. I liked the premise more in theory than in actual execution, so ultimately this was kind of a take-it-or-leave-it book for me.

Note: there is some mature content (including explicit sex scenes) and language in here, so this is definitely not a book for younger readers.

Disclaimer: I received this as an e-book for review from the author.  

This book counts towards my goal for the "New Adult" challenge.

The Humming Room: A Close-Up Review

"Hiding is Roo Fanshaw's special skill. Living in a frighteningly unstable family, she often needs to disappear at a moment's notice. When her parents are murdered, it's her special hiding place under the trailer that saves her life.

As it turns out, Roo, much to her surprise, has a wealthy if eccentric uncle, who has agreed to take her into his home on Cough Rock Island. Once a tuberculosis sanitarium for children of the rich, the strange house is teeming with ghost stories and secrets. Roo doesn't believe in ghosts or fairy stories, but what are those eerie noises she keeps hearing? And who is that strange wild boy who lives on the river? People are lying to her, and Roo becomes determined to find the truth.

Despite the best efforts of her uncle's assistants, Roo discovers the house's hidden room--a garden with a tragic secret.

Inspired by The Secret Garden, this tale full of unusual characters and mysterious secrets is a story that only Ellen Potter could write." (from Goodreads)

The Humming Room by Ellen Potter

Premise: My ARC (and Goodreads' description) says that it's inspired by The Secret Garden. I'd like to take a moment to say: this book is more than "inspired" by that classic. This book is basically a retelling of The Secret Garden with the names and details changed. This was my number one problem with The Humming Room, because really — The Secret Garden is a classic for a reason. Sure, Ellen Potter has modernized the story a little, and yes, the behaviour of the character of Colin in the original has been given a more practical, plausible explanation. But apart from that, this book doesn't really add anything new to the story!

Characters: Be warned, I will be referring to The Secret Garden characters a lot (from my memory of the 1975 film version, though, to be perfectly honest).

Roo: She's a gritty character and I liked her, perhaps more than Mary from the original because Mary was selfish and bossy, and Roo isn't like that (she doesn't come from the privileged background Mary did). She does share other characteristics with Mary, though, like tenacity and curiosity. They're both sort of prickly with others, determined and stubborn, and know their own minds. Roo barely takes the point here, but since she's not all condescending like Mary, she does.

Jack: otherwise known as "The Faigne," he's obviously supposed to be Dickon's counterpart. He's a natural with animals, lives on the river, and doesn't really need the company of people (although he likes Roo). Jack's a cool guy, but Dickon wins this one, for being such a sweetheart. (It doesn't hurt that as a kid I thought the actor who played him was cute.)

Phillip: he's The Humming Room's take on Colin. He's pretty similar to Colin in terms of personality — a whiny, bossy child who feels sorry for himself. The biggest difference between them (and indeed, between the two novels) is that instead of being a physically disabled boy with a bad attitude, he is a depressed, grieving boy with a bad attitude. Making the character's challenges about mental illness and grief rather than a physical problem actually makes more sense given how The Secret Garden ends (spoiler for The Secret Garden, highlight to read: it was always a little far-fetched that the garden helped him walk again). Anyway, I liked him more than Colin because I didn't find him quite as irritating. Point goes to Phillip.

Violet: Cough Rock's equivalent of Martha, the maid from the moors. No contest here: I liked Martha better. To be fair, this might be partly because she had an awesome accent. But I didn't think Violet's personality shone, and it honestly doesn't feel like her role is that necessary. We also don't see much of a connection forming between her and Roo like we do in the original.

The squirrel: the requisite animal friend that helpfully leads the main character to the hidden garden. In Mary's case, it was a robin; in Roo's case, it is a black squirrel. I like robins and squirrels, so they cancel each other out. 

Plot:  

I don't think it'll come as a large surprise that The Humming Room follows a lot of the same plot points as The Secret Garden. Roo is an orphan, taken in by her uncle, who finds a secret garden (have I spoiled anything yet?). Really, I just don't see the point of, essentially, rewriting The Secret Garden without doing anything radically different with it. This is not even just a "loosely based on" sort of retelling. You can pretty much map out, plot point by plot point, how the storyline matches up with the original. If you don't know beforehand there's a connection to The Secret Garden, perhaps it isn't so obvious; I couldn't say because I knew going into it. At the start I didn't think it was so strongly reminiscent of the classic, but the parallels become blatantly obvious midway through. You couldn't really get much closer to the original if you tried.

Ellen Potter does handle Roo's character transformation well here. It's really brought home towards the end — how much more lively and open she is with people, rather than being closed-off and withdrawn, trusting only herself, as she was at the beginning. She's become much more motivated and optimistic, embracing the world, and that was a wonderful change to see.

The ending seemed a little bittersweet to me, ultimately happy but with a revelation containing a sad irony (which is in keeping with the original). There's also arguably a very slight magical realism element involved, but I think it works within the context of the story. Cough Rock has a certain sort of mystical charm to it, after all, where you believe miracles can happen. I think the end was missing a much-needed father-son discussion, however. We never get to see them spilling their emotional guts out to each other, for the sake of some closure.

Writing style: The writing is, for the most part, one of the marks in the book's favour. Some of the descriptions are quite picturesque, giving the reader a good visual and sense of the atmosphere without lapsing into purple prose or becoming too detailed. The garden sounds really beautiful and I'd love to hang out there (spoiler: minus the creepy spider, of course).

However, sometimes there's a weird POV switch that happens. We're getting it 3rd-person attached to Roo, and then all of a sudden it will sort of abruptly "head-hop" to someone else, right in the middle of a scene. I found it a little awkward and jarring at times.

Final verdict: 3 shooting stars. Certainly, the storyline is decent...we know that already because it's been done before! I'm just not sure why anyone would pick up The Humming Room and prefer it to The Secret Garden, except perhaps for the fact that the language is likely more accessible to young readers nowadays, since it wasn't written in the 1900s. It's not a bad book in and of itself, but it shouldn't have been marketed as anything but a retelling — and even as that, it's not exceptional.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC from the publisher for review.

Wintergirls: Guest Review

Najela from Brave New Adventure is back with another Psychtember post! Today she's reviewing Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Summary:  Lia's best friend, Cassie, died alone in a hotel room after running away and since then Cassie's been trying to make sense of the 33 phone calls she left that night. Lia is racked with guilt from her best friends death, but even then, she can't seem to bring herself out of the throws of her anorexia. She constantly wants to lose weight, deceiving her family into believing that she's healthier than she already is. She's already been to an inpatient care facility, going through the motions of being healthy and being okay. Her therapists are trying to unravel Lia's issues, her parents are blaming each other for Lia's issues. 

Likes: This was a chilling tale.  It was heart wrenching to see Lia trying to solve her own problems and the adults around her not being able to help. All of the characters were flawed and real. The adults were too busy blaming each other to be helpful. They just assume Lia's okay because she says she's okay, but they don't look into the subtle signs such as her cutting up her foods, the laxatives and diuretics hidden in her room, and the fact that they don't talk to her concerning her friends death. Lia was dealing not only with anorexia, but grief as well.  The two of these combine don't make a good mix and it seems that every thing that Lia deals with becomes too much and she goes to drastic measures to deal with her grief.

Psychological Aspect: The psychological aspect of this novel was chillingly real, especially towards the end when reality was blurred. Sometimes when you starve yourself long enough, you'll begin to start to hallucinate as your body starts to shut down. Anorexia is a psychological issue in which a person believes themselves to be overweight and goes to extreme measures to lose the weight they think they have. Cassie's friend suffers from an eating disorder known as bulimia,  in which someone binge eats, then purges (vomits) the food in order to stop themselves from gaining weight.

When I thought of this story, I didn't think the reasons why Lia and Cassie had eating disorders, but when I thought about it a little more to it than that. I'm not a psychologist, but within the confines of the story, the reasons were simple. They usually always are. Certainly there are enormous reasons why a psychological disorder would start, but sometimes there aren't. Cassie started copying all the girls she met at camp and Lia started copying her. They found that these acts soothed something inside of them. It's the same way someone becomes an alcoholic or a drug addict.

Writing Tip:  Psychological disorders typically don't happen overnight, it's a gradual process. The triggers don't always have to be a traumatic experience. For the sake of the story, it could be, but it would depend on where you start.

Another Book to Read: Hunger


Najela is a graduate from UC Riverside with a dual degree in Psychology and Creative Writing and finally making the most of both degrees. She works with kids and is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Exceptional Student Education. She is also working on several writing projects including a Beauty and the Beast retelling webcomic coming in late October 2012. You can follow her at her website or her tumblr.
   
Thanks very much, Najela, for sharing your reaction to Wintergirls!

Fall For Anything: Guest Review

Najela from Brave New Adventure is here with another review for Psychtember, this time of Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers! 

Summary:  Eddie Reeves father, Seth Reeves, committed suicide and since then her life has fallen apart. Her mother's annoying friend, Beth, has pretty much moved in for the sake of "helping" her mother, and as a result treating Eddie as a nuisance. Eddie's only constant is her best friend, Milo who has been supporting her through this tragic time. But then Eddie meets Culler Evans, a photography student of her father's, has she found someone who can provide answers to her father's suicide?

Likes: It was an okay book. I didn't know what I was expecting, it could have almost been two different stories. The story is framed as a mystery, when it really is about Eddie and her grieving process about her father. The only character that was sympathetic to her pain was Milo and she kept pushing her away. While, I wasn't too keen on the whole mystery aspect to the story, Eddie's coping and processing of the grief caused her to act out in ways that wasn't expected. The characters were very real, even if I didn't like all of them (especially Beth). As mentioned before Eddie's emotions were erractic as she was dealing with grief. This is a very realistic portayal of grief, in my opinion, as everyone responds and experiences grief differently. Had the reader been given glimpses of life before the incident, Eddie's reactions would make more of an impact.

Psychological Aspect: The psychological aspect of this books deals more with the nature of grief. The Kübler-Ross model also known as The Five Stages of Grief, include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Kubler-Ross acknowledges that not everyone goes through all of these stages when a life altering event occurs and these aren't only emotions associated with grief. Emotions such as guilt and confusion can play into this as well.

Writing Tip: There are more than 5 stages of grief, but the nature of grief doesn't follow these stages. One minute, someone can be angry, the next minute they can be in denial. One thing this book does well is have triggers that bring these emotions to the forefront. Grief can cause a character to act out of character, which would have been presented in this book had scenes showing how Eddie used to be when her father was alive would have really heigtened the nature of her grief.

Another Book to be Read: I honestly don't read a lot of book dealing with grief, but grief doesn't always have to be someone dying. . Does anyone have suggestions?

Najela is a graduate from UC Riverside with a dual degree in Psychology and Creative Writing and finally making the most of both degrees. She works with kids and is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Exceptional Student Education. She is also working on several writing projects including a Beauty and the Beast retelling webcomic coming in late October 2012. You can follow her at her website or her tumblr.
   
Thank you, Najela, for sharing your thoughts on Fall for Anything!

Readers, do you have any recommendations of other books dealing with grief?

The Beginning of After: A Snapshot

The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle

From Goodreads: "Anyone who’s had something truly crappy happen to them will tell you: It’s all about Before and After. What I’m talking about here is the ka-pow, shake-you-to-your-core-and-turn-your-bones-to-plastic kind of crappy.

Sixteen-year-old Laurel’s world changes instantly when her parents and brother are killed in a terrible car accident. Behind the wheel is the father of her bad-boy neighbor, David Kaufman, whose mother is also killed. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Laurel navigates a new reality in which she and her best friend grow apart, boys may or may not be approaching her out of pity, overpowering memories lurk everywhere, and Mr. Kaufman is comatose but still very much alive. Through it all there is David, who swoops in and out of Laurel’s life and to whom she finds herself attracted against her better judgment. She will forever be connected to him by their mutual loss—a connection that will change them both in unexpected ways."

The subject: a girl struggling to recover from the deaths of her parents and brother. Laurel's voice is enjoyable and her character relatable, and I felt a lot of sympathy for her, especially right at the beginning after the accident.

The setting: the New York suburbs.

Shutter speed: fairly slow-moving, but smooth. It's character-driven, so there isn't a lot of action, but at the same time it reads really easily. However, it does lose momentum/direction in parts (especially the second half) and some of it feels repetitive. 

What's in the background? Oh, the unresolved tension between Laurel and David... which got dragged out longer than I felt was really necessary. But I was rooting for them to get together! 

Zoom in on: Laurel's relationship with her brother and parents. They die at the beginning so we don't get to know them that well, and I think a few more memories/flashbacks might have helped make them feel more real.

Anything out of focus? There's an almost-sex scene that I thought happened awfully suddenly in the progression of the relationship.

Also, Laurel seems to move on from her grief a bit more quickly than I might have expected.

Ready? Say... "Loss."

Click! 4 shooting stars. This book hasn't stuck with me and isn't particularly memorable, but I actually really enjoyed reading it at the time. I liked being in Laurel's head; she makes mistakes but learns from them, and her relationship with David is believably rocky as it changes and takes on different tones throughout. Overall, it's an easy read that feels very realistic.

Note: there is a bit of mature sexual content.

Disclaimer: I received this book for review from the publisher.

Psychtember Interview: Mary O'Connell

Mary O'Connell, author of The Sharp Time, is dropping by the blog today for a Psychtember interview!

A bit about the book:

"Sandinista Jones is a high school senior with a punk rock name and a broken heart. The death of her single mother has left Sandinista alone in the world, subject to the random vulnerability of everyday life. When the school system lets her down, her grief and instability intensify, and she ponders a violent act of revenge. 

Still, in the midst of her crisis, she gets a job at The Pale Circus, a funky vintage clothing shop, and finds friendship and camaraderie with her coworker, a boy struggling with his own secrets. 

Even as Sandinista sees the failures of those with power and authority, she's offered the chance to survive through the redemptive power of friendship. Now she must choose between faith and forgiveness or violence and vengeance." (from Goodreads)

And a bit about Mary (from the Random House website:

 

MARY O'CONNELL is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and the author of the short story collection, Living With Saints. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in several literary magazines, and she is the recipient of a James Michener Fellowship and a Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award. The Sharp Time is her first novel.

And now the questions...

 

- Throughout the novel, Sandinista continually refers to her ability (or inability) to pay attention, and mentions ADD briefly. What role does her attention span (and perhaps more importantly, her perceptions of it) play in her actions?
 

I HOPED TO CONVEY THAT THE  DREAMINESS THAT HAD BEEN A PROBLEM FOR SANDINISTA IN THE PAST IS ACTUALLY A GIFT, ONE THAT EVENTUALLY ALLOWS HER TO ENVISION HER LIFE IN DIFFERENT WAYS, TO DAYDREAM A DIFFERENT FUTURE FOR HERSELF, WTH A LITTLE HELP FROM HER NEW FRIENDS. SHE'S DEFINITELY VIEWING THE WORLD THROUGH THE LENS OF FRESH GRIEF, WHICH MAKES EVERYONE A LITTLE MORE SCATTERED AND DESPERATE.
 
- Sandinista's a very distinctive and unusual protagonist, and her reactions and behaviour are often unpredictable. How did you write Sandinista to ensure you remained true to her character and the challenges she's facing while still allowing the reader to identify and sympathize with her?

WHILE WRITING SANDINISTA, I TRIED TO FOCUS ON HER (VERY REAL)  SENSE OF BEING WRONGED, ALONG WITH HER LONELINESS AND GRIEF. I THINK, I HOPE, THAT READERS WILL IDENTIFY WITH HER SUFFERING, AS NONE OF US CAN ESCAPE FROM HEARTACHE. SANDINISTA ALSO HAS THE MEMORY OF HER MOTHER'S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, WHICH SUSTAINS HER, ALONG WITH THE CAMARADERIE OF HER NEW FRIENDS. I DON'T EVER REALLY WRITE WITH A THEME IN MIND, BUT THE THEME THAT EMERGED FROM THE SHARP TIME IS, FOR ME, THE REDEMPTIVE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP.

- A particular incident leads Sandinista to contemplate violence against one of her teachers, rather than taking a more typical course of action. How large a role does her mother's death play in triggering this response? Are Sandinista's feelings of grief and loneliness the greatest contributors to a reaction like this, or is something more going on with her?

SANDINISTA'S THOUGHTS ABOUT HER TEACHER ARE CERTAINLY SHADED BY THE FACT THAT SHE FEELS SO ALONE, AND THAT SHE'S GRIEVING HER MOTHER'S DEATH. ALSO, SHE'S AT THAT AGE, 18, WHEN YOU REALIZE SOME OF THE THINGS YOU THOUGHT AND BELIEVED ABOUT LIFE ARE NOT QUITE TRUE; SHE'S EXPERIENCING THE REQUISITE DISGUST AND DISAPPOINTMENT WHICH ACCOMPANY THAT. IT WAS MY INTENTION TO WRITE THE JOURNEY OF AN ORDINARY PERSON IN AN EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE, AND TO GIVE SOME HOPE AT THE END OF HER STORY, HOPE THAT SANDINISTA WILL BE ABLE TO MOVE ON FROM HER GRIEF AND HELP SOMEONE ELSE. THERE'S A BEAUTIFUL SONG BY LEONARD COHEN THAT GOES:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
THAT'S WHAT I WANT  FOR SANDINISTA, AND FOR ANY YOUNG PERSON GOING THROUGH A TROUBLED TIME: THE KNOWLEDGE YOU CAN REBUILD YOUR IMPERFECT WORLD. ILLUMINATION CAN BRING COMPASSION.

Thanks very much for taking the time to answer my questions, Mary!