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.

Twenty Boy Summer: In A Nutshell

Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler 

Her best friend Frankie's brother just died, and Anna doesn't know what to do. Not just because Frankie is now acting like an entirely different person - but because Anna's got a secret. She was in love with Matt. They laughed, they kissed, they dreamed. And she swore she'd let him tell Frankie about it in his own way.

Now he can't, and Anna's left keeping a promise to a dead boy...

One sentence sum-up: A story of a girl, her best friend, and the memory of a boy they both loved.


My reaction: I really loved Matt and his relationship with Anna right away, so having him die from the get-go was pretty hard (that's not a spoiler!) It was easy to relate to what Anna was going through, being torn between wanting to let Matt go and wanting to keep his memory alive and untarnished. I had more difficulty sympathizing with Frankie, as I found her very irritating at times, but she's lost her brother and dealing with her grief by pretending to be something she isn't. The book isn't fast-paced - I found myself starting to skim in a few sections - but Anna's a sympathetic character you'll continue to root for.


Best aspect: The setting of the beach at Zanzibar Bay really suited this novel, by connecting Anna to the memory of Matt. I enjoyed the use of symbolism, from the glass pieces (especially together with the cover) to Anna's journal. Anna's character was also very well-sketched, portraying an understandably confused reaction to the death of one of her best friends.

If I could change something... I would make the parents a little less clueless. I mean, they didn't notice their daughter and her friend were sneaking out each night? Seriously? Also, I wanted a bit more depth from Sam; I liked what I saw of him (he's interested in Anna for her personality, and he respects her and listens to her) but really we just get a small snapshot.

In five words or less: true to life.

Quote: Tough to choose just one because there are several passages in this book that are written beautifully. Here's an example:


I can't stop thinking about what he felt like against my body, against my lips. I can't remember anything else, anything before that. And I realize in this moment that I've finally done it. That horrible, awful thing I swore I would never do.

The frosting. The cigarettes. The blue glass triangle. The shooting stars. The taste of his mouth on mine in the hall closet. Gone. All I can think about is Sam. Matt is – erased. My whole body is warm and buzzing. Sam is smiling next to me, because of me. And I've never felt so lonely in all my life.

Recommend for: anyone who likes a sad but good read about friendship, first love, loss, and moving on.

Final verdict: 4 shooting stars

Banned Books Note: As a happy coincidence I picked this one up at the library right in time for Banned Books Week! Twenty Boy Summer is being challenged, but why anyone would want to ban it I'm not altogether sure. There is some sex, yeah, but nothing very explicit - there are YA books out there with way racier stuff. Perhaps it's not suitable for the very young end of YA readers, but that's no reason to ban it!

Author's website: http://sarahockler.com/

Beautiful Malice: Review

Katherine's on the run. Not from a person, but from the past; the memory of her younger sister's death still haunts her. She can't talk about it with her parents, partly because she knows the slightest mention will set them off - and partly because she blames herself for what happened that night. She's looking for a new life. And she could use a new friend. 


Enter Alice.


Alice is bold, bubbly, and beautiful. She knows it. And Katherine knows it.
Alice is also ruthless. She knows that, too. And Katherine's about to find out...

It took me a bit to get into this book, but once I did - wow. I'll do my best to review without spoiling too much, but it'll be tough, because this book is chock full of spoilery events.

Characters:

We don't know much about Katherine at the start of Beautiful Malice, and it takes a while to discover her personality. Her younger sister's death has changed her significantly, and the "Katie" we see in flashbacks - one who enjoys parties, hanging out with her friend Carly and making out with her boyfriend Will - is a vastly different girl than the closed-off Katherine burdened with guilt. Once I'd gotten a better understanding of Katherine, it was quite easy to like and root for her. She goes through a massive amount of difficulties and it's rewarding to see her coming to some realizations about her past and her future.

I don't know what to say about Alice. I think it would be very frightening if I was actually able to get inside her head, so I'm very glad I didn't. We know from the beginning (just from the jacket description) that Alice is bad news. It's just how bad that's the question. You'll have to read the book to know exactly how much damage she causes, but it's considerable. Mentally and emotionally, she's about as stable as a seesaw. And she's no stranger to secrets either.

I will say that I would have liked more time to see Katherine and Alice's friendship growing at the beginning. They seem to become close friends in what feels like quite a short amount of time (though I think the author skips over some weeks in there), and their friendship never really felt genuine to me. I couldn't figure out why Katherine wanted Alice as a friend and persisted in hanging out with her. It was a relief when Katherine began questioning this as well, but I'd been questioning it from the start. We were told there was a connection between them more than we were ever shown it, and that was a little frustrating.

Both of the main male characters in this book were well done. Robbie's head-over-heels for Alice, and although his determined willingness to overlook her faults was annoying in a why-can't-you-see-what's-right-in-front-of-you way, I had to feel sorry for him. The guy just couldn't seem to get over her, and he was such a decent guy that he didn't deserve the treatment he got. 

Mick, on the other hand, is a stronger and more self-assured guy than Robbie. He assesses Alice correctly from the start, and he never wavers. Also, he's protective of Katherine - you can tell he really cares for her and values all of her good qualities. I can't really think of any faults, except perhaps that he's a little careless sometimes...

Rachel, Katherine's sister, pops up in one of the storylines but I wanted to see more that would have fleshed out their relationship. Katherine eventually shares a bit more about her feelings towards Rachel, but the focus is on Rachel's death and Katherine's associated guilt. Rachel herself, as a character, fell a little flat, and I would have liked to have seen more interactions between them.

Plot:

I found the first several chapters of this book fairly slow-moving and rather choppy. The narrative jumps around between the present-day (the "Sarah" storyline as I thought of it), the recent past (the "Alice" storyline) and the more distant past (the "Rachel" storyline). This was really confusing at first, because there are no chapter headings distinguishing these various narratives. I did think the "Sarah" storyline was a bit superfluous; while it's nice to see Katherine interacting with her daughter (this isn't a spoiler, you get told this at the very beginning) I think keeping the present-day prologue, and changing the last chapter to an epilogue bringing everything full-circle, might have worked.

Once I figured out the nature of the three storylines and the plot picked up, however, it became a compelling read. I'd heard that this book covered gritty topics and had a lot of 'shock value': so true. Perhaps it's a little over-the-top, all in one book, but it's the kind of stuff that gets your heart pounding as, glued to the pages, you keep reading to find out how it all ends.

All right, I can't do this without spoilers, so if you want to read this next bit, highlight the white text:

You'll find rape, murder, teenage pregnancy, and attempted suicide contained within Beautiful Malice. Frankly the attempted suicide bit - where Alice steps in front of Mick's car - was the weirdest part for me. It seemed pretty random, and unrealistic bordering on absurd - perhaps trying to "up the ante," so to speak, for greater effect. Alice did not strike me as the type who would try to kill herself; she just seemed too self-obsessed and narcissistic for that. Of course, she clearly had some mental health issues (perhaps a personality disorder?) and very occasionally she came across as vulnerable (although who knows, perhaps she was just acting). But still, it was rather bizarre. I thought at first she'd died then, and I was disappointed that she didn't go out with more of a bang; it seemed quite anti-climactic. We aren't really told whether she's hurt or not by the accident (which bugged me), but she's alive and well in the next chapter. Her actual death by drowning still struck me as a bit anti-climactic, but it was way more appropriate...it reminded me of a siren luring a man to his death. Also, Alice didn't deserve to go out with a bang - that's what she would have loved. She gets too much as it is, by taking Mick down with her and devastating Katherine.

So yes, I thought there was a lot of shock value in this book - but it was, for the most part, either plausible given the circumstances and/or in line with Alice's character. She's all about shocking people. Her character is fascinating from a psychological perspective; it's obvious that she thrives on attention, and the worse the attention, the better. She loves to rock the boat and be a diva and have everyone hang on her every word. Robbie (ironically enough) really manages to pinpoint Alice's personality when he talks about her hypothetical reaction if he and Katherine were to become involved: "Alice would care all right. But not for any of the normal reasons. Not because she loves me so much that she can't bear the thought of me being close to someone else. She'd care because she's not involved. She'd care because she's not the puppet master in this situation."

Writing style:

I've already mentioned the chronological leaping, which particularly bothered me at the start of the book. It also didn't feel like the story of a 17-year-old's life. Katherine's voice sounds too mature for a teenager's (she does acknowledge this, so that's something), and her situation - living with a conspicuously absent aunt, with her mom and dad out of the picture for a good chunk of it - seemed more like that of a college student. I actually kept thinking she was in college for a while and double-checked partway through, but no, she's definitely in high school. There were so few descriptions of life at the high school that it was difficult to remember this.

Many YA books handle mature subject matter, so it wasn't so much the content in Beautiful Malice as how Katherine (and others) reacted to it. I didn't usually mind this, except that I felt it was incongruous with Katherine's age and the high school setting. Make her a few years older, put her in college, and it probably wouldn't be an issue. (Although, at one point I also felt that the mom's response to a particular event was not very realistic.)

Also, I found myself sometimes going "show, don't tell." This mostly happened when Katherine was describing her relationships with and impressions of various individuals, but I wished we could have seen how her perspective played out in interactions with others, rather than having Katherine state that this was how she felt.

James does do an excellent job of using the present tense while managing to convey a foreboding tone that hints at both the past, and in a way, the future. For instance, "I have a wonderful time. It's more fun than I've had in years. And while I'm there I don't think of my sister once, nor of my devastated parents. I dance and laugh and flirt. I forget, temporarily, about the night I realised the awful truth about myself. I forget all about the night I discovered the shameful, grubby coward at the core of my soul." It makes you want to keep on reading!

Final verdict: 4 out of 5 shooting stars. There's a lot of mature subject matter in here so I'd only recommend this one for older readers. Read if you like psychology and twisted interpersonal relations.

Before I Fall: Review

It starts with a death. It's Friday, Sam is sitting shotgun in her friend Lindsay's car as they drive home from a party, when suddenly - it's over. There's a crash, and then she's falling through darkness. So when she wakes up the next morning, she's a little confused about what happened...and it gets a good deal more confusing when Sam realizes that she's woken up to Friday. Again. And then again. And then again. Sam can change the choices she makes during the day, but will she be able to alter the ultimate outcome? Or is she destined to die that day?

Before I Fall is like the movie Groundhog Day (which, by the way, I really enjoy!), but set in high school. It's a good thing Lauren Oliver references the movie, because there are certainly a few similarities - for instance, the various stages each main character goes through as they realize things about their situation, and "the other car will swerve first" idea. I'd never seen this premise used before in a book, however, and Oliver does a good job of making it her own.


Characters:

I didn't like Sam at the beginning. I'm quite sure that was intentional on Oliver's part. Frankly, Sam starts out as rather self-centered and shallow with a frustrating lack of self-awareness. Not to mention, she has a tendency to unthinkingly follow along with what everyone else is doing (particularly her friends, and particularly the ringleader Lindsay). Sam does understand that she's popular - and she's willing to do almost anything to keep it that way. However, we are given a glimmer of hope for Sam's character development; there are mentions of a time when Sam wasn't so concerned with what everyone else thought of her, and she does have some good qualities - loyalty to her friends (though they may not deserve it) and love for her family, especially her younger sister. In this way, Oliver shows us that Sam is really just playing a part, but she's managed to act it so well she's fooled even herself.

Seeing Sam mature gradually throughout the book, and learn what she valued and how her actions affected others, was really enjoyable. She's not the most interesting character in the book - she's fairly ordinary, all things considered - but she makes a good narrator. We may not always like what Sam does or sympathize with her, but we are all familiar with the themes of friendship, popularity, and growing up that are important at this point in her life. Sometimes I wanted to groan when I realized Sam still hadn't got it (she's a bit slow on the uptake on occasion), but we do see progress, and that's the main thing. At the start, I would not have wanted a friend like Sam, but by the end, she'd become a person I think I would have enjoyed spending time with.

Lindsay was the only one of Sam's friends I really felt was a distinct character. She's the head of their little group, she's the cruelest of all of them, and she gets a thrill out of bullying others. So many times I kept wondering why Sam chose to be friends with Lindsay. After all, Lindsay used to make fun of Sam when they were younger. Originally it seems like it was just because Lindsay was popular, Sam wasn't, and when Lindsay invited her into the clique, Sam went. But over the years it's clear that a bond has formed between them (and Ally and Elody, the other members of their group), and their friendship has staying power. (Why she still wants to be friends with them I'm really not sure. They don't seem to go through the same revelations and attitude changes that Sam does.) Also, Lindsay has some secrets from her past, and they're connected with Juliet Sykes, the girl Lindsay seems to hate the most. Learning more about how Lindsay got the way she is, and why she is so hurtful to Juliet, helped me to better understand her character - though I don't have to like it!

Which brings me to Juliet Sykes, who in some ways was my favorite character (well, that's not true, I think my favorite was Kent. But that's for later.) She was the ultimate victim. For years and years she endured teasing and hurtful jokes from everyone; she basically had no friends. I really felt sorry for her - high school can be a pretty awful place if you're in a position like that. Add to that problems at home (her dad is rumored to be an alcoholic) and the reader can understand exactly why Juliet's lost all hope. The storyline surrounding Juliet is definitely where Oliver shows us the darker side of life.

Now, on to Kent. He's the main romantic interest in the book (don't try to tell me that Rob is, because he's not remotely romantic), but more than that - he's Sam's childhood friend. One she cast aside when Lindsay picked her, and she became 'too cool' for the likes of Kent. All of this time, though, he's still been trying to connect with her again, though she's made it perfectly clear he's not good enough for her. One of the sweetest parts of this book was seeing Sam realize what she's been overlooking this whole time by writing Kent off. And one of the saddest parts is that each day when she wakes up, she knows he won't remember anything from the day before, and she has to start all over again. I loved Kent, he was so adorable and so willing to forgive and forget!

I do wish that Ally and Elody had been given more personality. I think Oliver tries to do this by giving us some random facts about them, but I still didn't get a good sense of who they were. To me they always just kind of remained the mindless sheep of the group (maybe that's who they're supposed to be?) Also, I wish we could have seen more of Anna; Sam connects with her at one point, but I didn't really understand what makes Anna tick (and why she was doing some of the things she was). There are also a few characters (Tara and crew) that are introduced briefly for a day, but then not mentioned again. None of these girls had really distinct personalities and they all sort of blended in my mind.

Plot:

Oliver's twist on the Groundhog Day premise - Sam's death at the beginning - really added to the novel, and made it a little less predictable. I was always wondering: was she really dead this whole time, and would nothing she did make a difference? Or was there a chance she could prevent her death and wake up on Saturday?

Still, since I knew the basic premise, I wasn't surprised by too many developments in the plot. There was at least one I-didn't-see-that-coming moment, but on the whole I would have liked a few more surprises. The book is more focused on characters - their interactions, their histories, their growth - than action, which was probably necessary given that Sam was so unlikeable to begin with.

I did have a little difficulty keeping all of Sam's Fridays straight in my mind. It wasn't so much that I found it too repetitive, because I liked seeing how the choices she made affected how the day went. It was more that I kept getting confused by what happened on which day, and I wouldn't always remember the details Sam would sometimes mention from a previous day.

I can't say too much about the ending without spoiling, but I was a little disappointed. It definitely makes sense and ties everything together - it just wasn't the ending I was hoping for. The solution almost seems a bit too simple, although I can understand why Oliver chose it. Also, the final moments of the story are a bit unclear (they're probably supposed to be, but I usually like to know exactly what's going on). I did appreciate how the epilogue mirrors the prologue, that was a nice touch.

Writing style:

This book was a pretty easy read, and although I often can't get into books written in present voice, it really worked for this one. The author did seem to have a penchant for shorter sentences, which when used too frequently sometimes became a bit irritating (but didn't detract much from my enjoyment). I had to flip back a few times in an effort to mentally straighten out the sequence of events of previous days, although as the book went on I kind of gave up on figuring out exactly what happened when and just went along with it. This problem is tied up with the nature of the premise, and I'm not sure what might have made it easier to keep track, but a bit more clarity in how each day progressed would have been appreciated.

Overall rating: 4 out of 5 shooting stars. For readers who enjoy stories set in high school, characters who gradually learn from their mistakes, and seeing how even small choices can affect the events of a single day.