YA Contemporary

Review: Butterly Suicide by Mary Ann Loesch

~ megs14malloy

Publication Date July 11, 2017

I couldn’t decide between a 3.5 or a 4-star rating for this book so decided to round up to 4 for Goodreads rating purposes.
Butterfly Suicide is a fairly heavy YA contemporary dealing with topical issues such as violence at school, bullying, marital discord, adultery and sibling abuse. The story takes place in a rural town in Texas and follows the perspective of two characters in the aftermath of a school shooting. The first is Stephen, the brother of the shooter.
The second is Monica, the sister of one of the victims, the shooters ex-girlfriend. The story picks up a few months after the actual shooting and deals mostly with how the family members of such tragic events deal with the consequences of those events – picking the pieces of their lives up and trying to put them back together. Stephen and Monica develop a relationship and obviously there are a lot of problems that arise due to that.
There were some issues with the plot, some details I didn’t find that believable and that they were put in more for convenience to move the story along. It was fairly well written though – especially the character of Stephen – I felt the chapters from his perspective were particularly strong. Monica fell a little flat for me – she didn’t have the depth of character that Stephen had in my opinion.
Overall, it was a compelling read and the ideas behind the story are important to explore – although not perfect, a very solid piece of YA fiction. I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review: The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner

~ megs14malloy

The Serpent King is a YA-contemporary novel that takes place in rural Tennessee and is told from the perspective of three main characters: Dill, Lydia and Travis. Our main characters are seniors in high school and the story mostly follows their daily struggles of breaking out of the molds that parents, and others, have set for them, as well as finding out who they are and who they want to become.

This story is incredibly moving and deals with some heavy topics but all told from an overwhelmingly sensitive voice. I was blown away by the quality and style of Jeff Zentner’s writing – this book made me feel so much – it awoke my soul and brought forth every emotion you could possibly imagine. Not only did I laugh out loud but I also cried, real tears, just flowing forth like my heart were breaking – now that is good writing!

I would recommend this story to anyone. I am not a big contemporary reader so was really surprised by how much this book sucked me in. Finally, it is important to note that I listened to the audiobook of this which had three different narrators for the three main characters – it was a fantastically seamless production!

Status Update: The Serpent King

~ megs14malloy

Hi bookworms! Happy Tuesday to you! Today I wanted to write a little bit about my current audiobook – The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner. Originally published in March of 2016, this is a YA-contemporary coming-of-age story set in a small town in Tennessee.  It follows the POV of 3 main characters: Dill, Lydia and Travis.

I went into this book with no real expectations. I had heard a lot of buzz about it through bookish social media channels last year and really had heard nothing but good things. This being said, YA-contemporary is not my go-to genre – I generally prefer sci-fi/fantasy books. I am about 75% through this  now and to say that I am enjoying it would be a vast understatement. This book is legitimately rocking my soul to its core. The characters are so real, so innocent, I feel what they are feeling. True Story: This morning, while walking my dog and listening to the audiobook, I was crying. Actual tears! While walking down the road at 7:30 a.m. listening to this book.

The three main characters are high school kids, in their senior year, all on the verge of adulthood. Trying to navigate that transition and only one of them has the family support to make it a smooth transition.  The other two, oh the other two, I want to hug them, help them and tell them it will all work out. I haven’t done too much research on the author, Mr. Jeff Zentner, but the writing in this is so real it makes me pause to think whether or not this could classify as an ‘own voices’ narrative – the emotional depth and experiences in this book seem so important – it’s like these characters are actually alive. How much of this can be traced directly from Mr. Zentner’s life? I do not know the answer to that, and may never know, but it makes me feel such a swelling in my heart for this book and all it is about.

If you ever have the chance to read this book, or listen to the audio, I could not recommend it more highly. I am so glad that I stepped out of my comfort zone and read this one. It was worth every moment and every tear!

Cheers to emotionally charged books!

~Meg

Review: Paintbrush by Hannah Bucchin

~ megs14malloy

Happy Monday bookworms!  I hope you all enjoyed your weekend -the week of Thanksgiving is finally upon us.  I am certainly hoping to get a lot of pages read over the Thanksgiving holiday.  I have been so sick lately so also hoping some additional rest will help to kick this cold to the curb!  I hope the early Autumn has been treating you all a little better.

Today I wanted to mention a book I finished a couple of weeks ago.  Paintbrush by Hannah Bucchin. I received this YA-Contemporary novel as the book in one of my Once Upon a Book Club boxes. The first thing I was struck by was the cover – it is absolutely beautiful. After reading the synopsis, I knew this wasn’t the kind of book that I would generally seek out for myself but I am so glad that it was included in the box. It is a coming-of-age story; a story of first love. It was well written and the characters vibrant and well imagined. I was really impressed with this young author. She should be really proud of her work here. I don’t read ‘sweet’ books a lot so it was a nice change of pace for me. The setting at Paintbrush, the living community the two main characters are a part of, seemed to take on a life of its own within the pages; it almost became one of the characters itself. If you are looking for a nice tale of young love and the tribulations that go along with that, you should definitely check this one out.  This may also be a good book to gift to a young woman in your life for the Christmas holiday!

 

Review: Peach by Emma Glass

~ megs14malloy

Expected Publication Date: January 23, 2018

I received an early release copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, for the book, that is what I am going to be – honest.  I gave this book two out of five stars on Goodreads. This is unusual for me and frankly, hurts my heart a little bit.  I usually at least ‘like’ a book, finding some reedeming qualities within its pages. This book however was very disappointing and I cannot think of one compliment to give it.

The description sounded interesting and powerful; it is the story of a young lady who it appears is sexually assaulted. It wasn’t only the stream of consciousness writing style that I found let the story down, I understand there are times when that writing style can be very impactful, but you should still be able to piece together what is actually going on. This book was so strange that you couldn’t tell what was real and what was imagined by the main character, Peach. The other characters in the story were all so strange it was laughable.  The ending was so bizarre with the most insane BBQ happening, I am still shaking my head about it.  Luckily, it was very short so I made it through the whole thing. Overall, I found it confusing, disturbing and utterly pointless. I cannot imagine to whom they are going to market this book. I wish them luck.