Book Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

We Were Liars
by E. Lockhart
Series: Standalone
Publication: Delacorte Press on May 13, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 225 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery, Family, Romance

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends - the Liars - whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution.  An accident.  A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Book Review: All the Rage by Courtney Summers

All the Rage
by Courtney Summers
Series: Standalone
Publication: St. Martin's Griffin on April 14, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 321 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery, Realistic Fiction, Abuse

The sheriff's son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact.  Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything - friends, family, and her community.  After she's been branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy's only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town.  No one knows her name of her past there; she can finally be anonymous.  But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out, Romy must decide whether she wants to fight or carry the burden of knowing more girls could get hurt if she doesn't speak up.  Nobody believed her the first time - and they certainly won't now - but the cost of her silence might be more than she can bear.

With a shocking conclusion and writing that will absolutely knock you out, All the Rage examines the shame and silence inflicted upon young women in a culture that refuses to protect them.

All the Rage will knock you out.  A heavy, highly emotional read, this well-written 2015 standalone by author Courtney Summers manages to tackle and put out in the open what's often left unsaid.

Book Review: All Fall Down by Ally Carter

All Fall Down
by Ally Carter
Series: Embassy Row
Publication: Scholastic Press on January 20, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Adventure, Espionage

Jacket copy:

Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things:

1. She is not crazy

2. Her mother was murdered

3. Someday she is going to find the killer and make him pay.

As certain as Grace is about these facts, nobody else believes her - so there's no one she can completely trust.  Not her grandfather, a powerful ambassador.  Not her new friends, who all live on Embassy Row.  Not Alexei, the Russian boy next door, who is keeping his eye on Grace for reasons she neither likes nor understands.

Everybody wants Grace to put on a pretty dress and a pretty smile, blocking out all her unpretty thoughts.  But they can't control Grace - no more than Grace can control what she knows or what she needs to do.  Her past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn't stop it, Grace isn't the only one who will get hurt.  Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down.

Okay.  Confession time: I'm pretty much the only person in the world who hasn't read Ally Carter's other popular series (the Gallagher Girls, the Heist Society, etc.).  (Sorry, I'm terrible, right?)  Anyway, All Fall Down was my first taste of this author's writing . . . and it was a pretty good taste!

All Fall Down is considered YA, but it was definitely on the more juvenile side of the genre.  However, I immediately loved the book for this one, tiny little reason: the setting.  Grace lives on Embassy Row among the powers of the world.  I mean, Russia's next door.  Germany, France, China, Israel, Brazil?  Just a walk away.  Ally Carter is brilliant for thinking up such a setting.  I've never read about anything like Embassy Row before, so definite props to the author for earning that hard-to-get creativity factor.

So, I entered the book with my expectations high.  (I mean, awesome setting = awesome story, right?)  Well, in all honesty, I thought the author could have done so much more with the story.  A good portion of the book just felt stagnant, and though the book claims ACTION! ADVENTURE! MYSTERY! it really wasn't all that interesting until the reader neared the end.

I wanted to love the main character, Grace, but she was a bit on the annoying side.  Though I do admire her perseverance and her drive, it became a bit too much at times.  What drove Grace's actions throughout the story was her adamant, unwavering belief that "The Scarred-Face Man" killed her mother a couple years back.  And spoiler alert! (not really) basically the entire storyline is Grace embarrassing herself in public as she pursues this "Scarred-Face Man."

In All Fall Down we were only given glimpses at the multitude of characters living on Embassy Row.  There's Alexei, friend of Grace's older brother, the Russian boy next door.  There's Noah, the half Israeli half Brazilian boy down the street who claims the title of Grace's best friend (quite literally).  There's little, unassuming, gymnast Rosie.  And there's of course, Grace.  Honestly, there wasn't a whole lot of character development to this first installment, but I'm sure we'll be able to get past the acquaintance stage in the Embassy Row books to follow.  I'm excited to get to fall in love with all of these full-of-personality characters.

All Fall Down was an appetizer, appeasing to the reader's taste, but its main purpose was for setting up the main course.  Ally Carter was able to leave off on a high note, and I have no doubt that with each Embassy Row book released, the storyline will continue to grow better and better.

I Was Here - Gayle Forman

I Was Here 
by Gayle Forman

Series: Standalone

Publication: Viking Juvenile on January 27, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 288 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Death, Realistic Fiction, Mystery

Cody and Meg were inseparable . . . until they weren't.

When her best friend, Meg, drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated.  She and Meg shared everything - so how was there no warning?  But when Cody travels to Meg's college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there's a lot Meg never told her.  About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in the dead-end town in Washington.  About Ben McCallister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, and some secrets of his own.  And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can't open - until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend's death gets thrown into question. 

Though I've only read a couple of Gayle Forman books to date, I have never been completely taken with one of Forman's books.  Out of her works I have read, however, I cannot say I Was Here was a favorite.

Recently, a very popular topic in YA has been suicide.  In just the past couple of months, I have read more than my fair share of books dealing with this heavy subject.  And although suicide is an important topic that calls for discussion and action, I think it is a bit tired out in the genre.  Reading about suicide is never fun or enjoyable for me, and so I think it's best if I lay off the subject for a while.

My main issue with the book were the characters and their relationships.  I never felt deeply connected to Cody, Meg, or Ben, and I felt their relationships between each other were not developed well or enough.  I wanted to get a better sense for Cody and Meg's "inseparable friendship" before the incident, so I could better feel for Cody and relate to her.  However, the girls' friendship was painted to the reader as if they were more strangers than friends.  Cody knew absolutely nothing about Meg's life in college or about Meg for that matter.

There was also a bit of romance between Cody and Ben, romance that I felt was unnecessary.  The entire "thing" felt very awkward and strange to me, and ultimately distracted the reader from the main storyline.  I don't say this often, but I think the book would be better off without this slight touch of romance.

A lot went unexplained, unexplored, and unanswered, but I guess that's the whole point: there's not always a reason or an answer to uncover.  People sometimes act in ways you'll never be able to quite understand.

I do like the final note the book left off on, though.  Cody found the closure she was searching for and said goodbye to Meg in a beautiful way.

I Was Here is another sad but beautiful novel from New York Times Bestselling Author Gayle Forman.

Vanishing Girls - Lauren Oliver

Vanishing Girls

by Lauren Oliver

Series: Standalone

Publication: HarperCollins on March 10, 2015

Format: Hardcover, 368 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

Jacket copy:

Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before - before Dara kissed Parker, before Nick lost him as her best friend, before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred.  Now the two sisters, who used to be so close, aren't speaking.  In an instant, Nick lost everything and is determined to use the summer to get it all back.

But Dara has other plans.  When she vanishes on her birthday, Nick things Dara is just playing around.  But another girl has vanished, too - nine-year-old Madeline Snow - and as Nick pursues her sister, she becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances may be linked.

I've read my fair share of Lauren Oliver books over the years, and though written well, none were quite able to convert me into a Lauren Oliver fan.  When I heard news of her newest 2015 release, Vanishing Girls, I checked it out in hopes it would be one to turn the tables.

As I feel is the case in many Lauren Oliver books, Vanishing Girls is also one with frequent POV shifts.  From chapter to chapter, the reader jumps back and forth between the perspectives of the two Warren sisters, Dara and Nick.  I personally am not the biggest fan of such frequent POV shifts, but in this case, the changes in perspective were definitely necessary to build up the main storyline.  Besides the POV shifts, occasional photos, diary entries, and blog posts are also interlaced throughout the story to aid the narrative.

I did feel as if certain portions of the story were lacking and simply not followed through or developed enough.  Certain events seemed to happen so abruptly with no build-up whatsoever, as if Lauren Oliver was randomly pulling slips of paper with events written on them out of a hat.  (However, I won't go into specifics so as to allow prospective readers their own fair opportunity to draw individual judgement.)

If you're an impatient reader, be forewarned: the supposed main storyline, the "disappearance" of Dara only takes place a little ways after the halfway point of the story.  Personally, I didn't have much of a problem with this, as Lauren Oliver still managed to keep the events prior interesting and engaging to the reader.  And if you continue reading on, you'll soon understand why the book is written in such a way.

Although many readers said they were not taken by surprise with the big jaw-dropper of the story, I was.  Perhaps I was not able to foresee the jaw-dropper due to the fact I rarely read psychological thrillers, but there was a specific point in the story when I became extremely, utterly confused.  And this is the point when certain things begin to click into place, and others, begin to fall apart.  

Vanishing Girls is a book you'll need to flip through a second time simply to understand, to see.  And though it took me some time after, I was able to make sense of everything.  Clues that were not-so-obvious to me prior, stood out in bold, flashing letters when skimmed over a second time.

Read with this in mind: things can be read in different ways.  Though Vanishing Girls was not quite my cup of tea, I still enjoyed this newest release from Lauren Oliver.