From the shelf: After You

Title: After You
Author: Jojo Moyes
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Romance, Chick-Lit
Date read: January 20-24, 2016
Dawn Rates: ★★★★ (4/5)

Summary (cr: goodreads)

11 hours, 6 minutes

How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?

Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.

Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .

For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.

After You is quintessential Jojo Moyes—a novel that will make you laugh, cry, and rejoice at being back in the world she creates. Here she does what few novelists can do—revisits beloved characters and takes them to places neither they nor we ever expected.

My Review: (also in goodreads)

Lookback: Me Before You

This is 18 months after the events in "Me Before You". I was one of those fans waiting for a sequel but at the same time I dreaded it. I have a lot of disappointments in sequels. But just like Lou, I needed the closure. I wanted to move on from Will Traynor's selfish decision to move on. Yes, I was that bitter. Luckily, Jojo Moyes announced that she is doing the aftermath sequel and here we are. This was the most real way I could think of on how Lou would cope up with Will's death. I know that some might judge her for being that way since she has known Will for just a short time, but for me it doesn't matter how long they have known each other...what they had was real and because of that decision, it was a sad love story. It was a big 'Might have been'. I don't blame Will though. He just wanted to escape from the life he had after having the life he supposed he had. The downside from that decision is the chance to have his happy ever after. This is a story about how people around Will did cope up with the aftermath of them all. How Lou tried to move on with her life just as she promised and how she failed to do so. She was like a shell of herself and because of that a reminder of Will came to remind her that she should move on with her life. I loved how this became a sort of closure to that part of her life. I think I also had my closure when I read the last page. For me what happened at the last scene was telling us that life is full of possibilities and that the future is bright ahead, its just that we needed that closure.

Till the next read...

Book Review Request: Rarity from the Hollow

Title: Rarity from the Hollow

Author: Robert Eggleton

Genre: Science Fiction, Reality
Date read: July 7-14, 2015
Dawn Rates: ★★★ (3/5)

Summary (cr: goodreads)

Lacy Dawn is a little girl who lives in a magical forest where all the trees love her and she has a space alien friend who adores her and wants to make her queen of the universe. What’s more, all the boys admire her for her beauty and brains. Mommy is very beautiful and Daddy is very smart, and Daddy’s boss loves them all.

Except.

Lacy Dawn, the eleven year old protagonist, perches precariously between the psychosis of childhood and the multiple neuroses of adolescence, buffeted by powerful gusts of budding sexuality and infused with a yearning to escape the grim and brutal life of a rural Appalachian existence. In this world, Daddy is a drunk with severe PTSD, and Mommy is an insecure wraith. The boss is a dodgy lecher, not above leering at the flat chest of an eleven-year-old girl.

Yes, all in one book.

Rarity From The Hollow is written in a simple declarative style that’s well- suited to the imaginary diary of a desperate but intelligent eleven-year-old – the story bumping joyfully between the extraordinary and the banal.

The central planet of the universe is a vast shopping mall, and Lacy Dawn must save her world from a menace that arrives in the form of a cockroach infestation. Look again and the space alien has made Daddy smart and happy – or at least an eleven year old girl’s notion of what a smart and happy man should be. He has also made Mommy beautiful, giving her false teeth and getting the food stamp lady off her back. (excerpt)

My Review: (also in goodreads)

It's always an honor to receive a book from the author asking you to give an honest review about it. It means they value your review and your ability to review without any pretense. Therefore, I'm going to give this an honest review:

Instead of chapters, this was portrayed as mini-adventures in the life of Lacy Dawn. During the first half of the book, I was interested. It tackled the hard life in the hollow, how Lacy Dawn lost her best friend due to being killed by her best friend's father and how she came to meet DotCom (a robot from another planet who teaches her). This book tackled a lot about domestic abuse and living in a dysfunctional family. The mother has low self-esteem and gets often beaten by an abusive father who has PTSD. Choices made the life the way it was and because Lacy Dawn's mother got pregnant early it ended her father's bright future resulting to his violent streak. Going through the second half of the book that is where I got a bit confused. After getting 'treatment' from DotCom to cure her parents she know has to save the world from cockroach infestation. In which they become rich by being a shopper at the center of the universe (Shptiludrp which I would guess would be a shortened 'shop till you drop'). There were times in which I was confused and hooked at the same time. The ending was a bit abrupt but I guess that it is a satisfactory one. In conclusion, I had a myriad of different emotions while reading this at the same time it was quite a struggle in the end. But despite that, there are still parts I liked here and there especially the first half.

Till the next read...

From the shelf: The Geography of You and Me

Title: The Geography of You and Me
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Life, Chick-Lit
Date read: February 7-8, 2015
Dawn Rates: ★★★ (3/5)

Summary (cr: goodreads)

Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.

Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met.

A carefully charted map of a long-distance relationship, Jennifer E. Smith's new novel shows that the center of the world isn't necessarily a place. It can be a person, too. 

My Review: (also in goodreads)

This is the 3rd book that I have read by Jennifer Smith (The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, This is what Happy Looks Like) and as per chick-lit standards, it didn't disappoint..although there were parts that I was bored. This story is about unexpected meetings, the value of change and holding on. Owen and Lucy were two people coping with change, one moving on from a loss and the other leaving her safe zone doing something she really wanted to do. Both of them literally have worlds apart between them geographically and they start to grow up as they experience life.

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From the Shelf: If You Find Me

Title: If You Find Me
Author: Emily Murdoch
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Realistic-Fiction
Date read: March 7-10, 2014
Dawn Rates: ★★★★★ (5/5)

Summary (cr: goodreads)

There are some things you can’t leave behind…

A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys.

Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go… a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

My Review: (also in goodreads)

This was one of those books that would rip your heart and leave it out to die. This was the most complicated, tear-jerking roller coaster ride of emotions I've read in a book...so far for 2014. It starts with the curiosity on why Nessa and Carey would be living in the woods when they would eventually be found by Carey's father. This story did buildup till the end and for a rare moment, it made me teary-eyed so many times. The dialogues were so emotional that I even felt a pang of sadness. This is a novel about embracing one's past however dark, deranged or painful it may be so that one could welcome the hope for the future. 

Till the next read...

From the shelf: Me Before You

Title: Me Before You
Author: Jojo Moyes
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Romance, Chick-Lit
Date read: July 9-11, 2013
Dawn Rates: ★★★★★ (5/5)

Summary (cr: goodreads)

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

My Review: (also in goodreads)

This book has been quite emotionally exhausting for me. The kind that after reading the book, you want to curl up and drown with a bucket of ice cream...that drained. This is the first book I read from Jojo Moyes and I must say she did great in throwing my hopes around throughout the story. It features the promising Will Traynor who got into a severe accident and suddenly became a quadriplegic, a 180 degree turn from what he was...resulting to him being depressed and wanting to end everything now. Here comes Lou Clark, a carer employed by his parents to change his mind for 6 months. I loved the humor, but in contrast I was dreading the pages till the end. I was really into it and was hoping for a better ending. But I guess it is the taste of reality. No one knows the pain someone is going through until they are in that situation. I wanted to push Will off his chair for being so selfish but somehow you could sympathize with him. As I said, this book messed up my emotions like a mean thunderstorm. I want to read the author's other books some other time. I really like how she portrays the reality within the fiction. But first, I have to take a break with all this heavy drama and go read something light. 

Till the next read...

From the shelf: Suicide Notes

Title: Suicide Notes
Author: Michael Thomas Ford
Genre: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction
Date read: July 1-4, 2013
Dawn Rates: ★★★★ (4/5)

Summary (cr: goodreads)

I'm not crazy. I don't see what the big deal is about what happened. But apparently someone does think it's a big deal because here I am. I bet it was my mother. She always overreacts.

Fifteen-year-old Jeff wakes up on New Year's Day to find himself in the hospital. Make that the psychiatric ward. With the nutjobs. Clearly, this is all a huge mistake. Forget about the bandages on his wrists and the notes on his chart. Forget about his problems with his best friend, Allie, and her boyfriend, Burke. Jeff's perfectly fine, perfectly normal, not like the other kids in the hospital with him. Now they've got problems. But a funny thing happens as his forty-five-day sentence drags on: the crazies start to seem less crazy.

Compelling, witty, and refreshingly real, Suicide Notes is a darkly humorous novel from award-winning author Michael Thomas Ford that examines that fuzzy line between "normal" and the rest of us.

My Review: (also in goodreads)

When this book was recommended to me, I thought this would go way too dark and angst y...which I don't have a problem with; its just that too much can be an emotional burden. However, I was somewhat wrong. Sure it has angst, but the humor balanced it all out. The novel came in 1st person POV where the protagonist Jeff was narrating his 45 day stay in rehab (?) each representing a chapter. I thought at first that he had amnesia or he is in denial at whatever he really felt, but then you get to realize that the author wrote this knowledgeable of the milestones in accepting that something is indeed wrong. I enjoyed the therapy sessions with Dr. Katzrupus or as he would say, cat poop. I loved the twist, thought it caught me off guard; though I had a bit of an idea at the middle part. The ending however was a bit of a cliffhanger, I had many questions swirling but a part of me was satisfied so I'm a bit in a pinch. Overall, it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster.

Till the next read...

From the shelf: The Sea of Tranquility

Title: The Sea of Tranquility
Author: Katja Millay
Genre: New Adult, Romance
Date read: June 24-July 1, 2013
Dawn Rates: ★★★★★ (5/5)

Summary (cr: goodreads)

I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay.

Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a rich, intense, and brilliantly imagined story about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

My Review: (also in goodreads)

This is a story that brings forth two complex persons (Josh Bennet and Emilia Ward masking as Natsya Kashnikov) finding solace in each other. Both broken and somewhat dark, they find peace with each other's presence where they could at least pretend that there is still something to hold on to..even for a while.

This story is so complex and profound that you could emotionally drown in every scene. Every character introduced in this story has their own part to play. Seriously, I wanted to slap Natsya and get her out of the black hole which is her misery but she has every right to hold on to her rage and shut everyone out. Someone stole her identity and killed her. She may be alive, but she is now a shadow of her old self, a shell. But I was glad she was able to redeem herself.

Till the next read...

From the shelf: Keep Holding On

Title: Keep Holding On
Author: Susane Colasanti
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary Romance, Chick-Lit
Date read: June 21-23, 2013
Dawn Rates: ★★★★★ (5/5)

Summary (cr: goodreads)

A romantic and empowering book about bullying

Noelle's life is all about survival. Even her best friend doesn't know how much she gets bullied, or the ways her mom neglects her. Noelle's kept so much about her life a secret for so long that when her longtime crush Julian Porter starts paying attention to her, she's terrified. Surely it's safer to stay hidden than to risk the pain of a broken heart. But when the antagonism of her classmates takes a dramatic turn, Noelle realizes it's time to stand up for herself--and for the love that keeps her holding on.

My Review: (also in goodreads)

Noelle is a poverty-stricken teenage kid in high school struggling to live an everyday life with a neglectful mother, bullies and having no reason to live.

This story is a powerful one. Kids in school should read this novel that could open their eyes from the shallowness and immaturity of a young life. There were times that I was teary-eyed that there are actual kids who were bullied everyday (maybe because I wasn't bullied in school or if I had been, I just didn't care). I was a bit irritated that she was so weak and has a low self-esteem to the point that she wanted out the easy way she knew how (suicidal). But then I realized how strong she was by resisting and bottling everything deep inside. Everyone has their right to live and shape their life the way they want it. And in no circumstance does anyone have the right to prevent that. That, for me, is the worst form of cowardice.

Till the next read...