Review: Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar

Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar

Pages: 274
Publisher: Penguin Australia
Published: June 29th, 2009
IBSN: 9780143011453

Carly has dropped out of uni to spend her days surfing and her nights working as a cook in a Manly café. Surfing is the one thing she loves doing ... and the only thing that helps her stop thinking about what happened two years ago. Then she meets Ryan and Carly has to decide ... Will she let the past bury her? Or can she let go of her anger and shame, and find the courage to be happy?

[Synopsis by Goodreads]

Raw Blue is, in a word, raw.

It came from the first-person perspective of Carly: surfer, uni drop-out, rape victim. Her narration is incredibly emotional, and you can feel her anguish over her past trauma in everything she does. I felt immediately sympathetic to her.

The characters were all well-developed. Ryan wasn't the unrealistically perfect love interest you see in a lot of other YAs nowadays, but a real guy, complete with neccessary character flaws. And Danny? He was completely adorable and precious.

Kirsty Eagar's writing style was engaging and fluid, and the Australian slang was woven in well. Though I don't think I could respect anyone who called me 'mate' in real life, little interjections like that made the dialogue realistic.

After reading Raw Blue, I'm embarrassed that I let the cover keep me from reading it for so long. I always thought it was about shark attacks, or something.

I give Raw Blue a 4 out of 5.

________________________________________

I read this book for the Aussie YA Reading Challenge.

Memento Nora Book Tour: Author Guest Post

Welcome to the 15th stop on the Memento Nora book tour! Memento Nora is Angie Smibert's debut dystopia, which came out on the 1st of April.

Nora, the popular girl and happy consumer, witnesses a horrific bombing on a shopping trip with her mother. In Nora’s near-future world, terrorism is so commonplace that she can pop one little white pill to forget and go on like nothing ever happened. However, when Nora makes her first trip to a Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic, she learns what her mother, a frequent forgetter, has been frequently forgetting. Nora secretly spits out the pill and holds on to her memories. The memory of the bombing as well as her mother’s secret and her budding awareness of the world outside her little clique make it increasingly difficult for Nora to cope. She turns to two new friends, each with their own reasons to remember, and together they share their experiences with their classmates through an underground comic. They soon learn, though, they can’t get away with remembering.

At this stop, Angie Smibert will be sharing with us her top ten comic inspirations for Memento Nora:

In Memento Nora, my main characters create an underground comic to share their memories as well
as the nefarious things they discover going on around them. I’m not a comic geek, which I mean in the
nicest sense of the word. I don’t claim to know a lot about comics or graphic novels, but these are my
favorites and/or the ones that influenced the comic in Memento Nora:

1-2. Maus (I & II) by Art Spiegelman

Maus is the biography of the author’s father, a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust.
Spiegelman documented his father’s experiences in the concentration camps in graphic novel
form. Maus is the only comic book to ever win the Pulitzer Prize (1992).

3. In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman

Spiegelman wrote this graphic novel after 9/11. He lived near the WTC at the time, and his
daughter was in a nearby school when the planes struck the towers. (She survived.) This book
was his way to deal with the experience.

4. Persepolis by Marjane Sartrapi

Persepolis, first published in France, is the author’s memoir about growing up in Iran (and
Europe) during her country’s Islamic Revolution. Satrapi has also written Chicken and Plums and
Embroideries.

5. The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman

I love anything by Neil Gaiman. I cannot claim to have read all or even most of the series, but
it’s essentially about the nature of storytelling.

6. Fables series by Bill Willingham

Actually, I’ve just started reading these. The series is about fairy tale characters who’ve been
cast out of their land and are now living in a section of NYC called Fabletown.

7. This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow. (http://thismodernworld.com/)

This Modern World is a weekly political cartoon that appears in approximately 80 newspapers
across the U.S. and on websites such as Salon.com and Credo. Tomorrow’s humor (and insight)
slays me.

8. Understanding Comics by Scott McLeod

Scott McLeod (http://scottmccloud.com/) wrote a seminal series of books on how comics work.
The books—Understanding Comics, Making Comics, and Reinventing Comics—are all in graphic
novel form.

9. American Splendor by Harvey Pekar

Pekar told real, everyday life stories through graphic novels. The movie American Splendor is
based on him—and he appeared in parts of it.

10. Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

This is the one pulp / comic I remember reading (and liking) as a kid. The “girly” stuff like the
Archies never did anything for me.



Be sure to check out the next and final stop on the book tour tomorrow over at Teens Read And Write!

Review: Putting Makeup On Dead People by Jen Violi

Putting Makeup On Dead People by Jen Violi

Pages: 336
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Published: May 24th, 2011
IBSN: 9781423134817

Source: NetGalley

It's been four years since Donna Parisi's father passed away, but it might as well have been four days. Donna makes conversation and goes through the motion, but she hasn't really gotten on with life. She's not close with anyone, she doesn't have a boyfriend and she's going to college at the local university with a major that her mother picked. But one day Donna has an epiphany. She wants to work with dead people. She wants to help people say goodbye and she wants to learn to love a whole person--body and soul. She wants to live her life and be exceptional...at loving, at grieving and at embalming and cremating,too. Even as she makes the decision, things start to change. Donna makes friends with the charismatic new student, Liz. She notices the boy, Charlie, at her table and realizes that maybe he's been noticing her, too. And she begins to forgive the rest of her family for living their lives while she's been busy moping.
[Synopsis by Goodreads]

The title, the cover, and the premise automatically made me want to read this book. The cover's simple, colourful, and cute, and the title is odd. I'm also getting into realistic YA, about family and grieving and the like (if anyone knows any books that fit that description, recommend some in the comments!).

Donna is a realistic character with a clear, unique voice. The first-person narration is raw and extremely honest. I never really knew what people meant when they said the voice was "honest" until I read books like this. She was definitely relatable, which made it easy to sympathise with her.

The relationship dynamics between Donna and her family members, between Donna and her friends, and between Donna and people she meets over the course of the novel all felt realistically built.

Her interest in becoming a mortician, though pretty 'out there', made sense for the character. I admired how although she cared what other people thought about her ambition, she didn't let their opinions sway her. She was determined.

If I had to some this novel up in one word, it'd be 'sweet'.

I give Putting Makeup On Dead People a 5 out of 5, and recommend any realistic YA fans to keep an eye out for it in July. It reminded me vaguely of Other Words For Love, so definitely check this one out if you liked that.

Waiting On Wednesday (20)

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine, in which we highlight an upcoming book release we're eagerly awaiting.

This week I'm waiting on So Silver Bright by Lisa Mantchev, because I've read the first two books in the Theatre Illuminata series, and fell in love with them.

All Beatrice Shakespeare Smith has ever wanted is a true family of her own. And she’s close to reuniting her parents when her father disappears. Now Bertie must deal with a  vengeful sea goddess and a mysterious queen as she tries to keep her family – and the Theatre Illuminata – from crumbling. To complicate it all, Bertie is torn between her two loves, Ariel and Nate.

[Synopsis by Goodreads]

So Silver Bright is the third and final book in the Theatre Illuminata series, and is expected to come out on the 13th of September.

Feel free to leave a link to your own Waiting On Wednesday post in the comments, and I'll be sure to have a look.

Review: City Of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

City Of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare


Series: The Mortal Instruments (#4)
Pages: 424
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Published: April 5th, 2011
IBSN: 9781442403543

A mysterious someone’s killing the Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine’s Circle and displaying their bodies around New York City in a manner designed to provoke hostility between Downworlders and Shadowhunters, leaving tensions running high in the city and disrupting Clary’s plan to lead as normal a life as she can — training to be a Shadowhunter, and pursuing her relationship with Jace. As Jace and Clary delve into the issue of the murdered Shadowhunters, they discover a mystery that has deeply personal consequences for them — consequences that may strengthen their relationship, or rip it apart forever. Meanwhile, internecine warfare among vampires is tearing the Downworld community apart, and only Simon — the Daylighter who everyone wants on their side — can decide the outcome; too bad he wants nothing to do with Downworld politics. Love, blood, betrayal and revenge: the stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels

[Synopsis by Goodreads]

The Mortal Instruments is one of my favorite series, and so I was pretty anxiously awaiting the release of City Of Fallen Angels. I went and got it on the day of its release, and read it quickly, devouring the pages, desperate to see how it ended.

Like all of Cassandra Clare's other books, City Of Fallen Angels was a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat read.

My favorite thing about all of previous Mortal Instruments books was also in City Of Fallen Angels: a clever plot. Each character has their side plot, and they all tie together in the end for a huge complication. There's so much tension leading up to the end that I had to read the second half of the book in one sitting.

All of the old characters reappear, developed after the ordeals from City Of Glass. New, but old, characters also make appearances, like some from Clockwork Angel. I loved the parts that referred back to the prequel series.

Simon plays a bigger role in this book, and we get a lot of insight into Simon's anguish over becoming a vampire - with the Mark of Caine, no less. Clary and Jace's relationship is constantly strained. The Lightwoods mourn Max's death, in their own ways. And then all new problems arise.

I was happy to see that the events in the previous books tied into this one. I thought the second cycle of Mortal Instruments books would relate to the first only because of the same characters, and I was glad to be wrong.

I feel like I could rave all day about how much I love the Mortal Instruments and this new addition to the series, but really, if you are one of the few YA readers not already on the bandwagon, you should definitely jump on! I give City Of Fallen Angels a 5 out of 5!

Review: Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers

Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers

Pages: 230
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: December 21st,2010
IBSN: 9780312656737

When Eddie Reeves’s father commits suicide her life is consumed by the nagging question of why? Why when he was a legendary photographer and a brilliant teacher? Why when he seemed to find inspiration in everything he saw? And, most important, why when he had a daughter who loved him more than anyone else in the world? When she meets Culler Evans, a former student of her father’s and a photographer himself, an instant and dangerous attraction begins. Culler seems to know more about her father than she does and could possibly hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death. But Eddie’s vulnerability has weakened her and Culler Evans is getting too close. Her need for the truth keeps her hanging on...but are some questions better left unanswered?
[Synopsis by Goodreads]

Fall For Anything follows Eddie as she tries to understand her father's unexpected suicide. I knew immediately this wouldn't be some light, fluffy chick lit, but I really wasn't prepared for how intense it was.

The characters - each and every one of them - were fleshed out, and seemed to jump from the page. Their personalities were realistic and uncliched.

Courtney Summer's writing style was, as always, amazing. She's one of those authors who could write on any subject and still engage me. Her prose clearly evokes the Eddie's voice. I felt immediately sympathetic towards her, feeling depressed right along with her. I love books like this one - that can make you feel what your character does.

Fall For Anything maintains the same gritty tone that has completely enthralled me in the rest of Summers's books, but the plot felt different. Much more serious, with a mysterious element.

I case I had any doubt, this book settled it: Courtney Summers is the queen of bittersweet, realistic endings. Her books are the cure for fairy tales.

I give Fall For Anything a 5 out of 5, and look forward to what she comes up with next.