Scootsa1000′s #CBR5 Review 20: Sever by Lauren DeStefano

Anyone remember that episode of Seinfeld when Elaine was trying to get enough holes in her punchcard for a free sub, even though the sandwich shop was disgusting and the subs were terrible? She couldn’t stop eating them because she wanted her free sub as a prize. And then she lost the card when she gives a fake phone number to the man they simply call “denim vest”?

That’s how I feel about this book. This book was my bad sub.

I didn’t like the first two books of the trilogy, but I couldn’t not read the last book. I know, I’m an idiot.

Sever takes place immediately after the events of Wither and Fever. Our supposed heroine, Rhine, is on a mad quest to find her brother, who has apparently turned into a domestic terrorist. And he seems to have information about their parents and maybe a key to finding the cure for the virus that kills everyone.

But it takes her more than half of the book to actually get up and begin to look for him. She keeps saying that she has to go, but she doesn’t. So annoying.

Other annoyances:

The trilogy is called “The Chemical Garden Trilogy”. But the phrase Chemical Garden is only used three times and barely even explained. WTF?

The writing is redundant and boring. Rhine tells us over and over and over and over that her sister-wife Cecily has really grown up over the past year. She’s so grown up now. Did I mention that she’s really grown?

Rhine cannot make up her mind about anything. She loves Linden. She wants to stay with Linden. She can’t be married to Linden anymore. She misses Linden. ENOUGH.

Worst of all is Linden’s father, Vaughn. Is he a hero or a villain? I honestly have no idea. He was described as both and opinion constantly flip-flopped.

Silver Lining here: I’m all done and there aren’t any more books in this series. I am a glutton for punishment.

Let’s finish up on a lighter note, with something from Denim Vest, the great Kevin McDonald.

Scootsa1000′s #CBR5 Review 19: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I haven’t given out many 5-star reviews during my tenure as a CBR participant. To me, 5-star means a book that I’m completely in awe of. One that I’m so jealous that someone else wrote. I wish I was Rainbow Rowell, and that these characters she invented were mine. I wish this book had never ended. I would have read it forever.

And come on. The reviews from narfna and Travis_J_Smith say it all. This book is perfection.

Attachments is a love story. But its also about best friends. And finding yourself. And parents letting go. And growing up.

And its super funny. And sometimes sad.

Lincoln, the perennial college student, finds a job as an IT tech on the night shift at a small Nebraska newspaper. Part of his job is to follow up on emails that have been “red flagged” with inappropriate content, and to send warnings to the people involved in the email discussion. Which is fine, until he starts reading email conversations between best friends Jennifer and Beth.

Lincoln gets swept up into their lives, and falls in love with Beth.

Before he ever even knows what she looks like.

And when Beth emails that she has a crush on the handsome, mystery IT guy, I was practically cheering when I realized it was Lincoln.

I loved that this book was about Y2K, the most useless problem ever invented. I worked on a Y2K task force in 1999, and I remember thinking what a complete and utter waste of time it was.

I loved that this book had best friends in it that were funny and honest. They weren’t afraid to critique each other about potential mistakes they were making in their lives. And they both loved Colin Firth.

And I know it was a bit creepy the way that Lincoln was virtually stalking Beth, but c’mon. He was just so cute about it. And it was pretty much his job to read her email, so there’s that.

Thanks to everyone who has been recommending Rainbow Rowell this year. I can’t wait to read Eleanor and Park next.

 

Scootsa1000′s #CBR5 Review 18: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Sometimes I’ll discover a new writer and devour as much of their work as I can really quickly. And while I usually enjoy the books, I do find that some authors have a tendency to repeat certain important themes that are relevant to them. Jennifer Weiner usually writes about a girl who used to be fat, who became less fat by swimming, and does not have a father figure in her life. Sarah Dessen really likes the beach, seems to dislike parents of all kinds, and usually has a non-reported date rape show up at some point in her books. And I guess Gayle Forman really likes the idea that every story has two sides.

Her first set of “he said/she said” books were If I Stay and Where She Went, which told the same story from different perspectives. One book I liked much more than the other, but still a refreshing way to tell a love story.

Forman is in the midst of repeating herself with her new characters from Just One Day. In this book, we meet Allyson, a “good girl” who has had her entire life planned out for her by her parents, and who has never gone astray from these plans. Until she meets a handsome actor while she’s touring Europe with a teen tour group, and she suddenly runs off to Paris with him.

They spend a single day together, and for Allyson, her entire life changes.

While I didn’t completely buy that Allyson would trek halfway around the world to try and find a boy that she spent 24 hours with, I did like the way that Allyson was written. I felt bad for her when she couldn’t acclimate to life in college, and I loved her friend Dee. I was relieved when she and her mom finally re-evaluated their status as mother and daughter, which ended up strengthening — and ultimately saving — their relationship.

And I’m sure Willem was super cute and fun, and I”m glad he made her realize all of these hidden things about herself. But still. I’m not sure that the last 50 pages needed to happen. An independent trip to Paris to replay the night they shared? Sure. But her impromptu visit over to Amsterdam seemed more like stalking to me.

In any event, I’m curious to see how Forman presents Willem’s side of the story in her next book. And Forman’s writing makes the story worthwhile, even if I don’t necessarily believe the plot (a problem I also had with Where She Went). And it really, really made me want to go back to Paris.

 

Favorite gif Ever. That’s All.

Scootsa1000′s #CBR5 Review 17: Prodigy by Marie Lu

Why do I keep reading these YA trilogies? I always know going in to them that I’m going to be disappointed, and that the first book will always be the best. I feel like these authors are being forced by publishers to take good stories and split them into three, even if the story isn’t strong enough, or long enough, to do so. Curse you, Twilight!

Prodigy, book #2 of the “Legend trilogy”, definitely suffers from trilogy-itis. While there are some strong bits and interesting plot points, overall the story suffers from being stretched out into an entire book. I read Legend last year, and thought much the same. Marie Lu has some talent, for sure. Her narrative is rarely boring, and she succeeds where many others who attempt to tell the story from alternating points of view — her characters actually have different voices and have different things to say.

This book takes place pretty much immediately after the end of Legend. June and Day are on the run from the Republic, heading to get help from The Patriots, who may be able to find Day’s brother. They get caught up in an assassination attempt on the new Elector (who is, of course, young and handsome), and June and Day discover that not everything they have been led to believe is the truth. Surprise.

For once, I’d like to read a trilogy that doesn’t have a forced love triangle, or quadrilateral, or any shape at all. Day loves June. June loves Day. Anden really likes June. And Tess loves Day. And Kaede seems to like someone, but we never really find out about that, thankfully. So much time is spent being jealous and whining about who likes who, I really wanted to whip out my red editing pen and mark the hell out of this whole plot. We could have saved 100 pages that way.

(Also, I could have easily taken out another 50 pages of June’s weird OCD descriptions of stuff. How she counts seconds and measures rooms and all of those creepy details. Was she such a type A in the first book? I can’t remember.)

I didn’t hate the book and am not walking away as annoyed as when I finished Requiem. But still.

I wish it had been better. I just feel like there was a bit more potential from the first book and am slightly bummed out that it was so very generic.

Bunnybean’s #CBR5 Review 5: Bake Sale by Sara Varon

Bake Sale is a really cute graphic novel about food — the two main characters are Eggplant and Cupcake, who are best friends.

Cupcake has a problem: He wants to go to Turkey with Eggplant to meet Eggplant’s aunt’s friend, Turkish Delight, who is a great baker. And Cupcake owns a bakery!

So Cupcake starts saving up money by baking special things and having really popular bake sales. But suddenly, the printing company where Eggplant works is going out of business, so it looks like Eggplant won’t be able to go to Turkey. And Cupcake only saved up enough money for one ticket.

Of course, Cupcake decides to be a good friend and give Eggplant the money for the ticket.

When Eggplant comes back, he brings lots of spices for Cupcake’s shop. And they see an ad for a baking contest in a magazine, where the winner gets two plane tickets to anywhere in the world! They start baking right away!

I really liked this story. I loved the characters of Cupcake, Eggplant, Carrot (a waiter in a restaurant), and Sugar (one of Cupcake’s best customers). The pictures are cute and a little bit silly and fun, and there are some recipes at the end of the book that sound delicious.

Scootsa1000′s #CBR5 Review 16: Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

So many other Cannonballers have read this one, there isn’t much left for me to say. So I’ll keep it brief.

Bee’s mom, Bernadette, disappears under mysterious circumstances. She’s suffered for years in a city that she doesn’t love, surrounded by people that she thought she hated. She left a failed career behind her in Los Angeles and now lets her husband — a big player at Microsoft — be the star of the family.

The story is told through letters, emails, transcribed TED talks, magazine articles, interviews, and other correspondence — some directly from Bernadette, and some just about her. And young genius Bee uses this paper trail to try and find out what happened to her mother and where she could be now.

While I didn’t love the ending (really, the whole Antarctica storyline was a bit much for me), I did love pretty much every other thing about this book. I loved the hilariously nasty emails that went back and forth between the other moms at Bee’s school (this is why I don’t get too involved with the PTA at our local elementary school!), and also enjoyed the increasingly crazed emails sent from Bernadette to her “virtual assistant” in India.

Completely original and entertaining. Glad I finally got around to it. Thanks Cannonball friends!!

Scootsa1000′s #CBR5 Review 15: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Recently, I’ve hit a bad patch of YA trilogy installments. I couldn’t stand Reached and was quite disappointed by Requiem (side note: I think my days of giving the benefit of the doubt to Lauren Oliver are officially over. Lauren, you and I are through. Sorry.) And then I read — and liked — Scarlet, the second book in the Lunar Chronicles trilogy (remember the first one came out last year, Cinder.  I liked it a lot).

I’m wondering if Scarlet is really that much better than those other books, or if I’m just glad it wasn’t terrible. Its been two weeks, and I still don’t know which side I’m on with this.

Scarlet picks up right where Cinder left off, but instead of being a story all about Linh Cinder, lunar princess/cyborg mechanic and her attempt to save handsome emperor Kai from the clutches of the evil lunar queen, we are introduced to a second plot somewhat based on Little Red Riding Hood. Scarlet is a young girl living on a farm in rural France with her grandmother. Scarlet always wears a red hoodie. When her grandmother goes missing, she teams up with a strange, handsome, new guy in town named Wolf.

Scarlet and Wolf race to Paris to attempt to save her grandmother, who is in trouble for hiding some big secret.

And just maybe, that secret has something to do with the young lunar princess who was secretly adopted in France before moving to Beijing years ago.

While it took me a while to warm up to the new characters (really, at first I was annoyed when the chapter POV was about Scarlet, when all I wanted was to find out more about Cinder), after a few chapters I was into the new story. I liked some of the new characters better than others (verdict is still out on Wolf, but I enjoyed the comic relief of Carswell Thorne), and I’m looking forward to seeing how Meyer integrates all of these characters into the next books (one I think will be based on Rapunzel, and one on Snow White).

Scootsa1000′s #CBR5 Review 14: In the Pleasure Groove by John Taylor

I am old enough to remember when MTV used to play music videos — all day long. I loved MTV. I learned about a ton of bands I didn’t know much about before — The Jam, The Cure, The Clash, and especially, Duran Duran. Rio is the only album that I’ve purchased on LP, cassette, CD, and digitally. I’ve seen Duran Duran in concert about a bazillion times, and after over 30 years of playing music, I think they are as good now as they ever were. (Seriously, their most recent album is really good. Mark Ronson produced it.**)

So, really, I couldn’t help myself when I saw John Taylor’s face staring out at me on the new release section of the library yesterday. I had to read this book.

John tells his entire life story, starting with his childhood and his Catholic upbringing in working-class Birmingham. And then, one day, he hears Roxy Music, and his life is changed forever. John and his friends (at this point, John still goes by Nigel, his given name), including young Nick Rhodes, start up a series of terrible bands. He drops out of school, buys records and clothes, experiments with make up and hair, and starts to make a name for himself as a local musician.

And then, somehow, he and Nick find themselves in a band called Duran Duran. John spends pages and pages describing how the band came to be, what they sounded like, and what their influences were. Girls loved them and they quickly shot to the top of the charts.

He describes their ascent to fame, and how it changed their lives so suddenly. And then John describes the drugs and the women.

So many drugs. So many women (or girls, I guess I should say). So much cocaine.

More interesting to me than the fame of Duran Duran was their failure and then their rebirth in the 90s. The band broke up, other groups were created and disbanded, but they always found their way back to each other, and kept making music together.

John finds sobriety after the birth of his daughter (with ex-wife, socialite extraordinaire, Amanda De Cadenet) and before the death of his parents. And now he plays music sober for the first time, but finds that the music is all that he needs.

I’m still a fan of Duran Duran, but not so much of this book. The writing was repetitive and weak (so weak, that I’m assuming he actually wrote this book on his own). And he doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of himself. He comes off as smug and snobbish. But at least Simon Le Bon comes off well. I’ve always been a Simon girl.

**Attached below is a video from their recent cd. Not bad for a bunch of old guys.

Bunnybean’s #CBR5 Review 4: Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

My teacher just finished reading this book to the whole class. Its about a boy named Gregor and his baby sister Boots. They get magically transported to the “underland”, which is sort of an underground world. They get sent on a quest to save their father, who is also missing in the underland. The people and creatures who live in the underland tell Gregor that they knew he would come, there was a prophecy about him coming to fight for them.

They meet a lot of different characters along the way: Luxa, who will someday be queen of the underland; Ripred, a rat who fights along with people; Ares, who is really strong; Henry, Luxa’s cousin; Vikus, Luxa’s grandfather; Temp and Tic, who are talking cockroaches; and Gregor’s Dad who has been kidnapped by rats.

I got kind of confused and jumbled up by all of the different characters, because every time I thought I figured out who was who, then more new characters would come.

Gregor and Boots fight against the rats and finally get their dad back.

I liked Tick, Aurora, and Boots. And my favorite part was when they got attacked by spiders.

There are more books about Gregor, and my teacher is soon going to read the second one to us. But if I could choose myself, I don’t think I’d keep reading this series.