75% OK. CBR11 Review 11.

Last week, The Fug Girls had a book contest up on their site, and the book looked familiar to me. I almost always love the books that they recommend, so I wracked my brain trying to think of how I recognized this one…and then realized it was in my box of new releases for teen readers from work.

I’m of two minds on this one.

I get that I am not the demographic for this. There is a world of difference between YA fiction and middle school fiction. I think this leans closer toward advanced readers in middle school. Yeah, I’m not that.

The story is about a girl named Ivy who loves photography, and has always been a bit of a loner. She has one best friend, Harold, who is a genius and is involved in every single club at school — not only because it looks good on his transcripts, but because he genuinely wants to make the world a better place. He constantly asks Ivy to join some of the clubs he thinks she might like, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t think anyone wants to know what she thinks, about anything.

Ivy becomes obsessed with a new, anonymous social media app that supposedly encourages people to show their art. Of course, it ends up being a dumping ground for gossip and hate speech, because the internet.

Ivy slowly starts to figure out who some of the people posting on the app are around her, and decides to do nice things for them. The girl who can’t afford new paintbrushes? Easy. Ivy slips some into her backpack. The boy going through chemo? Ivy paints him a canvas. (This plot was a little weird. I really didn’t get why this was great. Hmm.).

But is Ivy helping these people, or taking advantage of their anonymity? Her good deeds slowly start to make the recipients angry. And when she completely misjudges who one of the users of the app is, her whole world tumbles down around her.

So, what I liked is that this story gently shows that social media is not always a friendly place. That much of what is put out to the world of the internet is not real life, and that when people have secrets, thats usually for a reason. We see the danger of teens becoming obsessed with a world that isn’t reality, and I think books like this are necessary these days. Sadly.

However.

The last 25% of this book was truly absurd. Ivy turned from a shy, artistic, loner to an ABSOLUTE IDIOT. The less said about her actions, the better. They were laughable. This pretty much ruined the book for me, sorry Fug Girls.

Randomly, the blurb on the front of this book is from Courtney Summers, who’s book Sadie I recently reviewed. I would have loved to see what Courtney Summers could have come up with here instead of the nonsense I got.

“I wish his darkness lived outside of him, because you have to know it’s there to see it. Like all real monsters, he hides in plain sight.” CBR11 Review 10.

A few weeks ago, I had a chance to go and see Cannonball favorite Karen McManus talking about her new book, Two Can Keep a Secret, along with another YA author I hadn’t previously heard of, Megan Miranda. I asked them a few questions during the panel, including wondering what they — as writers of suspenseful YA fiction — liked to read, and were currently reading.

They both, without hesitation, told me to read Sadie by Courtney Summers, right away.

So, I did.

I knew nothing going into this book, and I’m glad. I may not have otherwise picked it up.

This is a dark and angry book, filled with sadness and monsters. It was, at times, difficult to read. But it was wholly original, and at times, fascinating.

This story is told in alternating formats. The first part is as if we were reading the transcripts of a popular NPR-esque podcast, similar to Serial. The podcast covers the tragic story of a dead 13 year old girl in Colorado, and her loving sister, Sadie, who is now missing. The producers of the podcast try to figure out just where Sadie could be, and if she is anywhere at all. They retrace her steps, talking to everyone she came across since she left home, looking for answers.

The second part is told by Sadie. The details like why she left, where she plans to go, and what she plans to do slowly come out as we get to know her better.

Spoiler alert: none of the details are good.

Sadie hasn’t had an easy life. She grew up in a trailer, with an addict mother who has since abandoned her and her (murdered) little sister. The mother had a horrible string of boyfriends in the picture, and Sadie did everything she could to always protect and take care of her sister, as their mother was clearly unable to.

Sadie also stutters. She has trouble getting her point across, even in simple sentences. Most strangers think there’s something wrong with her. But Sadie is smart and cunning, and doing everything she can to perform this one last task she has set out to accomplish.

The story is excellent, the writing is realistic and raw.

SPOILERS

And what about the ending? Honestly, I don’t even know. The vague end of the podcast makes me hope for the best, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the worst. In a world as dark as the one Sadie has had to live in, nothing would really shock me anymore. Sometimes I like a vague ending, but I wish I had an answer this time. I want to know that Sadie is ok, and am worried that I might be very disappointed if I found out that she isn’t.

There’s really only one thing I didn’t like about this book:

The blurb on the cover is from AJ Finn, the recently disgraced author of The Woman in the Window. Did you all read about that? MY GOD.

 

Harry Dresden and the Dark Hallow: Yes, there are wizards, but this ain’t Hogwarts. CBR11 Review 9.

I’m still slowly making my way through these Harry Dresden books, all read to me by the fantastic James Marsters. And, as many cannonballers before me have stated, I’m enjoying each book slightly more than the one that came before it. I’m now fully invested into Harry’s world, and I can’t wait to start the next one.

In this one, Harry and Butters (the polka enthusiast-medical examiner), are on the run from a group of necromancers who have descended upon Chicago, all looking for something called “The Word of Kemmler.”

Harry has been blackmailed by Mavra, the vampire queen from previous books, to find this “word,” or else Mavra will hurt Murphy. But who else is looking for it? A new bunch of big bads, that’s for sure.

It turns out that Kemmler was the most powerful necromancer that the wizarding world has ever seen. And his disciples want to use his teachings, along with this mysterious “word” to turn themselves into gods, to wreak havoc upon the earth and all of its inhabitants.

With Murphy out of town, Harry and Butters (with help from Thomas) fight against zombies and necromancers, while Harry also finds himself suddenly a part of the white council, when he is recruited as a warden in the continuing war against the vampires.

Lots going on, including a romp through town on the back of Sue, Chicago’s famous T-Rex skeleton and a side plot with a thwarted romance for Harry, when the girl he falls for turns out to be the fallen angel (demon? I don’t even know!) Lasciel. I felt bad for Harry and the lonely life he lives.

I just downloaded the next audiobook, Proven Guilty, and hope to get to it soon. I’m having a good time with these.

“Having a trash chute was one of my favorite things about my building. It made me feel important, like I was participating in the world. My trash mixed with the trash of others. The things I touched touched things other people had touched. I was contributing, I was connecting.” CBR11 Review 8.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation was on a bunch of “Best of” lists at the end of 2018, and there was something about the cover that drew me to it. And now that I’ve finished it, while I’m glad I read it to see what the fuss was all about, I honestly have no idea if I liked it or hated it. I think both. But mostly hated it.

We have an unnamed narrator living in Manhattan in 1999-2000. She’s in her 20s, has inherited money (both parents have died), a nice apartment, and a model’s beauty. And she is sleeping for a year.

She’s found herself a crazy quack of a psychiatrist, one willing to prescribe pretty much any and every narcotic known to man. As long as our narrator tells her she has insomnia (which, clearly she doesn’t), the doctor keeps suggesting stronger and stronger medication, which our narrator hoards and mixes to see what keeps her from reality the longest.

She has one friend that keeps her somewhat tethered to the world around her, Reva. Reva comes and goes, with her personal anecdotes helping our narrator keep track of the outside world. Reva invites her to birthday parties, New Year’s Eve celebrations, etc. Our narrator claims that she can’t stand Reva and wants to sever their relationship, but in her weird way, she needs Reva and the tiny slice of human interaction she provides.

Our narrator finds that some of the medication she takes has her going out at night, doing things and meeting people she doesn’t remember. At one point she wakes up on a train, in a white fur coat, on her way to Long Island for Reva’s mother’s funeral, which she had adamantly planned to NOT attend. Makes me think that her sleeping self is probably her true self — the self that says and does the things she really wants to do and is the person she really wants to be, if only she could get clear of the depression she clearly suffers from but doesn’t acknowledge.

I don’t know much about depression or mental illness, but this whole book rubbed me the wrong way. This girl needed help and nobody — even Reva — ever attempts to give her any.

And so, the story goes on and on until (SPOILER ALERT, BUT NOT REALLY SINCE THIS IS ALL CLEARLY LEADING UP TO THIS) September 11, when our narrator “wakes up.”

Look, this book is very well written, and the author really brings this time period alive. The nostalgia factor for me was high. But I have no need to ever read anything again from this writer. I hated everyone in this book and really felt gross about everyone’s actions. The narrator. Her skeevy “boyfriend.” Reva. They all infuriated me.