Review: On the Come Up - Angie Thomas

On the Come Up
Angie Thomas
Genre/Age: Contemporary, Young Adult
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least make it out of her neighborhood one day. As the daughter of an underground rap legend who died before he hit big, Bri’s got big shoes to fill. But now that her mom has unexpectedly lost her job, food banks and shutoff notices are as much a part of Bri’s life as beats and rhymes. With bills piling up and homelessness staring her family down, Bri no longer just wants to make it—she has to make it.

On the Come Up is Angie Thomas’s homage to hip-hop, the art that sparked her passion for storytelling and continues to inspire her to this day. It is the story of fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you; of the struggle to become who you are and not who everyone expects you to be; and of the desperate realities of poor and working-class black families.

Review: Lord of Shadows - Cassandra Clare

Lord of Shadows
Cassandra Clare
Series: The Dark Artifices, #2
Genre: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

Honestly, I think it's w i l d how Cassandra Clare keeps getting better with every book she writes. Like, I'm pretty sure my order of favorites is just the order they were all released chronologically. How does one woman have so much power???

Anyway, I'm sorry I waited so long to write this review. I didn't even READ the book until July (I know, GASP) because I was busy with exams and then summer classes and then exams and then packing, and then I went on vacation, so I read large chunks in snippets of free time while romping around Pakistan until I finished and I realized my entire life was just over, ruined, deceased. At which point it took me until now to emotionally recover enough to get myself here.

Since I am a human whose thoughts (and life) are constantly scattered, especially when it comes to novels this dense, I will attempt to ~organize~ my thoughts for you via bullet points. I'm gonna be real with you right now, though, and say there wasn't really anything I didn't like, so if you're looking for a nuanced review painstakingly weighing the positives and the negatives, this is not that. Maybe next time. Anyway, here is a list of Things I Loved:

• faeries
• Faeries in general are one of my favorite subjects of lore. I think Cassandra Clare's faeries are a fantastic extension of that, and I would honestly just love some sort of expanded world piece on just the fae. This is the second book in the series so I obviously knew faeries were ~relevant~ here but man did she kick it up a notch, and man was I NOT expecting it. 
• If you read the last book (note: this is a spoiler-free review but Lady Midnight spoilers are fair game because homie, why are you reading the review for the sequel without reading the first book?) you remember Mark Blackthorn (half-faerie, half-Shadowhunter) and his faerie boyfriend Kieran from the Wild Hunt. Honestly, everything involving them had me #shook. I love them. My sons. 
• The Wild Hunt homies have such a cadence about them that I really wish they were around for like...the whole book. Petition for a faerie-focused sequel. Petition for a faerie focused series. Petition to turn me into a faerie.
• Also on a slightly more analytic note, I loved that this book really delved more into what it actually means not just to be a faerie in this world, but to be half-faerie, and the nuances of all these relationships. Lady Midnight kinda dealt it with (I talked about it a little in my review of it) but LoS definitely amps it up. 
• CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 
• ohhhhhhhhhh my god 
• I don't even know where to START. 
• Emma and Julian: God, it wasn't just painful reading their parts. I was eviscerated. And I just...wanted it? I wanted the pain. They wanted the pain. We are all masochists. You really see how young they are and how much they've been through in this book. Sometimes books can make young protagonists just be nonchalant heroes all the time, but the audience here is constantly reminded that these are children who watched a war happen, who grew up so suddenly, who have been acting as adults for so long. 
• Smol Blackthorns
• I was gonna talk about each one separately but it was gonna get reaaaalll long. I think it's not particularly necessary to talk about them all though. While I thought they were all amazing, each with their own stand-out personality traits, the ones who stood out the most were Livvy and Ty. I loved their whole twin thing and the fact that they kinda coerced Kit Herondale into being friends with them and that Livvy is super sassy to everyone except Ty, who she protects with her life, and that Ty is very clearly neurodivergent but Shadowhunters don't allow mundane medicine so they don't even know what autism IS and so not only did Cassandra Clare write a three-dimensional, essential-to-the-plot autistic character who is honestly amazing, she highlighted a flaw in her own universe in which this high and mighty behavior is detrimental to Shadowhunters themselves. 
• KIT HERONDALE
• A GEM
• Kit Herondale was 100% my favorite part of this entire book and probably my entire life. This kid was sassy, rude, an asshole, and 100000% in love with one of the characters and I am HERE FOR IT. Honestly, I loved that at first he REFUSED to be a Shadowhunter because it felt pretty realistic. If you know yourself as someone all your life, it's gonna take a little while to adjust to being someone else with an entirely different set of expectations. I also loved that he slowly, reluctantly made friends with Ty and Livvy but refused to acknowledge it as such. What a precious little child. Also, there is a SHIP BREWING involving Kit and I LOVE IT. I WANT IT. 
• DIANA
• I can't say anything that isn't a spoiler but trust me that not only was her story FANTASTIC just representation wise, but also a reiteration of my earlier point that I love that Clare lowkey is poking holes in her own world (even if that wasn't her intention and was just a byproduct) -- not in a way that makes her world bad!! However, some fantasy worlds are like, too perfect. In Diana's case, she's a character who should go under trial via Mortal Sword for some scenario but can't because it would reveal something about her past that the Clave would have to retroactively punish, even though she's basically perfect.
• Cristina
• I love Cristina. I am not a huge fan of Diego or Jaime but *shrug guy*
• This is all I will say. 
• ZARA
• insert *the worst* dinosaur emoji
• Honestly there are more characters but either #spoilers or they're not as relevant or I can't think of them right now. 
• Plot
• So many things happened. I'm not gonna lie, I have a LOT of questions and if I spend any more time thinking about them, I'm gonna become a person who thinks of potential plot theories before the next book comes out, which is fine if you enjoy that, but I have way too many responsibilities to devote myself to conspiracies full time. Like, it's 4am right now and I still have to do my readings for class tomorrow (today). I could never be a theorist.
• Some highlights that won't make sense to you if you haven't read the book but I can't elaborate because I don't wanna be a jerk and spoil the book:
• Cortana did something cool and I am shook 
• S e e l i e Q u e e n  
• The ending absolutely GUTTED me. I didn't think it was real, I thought there had to be more and there was no more, and then I thought I read it wrong and then I didn't. I am empty. 
• I love that Julian really explored his dark, vengeful side in this book because it is terrifying and so very different from what the children see and the juxtaposition of Home Julian and Scary Julian is super wild and super interesting. 
• I think I'm actually a little in love with Julian ngl. 
• I loved the character who returned from the last book. Super well done and I thought the pacing was on point. 
• Magnus was in this book was stressfully. As in he stressed me out. Rude. 

Overall, LoS was phenomenal. I'm glad Cassandra Clare decided to use this book to expand on the way identity is entangled with politics, and that she took a more introspective approach rather than a surface level one (not to say her other books are surface level! this one is just way more interested in the "why" and the "who" than the "what") Anyway, I'm sorry if my review was all over the place, but so am I. I'm probably gonna see this posted and realize I missed like 50 things I wanted to talk about. If you see anything you want to discuss, leave a comment, or hit me up on any of my social media links (the sidebar is to the right) and we can cry together. 

Pick a Blackthorn. 
Let us know in the comments!

Review: Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman

Norse Mythology
Neil Gaiman
Series: N/A
Genre: Mythology, Short Stories
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

The concept of mythology plays a strong role in our cultural narrative; whether Norse, Roman, Egyptian, or one of the myriad of other mythologies, people have been captivated by these stories for centuries. In his book, Neil Gaiman cherry-picks a few Nordic tales and weaves them together. It's pretty straightforward -- you get what the title implies -- but if you're even a little interested in the subject I highly recommend you pick it up.

The writing itself was very unembellished, in a way that felt like there was a narrator speaking to me directly, rather than an author gathering tales. You know in movies when the characters will visit an old person and the old person will start a story and it'll fade into the scene and you'll forget they're talking (like the beginning of Titanic)? It felt kinda like that. Like bedtime stories almost. Lulling, relaxing. (If I'm not making sense, I'm trying to say I liked the writing style and felt like it worked well with the tone of the book)

The stories were honestly so great too. Gaiman did a great job choosing stories. I'm sure there were sooooooo many to choose from and tons more great Norse myths that would have been fun to read but I wasn't bored reading a single one of these stories and I really loved how the characters made recurring appearances and how some of the asides made by the narrator kinda popped up as central focuses in other stories. It provided a kindof linking thread between the stories, making them not really part of a narrative but more than just a bunch of random myths thrown together from the same geographic area. Also, I loved the way the narrator kept leading up to Ragnarok and the way Gaiman wrote about it. All in all, the whole thing was really well done.

I'm beating a dead horse at this point by saying Neil Gaiman is my favorite author but I always have to mention it just in case someone doesn't know so here's my obligatory mention, and by reading this it was easy to remember why: it's easy to throw a bunch of stories that already exist together into an anthology but it's a lot more difficult to rework them into something cohesive and fluid while adding your own voice, which is what Gaiman did. (Let's not note that he did all that and I wasn't even capable of reading it for a month and a half after it came out because I'm trash RIP)

Where will you be on Ragnarok?

Let us know in the comments!

Review: The Sun Is Also a Star - Nicola Yoon

The Sun Is Also a Star
Nicola Yoon
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

How fitting that, in the wake of the cataclysmic outcome of the 2016 election, I am reviewing a book whose plot is driven by one character's impending deportation. Like, this book was so real when I read my ARC in July, and it was even more real last week when I skimmed through it again because I was supposed to post this review a week ago but of course that did not happen, and now it's even more more real post-election.

Before I start actually ~reviewing~, a brief preface/disclaimer. If you don't know, this book is about two teens -- Natasha and Daniel -- and takes place over the course of one day, a day that begins with them meeting and ends with Natasha (and her family)'s deportation to Jamaica. Some of the reviews I've read have chided it for instalove, but I think in a book marketed as a love story, with the time restrictions of the plot very clear in the description, it's inevitable that two characters will develop a relationship more quickly/intensely than would work in another, slower paced book. This doesn't mean it's something bad and I think it's something that works within the vacuum of books like this.

Anyway, I have so much to say about this beautiful, beautiful book and I have no idea where to start. We have Natasha: a fan of physics and math and the nontemporary and measurable (read: does not believe in love) and Daniel: supposed to go to Yale and be the Perfect Korean Doctor Son but really wants to write sad poems and look into people's eyes and talk about love all the time. Their paths cross and the story alternates point of view between them. Even though it mostly focuses on the day at hand, sometimes there are some introspective chapters about their lives and one of my favorite parts of the book is that there are a lot of cool vignettes. I said it alternated between their POV and while that's mostly true, there are short, one or two page scenes from the view of the USCIS officer, or Natasha's dad, or the train conductor, or explaining multiverses. I loved the vignettes so much, I thought they added such a nice touch to the story.

Daniel and Natasha themselves were such well developed characters, along with their families and even the one-off characters. I could feel Natasha trying to quash her own hopes when going to the USCIS building because, in her words "The trouble with getting your hopes too far up is: it's a long way down." I felt the seed in Daniel growing that wanted to throw caution to the wind. I felt the tiredness in Mrs. Kingsley's body after years of living her life with no reprieve. In a book with everything happening so quickly, it would have been so easy for character development to have been hasty and forced, but it felt so easy and natural, like they had known each other their whole lives, like they just fit together.

Of course, a lot of parts of the book might not have worked if the writing wasn't as eloquent as it was. Like, I went back to some of the pages I marked for quotes and just ended up reading half the book over again because it was so captivating. There is something elegant written on every page. Some books are all elegance and no substance but The Sun Is Also a Star packed so much into so few pages. Natasha and Daniel tackled their different experiences as first-generation immigrant children of different social classes, with different expectations of them and different expectations of their parents. They talked about uncertainty in life and love and there was just so much to take away from this book, whether from Natasha and Daniel and their 36 questions, or their respective families, or the short glimpses into other characters' lives.

I could honestly gush about this book for hours so I will stop here while I've kept some coherency, but on an end note: when Nicola Yoon's first book, Everything, Everything came out last year, I absolutely loved it and was both excited for her next book but afraid it would not live up to her debut. The Sun Is Also a Star has destroyed those fears and shown that Yoon is a phenomenal author with a beautiful gift for spinning words and I cannot wait to read all the books she writes in the future.

- Noor

Do you believe there is a science to falling in love?

Let us know in the comments!

Blog Tour Review: Holding Up The Universe - Jennifer Niven

Holding Up the Universe
Jennifer Niven
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young readers
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

I have so many feelings about this book!!!! I don't even know where to start!!!!!!!! I read the ARC Kiersten picked up for me at BEA back in August and seeing the hype surrounding the release a few days ago just makes me want to reread it and take it all in again (which tbh I will probably do when I'm not tryna write 15 papers).

Holding Up the Universe shifts between two points of view: 1. Jack Masselin, who has prosopagnosia, or face-blindness (basically everyone looks like strangers to him, even his own family) but for some reason does not tell anyone and just tries to fake it til he makes it, and 2. Libby Strout, who, after her mother's death, started stress/binge eating and ended up being dubbed "America's Fattest Teen" and had to be cut out of her house but has since lost enough weight to stop homeschooling and go back to high school.

Both of these characters were so phenomenally well-written I can't possibly do them justice in a review. But this was most certainly a character-driven story, so I guess I do have to talk about them and attempt to show you why I love them. Jack oozed ~swagger~ and ~cool guy vibes~ but inside was just a precious little nerd. I found him so endearing and also so incredibly real like at any moment while I was reading I would look up and he would be there, spouting off his dialogue. He had a calculated, mathematical way of thinking that sounded so intriguing and engaging.

Libby also felt super real, but I feel like I just liked Jack a lil bit more and so I connected to him a little more. This isn't to say I didn't like Libby of course because she was great. Her character also could have been in the room in front of me and I would not have been surprised. Libby was definitely a lot ~softer~ than Jack. She loved dancing and literature and writing quotes on her shoes and finding herself in unexpected places. Her narration was also always eloquent and expressive. Also, she had this book she was obsessed with, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and it looked and sounded super cool and I looked it up and it's being made into a 2017 movie with Sebastian Stan and Alexandra Daddario and the girl who played Violet in AHS (also, it was a really cool, well-incorporated motif throughout the book which is why I bothered looking it up in the first place).

Anyway, Jack and Libby seem like characters from such different walks of life but they're alike in a lot of ways -- tough exteriors, squishy interiors, etc -- and their stark differences really help them grow as individuals and also find the things that are similar. I don't know if that made sense, but the two have a lot of chemistry. I was rooting for them so hard.

The story is cute and one of my favorite contemporaries I've read this year. I know it's gonna be a book I read hella times. Jennifer Niven makes the reading experience seem like you're not even reading, just floating through the lives and the drama of the characters. Her writing just feels so effortless. The characters are so well-developed -- side characters included -- and the story draws you in both with the main plot and the tiny little details that add so much to the story. Basically, read the book. You will not regret it.

Also, before I end, one quick note. I've seen some ~~controversy~~ about the book and people finding it offensive and I think a lot of it was posted in the months leading up to the release from people who hadn't actually read it, but like, it's not an offensive or distasteful book in the slightest. Libby doesn't become ~thin and beautiful~ and then get the guy and Jack doesn't love her "despite" her body and there's no magic weight loss journey or whatever else people are crying about. The book is a diverse, beautifully written journey of two teens struggling with their respective issues and it doesn't trivialize or make fun of those issues in any way.

- Noor

Cool guy vibes or cute dancing queen vibes?
Let us know in the comments!

Review: Tales of the Peculiar - Ransom Riggs

Tales of the Peculiar
Ransom Riggs
Series: Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, 0.5
Genre: Paranormal, Fantasy
Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

I've mentioned on more than a few occasions how invested I am in the world of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children so it should come as no shock that I preordered this new addition to the series forever ago.

Tales of the Peculiar is to the Miss Peregrine's universe what Grimms' Fairy Tales are to this one. The ten stories are a collection of folklore featuring peculiars, and they're all told a little bit differently -- a clear fairytale, a life lesson, a hidden message.

I didn't know a short, standalone story collection like this was something I wanted or needed until I read this but now that I have, I can't believe I lived without one for so long.

The writing is absolutely phenomenal. Each story has its own tone, but there is an overarching style that makes the book feel cohesive and not just like a few stories thrown together. It flowed super well and there was a cadence to the writing that made even the macabre parts of the stories seem compelling rather than shocking.

The stories themselves were captivating and I loved that Ransom Riggs took this opportunity to go somewhere new. In the series, he is bound by the rules of his own plot, but here, there are no rules. These are short, standalone stories. One of my favorite aspects of the series itself actually is just the concept of the peculiars and the writing of the books so combining both these things into a book that doesn't need to follow a plot or the rules of one was super exciting for me. There was a story about a princess and about a ghost (side note: I love ghosts (also princesses)) and about the origin of ymbrynes and they took place all over the world so it was a really cool experience reading all the stories. The book is really short too -- the ten stories take up 160 pages total and it's easy to read in one short sitting.

Als, the book is narrated by Millard Nullings (who you'll recognize if you've read the series) and his character offers annotations in the form of footnotes throughout the stories. I thought this was a really nice touch and added to the reading experience.

If you're a fan of the series already, I think you should definitely read this book. It has all the elegant writing of Miss Peregrine's but with fun, new one-off stories that I don't see how anyone could dislike. If you haven't read the series, I personally would read it before reading Tales of the Peculiar, if only for a little background info (also I just like reading things in order), but if you don't have that kinda time or inclination, you can definitely still read it on its own without feeling confused!

Basically, I love it and you should all read it. On an end note, the physical book itself is beautiful and whether you buy it or not, please go admire a copy right now. It's green with a gold leaf print embossed onto the hardcover (rather than a book jacket) and it's got beautiful pages and inside print and I just love everything about this book. If I wasn't on my computer I'd put several crying emojis here.

- Noor

What's your favorite fairytale/folktale?
Let us know in the comments!

Double Review: A Court of Mist and Fury - Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Mist and Fury
Sarah J. Maas
Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, New Adult
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

Never before have I finished reading a book and immediately wanted to reread it. Until A Court of Mist and Fury.

Honestly, I knew from all the hype that ACOMAF was going to be an amazing second installment in the ACOTAR series, but it still toppled and demolished my expectations. This is definitely my favorite Sarah J. Maas book to date and definitely one of my favorite books of all time.

There is something that was so perfect about ACOMAF for me. Something about the characters and the story it was telling - not necessarily the bigger plot issues but the personal struggle of the characters - that struck a cord with me. Not only was Sarah J. Maas's storytelling as compelling as all her other books, but in this particular book, I really connected with Feyre. Sure, most people love Celaena and Feyre, wanting to connect with those strong women, but in this book, I felt Feyre's bonds so much more deeply than I have reading any other book. Her new friends were my new friends. Her new home was my new home.

I'm 100% definitely still in denial about this book being over. I do not accept that I have to leave this book. Nope. I want to crawl into the pages and live in the moments between these characters. If I was invited into this book as a guest, I'm the guest who you literally have to kick out onto the streets after they've outstayed their welcome because I refuse to leave.

Ok, momentary break in me feeling my feels to actually analyze some things that happened in this book?

I love the way Sarah J. Maas built all these different relationship dynamics in ACOMAF, clearly juxtaposing many healthy and toxic relationships. I feel like using a fantasy book with a largely young/new adult fan base was such a great way to educate young people in seeing the signs of unhealthy relationships. This wasn't a book about emotional abuse, but at the same time, it was - it taught a lesson to readers without being the Moral of the Story.

I also loved the way Sarah J. Maas portrayed Feyre's mental state following the events from ACOTAR. Bad things happened Under the Mountain, and something in Feyre changed as a result. She felt a lot of guilt, but it was more than that. She wasn't the same person anymore, just like the people around her weren't the same after what happened. Feyre felt like there were pieces of her missing, holes where things she used to love used to be, and the way Sarah J. Maas described it felt particularly real.

A Court of Mist and Fury is a huge book, and it was perfect. There's nothing I would take out or add to this book. It was just so satisfying - it left me dying for more without the actual emotional pain that sometimes comes with finishing a book in a series and having to wait for the next. My need for the next book is certainly there, but at the same time, I am satisfied with just living in this one for a little bit longer, holding onto it for as long as I can. I loved A Court of Mist and Fury, and I can't wait to see what Sarah J. Maas has in store for us next.

Also I'm dying for Feyre to tell everyone off in the next book. I can't wait.

- Kiersten

Noor's Review of A Court of Mist and Fury
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars 

If Sarah J. Maas wrote a 2000 page book solely about Feyre hanging out and screwing around with her squad from this book, I would read and relish every single page.

Like Kiersten, as soon as I finished ACOMAF I just wanted to read it again. Well, actually, my first desire was to immediately have the next book because I needed to know what was going to happen to Feyre in her new situation but then I thought about it and as much as I need the next book, I like the characters and setting of this book so I just wanted to go back and feel it all again.

If you thought ACOTAR was good, ACOMAF blows it out of the water as it ascends its throne of Being Phenomenal. And if you haven't even read its predecessor yet, please do so immediately so you can experience this series in all its glory.

There are so many amazing parts of this book that add up to create a flawless story. Like the last book, there's a lot of focus on character development and I think it's done so beautifully. Feyre experienced a lot of trauma at the end of ACOTAR and the repercussions are explored in ACOMAF -- she definitely has a lot of PTSD and Sarah J. Maas works it into her narration and thoughts and hesitations so well. You can see that her character literally grows and changes as a person rather than being the same and just referencing the traumatic event a lot. I loved Feyre and her development and can't wait to see her become even more kickass as the series progresses.

We're introduced to more characters in this book -- as well as exploring the development of some we've already met -- and the setting changes as well, allowing us to learn more about the world Feyre now calls home. We get to know a lot more about Rhysand, the Night Court faerie we only caught glimpses of in ACOTAR, and I thought his character exploration was so well-done and astoundingly written. I just wanted to keep reading about his life and way he governs his city and his powers -- it was all so intriguing. We also meet his squad, and they're also such intriguing characters. Like, there's a super old and powerful Amren who drinks blood and no one knows what she is -- she was so cool and I want to know everything about her. Or there's Morrigan, the bright and bubbly cousin of Rhysand who has her own personal demons -- I loved her as a person and want her to be my friend too. Even the characters who appeared for only a few scenes, like Tarquin, the High Lord of the Summer Court, were fascinating and drew me in.

Kiersten mentioned the juxtaposition of healthy and toxic relationships and I totally agree with her on that whole front (actually I agree with her whole review but also that part, which is what I'm talking about right now). You can really see Feyre clearly angry and uncomfortable by certain things and yet, still not ready to call anyone a bad person, too close to her situation to understand how bad it really is. When she escapes that and you see how much it better it can be, it puts a lot into perspective.

The pacing of this book was faster than ACOTAR but it wasn't like a super crazy fast-paced hard-to-keep-up book or anything. I personally thought the speed of the novel was perfectly balanced with the time spent focusing on characterization (which isn't to say there weren't parts where characters were being hashed out and important plot things were happening, but obviously each scene had its own purpose). I also liked that more places were explored and they did more ~journeying~ to achieve their goals. It definitely got the most wild at the end, but Sarah J. Maas kept a solid flow throughout the whole book.

I had so many thoughts and feelings about this book, but overall I thought it was perfect and I'm anxious for the next one already.

Also, shoutout to Kiersten for getting me a signed copy when she went to Sarah J. Maas's B-Fest signing. True friend.

In addition, just a couple mildly spoilery thoughts for people who have read the book already:

1. Tamlin made me so angry that I wanted to scream but would have been unable because I was that angry. You know the kind? In ACOTAR, I didn't love him as a love interest but I did think he was a nice, loving, gentleman. However, his actions in this book have made him unredeemable in my eyes.

2. While Feyre was training with her new powers, all I could think was how cool it would be if she did an Avatar: The Last Airbender thing and trained with each High Lord until she mastered the power even though half of them would kill her before training her.

- Noor

Have you ever wanted to reread a book right after finishing it?

Let us know in the comments!

Triple Review: Illuminae - Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Illuminae
Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff 
Series: The Illuminae Files, #1
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Romance, Action
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

Thanks to Penguin Random House for the ARC I received at BEA!

Last year at BEA, I got one of those gorgeous Illuminae ARCs they were giving out but never got around to reading it. Going into Illuminae, I knew very little about it. I knew that it was written as a dossier, that it was supposedly really good, and that it was MASSIVE. After reading Illuminae, I am so happy that I did because it was absolutely incredible!

Illuminae follows Kady Grant and Ezra Mason the lives they know are torn apart. Their home has been attacked, there's something strange going on, and a heavily armed ship is coming to kill them. To say the stakes are high would be an understatement. 

The dossier style of Illuminae made the book go by a lot faster than I anticipated based on looking at it. With the plot broken up into these smaller documents, it made the "just one more chapter" complex even greater with "just one more file," and I just could not stop reading - I ended up finishing this book in a little over 24 hours. When going into this book, I think it's definitely necessary to give it a good, solid chunk of straight reading to get into the way the story is told and the plot, but once I was hooked, I couldn't stop.

Speaking of the style of Illuminae, I've heard that the audiobook narration is really great and I'm sure the ebook is fine as well; however, I think the visual element of this book is absolutely wonderful. From the layout to the different artwork, I don't think my reading experience would have been the same without the full experience of reading the physical book (which is not something I would usually say since I generally prefer to read ebooks).

Getting back to the book itself, I absolutely loved the characters. Kady is so cool, and Ezra is so sweet. I also really enjoyed a lot of the supporting characters, including Byron and Syra. I also really enjoyed AIDAN, who becomes a huge part of this book as it goes on (and it's kind of insane and will blow your mind like BOOM).

All in all, I have no complaints about Illuminae. I absolutely LOVED it, and I'm so happy that I was able to get an ARC of Gemina at BEA this year, although the wait for book three is going to be agonizingly long. Illuminae is an incredible science fiction story filled with humor, romance, humor, action, and did I mention it's funny? Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff absolutely nailed it with balancing all the elements in this story, and it's definitely a must read!

- Kiersten

Noor's Review of Illuminae

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Never have I seen such poetry in a dossier (except maybe in the word dossier, which happens to be my favorite word, but that's not what I meant).

When I picked up Illuminae at BEA 2015 I was really intimidated. It's a huge book and I'm not necessarily opposed to huge books but it was a huge ~sci-fi dossier book~ and I was really not sure what to expect, especially since I often find many science fiction books a bit much (wondering if taking a Science Fiction class next semester will make me hate the genre completely or appreciate it more...we shall see).

Anyway, like Kiersten mentioned in her review, the dossier format made the book a much faster read than I assumed it would be, and also had a nice rhythm of longer, more textual documents vs short ones you could flip through quickly. It made the pacing very unique because there would be parts where it was mostly instant messages and emails back and forth from characters and you were just getting info, figuring out what was going on, nothing too heart-racing, but then something big would happen and there would be short bursts of pages with like small sentence fragments on them and it really contributed to the sense of either urgency or safety.

Also, keeping with the discussion of the length, many longer books tend to slowly pace themselves because there's a lot of space for things to happen, and sometimes this can be a little boring, but I didn't think Illuminae was slowly paced at all. I agree with Kiersten in that I think you have to power through a chunk of it all at once in order to really get into the world and find yourself enraptured by the story. I actually tried to read this months ago but I was busy with life things so I would read one file and then hours later read another and then a day later read three more and I didn't get into it so I decided to just read it later. This time though, I read it in huge chunks (I'm pretty sure I read half in one sitting and half in another) and I felt like the book flew by. Every scene either someone was attacking or someone was learning secret ship information or someone was dying. It was a heart-racing book, truly.

I really loved all of the characterization and how even though the book wasn't traditionally written, you still learn so much about the people on the ships. Kady had the most focus and I thought her attitude was brilliant. She was the right amount of ~I'm gonna do what I want and not comply with your rules because screw that~ without becoming a shallow has-no-flaws Badass Girl Who Saves the World Despite Having No Talents. Kady is a total genius, but we know she can learn more because Byron (another computer hacker on board, like Kady) treats her like his protege. She's tough and sarcastic but also frazzled and vulnerable. She's a great character who I can't wait to explore in Gemina.

And on the flip side of Kady's antisocial computer-genius pink-haired glory is her ex, Ezra. Ezra was the sweetest, drawing hearts and roses through text for Kady via email, and teasing (and getting teased by) his fellow pilots, and just being so good-hearted and funny. The most interesting character, though, had to be AIDAN, the artificial intelligence running things on one of the ships. I know it's weird to treat an AI like a character, but we delved so much into AIDAN, and those parts were my favorite to read. I wanna go back and reread it just to experience the AIDAN parts again.

So the characters are great, the story is exciting, and one last thing: the writing was so wonderful. While I thought the book would probably be enjoyable because so many people were raving about it, I didn't expect eloquence from a dossier. I figured the book was good because of the content, not as much the way the content was relayed. However, there are documents where characters write things like incident reports and surveillance summaries and even journal entries, and some of the internal monologue is so gorgeously written it makes me wanna cry. Also, everything involving AIDAN was so spectacularly written I had to slow down and savor it. One of my favorite quotes in the book is actually from an IM conversation, so it's not even like only the more narrative-style documents are well-written: "You have me. Until every last star in the galaxy dies. You have me."

Anyway, as you can see, I thought the book was absolutely phenomenal and I'm still in my mourning period (I believe it's been two weeks) so hopefully I stop mourning sometime before Gemina comes out so I can experience the sequel in its glory.

- Noor

Amrutha's Review of Illuminae

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Wow guys, I've had this book sitting in my house since BEA LAST YEAR but I only read it this week. I don't even need to tell you guys how much I regret that choice because Illuminae is one of the books of the year. Decade. Whatever. The fact that this is a series with action and romance and everything means it has a really good shot at being famous world wide and I'm honestly really excited for when that happens, because Illuminae is the real deal. When they were giving it out last year they had hyped this book SO MUCH and literally we had gotten so many copies of this book that I thought it would be alright at best because why would they hype it up so much? Wrong. Like Noor said too, I was a little put off by the size of the book (I'm not like, afraid of reading large books) but the format and the Sci-Fi (which isn't really my style) seemed a little scary. If you're dumb like me, just put everything aside and go get this book. Okay now I'll stop rambling and actually talk about the story:

Noor & Kiersten both touched upon this so I won't spend too much time on it, but the dossier format was honestly really really cool and made the book go by a lot faster. I agree with Kiersten and Noor that you've got to commit to the book for a little bit so you can see how the book is constructed and really commit to it. But if I really enjoy a book I won't put it down and will read it in one shot, so that's what I did for this -- took me a good few hours even with the format being spaced with messages and designs and smaller documents.

Ya'll know I'm really character driven, and so is this book -- you wouldn't think it would be, seeing as it's in a file format, but honestly, it is. The construction of Kady and Byron and Ezra. I've griped so many times about how the female leads of books like this have to end up being basically perfect or a total bitch in order to accomplish whatever it is they need (there aren't many but that seems to be a flaw in a lot of them): NOT KADY THOUGH. Kady, like Noor said, doesn't seem to have any ~special~ talents or anything. She's written as an honest to goodness badass who is both really cool and really smart (REALLY REALLY SMART) but also like lowkey vulnerable. Byron and Ezra were really cool to read too what with Byron's knowledge and Ezra's romantic interest. AIDAN is an AI "character"? Don't know if it's appropriate to acknowledge AIDAN as one but totally agree with Noor that his parts were some of the best to read. Nothing beats a ballsy female protagonist for me though. I saw a different review talking about how so many of the people in charge in this novel are women, and how it took her a moment to notice that they were women because their voices weren't written differently. I just want to acknowledge how cool that is, and how I didn't notice how I also assumed the women in charge were men until I kept reading.

This is a story about corporations and love and computers and a virus and humor and is set in 2575 so there is ~all the technology~. This book didn't really seem like it was for me, but you might not necessarily think it's for you either. FORGET THAT and read this. I have an ARC of Gemina waiting for me and if I had known how much I loved Illuminae I'd have been all over it already. Look forward to a review of that soon.

- Amrutha

Have you ever read a book written as a file?

Let us know in the comments!

Review: Lady Midnight - Cassandra Clare

Lady Midnight
Cassandra Clare
Series: The Dark Artifices, #1
Genre: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

Oh. My. God. As soon I finished reading the very last sentence before the epilogue I sat in my room whispering "Stop. Stop. STOP. Stop. Stop stop stop stop stop. Stop. S t o p," to myself over and over again in varying speeds and intonations until I could compose myself enough to go on. I had a few of those outbursts throughout the 668 pages. I don't even know where to start with this book. I think I'm going to have to do a non-spoilery half and a spoilery half because I truly have so many screams to let out. Okay. I'm breathing. Non-spoilers. Let's go.

So I got the book on the 8th when it came out but I was traveling and all that fun stuff until the 19th which took up a lot of time as it tends to so while I did read about half of it during my trip, I read the other half the night after I came back and I stayed up until 7am finishing it and then I couldn't sleep because my body was just screaming from the entire book and all that happened. I feel like I just need to add some exclamation marks here I think they belong here: !!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I do think if you have not read The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices you should definitely read those first, not just because the characters pop in/are referenced but because we jump straight into the Shadowhunting world unlike the other two series where there are characters who are used to introduce us to it. The book doesn't totally operate on the assumption that someone already knows how the world works and there are definitely elaborations but they're pretty minimal compared to the world-building that's done in the previous books. Also, Emma and Julian are introduced in TMI and a lot of Lady Midnight's plot centers around repercussions of things that happened in the Dark War at the end of TMI. Basically, it's easier to know the backstory.

Anyway, I think even if I wasn't traveling, I wouldn't have read the first half of the book all in one go because it honestly just really hurt to read. Like, Cassandra Clare did such an amazing job with the actual writing that just reading the descriptions of things like parabatai bonds and of love were just so eloquent and powerful that I needed to read them in doses because it was a lot for my heart to handle. I mean, the whole book was a lot for my heart to handle but once the eloquent inner monologues started to get more frequently dispersed with ~~things happening~~ I found that I could read more (although then I wanted to just read a whole book of eloquent inner monologue but ya know).  And I was so sure I wasn't going to like it as much as The Infernal Devices (because honestly warlocks and Victorian England who can beat that???) but it was honestly just so. good. and so well written that I think they are rivaling one another.

Something I really liked was that the writing was beautiful without sacrificing plot just to draw focus on purple prose or anything. They had a great balance and I found myself equally enthralled by where the story took the characters and by what they had to say (or think) about it. Also, I don't know about other people who might be more astute than I am, but I personally didn't see the big plot reveals coming, but it's not like they were just thrown in for shock factor because once you do find out, pieces of foreshadowing from the beginning of the book come forward in your mind.

Also, I loved all the characters. Even the ones I hated, I loved the way they were written. I could do a whole dissertation on the characters so I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible because I've already started rambling. Anyway, I feel like Julian and Emma are who we got the most perspective from and it was so jarring to see how differently they thought but how well they worked as parabatai. Also my heart broke over and over again at their entire existences -- Julian having to raise his siblings since we was 12, Emma feeling like the only thing she has is revenge and physical strength, their deep unrelenting love.

Also, while we're on Blackthorns, I thought the younger siblings had just enough screen time (page time?) that they were fleshed out and relevant without being so overly focused on that it gave us too many people to keep up with. I especially loved Ty, who sees the world so differently and is so smart and is just the best. I think the descriptions of his behaviors line up with Autism or Asperger's but I'm not a doctor so I don't know if that's what she was going for, since these things don't have names in the Shadowhunter world really so none of them ever said he had some specific ~~thing~~. Also, still on Blackthorns: Mark Blackthorn. God. I could say so much. Honestly, I loved him and I loved his mannerisms and I was so interested to explore the half-Shadowhunter-half-faerie narrative where he isn't like "ok I'm gonna be a Shadowhunter because I can take Marks and pretend I don't have another half of a species in my blood" and really is attuned to his faerie side. Okay, I said this would be short and it is definitely not short so the last character I'm going to mention in Cristina. Actually, before that, I want to mention that we have a new warlock in this book! What! He's blonde and spacey and likes romcoms and is friends with Magnus, who we get to see pop in a little. Okay, anyway, so Cristina is literally an angel. (No she's literally a Shadowhunter fine) She's smart and cute and is in LA for her travel year away from her institute in Mexico. She's the Best Girl Friend Emma needs, and you probably need. And the lil moments when she gets sad melted my entire being into mush.

I can't believe I managed to write this much in a non-spoiler section because when I finished the book I felt like the only things I could say about it were to people who already read it, but it's been a little while and I've cooled down (no I haven't) and let's be real, when do I ever shut up enough to be succinct. My point being: I was going to do a spoiler section but I changed my mind, but if you did read the book and you want to scream about spoilery things with me, hit me up using any of the social media buttons on the right (okay don't message me about book spoilers on LinkedIn but I'll reply to you everywhere else) and we will talk and it'll be rad.

On an end note, I thought everything about this book was so artfully done. From the use and incorporation of the poem "Annabel Lee" to the dialogue that felt so real and natural to the fact that it was a lowkey murder mystery sitch to the heavy exploration of faeries and their customs, the whole book was phenomenal and I'll let you know how many times I reread it when I post a review in a year for the next book.

P.S: Sorry if this seems disjointed, but I myself am disjointed. Also I have so much to say that I can't say it all and trying to coherently get portions of it out is not an easy task. Like I mentioned earlier, all those social media links are up to date so if you wanna talk about Lady Midnight with me I'm here for it.

- Noor

Have you ever gone after something you weren't supposed to?
Let us know in the comments!

ARC Review: I Crawl Through It - A.S. King

I Crawl Through It 
A. S. King
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Surreal
Release Date: September 22nd, 2015
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

This was the most unexpected book I have ever read.

Never having encountered a piece of fiction quite like this -- a YA novel surreal to the core, but still grounded in reality -- it took a few pages for me to get with the program and understand the way it was written. When Stanzi mentions the invisible red helicopter her friend Gustav is building that she can only see on Tuesdays, this does not mean he does not allow her to see it any other day or that it's merely a joke between them. It means he is truly building a helicopter that is invisible to most, and to Stanzi, it is visible on Tuesdays. When China Knowles says she has swallowed herself, turned herself inside out, this is not simply a metaphor for shrinking into herself after a traumatic event. She is genuinely seen as organs on legs by the characters in the book.

The best way to read this book is to take everything literally. In any other book, mentioning a character where her hair was so long you swear it grew a foot since the day before would be taken as exaggeration. Of course it didn't, but it seemed that way because it's just that long and the reader can piece this together. In I Crawl Through It, everything is so surreal, that nothing is exaggeration. Landsdale Cruise's hair grows a foot with each pathological lie she tells, and there is a dangerous man in a bush who gives out chains of letters that are infinitely long and there is an invisible island you can fly to in the invisible helicopter to escape the school where there are daily bomb threats and drills and practice tests.

And it all works so remarkably well. I finished the book not only mulling over what I just read but wondering why I'd never read anything by A.S. King before, resolving to put her at the top of my list of authors to be read soon.

Not only was the story so interestingly woven but it was well written and also had some important points about how we all cope with trauma/stress/bad-things-of-a-serious-nature in different ways. Whether that involves lying and baking or dissecting all the animals in the school or building something no one can see or writing poems about how inanimate objects have more self-esteem than you, this book showed teens compartmentalizing and avoiding their trauma and it also showed them dealing with it in important ways like standing up to an abuser, and it was cool that it wasn't just a weird book with inside out girls. Not that I wouldn't have read that book to be honest.

I briefly mentioned that it was well-written and I want to touch upon that as well. I absolutely loved A.S. King's voice in this novel. Every line seemed so purposeful, so powerful, and so many of them were so beautifully phrased. A lot of the book had an air of gloom and that was cool too because you could feel it coming from the character's words, not the author's, and it reinforced the fact that they were sad and stuck and looking for something.

When I picked up I Crawl Through It, I was expecting a regular realistic fiction YA book about sad, stressed kids in high school. I wasn't expecting anything bad, because regular realistic fiction YA books about sad stressed kids in high school are often books I like, but this was not like anything I've read before and I hope you read it too.

- Noor

Would you rather be inside out or hairnocchio? 
Let us know in the comments!

Review: Everything, Everything - Nicole Yoon

Everything, Everything
Nicola Yoon
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Number of times Everything, Everything mentioned The Little Prince: eight

Number of times Everything, Everything made me cry: four

Number of times Everything, Everything mentioned the state fish of Hawaii (Humuhumunukunukuapua`a): I forgot to count but probably between three and five

I realize the first and third points aren't really relevant to someone who isn't me (and that third one isn't a High School Musical reference before you go there) but the point is that this even though this a book about a girl who spent eighteen years in the confines of her house, you still find ways to relate with her through the voice Nicola Yoon gives her. For me, it was her favorite book being mine as well and a memory of an old interactive map that my brother and I broke by pressing the Hawaii button over and over. For someone else, it might be the fact that she hates math or loves outer space or only owns white t-shirts and Keds or is half Japanese and half African American. (I think this is the point I was trying to make, I was also mostly just excited about all the references to The Little Prince y'all don't know how much I love that book I even have a pop-up edition of it shoutout to my best friend Anika for that)

Moving on, I absolutely loved loved loved the structure of this book. Before we get into that, I'll just give a little background on the book: Madeleine is living with SCID, a rare disease that affects her immune system so severely that she needs a constantly sterile environment, hence the whole never having left her house thing. She's been pretty well-adjusted with it, but when a boy her age moves in next door and they become friends through email and instant messaging, that tiny bit of change serves as a catalyst for a lot more change.

So, back to structure. Interspersed among the pages of "normal" writing -- you know, the whole "paragraph format, first person narration, dialogue in quotes and separate indented paragraphs" thing -- were breaks in the traditional format for more "fun" things that added to the story -- conversations that happened on an instant messenger, pages from Madeleine's notebooks showing things like a "pre-kiss checklist," a map of despair, a guide to Hawaiian reef fish. Even some of the pages of the book that were traditionally formatted were told in a way that added breaks in the reading because an entire "chapter" would just be one line, or one short conversation, or one paragraph. Sometimes, they were short, one line, spoiler reviews of books, which she had an entire blog dedicated to, and we caught glimpses of. I just want to share two of my favorite ones because they were also two lines I really liked in the book (especially because one of them is that line that has the title that makes you go hey look its the title but also it's my favorite book so double props):

"LIFE IS SHORT: SPOILER REVIEWS BY MADELEINE
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Spoiler alert: You don't exist if no one can see you." 

"LIFE IS SHORT: SPOILER REVIEWS BY MADELEINE
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Spoiler alert: Love is worth everything. Everything." 

I feel like this book was just full of heartbreaking or gut-wrenching one-liners (and not the comedic kind). I mean, the writing throughout the book was beautiful as well, and for a first book, I think Nicola Yoon did a fantastic job, but what really got me were certain lines that just jumped off the pages. I thought about integrating them into this review somehow but I'm just going to go ahead and show you some that I liked a lot (by the way, the copy I have is an ARC I got at BEA, so these quotes may have been subject to change in the finished product):

"Her pain is endless. It falls off the ends of the world. Her pain is a dead sea. Her pain is for me, but I cannot bear it anymore." 

"My guilt is an ocean for me to drown in." 

"Olly's math says you can't predict the future. It turns out you can't predict the past either." 

Speaking of Olly (well I didn't speak of him, but that last quote did) I haven't even mentioned anything about how much I love the story itself. Because I do. Seriously. This was honestly one of the best books I've read in a really long time and it stayed with me for so long after I put it down. The book had like four main characters and even then, two of them were kinda subtly main but they were so intriguing. I was afraid Madeleine and Olly were going to be instalove because the back cover is kindof misleading and it takes two paragraphs that happen in different places in the book and make it look like one passage, but I loved them. I loved Carla, Madeleine's full-time nurse, and out of the four times I cried, I'm pretty sure two were for her, so there's that. And Madeleine's mother just put me through a whole slew of emotions and I always just felt bad for her but honestly she was very well written.

I honestly devoured this book and I was so invested in seeing where Madeleine's life was going to go. I know the ending will probably have a 50/50 response but I enjoyed it. There were consequences to face while exploring the ways trauma can affect a person and nothing was played off as the character in question having ill intentions or being malicious -- which would have resulted in too cartoonish of a villain figure -- but rather being in need of help and facing a mental illness. (Sorry for how inarticulate that was, I was trying to be vague but still give you the gist of it.)

Overall, it was a really sweet, emotional book and Nicola Yoon expertly managed to capture the voice of a teenager who wants more than her lot in life.

- Noor

Can you give us a one sentence spoiler review?
Let us know in the comments!

ARC Review: Bream Gives Me Hiccups - Jesse Eisenberg

Bream Gives Me Hiccups
Jesse Eisenberg
Series: N/A
Genre: Short Stories, Humor, Satire
Release Date: September 8th, 2015
Publisher: Grove Press
Rating: 2000 out of 2000 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Thanks to Grove Press for providing me with an ARC at BEA and thanks Jesse Eisenberg for fulfilling a five-year long dream of getting a selfie with you.

I'm always a little bitter when people are talented in more than one aspect of their lives while the most I can offer are sentence composition skills that rival those of my eight year old sister. Jesse Eisenberg has proven to be one of these people -- not only is he a successful actor (his role in my all-time favorite movie, The Social Network, was a huge reason why I wanted to meet him), but a clever writer as well.

The first section of short stories are "Restaurant Reviews From a Privileged Nine-Year Old" where said nine-year old rates everything out of 2000 stars, which is why I decided to stray from our traditional 5 star rating system for this review, although I'm sure my rating will be easy to convert. This section was one of the best ones and definitely a strong opening. Our narrator had this distinct, knowing sort of voice, but the innocence of being a kid still showed through and Eisenberg very much captured the essence of writing through the lens of a child. Also, even though the book is humorous and all the chapters, this one included, are riddled with sarcasm and lightness, there are still touches of sincerity and emotion, and although they're written with the satirical style of the book, they're still sweet. And that little boy is a sharp one. This is one of my favorite comments of his:

"I told mom that I didn't want to lie to the hotel people, but Mom said it was okay in this case because it was just a white lie, which I guess is a lie that white people are allowed to say without feeling guilty."

This chapter was tied for my favorite with "My Roommate Stole My Ramen: Letters From a Frustrated Freshman." This one is written in a completely different voice, but maintains the same sarcastic, satirical tone so it maintains this sense of cohesiveness. That's one of the things I liked a lot about this book. I wasn't sure how it would read, considering it was a book of short stories, and I thought it might just be a series of disconnected stories, and therefore the tone and voice and everything would shift enough per story that it would be like reading a series of completely different books all in a row. But remember that feeling of cohesiveness I mentioned before? That was there for the entirety of the book.

Even though the content changed -- there were stories told in just run on sentences lasting a paragraph and stories told in dialogue formatted like a screenplay and stories told through email and texts -- there was a way it was told that didn't. The voice changed, which I expected it to and wanted it to, because different stories called for different things. I wouldn't have wanted the college student studying the Bosnian genocide to sound just like the guy on acid trying to pick up a woman at a bar -- that just wouldn't have been good writing. However, as I mentioned before, the wit and the humor carry through and there's a certain tone about the pieces that is clearly Eisenberg's distinct style showing through.

Also, it was a fun time when thing mentioned in one story made their way into another, sort of like a tiny little in-joke, such as using "The Rotting Tree" as a location in more than one story. Anyway, the book wonderfully showcases the wit of Jesse Eisenberg and the writing was cutting and entertaining. This is definitely a book I'll be reading again.

- Noor

What's the funniest book you've read?
Let us know in the comments!

Release Day ARC Review: The Copper Gauntlet - Holly Black & Cassandra Clare

The Copper Gauntlet
Holly Black & Cassandra Clare
Series: Magisterium, #2
Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy
Release Date:September 1st, 2015
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

I went through an embarrassingly large percentage of this book having confused "gauntlet" with "chalice" and with the mental image of someone planning to punch another person with a large, fancy cup. Luckily, it didn't detract from my reading experience and once I realized those illustrations of gloves next to the chapter numbers were related to the book, I got back on track.

I loved the book and I don't have any long-winded way of leading up to that.

I always have a thing for second books in series. I just feel like they have something going for them. The Copper Gauntlet was no exception. While it's predecessor focused on world-building, introducing the characters, exposition, only really bringing in conflict in further into the book (still worth it), The Copper Gauntlet provides us with a steady amount of pacing throughout. Black and Clare occasionally tone back the action to showcase some other scenes that might come into play later or they occasionally dial it up with fast-paced scene after scene but overall the whole book always has something happening or leading up to happening or the characters are investigating something that might happen eventually. Everything we see in this book is relevant to the story, rather than just information for the sake of information.

And oh, was it a great story. Holly Black and Cassandra Clare being friends is one of the most beautiful gifts the universe has given me.

Call as a protagonist is one of my favorite things I've read in any book, period. He isn't a hero or a villain or an antihero. No one is sure what he is, including him. The reader is viewing through the lens of Call so we know what we're told by him in a way that he tells it, which makes for an interesting reading experience. I loved the way he questioned his goodness every step of his journey (and by love I mean it made my heart break for him but it was good writing) and I thought his relationship with each character was excellently explored, like his uneasiness and annoyance with his friends and his relationship with his dad.

Also, can we just talk about his pet chaos wolf, Havoc? I love Havoc, he's my favorite character in the entire book and I want one.

The book was short, only 264 pages, but so much happened, and I appreciated all of it. It delved into chaos magic and Aaron's position as the Makar and Jasper came along on their spontaneous trip even though Call hates Jasper and someone was trying to steal a very important artifact and everything was so intense and full of drama.

I don't think I can survive any more books in this series, honestly.

- Noor

Do you think you could handle being a chaos mage?
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Double Review: Paper Towns - John Green

Paper Towns
John Green
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Even though I read Paper Towns a few weeks ago, it seemed appropriate to finally post my review on the day the movie will be premiering. Amrutha, Noor, and I will be attending the Night on the Towns special early showing with a live simulcast after the movie tonight, and we'll be posting about the event in a few days. Anyway, onto the review!

For some reason I always put off reading John Green books until the movies are coming out soon. The Fault in Our Stars was a book so many people told me to read, but I refused to do so until a few months before the movie came out. The same is true with Paper Towns. While Paper Towns was vastly different than The Fault in Our Stars, I really liked the story told.

Paper Towns follows Quentin, a sort-of awkward, sort-of nerdy boy who is mildly obsessed with his neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman. While the two were friends when they were younger, they've since grown apart and Q has taken to admiring her from afar, sort of making up a perfect version of her in his head. One night, Margo implores him to help her with a revenge plot. After that night together, Margo mysteriously disappears and it appears that she left clues for Q to find her.

Even though I generally don't read mystery novels, there's something so captivating about stories with a mystery subplot. I found myself constantly excited and invested in the whereabouts and wellbeing of Margo, even though she wasn't even in most of the book.

Although the mystery is a large part of the premise, the book is mostly a coming of age story. Throughout his adventure trying to find Margo, Quentin becomes even closer with his friends Radar and Ben, discovering things about them that he hadn't previously realized and learning what it truly means to be a friend. A lot of Paper Towns is about the way we perceive people, making them out in our minds to be something different than what they are at face value. Q struggles with this sort of ideology, mostly with Margo but also with Ben and other characters. I really enjoyed how John Green explored this aspect of knowing people in the story - it's definitely something I've thought about and had trouble with in the past, expecting someone live up to my idea of them when it's just not who they are.

The main thing that makes this book so fun is the characters. The characters of Paper Towns fall along a wide spectrum of personalities, from more serious to completely goofy - John Green did a great job balancing the humor with the seriousness in this book. I loved seeing the way these characters interacted and how their different personalities shaped the story.

Even though Paper Towns wasn't the tear-jerker that The Fault in Our Stars was, Paper Towns was still a deeply emotional coming of age story. I thoroughly enjoyed Paper Towns, possibly more than TFIOS because I think it's just more my type of story, and I highly recommend it to people looking for a coming of age story with a mix of humor and heart, especially if you also like a little mystery.

- Kiersten

Noor's Review of Paper Towns

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Paper Towns wasn't the first John Green book I read, and I don't think it's compositionally as great as the works that come after it (which makes sense, authors improve with every book they write), but it is by far my favorite. For me, this book is one of Those Books. The books that stay with you and are so near and dear to your heart that just telling someone you love the book doesn't seem right. The books where you might resonate with a character you're not supposed to and you might feel like you've been punched in the gut with a line or two or twenty. The ones that affect you a lot and leave you with a lasting impression and feeling the need to capitalize the phrase "Those Books" when talking about the type of book it is. I know that's not the way Paper Towns is or will be for everyone, I just wanted to mention how important this book is to me before I talked about the book itself.

Kiersten did an excellent job explaining the premise so I won't go into that again, and I want to touch on something she said about Paper Towns being about how we perceive people. One of the more popular quotes from the book is "What a treacherous thing to believe a person is more than a person"  and we see this exemplified with not only Q's image of Margo Roth Spiegelman, but the other characters' as well. Much of the book focuses on the journey to find her, so she's a point of discussion quite frequently, and this is how we learn more and more about Margo Roth Spiegelman. Q certainly believes she is more than a person and that's dangerous because he's looking for her to be a perfection solution to all things when its clear that she has problems to work out herself.

In another portion of the book, his parents describe people as either windows or mirrors. Margo Roth Spiegelman seems to heavily portray a mirror-person, and it seems the everyone on the journey (and some people who weren't, such as her parents), got a little sliver of it, got themselves and their backgrounds reflected back at them, and took away a different interpretation of who Margo was. There was definitely a failure to look past that and see who she was behind the mirror which added to her complexity as a character. She isn't a character to idolize and imitate, she's one to understand.

I realize I haven't touched on the other characters really, but I thought they were spot on. Ben, Radar, Lacey, they all brought their own set of hilarity, skills, and sometimes reality checks to the book. It was entertaining and enjoyable to read them and watch the progression of everyone's relationships. Like Kiersten said, it definitely is a coming-of-age, story, and a large part of that focuses on your friendships and I like the way Paper Towns dealt with that.

I also really loved the mystery aspect, which I don't like using that word to describe, because it makes me think of mystery novels that moms read when they drop the kids off at school and make themselves a cup of coffee that they try not to spill on their white couches. It wasn't like that. It was just the right amount of finding clues that would (or wouldn't?????) lead them to Margo and the right amount of suspense and just wonderful storytelling, really.

Ultimately, I loved the story and the dynamic characters, and I especially loved the writing. There were quotes that chilled me to the bone, and I think my favorite one in the entire book is "Maybe all the strings inside him broke" which I realize might not sound all that great without context but I promise this book is filled with beautiful prose and you will not regret reading it.

- Noor

If you disappeared, where would you go?

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Review: It's Kind of a Funny Story - Ned Vizzini

It's Kind of a Funny Story
Ned Vizzini 
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Word Rating: Gear-Shiftingly Important
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I purchased this book a full seven months before I read it and I think it's an absolute crime against literature that I waited so long. Then again, I think it was now that I needed to read this book but if I had read it seven months ago it would have definitely still been just as profoundly impacting, just in a different manner.

Anyway, It's Kind of a Funny Story was written from 12/10/04 - 1/6/05, following Ned Vizzini's five day stay in the adult psychiatric wing of the hospital from 11/29/04 - 12/3/04. The book is inspired by his own life events and struggles with depression and chronicles the five day experience in adult psychiatric of protagonist Craig Gilner, who happens to be a young teenager having just started a prestigious high school he worked his butt off to get into. The teen wing is closed for construction and so Craig is thrown in with a whole mix of people, surrounded by young girls his age and middle aged women with no teeth but lots of sass and old men who have definitely seen better days.

The whole book was so well written and well done and just so important. Vizzini dealt with topics like not only depression but just other mental disorders and the way people handle them so well. Most people know that Ned Vizzini killed himself last year and while I remember reading about it when it happened, I didn't remember the time of year, so it was totally coincidental that I was about a third of the way through this book when the first anniversary of his death hit so there's a little tid bit for you. After reading the book, it makes me so much sadder that even after pouring his heart and soul into this book (which, in one tribute article by a close friend of his, is said to have been the case so that's not just an assumption I made) and helping so many people, he still took his own life. The impact he made was immense. With It's Kind of a Funny Story, he created this protagonist who's a teenager overwhelmed by pressure to be the smart kid he's always been, to get A's in this school for overachievers, to be in a relationship, to know where he's going in life, and these are all "tentacles" for him. And he has too many "tentacles" and not enough "anchors" grounding him and giving him a sense of peace. And the kid's only thirteen. And honestly, how many people reading this can relate? Probably a lot. Craig is so well written that if you're not depressed, you still understand him and sympathize and if you are, you find a character to empathize with and root for.

And then other than Craig, there are a whole host of other characters that are diverse and well-written. His roommate, Muqtada, is Egyptian and lies in a depressed slump until Craig brings him Egyptian music to cheer him up. There are two older men who got hella involved in drugs. There's a girl about his age who cut up her face with scissors. All these characters display such varied views of what it's like to live with mental health issues.

The writing itself is done through first person narration via Craig, who, as we established, is fairly young, so everything is written in short, direct sentences, nothing overly flowery or anything, and it fits the tone of the novel. The dialogue is on point and is the driving point behind a lot of the characters, like Humble, one of the residents of the hospital, or Nia and Aaron, two people Craig knows from his life at school, for who the dialogue helps establish how certain mentalities can be toxic and helps them play out certain character tropes.

Overall, I think this novel was phenomenally done and I would recommend it to everyone. It's such an important book and I really think the best way to honor Ned Vizzini's memory is for it to reach as many people as possible and help as many people as possible. I know I'll definitely be rereading it in the future and I know it's definitely the type of book you get something different out of every time you read it or the time in your life you read it so get to it if you haven't

- Noor

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