Item: The Way You Make Me Feel
Rating: 3.5
Author: Suzanne

Review: THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL

May 7, 2018/32 Comments/by Suzanne

The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo

on May 8, 2018
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 288
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

MY REVIEW:

Maurene Goo’s The Way You Make Me Feel is a fun and lighthearted book that is filled with my favorite three F words: friendship, family, and food. The story follows Clara Shin, a teenager who thrives on her reputation at school as the class clown. Clara lives to disrupt school and pull pranks on unsuspecting people like uptight class goody two shoes, Rose Carver. Rose and Clara loathe each other, and Clara loves every opportunity that presents itself to get under Rose’s skin, which leads her to devise a prank that is so outrageous, it’s sure to push Rose over the edge. Clara’s prank not only goes terribly wrong, but it also manages to land both she and Rose in hot water with the school administration, and with their parents of course. The principal initially plans to suspend both girls from school, but Clara’s dad comes up with an even better punishment: he proposes that Clara and Rose work together all summer aboard his food truck and that the wages they earn can be used to pay for the damage done to the school by Clara’s prank and the aftermath caused by Rose’s reaction to it.

What could possibly go wrong? But that said, maybe something could actually go right…

Clara and I got off to a rough start because I wasn’t a fan of her fondness for pranks and disruptions. I immediately worried that this might end up being an issue for me since I’m the type of reader who really needs to like or somehow relate to the main character. I’ll expand more on my issues with Clara in the ‘Dislikes’ section of my review, but for now I’ll just say that I was able to move past them fairly quickly so that I could enjoy the story and by the end, I really liked Clara.

Why the change? Mainly because she grows so much as a person throughout the story. I quickly realized that most of Clara’s clowning around was her way of protecting herself. She is afraid to open herself up to others for fear of getting hurt and so she wears her humor like a suit of armor, keeping all but a select few at a safe distance. She walks around acting like she doesn’t care about anything because it’s just easier that way. Realizing this about Clara made it much easier to connect with her, mainly because I wanted her to take a chance and open herself up to something real, whether it be friendship, romance, or a bit of both. It probably sounds cliché but I wanted her to not just laugh, but to live, laugh and love, which brings me to the fabulous relationships in this book.

The relationships in this book were what really made the book for me. When Clara is initially forced to work with Rose all summer long, she thinks it’s going to be an absolute nightmare because they can’t stand each other. What they realize over the course of their summer together, however, is that maybe they aren’t as different as they thought they were. If you’re into the idea of enemies becoming friends, this is a relationship that will certainly appeal to you. Even though I truly thought Rose and Clara were going to kill each other early on in the book, I soon found myself really looking forward to their scenes together as they friendship started to take off. It was so cute, since it became clear that neither of them had had this kind of friendship before. In that sense, it was a journey of discovery for both Clara and Rose.

On a similar note is Clara’s relationship with Hamlet. Hamlet is absolutely precious. He’s a Chinese American teen who works at a coffee cart at one of the spots where Clara’s dad likes to park his food truck. Hamlet is clearly enamored with Clara as soon as he meets her, and he’s so sweet and cute and funny, that he starts to work his way into Clara’s heart, no matter how determined she is to keep that armor of hers in place. It was just so cute to watch their relationship grow. Even though I’m not a romantic at all, I wanted Hamlet to get the girl so badly I couldn’t stand it, lol.

In addition to her budding relationships with Rose and Hamlet, I was also an especially huge fan of Clara’s relationship with her dad, Adrian. Adrian isn’t perfect by any means. He makes mistakes like all parents do and he realizes he has probably been a little lax in the way he disciplined Clara over the years, but he’s still just such a great dad. I loved that he came up with the idea of making her work on his food truck all summer and even though she was livid at the beginning, it was fun to watch them work together and to see Clara learn to appreciate just how hard her Dad is working to try to make all of their dreams come true.

I also really appreciated all of the sacrifices that he made in his own life in order to always be there for Clara. And the more we learned about just how much he really did for Clara, the more I adored him. He really makes up for the fact that Clara’s mother is basically a dud of a parent. Seriously, what kind of a person just abandons their family because they’d rather be a social media influencer and live the posh life. (As I’m sure you can guess, I was not a fan of Clara’s mom, especially since I have a feeling that she’s the reason why Clara felt like she needed to protect herself from getting hurt).

The Food: This might sound silly, but one of my favorite parts about The Way You Make Me Feel was the newfound appreciation it gave me for food trucks. I guess it’s because we don’t have many here and the ones we do have are basic, but I had no idea what truly incredible meals you could get from a food truck. Goo’s vivid descriptions of the Korean-Brazilian dishes that Clara’s dad served from his truck had my mouth watering every time he or the girls cooked and made me wish that his KoBra truck was a real thing so that I could stop by and try his delicious, spicy concoctions.

I have to admit that even though I ended up really liking Clara overall, I found her class clown routine in the opening pages of the novel to be so obnoxious and juvenile that I almost didn’t continue reading. It’s probably a personality thing with me because when I was in high school, I never found the class clowns to be very funny either. It always seemed like they were trying too hard to be funny and that was the same vibe I got from Clara. The humor just felt forced. Thankfully, once she began serving her “sentence” working on her dad’s food truck, Clara toned down the class clown bit and became a much more enjoyable character for me. She was still funny but the humor felt a lot more natural than her juvenile pranks did.

Even though I had some issues with Clara in the beginning, she really grew on me and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend The Way You Make Me Feel to anyone who enjoys lighthearted stories about friendship, family, and first loves. If you’re looking for a great summer/beach read, give The Way You Make Me Feel a chance. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:

From the author of I Believe in a Thing Called Love, a laugh-out-loud story of love, new friendships, and one unique food truck.

Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, the KoBra, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. Not the carefree summer Clara had imagined. But maybe Rose isn’t so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet (yes, Hamlet) crushing on her is pretty cute. Maybe Clara actually feels invested in her dad’s business. What if taking this summer seriously means that Clara has to leave her old self behind?

With Maurene Goo’s signature warmth and humor, The Way You Make Me Feel is a relatable story of falling in love and finding yourself in the places you’d never thought to look.

About Maurene Goo

Maurene Goo grew up in a Los Angeles suburb surrounded by floral wallpaper and piles of books. She studied communication at UC San Diego and then later received a Masters in publishing, writing, and literature at Emerson College. Before publishing her first book, Since You Asked, she worked in both textbook and art book publishing. She also has very strong feelings about tacos and houseplants and lives in Los Angeles.

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Blog Tour Book Review: SONG OF BLOOD & STONE

May 4, 2018/34 Comments/by Suzanne

Song of Blood & Stone by L. Penelope

Series: Earthsinger Chronicles
Published by St. Martin's Press on May 1, 2018
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 384
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Today is my stop on the St Martin’s Press Blog Tour for L. Penelope’s new novel, Song of Blood & Stone., so in this post, I’ll be sharing my honest thoughts on this first installment in Penelope’s exciting new historical fantasy series, Earthsinger Chronicles.

MY REVIEW:

Song of Blood & Stone is the captivating and thrilling first installment in L. Penelope’s new Earthsinger Chronicles fantasy series. It follows Jasminda, a young woman who is orphaned and living alone. She lives caught between two warring lands, Elsira and Lagrimar. The people of Lagrimar are dark-skinned and many of them possess an unusual magic called Earthsong, while the people of Elsira are fair-skinned, non-magical, and possess a strong fear of this strange magic. The Elsirans and Lagrimars have disliked and distrusted each other for generations and live in relative peace only because the two lands are separated by a magical wall called the Mantle. The mantle has occasionally been breached over the years and each time there has been a breach, war has followed.

Even though she considers Elsira to be her homeland, because she is half-Elsiran and half-Lagrimar, Jasminda is treated as an outcast by everyone around her. She therefore lives alone on the outskirts of Elsira and has little human contact on any given day, that is, until a group of menacing Elsiran soldiers show up on her doorstep seeking refuge. With them is a prisoner they have clearly mistreated and beaten within an inch of his life. Jasminda is drawn to this prisoner, whose name is Jack, right away and communicates with him whenever she can steal a moment to visit him. She learns that Jack is actually a spy who had disguised himself to go behind enemy lines and prove that the rumors are true: the Mantle is about to be destroyed and then nothing will stop the tyrant True Father and the people of Lagrimar from bring war and their magic to Elsira.

Jasminda helps Jack heal from his wounds and, working together, they manage to slip away from the Elsiran soldiers. Realizing that their homeland truly is in danger, Jack and Jasminda vow to do whatever they can to stop this war and so they set off on a dangerous journey together to save Elsira by unlocking the mystery of what caused these two lands to become enemies in the first place…

Jasminda was such an easy character to fall in love with. Being half Elsiran and half Lagrimar, Jasminda is dark-skinned and possesses a weak version of the Earthsong like the Lagrimars, so while the Elsirans tolerate her on their land, they do not trust her and shun her at every opportunity. She endeared herself to me from the opening scenes of the book when some Elsiran ladies sneer at her while she is retrieving her mail, and she responds by using her Earthsong to change her skin color to match theirs, taunting the women and asking them if that made her appearance more acceptable to them. I laughed aloud as the ladies, with horrified looks on their faces, scurried away from Jasminda as fast as they possibly could.

I’m always drawn to a character who is portrayed as an underdog anyway, but Jasminda also appealed to me because she’s smart, independent, and resourceful. She knows how to take care of herself and she’s also a proud woman who refuses to hang her head no matter how poorly those around her treat her, not even when her grandfather tries to pay her to say that she is not related to him. Apparently he fears that this mixed race child, visible proof of his own daughter’s transgression, might put a crimp in his political ambitions, so he wants Jasminda out of his life permanently.

Jack was also a likeable character. He’s a proud Elsiran who serves in their military. When Jasminda first encounters him, he is working as a spy, trying to gather evidence to prove there is a breach imminent so that his people can prepare for the war that will also be imminent. Even though he’s fiercely devoted to his own people, what I immediately liked about Jack was that he didn’t turn his nose up at Jasminda because of her skin color like the rest of his people do. Instead, because she lives on Elsiran land, he sees it as his duty to protect her just as he would protect any other Elsiran citizen. I admired his sense of duty and how passionate he was about doing what was right and honorable.

Even though I liked Jack, I have to admit there were a few moments when I wanted to throttle him. As he became more and more attracted to Jasminda, he became very intense in his need to protect her. I found myself yelling at him: “Dude, she wears a knife strapped to her with a garter belt and she has saved your ass more than once already! She does NOT need you to save her!” LOL!

That said, I did very much enjoy their relationship. Even though there was a bit of instant attraction, there was clearly chemistry between them and it felt like their relationship naturally progressed throughout the novel. Even more than the romantic aspect of their relationship, what I really liked was how well they worked together as a team to try to find a way to stop the breach and the war.

Aside from these two great characters, what appealed to me the most about Song of Blood & Stone is that even though it was a fantasy, the author has packed it full of social issues that parallel important issues we are dealing with today in our own society. This fantasy world very much mirrors our reality so it just made the story feel all the more relevant. The two warring lands have created a refugee crisis similar to what we have witnessed in Syria. Elsira has hundreds of Lagrimar refugees, and as we’ve witnessed with the Syrian refugees, reactions to them are very mixed. While some are accepting of them, by and large, people are prejudiced against them and afraid of the magic and just want them to go back where they came from. We also clearly see the racism and prejudice everywhere Jasminda goes. She even experiences it as a guest in the royal palace.

The author also creates a magnificent backstory that explains how the war between the Elsirans and the Lagrimars got started in the first place. The story is locked inside of a magical stone, and for reasons no one understands, only Jasminda is able to connect with the stone and reveal the story. She does so a little at a time so that the backstory unfolds parallel to the story we’re following. I don’t want to give away any spoilers so I’ll just say that it illustrates the roles that both the noble Sleeping Queen and the tyrannical True Father play in the conflict’s origins, as well as how the magical Earthsong factors in, and it ultimately reveals why Jasminda is able to connect with the stone when no one else can. It’s all quite fascinating and I loved watching the two stories unfold alongside each other.

I don’t want to call any of these issues dislikes, but there were a few areas where I just felt like I wanted more from the story.

The first of which is the worldbuilding. While I loved what the author created with the two warring lands and the mantle dividing them, I still felt like I only had a vague notion of what this fantasy world actually looked like. I just couldn’t easily picture it, which was a little disappointing. I like to be able to vividly picture the fantasy land I’m reading about, so I’m really hoping for more detail in the next book.

I had the same experience with the magical system. The idea of the Earthsong completely fascinated me, especially with its intense healing powers and the way Earthsingers can “link” and share their songs. That said, however, I felt like I never quite fully understand how exactly the Earthsong worked or what exactly one could do with it. It seemed like everyone who could use it did something different with it and I didn’t really see a common thread. So yeah, I’d definitely love to learn more about this Earthsong and what it entails, especially after seeing how differently True Father used it from so many others.

Finally, even though I enjoyed the romance between Jasminda and Jack, I still felt like it started to become a distraction the further along in the book I got. I’m frantically flipping through pages trying to figure out how they’re going to stop the war, and Jack and Jasminda seem more and more preoccupied with how they’re going to be together since their relationship will be deemed unacceptable because of Jasminda’s mixed heritage. War is coming, people. Focus! Fight first, love later! Needless to say, it was a little frustrating at times, haha!

Even with those few issues, I still thought this was a very strong start to what promises to be an outstanding fantasy series. I thought the ending was absolutely brilliant and look forward to seeing where the story goes next. I would recommend this to any reader who enjoys fantasy, romance, or even books that focus on social issues. I would also say that this is probably best geared toward mature readers as the sexual encounters between Jasminda and Jack are quite detailed and intense.

That said, if you like fantasy and a badass heroine, definitely consider reading Song of Blood & Stone!

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:

A treacherous, thrilling, epic fantasy about an outcast drawn into a war between two powerful rulers.

Orphaned and alone, Jasminda lives in a land where cold whispers of invasion and war linger on the wind. Jasminda herself is an outcast in her homeland of Elsira, where her gift of Earthsong is feared. When ruthless soldiers seek refuge in her isolated cabin, they bring with them a captive–an injured spy who threatens to steal her heart.

Jack’s mission behind enemy lines to prove that the Mantle between Elsira and Lagamiri is about to fall nearly cost him his life, but he is saved by the healing Song of a mysterious young woman. Now he must do whatever it takes to save Elsira and it’s people from the True Father and he needs Jasminda’s Earthsong to do it. They escape their ruthless captors and together they embark on a perilous journey to save Elsira and to uncover the secrets of The Queen Who Sleeps.

Thrust into a hostile society, Jasminda and Jack must rely on one another even as secrets jeopardize their bond. As an ancient evil gains power, Jasminda races to unlock a mystery that promises salvation.

The fates of two nations hang in the balance as Jasminda and Jack must choose between love and duty to fulfill their destinies and end the war.

About L. Penelope

Leslye Penelope has been writing since she could hold a pen and loves getting lost in the worlds in her head. She is an award-winning author of fantasy and paranormal romance.

She was born in the Bronx, just after the birth of hip hop, but left before she could acquire an accent. Equally left and right-brained, she studied Film at Howard University and minored in Computer Science. This led to a graduate degree in Multimedia and a career in website development. She’s also an award-winning independent filmmaker, co-founded a literary magazine, and sometimes dreams in HTML.

Leslye lives in Maryland with her husband and their furry dependents. Sign up for new release information and giveaways on her website: http://www.lpenelope.com.

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Top 10 Upcoming Releases I’d Walk into a Lion’s Den to Get Early

May 1, 2018/45 Comments/by Suzanne

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is Books I’d Slay a Lion to Get Early. I tweaked the topic a little just because I LOVE lions and even the hypothetical idea of slaying one just made me sad, lol. But anyway, there are definitely some incredible books coming out that I would do almost anything to get my hands on early, even walking into a den of lions!

Created at canva.com

Top 10 Upcoming Releases I’d Walk into a Lion’s Den to Get Early

* * * * *

1. THE WINTER OF THE WITCH by Katherine Arden

(This Russian folklore-inspired trilogy has become one of my favorite series and I’m just dying to see how it ends.)

* * * * *

2. MUSE OF NIGHTMARES by Laini Taylor

(After the way Strange the Dreamer ended, I need this book in my life ASAP!)

* * * * *

3. ON THE COME UP by Angie Thomas

(The Hate U Give was one of my favorite reads of 2017 so I truly can’t wait to read more from Angie Thomas.)

* * * * *

4. MY PLAIN JANE by Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodie Ashton

(If this is anywhere near as hilarious as the first book, I’m going to be laughing for days and I can’t wait!)

* * * * *

5. ESCAPING FROM HOUDINI by Kerri Maniscalco

(I need more Audrey Rose and Thomas Cresswell in my life!)

* * * * *

6. THE LADY’S GUIDE TO PETTICOATS AND PIRACY by Mackenzi Lee

(Felicity gets a book of her own!!!!!!!)

* * * * *

7. HULLMETAL GIRLS by Emily Skrutskie

(This one first caught my attention because the author was raised in my home state, but what really makes me want to get my hands on it ASAP is the author’s own description of her book, which I saw on Goodreads: “This is my third book. The closer I look at it, the more I realize it’s made of things that scare me. Physical things, like surgery and irrevocable body modification and sci-fi body horror. Abstract things, like being known too well, giving away too much of yourself, and being used. But it’s also made of things I love: spaceships, jacked up cyborgs, angry girls, and machines with a little sass in them. I hope it scares you, but you love it too.”)