Top Ten Things That Will Make Me Instantly Want to Read a Book
/42 Comments/by SuzanneTop Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Things That Will Make Me Instantly Want To Read a Book. This was a pretty easy topic for me this week because there are some key things that if I read them in a book’s blurb, that book is totally going on my TBR no matter what. I’m definitely a sucker for certain settings and for certain time periods, but there are also certain topics that are guaranteed to attract my interest. And if more than one of these can be found in the same book, hold me back because that baby is going straight to the top of my TBR pile!
Top Ten Things That Will Make Me Instantly Want to Read a Book
BOOKS THAT ARE SET IN MY FAVORITE CITIES & COUNTRIES
My favorite places in the world are New York City, Paris, and Italy. These settings are pure magic for me, each in their own way, so I’m drawn like a moth to a flame to pretty much any books set in these locations. Doesn’t matter if they’re contemporary stories or historical fiction, it’s all about location, location, location for me.
1. NEW YORK CITY
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2. PARIS, FRANCE
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3. ITALY
BOOKS THAT ARE SET IN CERTAIN TIME PERIODS
Another huge draw for me are books that fall within certain time periods. If a book is set during World War II, I’m definitely going to read it and same goes for books set during the Jazz Age and during the 1960’s. As you can imagine, Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale became a must-read for me as soon as I heard that it was set in Paris during World War II.
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4. THE 1920’S
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5. WORLD WAR II ERA
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6. THE 1960’S
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BOOKS THAT FOCUS ON CERTAIN TOPICS
7. FAIRYTALE RETELLINGS
Fairytale retellings are a fairly new interest for me, but I have to say that they have become quite an obsession because they’re always such fun and creative reads. I love the idea of putting a unique spin on a familiar tale.
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8. FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
Some of my favorite books are those that deal with families and their day-to-day lives. I love books that explore the parent-child bond, sibling rivalries – basically, you name it, I’m interested if it relates to family.
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9. MENTAL ILLNESS
When I was in college, I double major in English Lit and Psychology, so I think books that explore mental illness appeal to that part of my personality. I like that there are more and more books that focus on mental illness, seeking to educate people on a more personal level that is so much more accessible than a dry psychology textbook could ever hope to be.
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10. INTROVERTS
As an introvert, it’s a guarantee that I will read ANY book that has a main character who is considered an introvert. Those are the literary characters that I relate to most in the world so there’s no way I’m passing up a book where I know the character will be totally relatable.
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Question: What are some things that will instantly make you want to read a book? Do we have any in common?
Book Review: Our Chemical Hearts
/19 Comments/by SuzannePublished by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers on October 4th 2016
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 320
Source: Library
Amazon
Goodreads
Goodreads Synopsis: John Green meets Rainbow Rowell in this irresistible story of first love, broken hearts, and the golden seams that put them back together again.
Henry Page has never been in love. He fancies himself a hopeless romantic, but the slo-mo, heart palpitating, can’t-eat-can’t-sleep kind of love that he’s been hoping for just hasn’t been in the cards for him—at least not yet. Instead, he’s been happy to focus on his grades, on getting into a semi-decent college and finally becoming editor of his school newspaper. Then Grace Town walks into his first period class on the third Tuesday of senior year and he knows everything’s about to change.
Grace isn’t who Henry pictured as his dream girl—she walks with a cane, wears oversized boys’ clothes, and rarely seems to shower. But when Grace and Henry are both chosen to edit the school paper, he quickly finds himself falling for her. It’s obvious there’s something broken about Grace, but it seems to make her even more beautiful to Henry, and he wants nothing more than to help her put the pieces back together again. And yet, this isn’t your average story of boy meets girl. Krystal Sutherland’s brilliant debut is equal parts wit and heartbreak, a potent reminder of the bittersweet bliss that is first love.
MY REVIEW
Our Chemical Hearts is an engaging story about first loves. Author Krystal Sutherland takes her readers on a journey to explore the highs and the lows of falling in love for the first time. We follow Henry Page, a young man who has never been in love before. While finding the girl of his dreams is definitely on his radar, Henry is content for the time being to focus on his school work and on his work at the school paper. He has devoted himself to the paper for years and is hoping to land the Editor job as he begins his senior year. When he meets Grace Town, the new girl at school, however, his life is turned upside down. He wouldn’t have expected a girl wearing oversized boy’s clothing, with a bad haircut and questionable hygiene to be the girl of his dreams, but there’s just something about Grace and so he begins to pursue her, learning very quickly that there’s way more to Grace than meets the eye and much of it is tragic. Even though he senses the relationship is probably trouble, Henry falls head over heels for Grace anyway and so their roller coaster of a journey begins….
LIKES
I think Sutherland’s biggest strength in this novel is her ability to craft wonderfully complex, flawed characters that immediately grab your attention and your heart and don’t let go.
Henry. I loved Henry Page. He totally reminded me of someone I would have been friends with in high school or maybe even dated. He’s funny and charming in a semi-dorky kind of way, the word “adorkable” comes to mind actually. Henry has also never been in love before, so he has an innocent, almost vulnerable, quality about him that made me feel very protective of him, especially once he started falling so hard for Grace Town that he started to neglect his school work and his editorial duties at the school paper. Even though Henry could see that the relationship probably wouldn’t end well, he was still drawn to Grace like a moth to a flame. I knew he was in trouble as soon as he started snooping, and found Grace’s Facebook page. The Grace he sees on Facebook doesn’t even remotely resemble the Grace he knows. Facebook Grace is smiling, wearing feminine clothes, and looks like every bit the social butterfly. Henry is even more fascinated by Grace at this point and he becomes obsessed with trying to “fix” her.
It was so frustrating to watch him on the path he was on, but at the same time, it made his character feel all the more authentic because we’ve all been there at some point. You can’t help who you fall in love with, even if it’s just your idea of what that person should be, and sometimes broken hearts are a rite of passage when it comes to love and romance.
Grace. I can’t say that I loved Grace Town the way I loved Henry, but I was initially drawn to the same mysterious qualities about her that initially attracted Henry to her. Grace is an incredibly complex character, mainly because of all of the details about herself that she tries to hide from everyone around her. Like Henry, I found her fascinating and wanted to know more about her. The more I learned, however, the more my heart just broke for her. Her eccentricities are not just her trying to be quirky and mysterious, but instead run so much deeper than that. I don’t want to give away any specific details, but I will say that Grace has recently suffered a huge loss and that she feels so responsible for that loss that her life has become little more than her trying to atone for her “sin.” I was so torn about her relationship with Henry because even though he was neglecting his school work, etc, because of her, I could also tell that she desperately needed a friend and Henry is such a good guy that I knew he could have been a great friend to her. Just seeing their hilarious conversations on Facebook was proof of that. Even though Grace was still full of secrets, she still opened up to Henry more than she opened up to anyone else around her.
Henry’s Circle of Friends. As compelling as the two main characters were, I also adored Henry’s friends Lola and Murray. Not only were they wonderful friends to Henry, but they also provided a lot of levity to balance the seriousness of what was going on with Grace. Murray is from Australia and has found that doing endless Crocodile Dundee impressions surprisingly serves him quite well when he wants to woo the ladies. Lola works on the newspaper with Henry and their relationship is especially entertaining. Lola was the first girl Henry ever kissed and not too long after that moment, she came out and announced she was a lesbian. Ever since, they have had the long-running joke that Henry’s such a bad kisser that he turned Lola gay. I just loved the banter and the overall dynamic of this circle of friends, especially how they had Henry’s back when it came to Grace. They could tell the relationship was probably a bad idea but ultimately knew all they could do was be there for Henry no matter what happened. These friendships were probably what I enjoyed most about the book.
Henry’s Parents: Kind of a sidebar here, but if Henry is ”adorkable,” he definitely gets it from his parents. They were so cute and so corny. I loved it every time they turned up in the story, especially when they would go out of their way to embarrass Henry in front of Grace.
DISLIKES
I won’t really call them dislikes, but there were a couple of things about the story that knocked my overall rating down a little lower than it might otherwise have been.
Grace and Henry’s afternoon ritual. Once they start hanging out, every afternoon Henry walks Grace home, Grace then hands Henry the keys to her car and he drives them both back to his house. Then Grace leaves her car at Henry’s house and walks off in the opposite direction of where she lives, with no explanation as to where she’s going. It’s another mysterious to Grace, of course, and while it does end up being relevant to Grace’s backstory, I got a little bored reading about it day after day.
Grace’s living arrangements. It’s probably just me that felt this way, but I thought the mention of Grace’s awkward living arrangements near the end of Our Chemical Hearts made her story feel a little less believable. Up until that point, everything that had happened felt so completely authentic – an experience any of us could have. But then this implausible living arrangement was mentioned and we were unexpectedly given a tour of Grace’s home environment and that part just felt over the top to me. It didn’t ruin the story or anything but it just felt like an unnecessary dramatic element.
FINAL THOUGHTS
If you’re looking for a solid contemporary read about first loves, broken hearts, friendship, and the idea that you can’t choose who you fall in love with or how long that love may last, then definitely give Our Chemical Hearts a try. Even with the couple of issues I had with it, I still very much enjoyed the read overall.
RATING: 3.5 STARS
About Krystal Sutherland
In her own words:
“Hello. It’s me.
I am Krystal Sutherland, writer of books. Or, more specifically, I am the writer of one book, Our Chemical Hearts, which was published in October 2016 by Penguin in the US and ANZ, Hot Key in the UK, and various other publishers in more than 20 countries around the globe.
I was born and raised in Townsville, in the far north of Australia. Since moving to Sydney in 2011, I’ve also lived in Amsterdam, which was awesome but cold, and Hong Kong, (though I speak neither Dutch nor Cantonese).
Growing up, I never dreamed of being a writer. I wanted to be a) a florist, then b) a volcanologist, then c) an actress. It wasn’t until shortly after my 18th birthday that I sat down to write my first (terrible) novel.
Our Chemical Hearts, thankfully, is slightly better than that hot mess. Nonetheless, I’m notoriously bad at explaining what it’s about, except to say that it involves the terribly tragic and awful experience of falling in love for the first time.
I have no pets and no children, but in Amsterdam I owned a Dutch bicycle called Kim Kardashian. It was somewhat difficult to get along with; I was fond of it regardless.”
Source: krystalsutherland.com
Waiting on Wednesday: Spotlight on How to Make a Wish
/12 Comments/by Suzanne“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, which encourages fellow bloggers to spotlight upcoming releases that we’re excited about.
My “Waiting On” Wednesday selection for this week is How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake. I became interested in this book after learning that it is a coming of age story that explores different kinds of relationships, both romantic and familial. Specifically, How to Make a Wish explores the relationship between two young women, Grace and Eva, who fall in love with each other, and that their healthy and organic relationship is contrasted with the very unhealthy and complicated that Grace has with her mother. Based on those early reviews, it sounds like the book will cover a lot of heavy topics, but that it will do so in a beautiful and moving way that will bring you to tears but then will still fill you with hope. I think it sounds wonderful!
Edited to add: Since drafting this post, I’ve received an ARC from the publisher so I’ll be reading and reviewing this very soon!
How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake
Publication Date: May 2, 2017
From Amazon.com:
All seventeen year-old Grace Glasser wants is her own life. A normal life in which she sleeps in the same bed for longer than three months and doesn’t have to scrounge for spare change to make sure the electric bill is paid. Emotionally trapped by her unreliable mother, Maggie, and the tiny cape on which she lives, she focuses on her best friend, her upcoming audition for a top music school in New York, and surviving Maggie’s latest boyfriend—who happens to be Grace’s own ex-boyfriend’s father.
Her attempts to lay low until she graduates are disrupted when she meets Eva, a girl with her own share of ghosts she’s trying to outrun. Grief-stricken and lonely, Eva pulls Grace into midnight adventures and feelings Grace never planned on. When Eva tells Grace she likes girls, both of their worlds open up. But, united by loss, Eva also shares a connection with Maggie. As Grace’s mother spirals downward, both girls must figure out how to love and how to move on.
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Check out the Advance Praise for How to Make a Wish
“Blake (Suffer Love) skillfully assembles a complex story about the wonders of first love while exploring challenges all teenagers face, such as growing up and gaining independence… a story written with realism and sensitivity.” —Publishers Weekly
“This organic, moving romance juxtaposed with a messy, complex mother-daughter relationship is passionately told, with glimpses of optimism appearing through Grace’s unshakeable bonds of loyalty. Blake clearly illustrates the impact of adult decisions that disregard the lives of teens, guaranteeing an emotional and relevant read.” — Booklist
“Despite the heavy topics addressed, the story never feels hopeless or depressing, as the author writes with nuance and care about her cast of admirably strong, loyal, and resilient teens who face head on the challenges life throws at them.” —Kirkus
“A solid romance within a moving portrait of a dysfunctional mother/daughter relationship. Recommended for YA contemporary fiction collections.” —School Library Journal
“This is a gorgeous and moving novel of love, connection, romance, mother-daughter relationships, and the way pain inextricably links them all.” —Dahlia Adler, BN Teens
“A beautiful book about two girls trying to hold on: to themselves, to each other and to the pieces of their shattered lives. Heartbreaking, hopeful and honest. Blake has written one of most wrenching portrayals of a messy, complicated mother/daughter bond I’ve seen in Young Adult fiction. Bravo!” —Tess Sharpe, author of Far From You
“A beautiful story about love’s paradoxical ability to be the most difficult yet most effortless thing in the world. Ashley Herring Blake breaks your heart for these girls and then stitches it back together with starlit magic.” —Dahlia Adler, author of Under the Lights and Just Visiting