Book 15: Me Before You

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes was April's hardback book for one of my goodreads book clubs, so it became book fifteen.

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Book Summary:
Louisa Clark is your average 26-year-old. She's got a great family, a boyfriend whom she will probably marry, and she's never been outside of her small village. But when her boss tells her that he's closing the café and she gets a new job as the caregiver for Will Traynor - a quadriplegic, she finds herself thinking about her life in a completely new way. 

Will Traynor used to be a big shot until he was hit by a motorcycle while crossing the street that caused him to become a quadriplegic. He hates what he's become and finds nothing good in his life...that is, until Louisa Clark enters the scene.

My Review:
Oh. My. Goodness. 

If you'd like to stop reading this review now, you totally can because those three words basically sum up everything I feel for this book. It has to be the most beautifully depressing book I've read since The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and I loved every single second of it. Now, before you run out and buy this book, let me give you fair warning that this book gets kind of deep and debates the topic of assisted suicide. If you are okay with that, then I would suggest you read it. 

Now, on to the ins and outs of what I liked and didn't. What I loved most was the writing. Moyes made me want to go read the rest of her books because of how lovely this one was written. I think she does a fantastic job of developing the main characters, and by the end I was so attached to them that I set the book to the side and sobbed for a solid 2-3 minutes. Now, as I've said in a previous review, I don't like when authors go between narrators, but for some reason it really worked in this book. It helped that she didn't do it often (it is primarily told from Louisa's point of view) and that when she did it she put the name of whomever was narrating at the start of the chapter. I actually really liked those few chapters that were told from another's perspective. As I said earlier, this book delves into the subject of assisted suicide, in fact the author speaks of a real place in Switzerland where one who is terminally ill can go to do this. Some may find this issue unbearable to read about, but I found it thought provoking. On top of this, I was constantly contemplating the fact that an accident like Will's could happen to anyone at any moment. Anytime a book gets me to think deeply on issues that I wouldn't normally think about, I definitely deem it a wonderful story.

There really wasn't much that I disliked about Me Before You, the main thing being the character of Patrick, Louisa's boyfriend. I was constantly irritated by him and found myself wondering why Louisa was with such a jerk. And his character just goes from unlikeable to even more unlikeable when he sells Will's story to the press. 

The only other thing I have to say is that I wish the ending had been different. I wasn't surprised by it, but I wished the author had chosen to give us a twist and go a different way. That being said, it did not degrade this story in any way whatsoever. 

As far as family friendliness goes, this is not a book for young teens. There are many curse words and multiple sexual references (not to mention all the suicide talk). 

My Rating: 9/10

Book 14: Midnighters - Blue Noon

I'm still trying to catch up on my reading, so for book 14 I picked the easy read of the final book in the Midnighters series by Scott Westerfeld titled Blue Noon.

 

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*Spoiler Alert: This is book three is a series, so if you don't want books one and two to be spoiled please stop reading*

To read my reviews of the previous books go here for book one and here for book two.

Book Summary:
Blue Noon continues the story of our midnighters - Jess, Jonathan, Dess, Rex, and Melissa - as they make a new discovery about the midnight hour that threatens to destroy everything. Blue time is now hitting randomly throughout the day, and they scramble to figure out why it's happening. They soon find that the walls between midnight and real time are crumbling, and if they don't find a way stop it, the darklings will finally be free to become the predators they once were. The only thing they know for sure, is that the flame bringer is the key to saving everyone.

Book Review:
I really don't want to spoil too much about this book, but let me just say that I hated the ending. I completely understand why Westerfeld wrote it the way he did, but it wasn't a plot twist I enjoyed at all. Now, normally when I read books I go to the end first to make sure I like the ending, and then I go back and read the book from start to finish. I've always said that the reason I do this is because a bad ending ruins the entire book experience for me, so if I don't like the ending, I won't read the book. Well, I promised myself that I wouldn't do that with this book challenge. I decided I would read all fifty-two books like a normal person. Let me tell you, though, had I read this ending first, I wouldn't have bothered with the series. Now, please don't take that as you shouldn't read this series. I did like the series, and if you aren't someone who gets super disappointed by twist endings, you will probably be fine. I just don't fall into that category.

Now that I've gotten my largest disappointment out of the way let's move on to the things I liked. The plot of this book was really engaging, and I found that I enjoyed it more than the previous two novels. I loved the idea of regular people getting pulled into the midnight hour because it's like when Jessica first discovered the blue time only on a much grander scale. I also really liked that the author used Jessica's sister Beth more in this storyline. I think one of my favorite things, though, was the midnighters learning that there is another side to their history, one that tells of mindcasters bending people's wills to match their own and wiping the minds of anyone who dared not submit to their authority. Before the previous generation was destroyed, midnighters ran the town of Bixby, and they stayed in power because they could control the minds of the regular people who lived there. I liked when Melissa realized that she wasn't the first crazy mindcaster, she was, in fact, the first sane one because she believed that their was a major problem controlling people the way the old mindcasters did.

Obviously the ending was the thing I liked least about this book, but there were a couple other things I didn't really enjoy. I realize that Rex being part human-part darkling was a major plot point for the series and without him they wouldn't have been able to stop the rip, but I really didn't like it. I thought Rex getting all creepy and saying that people smelled like prey was just a little too much for me.  Also, there were parts of the story that were a little slow, and I ended up skimming through chunks of the book because it was kind of boring.

Overall, I did enjoy this book until the last two chapters. As far as language goes, I don't think it's quite as much as book two, but there are definitely some curse words (but no f bombs), and there are still some sexual references, though as with the second book they don't ever come out to say that's what they're talking about. 

On the series in general, I failed to mention that some of the stuff they talk about is a little dated. They still use VCR's and cassette players throughout the series. While this obviously doesn't take away from the series, young ones who weren't very old when those things were phased out may be slightly confused by Melissa using a walkman.

My Rating: 5/10 - (the series as a whole I would give a 6/10)
 

Book 13: Midnighters - Touching Darkness

Since I needed a couple easy reads to get caught up on my book quota, I decided to finish out the Midnighters Series by Scott Westerfeld before I started anything else. So, for book 13 I chose Midnighters - Touching Darkness.

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*Spoiler Alert: This is book two in a series. If you don't want book one spoiled, you should probably stop reading.*

Read my review of book one here.

Book Summary:
Touching Darkness picks up a mere days after The Secret Hour ends. Now that Jessica knows she's a flame bringer, meaning she can use technology during the blue time, she seems to be safe from darkling threats. But when the midnighters find out that the ancient darklings have teamed up with some humans, or stiffs as the team calls them, they aren't sure exactly what to do. Help, however, comes from an unexpected source as the the group uncovers the reason why there is no lore from the last fifty years.

My Review:
Unlike The Secret Hour, which I felt was just setting up plot lines for this story, Touching Darkness does a great job of standing on its own. If I didn't know going in that this was a trilogy, I wouldn't have known just from reading this that there was another book to follow. Westerfeld also gives the reader a lot more background information on the characters. I especially liked how much more we learned about Melissa's ability, as she was kind of to the background a good bit in The Secret Hour. Being a mindcaster is about so much more than just being able to hear people's thoughts, and I didn't completely get that until the character of Madeleine was introduced. Speaking of Madeleine, her character was my favorite aspect about this book, as it enabled the author to answer most of my questions from the first book. My biggest issue with the first book was the idea that somehow there are five midnighters in Bixby who are all teenagers. This was very unbelievable to me. However, this issue was explained in detail throughout Touching Darkness.

As far as what I didn't enjoy, my biggest complaint was that I felt like the ending was rushed just like it was in The Secret Hour. Although the buildup wasn't quite as slow, I still thought the climax of the novel could have been written a little better. I also really began to dislike Rex throughout this story. His jealousy over Melissa touching anyone but him drove me crazy. Plus, his reaction to just about everything Jonathan says made me want to smack him. Lastly, I really didn't like that the swearing was amped up a good bit. I realize that teenagers swear, but since there was basically no swearing in the first book and this takes place like a week after those events, I didn't really understand why all the characters randomly started swearing so much.

Overall, I did enjoy this book at least as much as the first in the series. As I stated above, there is a good bit of swearing, however there are no f-bombs dropped anywhere. As far as sexual references go, there are a few scenes where the characters talk about sex, though they never come right out and say it. There are no graphic scenes, though, and the worst the characters do is kiss.

My Rating: 7/10

Book 12: The End of Your Life Book Club

I am seriously addicted to Goodreads. Since utilizing it a couple months ago, I've read quite a few books that I wouldn't have normally picked up. The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe is one such book, and I am so glad I got my hands on it.

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Book Summary:
The End of Your Life Book Club is a memoir written by a son about the last years of his mom's life. When Mary Anne was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, her life became filled with visits to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Deciding to use this time at the center as a way to connect with family and friends, she and her son start a not-so traditional book club. They are the only members, and they rarely read the same books at the same time. In this book, Schwalbe chronicles the remaining two years of his mother's life by the books they read and the discussions they had. Along the way he discovers not only new authors and books, but also things he didn't know about his mother.

My Review:
I'm pretty sure that this was the first memoir I've ever read. And if all memoirs are written like this one, I'm sure it will not be the last. It took me a lot longer to read this than I initially thought it would, but it wasn't because I didn't enjoy it. It was actually because I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to soak up every word instead of speed reading my way through it as I do with most books.

The first thing that I loved about this book is that on top of being a beautifully written chronicle of mother and son connecting through an unfortunate circumstance, it's a book about books. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love books, and as Mary Anne says at one point in the story (not a direct quote here because I now can't find the page), how can someone who loves books not like a story about loving books and the importance of the written word. I think the thing that struck me the most about this book, though, is Mary Anne as a person. She is fully devoted to her family while still being fully devoted to all her causes. As she is a huge supporter and volunteer of numerous organizations, she spends much of her life helping raise money and awareness along with flying around the world to volunteer. Mary Anne seriously inspired me while I was reading this. There is one point after she and Will have read the book Suite Française, that Will basically says he feels guilty for not doing more in the world to help others and this is his mother's reply:

"I loved the people I met on all my trips, Will. I loved hearing their stories and getting to know them and finding out what if anything we could all do to help. That's enriched my life more than I can say. Of course you could do more - you can always do more, and you should do more - but still, the important thing is to do what you can, whenever you can. You just do your best, and that's all you can do. Too many people use the excuse that they don't think they can do enough, so they decide they don't have to do anything. There's never a good excuse for not doing anything - even if it's just to sign something, or send a small contribution, or invite a newly settled refugee family over for Thanksgiving."

I loved this quote from the book because after reading this story I feel like I knew Mary Anne, and I feel like this quote is basically how she lived her entire life, doing what she could whenever she could. And that's really how I want to live my life.

There really wasn't much that I disliked about this book. In all honesty as it was a true story written about real people, the things I tended not to like were ultimately places where I just disagreed with the author or Mary Anne. For instance, while talking about feminism, she makes a point to say that although she doesn't disagree with women who decide to be house wives or stay-at-home mothers, she doesn't approve of people getting advanced degrees and then deciding to stay home. Her argument is basically that while you got your degree you took a spot from someone else and that you should do something with that education to help others. While I fully understand her point of view on this, I definitely do not agree with her, especially since in this day and age women tend to have children much later in life. They could have had a great career before they decided to settle down and have a family. Another thing I disliked about this book was that I felt like there was a lot of political stuff in it. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and it wasn't like a blaring horn with the politics; I just sort of felt like the author was trying to push his political views onto me inception style. Lastly, I felt as though the author worshiped his mom a little too much while writing this. Although I think it's beautifully written, there were parts where I felt like he was looking through rose colored glasses. Although I'm sure his mother was wonderful, especially through his eyes, I felt like there wasn't anything bad written about her in this story. She never gets angry, and whenever something bad happens to her she first thinks about how it affected others. For example, when she falls in front of her grandkids, she's more concerned that she scared them than she is that she fell. She seemed very Mother Teresa-ish as I read this, and that makes me slightly skeptical.

Overall, I did love this book. It made me cry a couple times (which almost never happens when I'm reading). There are very few curse words and no sexual references (though since she works with refugees there are a couple times where rape comes up but nothing graphic is ever discussed).

My Rating: 8/10

Book 11: Midnighters - The Secret Hour

I recently found a locally owned used book store in town, and the first time I visited I picked up Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters series. Book eleven was the first in the series, The Secret Hour.

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Book Summary:
When Jessica Day moves from Chicago to Bixby, Oklahoma, she has no idea that she is about to find a whole new world opened to her - a world in which there is a twenty-fifth hour to every day that has been compressed down into a mere moment. The world stands frozen during this blue time when the slithers and darklings come out to play, and only those born within seconds of midnight are able to move freely through this time, each with there own talent. They call themselves midnighters, and Jessica is one of them.

Book Review:
I was first introduced to Scott Westerfeld by his Uglies series (if you like dystopian novels and haven't read them, I would definitely recommend picking them up). I think he is an awesome story-teller and a pretty good writer. In The Secret Hour he does a great job of introducing the main characters and giving the reader just enough information about each of them to feel informed but still intrigued. I loved the concept of the book; the idea that there is this secret hour in which only a few people can move about is really interesting, and Westerfeld does a great job describing the back story for why this hour exists. I also really liked the fact that each midnighter had his or her own special ability that exists only during the blue time; a large part of the story was trying to figure out what Jessica's ability was and why the darklings and slithers wanted her dead so badly.

As I stated above, this is the first book in a series, and you can definitely tell. This is actually my biggest issue with the book as a whole. I honestly felt like a good bit of this story was just setting up the reader for the second novel. The buildup to the climax was really slow, and then I felt like the ending was rushed because so much of this book was spent giving us a lot of information on the blue time, like back story and rules the characters must follow. To me, all of this felt like Westerfeld was filling us in more because it would be useful for the second book than this one, even uncovering Jessica's ability seemed more like it was a plot device to move us to the next novel than the climax of this one.

I also found it slightly unbelievable that there were five midnighters in the small town of Bixby, and on top of that, they were all in high school within one year of each other. If the town is as small as the author makes it seem, it's unrealistic that there would be five people, in general, that were all born close enough to midnight to be able to walk freely in the secret hour. Stepping off of that near impossibility, if there would happen to be five of them, how plausible is it that they are all teenagers? How is there no adults who are awake during this time? I mean, there have to be more adults in the town than teens, so statistically there would be a much greater chance of there being five adults who were born around midnight than there would be of five teens being born around midnight. I realize that this is splitting hairs and that I probably thought way to much about this, but logically this makes absolutely no sense to me, even in the realm of science fiction and fantasy.

Overall, I really liked this novel. It was a easy read and a fun story. I would definitely recommend it, though more for preteens and teens than adults. There is minimal, if any, swearing and no sexual references other than kissing. Obviously there is a little bit of a spooky/supernatural/science fiction-y feel to the book, but I personally didn't have an issues with it and would have no problems allowing my young teen (if I had one) to read this.

My Rating: 7/10

Book 10: The Art of Fielding

So, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach was originally started as my ninth book, but I had some issues while reading it, and thus it became my tenth book.

Author Links: Goodreads

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Book Summary:
For the first time, I am at a loss on how to summarize a book. Other than saying that it's a book that's sort of about baseball but sort of not, I've got nothing. So in order to give you something here, I'm just going to type the description from the cover. Here you go:

At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league until a routine throw goes disastrously off course. In the aftermath of his error, the fates of five people are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets.

Book Review: 
Okay...now...where to start? It's not that I necessarily disliked this book, it's just that I didn't really like it much either. I'm kind of neutral about it, maybe slightly more to the side of dislike but not much. I thought it was decently written, and the characters were pretty well rounded, even if at times unbelievable. I also thought the book was going to have more to do with baseball than it did. Baseball is used basically just as a plot device to move the story along. There wasn't a lot that I really liked about this book. It started off well; actually I was really into it for the first fifty pages, but then it went downhill.

Here's the thing, I'm not a huge fan of books that have multiple main characters and jump around between the characters from chapter to chapter. I get confused on the timeline of events when this happens. So when after reading five straight chapters of this book being about Henry and it randomly jumped to Affenlight in chapter six, I was perplexed. I didn't realize that was coming and was really confused for the next couple chapters. After I got the hang of it, though, it wasn't so bad.

The main issues I have with this book deal the believability of the characters' actions, like, for instance, when Henry and Pella sleep together. I'm not saying that this stuff doesn't happen, but they basically just slept together because they were in a room alone at the same time, who cares if Mike gets hurt in the process. It just didn't fit with their characters personalities to me. Also, Owen sort of drove me crazy. I felt like he was written, purposefully, as this super stereotypical gay male, and it wasn't believable for me. The other thing I didn't like was that there were plot lines introduced in the book that were never wrapped up. This is not the type of book you write a sequel for, so I suppose the author just didn't think people would wonder whether Mike got over his pain killer addiction.

All in all, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. I would probably never recommend it to someone. As far as swearing and sexual references go, both are present and abundant. There are multiple sex scenes (not overly graphic, but graphic enough), both hetero- and homosexual, along with a magnitude of swear words including multiple f-bombs.

My Rating: 4/10

Book 9: Insurgent

First off I'd like to start by telling you that this wasn't supposed to be book nine. This was supposed to be book ten, but I'm having a couple issues getting through my original book nine, so I stopped reading it for a day and read this book instead. I promise I will finish the other book, it will just take me a little longer than expected. So book nine is Insurgent by Veronica Roth

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Buy it Now: Amazon / Barnes and Noble







*Spoiler warning! This is the second book in a series. If you have not read Divergent you may want to stop reading right now because there will be spoilers for it here.*

Book Summary:
Insurgent takes up where Divergent left off, Tris Prior has just helped to stop the Euridite simulation that was controlling the Dauntless causing them to kill the Abnegation. She and the remaining survivors (Four, Marcis, Caleb, and Peter included), must escape to the Amity grounds in hopes that they will be safe. When the Euridite and Dauntless traitors show up, they find themselves on the run, and the only people they can turn to are the factionless, who are large in number and who have been patiently waiting for their chance to usurp the factions.

In all the chaos, Tris must decide who to trust while trying to forgive herself for killing Will and overcome the grief of losing her parents.

My review:
I loved this book as much as I loved Divergent. It is fabulously written; Roth does a great job continuing Tris's inner struggle, only this time it is more about learning to forgive herself than trying to figure out what it means to be divergent - although she is still trying to completely understand this. Four's character was also written very well; I loved seeing him struggle between wanting to save Tris and wanting to let her go. Throughout most of the book, I wasn't sure what was going to happen between the two of them, if they were going to kiss or throw punches. There were a couple of surprising characters in this book, the one that goes from bad to good (well, semi-good) I totally called, but I was completely caught off gaurd by the biggest traitor in the book. I seriously yelled, "What?!" when the reveal occurred. I think the thing I like most about this book, however, was the ending. It definitely took me by surprise even though they've been leading up to that for the entirety of the two books.

There were very few things I didn't like about this book. One was the character of Tori (who in the first book helped to hide Tris's secret). All through this book, I felt like she had major secrets that she wasn't letting anyone in on, and by the end of the book, Tris begins wondering the same things. I'm hoping we find out more about her character in book three. Also, I wasn't a huge fan of the way they dealt with Jeanine. I felt going in that it would happen that way, but I was really hoping that it wouldn't. I would explain more about how I feel about this, but I don't want to give away too many spoilers.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book (after you've read Divergent) to anyone. Again, there is little, if any, swearing and only a few sexual references. There is one scene where Tris and Four get a little carried away, but there is nothing graphic and I honestly wasn't sure afterward if they had slept together or not.

So I am now (not-so) patiently waiting for book three, which doesn't come out until October. How am I going to make it through?!

My Rating: 9/10