Emily is having a conflicting winter break. While her best friend Gabby is away with her parents, she’s conscripted Em to keep a close eye on her boyfriend, Zach. But this in itself is quite a nefarious job, because Em has some deeply inappropriate feelings for Zach, and with Gabby absent, things begin to heat up in a very new way for Zach and Em. Meanwhile, all-star footballer Chase is being driven crazy by a flame-haired vixen who’s new to town. Chase isn’t really on solid footing at school because he’s hiding secrets about his home life and background, so when the beautiful Ty takes a sudden interest in him, he’s sure he can solidify his social standing by bringing her to the annual football dinner. But Ty is somehow...different. And though she ostensibly likes Chase, she always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and seems to always want to get Chase into very compromising situations. She also has two equally gorgeous cousins who have some seriously weird preoccupations and behaviors. As winter break stretches on, Chase and Em will discover the real secrets behind the new girls and come to discover that karma can be a real bitch sometimes. When all is said and done, someone will be dead and someone else will be tied to these strange new girls forever.While I really liked the last section of this book and thought it took a turn in a very interesting direction, the majority of the story was mired deep in teen drama. Cheating boyfriends, gossipy high-schoolers and tenuous crushes were not what I had been expecting, so perhaps I was a little underwhelmed with it all. And perhaps I’m not the target audience for this book. I think teenagers who love angst will be all over this one, and I can see that for a certain set, this would be a really interesting read. For the most part, I didn’t really care about the personal dramas that were being played out on the page, and hungered for the promised supernatural flare that came bounding out of the corners towards the end of the book. I had been wondering if it would ever happen!
The crux of this story dealt with issues that many teenagers will be familiar with. Namely, illicit relationships between people who should be off-limits to each other, and crushes on improbably hot girls. Yes, there was a lot lurking underneath all that, but those two situations were the focus of the drama. At certain points, a supernatural “bone” would be thrown at the reader, but it was all sort of vague and never really seemed cohesive to me. Who were these strange girls and what was their agenda, was the question on my mind most of the time, and I never felt like that topic got a lot of play in the story. Most of the book felt like a morality tale, but I admit that at points, there were some startling developments and strange twists. And I enjoyed that aspect of the book. I really did. But there needed to be more of it. I didn’t get the feeling that there was a whole lot of supernatural stuff happening at the root levels of the story. It was mostly a tale of teen drama superimposed over a background of the strange and otherworldly, which is fine, just not what I had been expecting.
One of the things I really liked about this book was the platonic relationship that Em had with her friend J.D. It was sort of the bright spot of the book for me because there wasn’t a lot of sticky sexual tension going on between them and there seemed to be a real and very natural affinity working in their relationship. I liked that they spent time together in a genuine and unromantic way, and it was because of this relationship that I was able to see the more well-rounded aspects of Em’s character. I also liked how they mentally riffed on each other and lovingly teased each other. It was an aspect of the book that I really enjoyed and felt very organic, and I was happy at the eventual direction this relationship took. Far from being uncomplicated, this relationship was complicated in just the right ways and left me eager to see what the next book brings for two characters who are simultaneously being pulled away from each other and pushed close. The conundrum between J.D. and Em is delicious enough for me to happily pick up the next book in the series without any qualms.
While this book was not quite my cup of tea, there were some interesting developments towards the end that will keep me hooked into this new series, and I think people who are less annoyed with teen angst and drama would find some very likable characters. I admit I can be a curmudgeon about teen angst, so you can take my harping on it with a grain of salt. Beyond the somewhat plebeian aspects of this story, there lurks something interesting, I think, and I’ll be more than happy to go along for the ride to discover what it’s all about. An interesting, if uneven read.
This book was provided as a complimentary review copy.
In this frenetically charged, candid and frightening new memoir from Ned Zeman, the author compellingly relates how his battles with depression and anxiety force him into considering electroconvulsive therapy as a cure to what ails him. But the problems Ned faces when he submits to the therapy is far more damning and damaging than his initial illness, as afterwards, Ned becomes a severe amnesiac. When the journey first begins, Ned is a charismatic, if sometimes detached, reporter for Vanity Fair. Climbing the rungs from editor to contributing writer to screen play author, Ned is finding things difficult to manage, as his depression and anxiety are robbing him of the creativity he needs to write. After engaging a group of close friends to help him through these difficult times, Ned decides to begin medication and therapy, which seems to help him not one whit. He decides to enter a very expensive and elite hospital that at one time or another housed the crème de la crème of brilliant authors and journalists who struggled with mental illness. When he decides that electroconvulsive therapy is the direction he wants to go, friends and parents alike are alarmed. But not Ned. He is hopeful and excited, and it’s only after several treatments that he starts losing short and long-term memory and begins to act in some alarming and aggressive ways. This causes his friends to become anxious and scared for him, and a system is put into place for Ned’s safety. Now it’s up to Ned to rebuild and repair, but with no memory from which to draw, this is tough job indeed. The Rules of the Tunnel is Ned’s harrowing and sometimes unsettling story, from beginning to end and all the hair-raising stops in between.
About the Author
After a whirlwind courtship, Eve and Dom decide to settle down in Provence, France in a crumbling and spacious homestead called Les Genévriers that is full of flavor and history. But from the moment the two embark on their new lives together, Eve begins to fret. While Dom was initially a very romantic and thoughtful partner, his behavior in Provence is at once puzzling and disturbing. First of all, Dom abhors any mention of his ex-wife, Rachel, and goes to great lengths to hide all facts about his previous relationship from Eve. At first Eve is gently understanding and considers Dom’s relationship must be too painful to speak about. But when Dom grows ever more distant and strangely uncommunicative, Eve is forced to seek answers elsewhere. It also seems that Dom can have an explosive temper when faced with the past, and as he becomes increasingly agitated, Eve begins to wonder just what happened between him and Rachel. As Eve and Dom work to refurbish and rebuild the crumbling homestead, haunting secrets begin to come to light that begin to change the way Eve looks at Dom, and she begins to realize that she knows far less about him than she had previously thought. Alternating with the story of Eve and Dom is the tale of Bénédicte, one of the women who lived in Les Genévriers many, many years ago. Bénédicte shares the story of her life at the homestead, where she worked the land with her family as sustenance farmers. But Bénédicte’s life was shadowed with unhappiness and pain, as her family was troubled in many different ways. From her sister Marthe’s blindness to her brother Pierre’s astonishing cruelty, Bénédicte recounts a life of hardship and dissension. Bénédicte’s story, nestled in between Dom and Eve’s tale, is a recounting of terrible misfortune, misunderstanding and murder. As the two tales weave together, Bénédicte and Eve will uncover some very frightening facts and come to understand that little is how it actually appears, both in the past and in the present, leaving them to deal with the ghost of their pasts, both metaphorically and literally.
About the Author
Today I have a great guest post from Kimberly Freeman, the author of Wildflower Hill. I reviewed the book this week and have to say that it was a fantastic epic that really dealt with some startlingly deep issues. Today, Kim shares with us a little about her creative space, where she toils away creating books that will electrify and enmesh readers. So please welcome Kim, and stay tuned after the guest post for a great giveaway!
In this haunting and penetrating novel that explores the lives of a handful of Holocaust survivors, strangers and family alike become enmeshed in remembering a brutal history and creating a new and more peaceful future. For Pavel, a man who escaped a concentration camp, his new life as a displaced person in Germany is aided by his blatant opportunism. He’s also taken in a woman named Fela and a boy much like himself named Chaim, who have both lost their families. As the three learn to live in a war-torn country, their hope is to one day emigrate to America, but after failure and betrayal, it’s many years before they finally land in New York. Even then, things aren’t what they had hoped. As the three start a new life, with Fela and Pavel marrying, and Chaim relocating to Palestine before coming to America, the lives they lead are drenched in the difficulties of assimilation. As three generations of the family recount their lives from the moment the Allies arrive in Germany to the year 2000, when lives have been altered and different circumstances lived, Displaced Persons shares the hopeful, yet at times grave circumstances of those in-between people who somehow survived the unthinkable.
About the Author
In this non-fiction work, John McWhorter explores language in all its copious forms and varieties. From languages that are so abstract as to be referred to as “tongues” or dialects, to the idiosyncrasies of some of the largest languages known today, McWhorter takes his audience on a crash course in the origin of language and the ways in which it proliferates. Here then are the strange facts about language that you may never have even thought to ask yourself, peppered between layers of language fact and lore. Sharing the way that language grows exponentially, and drawing the reader into the various complexities of pronunciation and language conversion, McWhorter attempts to explain to his readers why languages are messy and intricate. He also shares his interpretations of the upswing and realities of Ebonics and other looser and more informal styles of language. He even goes on to share his conclusions about the written language being superior to the spoken language, and why this should be patently not so. What Language Is is a heady mix of linguistic interpretation and discourse that will have some readers knee-deep in McWhorter’s thoughts and revelations about the various conundrums of linguistics, past and present.
About the Author
When Ariel and her family move into a new neighborhood across town, she’s hopeful that great friendships, new opportunities and a new life are just around the corner, but life with three boys and a husband who’s constantly traveling has her more than frazzled. That’s why she’s so excited to be welcomed into the neighborhood and taken under the wing of the community’s most “together” woman, Justine. Justine is not only a great mom and wife but she’s super organized and creative, the woman that all the other women strive to be. Ariel finds Justine’s tutelage to be just what she needs, and she begins to relish her new life and Justine’s place in it. But something is niggling at Ariel, for Justine isn’t always as open and friendly as she could be, and although she’s chosen Ariel to be her protégée, it seems there’s an underlying struggle for the women to really bridge the distance between them and become the close friends that Ariel wishes them to be. It turns out that Justine has a secret she’s trying to keep from Ariel and the other neighbors, and this secret is destined to change the lives of all those around her. But Justine won’t heed any warnings and determinedly rushes towards a fate that will shock everyone and destroy several lives. Will Ariel stay quiet and protect Justine and their faltering friendship, or will she have to do a very difficult thing and expose the woman who she so desires to emulate, a woman who makes it look so easy?
Tom Violet’s life isn’t what he had hoped it would be. Working for a soul-crushing company where his only jollies come from tormenting his overbearing and obnoxious coworker Gregory, Tom feels stuck and unfulfilled. He also may or may not have a crush on his pretty young assistant Katie, a woman who is as intelligent as she is beautiful. His father is one of the foremost American authors and has just won the Pulitzer, a fact which makes Tom proud and envious all at the same time. Topping it all off, Tom’s penis seems to be malfunctioning, a problem exacerbated by the fact that his wife, Anna, is trying to become pregnant again. Though Tom has been languishing as a desk jockey for several years, he’s just completed his first novel, a fact he’s keeping secret from just about everybody, hoping he’ll one day become an author of the same caliber as his father. When the economic crisis hits, Tom’s job situation suddenly becomes dubiously strange, and while his feelings for Katie begin to mount, Tom’s relationship with his wife is becoming more and more complicated. Soon Tom finds himself at a sticking point at work, at home, and with his novel. Will his self-deprecating wit and verve be enough to save him from sinking, or will Tom go under, desperately trying to cling to all he could possibly lose? In this hilariously funny and inventive debut, Matthew Norman gives us Tom Violet in all his goofball glory and takes us on a journey filled with laughter, absurdity and surprising poignancy.
About the Author
In this tense and erotically charged new novel from Maxine Swann, three very different women experience life in Buenos Aires, Argentina amid a backdrop of tropical torpor and haute society. When Daisy, an American divorcee, escapes to Argentina after a medical scare, she’s at first withdrawn and alienated from her new surroundings and their inhabitants. When one day she’s discovered by Leonarda, a young Argentine woman with a strange sprightly outlook that hides a deep streak of masochism, Daisy is thrown headlong into a very confusing world of desire, repulsion and jealousy. Meanwhile, Isolde, a beautiful Austrian, is trying to use her looks and connections to climb into the upper echelons of Argentine society, but is finding that her brash neediness is undoing all of her careful work of ingratiating herself with the upper-class locals. As Isolde and Daisy experience a new world with very different rules than they’re used to, they’ll come face to face with their insecurities and strengths in a place where appearances and motives may be deceiving, and where their passions and fears are juxtaposed with the lives they left behind.
In this memoir, the life of a young woman growing up in cold war Leningrad is explored with depth and feeling as she struggles to come of age in the very forbidding and intense landscape of the former Soviet Union. Life for Elena and her family hasn’t always been easy. Through her parents’ hard work, Lena and her sister aren’t living at the bottom rungs of the communist society, but there isn’t a lot of extra in their lives either. Elena’s mother, once a surgeon during the war, is now teaching anatomy at the university. Elena has been raised to believe in the superiority of Russia and communism and to regard the rest of the world with suspicion and cynicism. Much to her mother’s dismay, these views strangely begin to melt away as she matures into a young woman. When Elena’s sister decides to pursue a career in acting instead of medicine or engineering, the idea that there multiple paths to happiness begins to occur to her, despite the messages she gets from society. As Elena begins to rise through the professional world and falls in line to do exactly what’s expected of her, a chance meeting with an American drastically alters the future that has been so carefully arranged by her and her mother. When the once iron grip of the Soviet Union begins to loosen its hold on Elena, her life will never be the same and the future that‘s laid out before her will be unlike anything she could have ever imagined.
Juana of Castile is just a girl in the court of her illustrious parents, Isabel and Fernando, rulers of the Spanish Empire, when she gets the news that she is to marry Phillipe the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy. This means traveling to a country very different from her own to live with a man she’s never met, a situation that troubles her. When she’s received in Phillipe’s court, brave Juana is hopeful that life with her doting and handsome husband will be all she hopes it can be. And for awhile, it is. Phillipe is loving and attentive, and despite some minor flaws, treats his new wife with tenderness and love. But soon Juana is noticing that Phillipe has an eye for the ladies and would much rather spend his time hunting then with her and the royal heirs. But still Juana is patient with her husband, until the day when plans are made to transfer the power of the Spanish throne to her with Phillipe acting only as king consort. This seems to quietly enrage Phillipe, and soon he is on a campaign to smear Juana's name and reputation. When he plants rumors that she’s gone mad and locks her away, Juana is confused and saddened but doesn’t know how best to quash this threat. Soon Juana is alone and friendless with rumors of her madness spread far and wide. Will Phillipe succeed in taking the crown of Spain for himself and making everyone truly believe that Juana is mad? Or will someone or something help Juana overcome this disaster that seems to be shaping her future? In this breathtaking and provocative new novel by Lynne Cullen, the doors are thrown open to the past and the story of Juana the Mad is re-imagined with a fresh perspective that might be closer to the truth than anyone has ever realized.
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