Book Review: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Goodreads synopsis: 

Two misfits.

One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

328 pages

4.21 average rating on Goodreads

Published: 2013

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance

I LOVE this book! I had heard so much hype about this book and I was worried that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, but it completely surpassed them! 

Eleanor has grown up in some unfortunate circumstances, and has just been allowed to move home after her stepfather kicked her out (for a year!). Park is a nice boy who has been raised with everything he wants at his fingertips. The two first cross paths when Park tries to save her from bullying and humiliation on the bus. 

It becomes routine that the two sit together and they SLOWLY (almost too slow for my liking) form an unlikely friendship by bonding over comic books and music. The two start spending more and more time together and soon realize they're falling for each other. 

Eleanor knows she can never tell her mother, as her stepfather would kill her (literally), but she is desperate to be with Park. Park wants to help Eleanor but she won't open up to him about her life at home.

One day when things take a dramatic turn for the worst, Park helps Eleanor one last time.

The book ends quickly after this - there is no real closure. You never get to see Eleanor and Park together in the same place again, you never hear another conversation, you never hear what becomes of Eleanor's mom or siblings or stepfather (though no one cares about him). I would love there to be a sequel or even an epilogue so that we could see more of the relationship that we saw the beginning of.

This book was funny, witty, emotionally gripping, and I give it 5/5 stars, though I do wish there had been more answers at the end. I cannot wait to read more brilliant works by Rainbow Rowell.

If any of you have read this please let me know what you thought of it !! 

Book Review: Pregnant Pause by Han Nolan

Goodreads Synopsis: A thought-provoking and courageous new novel by National Book Award winner Han Nolan. Nobody gets away with telling Eleanor Crowe what to do. But as a pregnant sixteenyear-old, her options are limited: move to Kenya with her missionary parents or marry the baby’s father and work at his family’s summer camp for overweight kids. Despite her initial reluctance to help out, Elly is surprised that she actually enjoys working with the campers. But a tragedy on the very day her baby is born starts a series of events that overwhelms Elly with unexpected emotions and difficult choices. Somehow, she must turn her usual obstinance in a direction that can ensure a future for herself—and for the new life she has created.

340 pages 

3.74 average rating on Goodreads

Published: 2011

Genre: YA, Fiction, Drug Abuse, Teen Pregnancy, Family Drama

May I just start by saying that I find the topic of teenage pregnancy and the associated trials and tribulations fascinating to read about, so I was semi-sold on this book just by reading the synopsis.

Eleanor Crowe is the sixteen year old daughter of two missionaries who seem to favor taking care of the AIDS babies in Africa instead of Eleanor. Eleanor is defiant, stubborn, pregnant, and married to the dope-head father of her child, Lam. Lam's parents own and run a summer camp for overweight children, and Eleanor begrudgingly lives and works there during the summer of her pregnancy. Her marriage, her relationship with the campers and with the other counsellors experience many ups and downs, and on the day Eleanor delivers her baby, a tragedy back at camp leaves her reeling. Suddenly Eleanor is faced with a dozen adult decisions that could be life changing for her and her baby.

I really enjoyed this plot as it had a lot of different aspects that worked nicely together. Eleanor and Lam seemed like two typical teenagers, and many of the emotions and thoughts that Eleanor had were very realistic in my opinion. Lam's parents, whom Eleanor refers to as the MIL and FIL are quite harsh and hard to like, as are Eleanor's parents and sister, Sarah. 

Eleanor's experiences as a young married teen at a camp surrounded by many more normal teenagers were interesting to read about: her feelings for someone other than her husband, her husband cheating on her, etc. I also liked reading about how Eleanor felt about the baby growing inside her, as she was deciding what to do with the baby once it was born. 

I was very pleased with the ending of this book because though the climax was dramatic and the ending unexpected, everything seemed to work out for the best. 

Overall I give this book a 5/5 stars, because I can find no fault with this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone. 

Book Review: Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

http://ellenhopkins.com/YoungAdult/

Goodreads Synopsis: 

Sometimes you don't wake up. But if you happen to, you know things will never be the same.

Three lives, three different paths to the same destination: Aspen Springs, a psychiatric hospital for those who have attempted the ultimate act -- suicide.

Vanessa is beautiful and smart, but her secrets keep her answering the call of the blade.

Tony, after suffering a painful childhood, can only find peace through pills.

And Conner, outwardly, has the perfect life. But dig a little deeper and find a boy who is in constant battle with his parents, his life, himself.

In one instant each of these young people decided enough was enough. They grabbed the blade, the bottle, the gun -- and tried to end it all. Now they have a second chance, and just maybe, with each other's help, they can find their way to a better life -- but only if they're strong and can fight the demons that brought them here in the first place.

666 pages.   

4.30 average rating on Goodreads

Published 2007

Genre: YA, Drama, Realistic Fiction

 My Review:

This book is yet another tragic story written beautifully in prose poetry by the infallible Ellen Hopkins. Three troubled teens, Tony, Vanessa, and Conner all come from very different upbringings, but meet and become friends when they are all admitted to Aspen Springs, a psychiatric centre for young people.

I really liked that parts of the story were told from the perspective of each of the young people. I love when books are written from more than one perspective, so that you get to see the intimate details of the past that make each character who they are.

Tony, raised by a mother who never wanted to raise him, and ignored by a father who never bothered to know him, turns to pills to deal with his feelings. He is unsure of who he is, who he wishes to become, and how to love other people. Tony is an incredibly nice, friendly person, and we get to see him open more as he learns to forgive his father and figure out who he is.

Vanessa was raised essentially by her grandmother, since her military father was usually absent and her bipolar mother preferred the pill bottle to her children. Vanessa now finds that she herself shows symptoms of bipolar disorder, as well as depression (likely brought on by guilt of a rather dark portion of her past). She cuts herself for no reason other than to feel alive. In this book we see her seeking a close relationship with someone who truly cares about her (unlike her ex-boyfriend, Trevor, who just wanted to get in her pants), and affirmation that she has made good decisions in her life.

Conner, raised with his twin sister in a seemingly perfect household, with two perfectionist parents and a nanny, finds himself finally cracking under the pressure to be nothing less than the best. Conner has grown up starving for attention from a mother who never showed him any, and finds himself drawn to older, female authority figures. Though Conner desperately wants love and approval from his mother, he needs his parents to slack off the pressure and accept his depression, and if they don't, the consequences may be fatal.

I enjoyed reading this book but I wish there would've been more time to get to know each of the characters. Some of the plot twists didn't make sense to me (ahem, Tony and Vanessa), but the ending was a complete surprise that I thought was a perfect fit! I also thought Ms. Hopkins did a great job describing each of the characters' thought processes, giving them their own quirky personalities. 

Although I enjoyed this book and plan to read the second one, Perfect, I probably wouldn't consider it a favorite, and likely won't reread it. However, Crank and Glass by Ellen Hopkins, I do consider favorites! See my review of Glass here: http://with-sugar.blogspot.ca/2014/04/book-review-glass-by-ellen-hopkins.html  

Overall I give this book 3/5 stars, simply because it wasn't as amazing as I'd hoped for. If you are new to Ellen Hopkins books though, I definitely encourage you to read it as you will probably think it's fantastic. 

Thanks for reading! :)

                                        

Book Review: Looking for Alaska by John Green

http://johngreenbooks.com

http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com

Goodreads Synopsis:

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.

221 pages

4.23 average rating on Goodreads

Published: 2005

Genre: YA, Realistic Fiction, Sob Continually Throughout because The Feels

May I just start this review by saying, WHY DID NO ONE PREPARE ME FOR THE FEELS THIS BOOK WILL CAUSE YOU TO EXPERIENCE - WHY?

Looking for Alaska is the first John Green book that I've read, and woah....mind = blown. This book is beautifully written, with just the right amount of quirk and comedy to balance the heavily dramatic topics that are present in this book. If you ask me, John Green has introduced us to a whole new style of writing and I LOVE IT. 

The characters in this book are so realistic and so well-developed that you feel as if you know them personally, as if they are your friends....and more than once throughout you wish they were your friends. I got strongly emotionally attached to all of there characters in this novel early on; I love that Alaska was such a strong, independent female character - witty and impulsive, she took crap from no one, - the type of girl everyone wishes they could be.

This book requires solitude and a plethora of tissues, which nobody warned me about (how did I manage to never get spoiled about the plot?). I spent the first half of the book mildly irritated that there were no chapters but rather "x days before"....like what the hell did the before mean? Before what? Then I finally turned the page to after, and immediately wished I could go back. I was NOT prepared to deal with what happened, and in fact I am still far from ok with it. That being said, this book makes you both laugh and cry, often within the same paragraph, so thank you for that John Green.

This book makes you think differently about the world and about the people you choose to face it with. It changes your perspective on life, and makes you want to live in the moment, and to go chase your own Great Perhaps.

In short, this book will both elate and depress you, make you laugh hysterically and sob uncontrollably. Looking for Alaska is a realistic book about teens and personal growth as they leave home to become their own person, and to discover their own Great Perhaps. 

I give this book 5/5 stars because I ABSOFRICKENLUTELY loved it! I will however warn you that there are some pretty mature topics (sexually and otherwise) in here, so maybe if you're under the age of thirteen you may want to wait a while to read it. Otherwise I absolutely recommend this book, my favorite read of 2014 thus far!

I would love to hear your opinion on Looking for Alaska, as well as your thoughts on any of John Green's work. Thanks for reading!! 

My Favorite Quotes from Looking for Alaska

I've spent the last two days reading this book whenever possible, being essentially unable to put it down. Looking for Alaska by John Green is not a book you read, so much as experience. 

This book caused me to think and feel things that no book ever has before, as it is so damn realistic. 

I have not as of yet recovered emotionally from the book enough to write a review, but that will hopefully be coming within the week. For now, I leave you with a list of my favorite quotes from the novel, the ones that inspired me and the ones that made me think and the ones that made me cry:

1. What is the nature of being a person? What is the best way to go about being a person? How did we come to be, and what will become of us when we are no longer? In short: What are the rules of this game, and how might we best play it? - Page 32

2. Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia...you spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you will escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present. - Page 55

3. Just like that. From a hundred miles an hour to asleep in a nanosecond. I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was  drizzle and she was a hurricane. - Page 88

4. People, I thought,  wanted security. They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to. - Page 100

5. That is the fear: I have lost something important, and I cannot find it, and I need it. It is fear like if someone lost his glasses and went to the glasses store and they told him that the world had run out of glasses and he would just have to do without. - Page 144

***SPOILERS TO THE PLOT AHEAD***

6. And what is an "instant" death anyways? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous. - Page 146

7. "You can't just make me different and then leave...because I was fine before, Alaska. 

I was fine with just me, and last words, and school friends, and you can't just make me different and then die." For she had embodied the Great Perhaps - she had proven to me that it was worth it to leave behind my minor life for grander maybes, and now she was gone, and with her my faith in perhaps. You can't just make yourself matter and then die, Alaska, because now I am irretrievably different. - Page 172

8. Everything that comes together falls apart. The cells and organs and systems that make you you - they came together, grew together, and so must fall apart. The Buddha knew one thing science didn't prove for millennia after his death: Entropy increases. Things fall apart. - Page 196

9. We are all going, I thought, and it applies to turtles and turtlenecks, Alaska the girl and Alaska the place, because nothing can last, not even the earth itself. The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we'd learned, and that the cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffer go when they did. - Page 196

10. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless. - Page 218

11. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts.... There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed.... We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail. - Page 220/221

12. Thomas Edison's last words were "It's very beautiful over there." I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful. - Page 221

If anyone has other quotes from Looking for Alaska that meant something to them, please share them with me! I would also love to hear other peoples' opinions on this novel.

Until next time, thanks for reading! 

Book Review: Glass by Ellen Hopkins

Glass by Ellen Hopkins 

http://www.ellenhopkins.com

Goodreads description: Crank. Glass. Ice. Crystal. Whatever you call it, it's all the same: a monster. And once it's got hold of you, this monster will never let you go. 

Kristina thinks she can control it. Now with a baby to care for, she's determined to be the one deciding when and how much, the one calling the shots. But the monster is too strong, and before she knows it, Kristina is back in its grips. She needs the monster to keep going, to face the pressures of day-to-day life. She needs it to feel alive.

Once again the monster takes over Kristina's life and she will do anything for it, including giving up the one person who gives her the unconditional love she craves -- her baby.

The sequel to Crank, this is the continuing story of Kristina and her descent back to hell. Told in verse, it's a harrowing and disturbing look at addiction and the damage it inflicts. 

681 pages; 4.29 average rating on Goodreads. Published 2007. Genre: YA, Drama.

This book gave me chills from beginning to end. A fast-paced read with some heavy content that was beautifully written in verse, making it a quick read. I read Crank, the first book of this series last fall, and really enjoyed it. From the very first page I already liked Glass infinitely better. In this book we saw Kristina go from recovering addict attempting to get things together and care for her new baby, to becoming completely intertwined once again with "the monster", crystal meth, and doing no matter what it takes to get it.

I found myself really connecting with Kristina, caring about her as though she were a real person, and rooting for her to find her way again throughout the entire book. There were times at which my heart was breaking for her (when she spent Christmas alone, realized Trey didn't love her as she loved him, realized her baby no longer sees her as mom, etc.), but there were other times I felt she deserved the sad state that she had brought upon herself.

The reason this book was so easy to connect to is also the reason it is so terrifying - this book is so very realistic, and portrays the mind of an addict and their though processes to a tee. In actuality, this book is loosely based on the author's daughter, and her experience with meth. I enjoyed that the book showed how Kristina related to many other characters (her mom, siblings, step dad, baby, etc.) and how her meth addiction had an enormous effect on all of these. 

I feel that addiction and it's impact on the user and those in the user's life can be a very hard topic to accurately portray in a novel - to get inside the minds of the user and their loved ones, to know how they feel about the situation. That being said, Ellen Hopkins does a beautiful job through free verse and concrete poetry of letting the reader inside the minds of Kristina and her loved ones,

This book, though heart wrenching to read at times, is beautifully written and teaches a wonderful lesson of how quickly and drastically things can change with just one bad decision, and how what starts out as "experimenting" or "just this once" can quickly become an addiction. I think this is an important book for all young people to read as they go through the period of their lives in which they are regularly exposed to difficult situations, so they can see in-depth the consequences of making the wrong decisions.

I gave this book 5/5 stars, and sincerely recommend it to anyone and everyone. I look forward to reading more books by Ellen Hopkins and if anyone has any suggestions as to which books I should check out, they would be greatly appreciated! 

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to share your opinions on this book <3