Memoirs Of A Teenage Amnesiac Review

       "Above all, mine is a love story.
       "And, like most love stories, it involves chance, gravity, and a dash of head trauma.
       "It begins with a coin toss.”

       After falling down a flight of stairs, high school junior Naomi Porter loses all of her memories after seventh grade. She can’t remember her parents’ divorce. She can’t remember her boyfriend Ace. She can’t remember why her best friend Will calls her Chief. She can’t even remember why she likes Will, how they met, or why they've put so much effort and care into becoming editors of the school yearbook. She can’t remember James, the boy who rescued her from her dive down the stairs and stayed with her all the way to the hospital. But, that’s not actually out of the ordinary, since they've never met.

       This is very much a book in three parts. Those parts are titled, “I was”, “I am”, and “I will”, as Naomi figures out who she was with her memories, who she is now without them, and who she will be once she’s resolved those two realities.  This is a story about love, trust, self-searching, angst, broken people, and the perfect school yearbook. It is a story about the leap we all have to make, from seventh grade to adulthood. It is a story about the people we meet along the way, the ways we love them, and the ways we move on when we inevitably change.

Plot: Original but comforting, beautifully paced

Characters: Loveable and well developed. Realistically flawed, in that way that hurts a little bit.

Writing: Good. Clear and thoughtful, like Naomi.

Ending: Perfect beyond words :)

Content: Teenaged drinking, mentions of sex and stuff related to sex, but nothing explicit.

Overall: I wanna curl up on the sofa and snuggle with this book. I love it so much.

       One last thing. One my favorite aspects of this book is the way the love interests change. It’s not a love triangle! Instead, it shows a very realistic evolution of several kinds of relationships. Rather than being forced to choose between two guys with contrasting merits, Naomi is presented with a different choice as each boy-man-creature enters the scope of her life. Much truer to the real world, where, let’s face it, most of us will never be pursued by even one man with that particular combination of smolder-y eyes, a dark past, and the torso of a Greek god, but all of us are going to have to live with our exes, and occasionally deal with the very real fallout of being close to damaged people. Gabrielle Zevin's writing and storytelling is thoughtful and profound, and I'm going to look for more of her books as soon as I get through the mountain of novels I already have.

~Cheers, and happy summer!

The Gathering Review

  

Strange things have been happening in sixteen-year-old Maya's small, isolated, Vancouver Island community. Mountain lions seem to be seeking her out, her best friend has a strange talent for sensing danger, and her other best friend died a year ago in an accident that just doesn't add up. There's also a sexy and secretive new student at her tiny, tight-knit school, and there’s something about him that just doesn't make sense. Add to that a couple more unexplained deaths, questions about Maya’s birth parents, and a growing sense of there-is-something-going-on-here-that-we-don’t-know-about, and Maya and her friends are about to land in the middle of something that they’re probably better prepared for than they realize.
            I have to say now, I am a sucker for stories involving werewolves, or any sort of animal shapeshifter (tiny spoiler alert there, but you guys are smart people, you would have figured it out. THERE ARE SHAPESHIFTERS OMG). I don’t know why I love werewolves, I just do. Probably because I always root for the underdog, and there are too many damn vampire books out there (come at me, vampire fans! Actually, not really, please. Can’t we all get along?).
            Anyway. This book reminded me quite a lot of Wildefire, by Karsten Knight (that’s going to be one of my next reviews). Maya is a badass heroine with some difficult to explain powers. She’s adopted, and her background is uncertain, but affects her greatly. She goes to a slightly unusual school in the woods, where everyone else seems to have similarly odd powers, and to be coming in to some sort of ancient birthright.
            One thing I like about Maya is that she’s always making things happen. She takes initiative, she searches for information, she thinks hard and tries to put the pieces together. She is stubborn to a fault, but she can still accept new information and change what she believes. Sometimes. I also love her connection with animals and the forest. Having grown up in a forest myself, the scenes in the woods made me really happy, and the animal characters are wonderfully loveable. Even the large dangerous predators.
            The supporting characters in this book are also excellent. Daniel, the protective best friend. Rafe, they mysterious new guy who is both oddly appealing and not to be trusted. Fitz, Kenjii, and Marv, the animal protectors. Sam, the punch-happy psycho chick who I still want to be friends with. Corey, Nicole, Brendan, and Hayley, who might be average high school students, but then again, maybe not. Maya’s parents, who might be hiding something.
            All in all, this is a very interesting, engaging, and well written book. It is funny, it is steamy, it is mysterious, and it balances plot and characters well. However, it has one flaw that is still making me mad.
            The ending.
            It is terrible.
            I mean, I understand that this is the first in a series, but the end of the book gives absolutely no satisfaction! The first 3/4 sets up all these mysteries and questions and weird things that don’t make sense, and the ending gives you no answers at all! Well, one answer, but I’d guessed that one by the middle of the book. It feels like a pretty poor consolation prize when compared to all the delicious secrets presented in the exposition and rising action. However, I would still give this book a high overall rating, because it is excellent in all other respects. 

Plot: Good pacing, lots of build up, plenty of material for the next book. The only problem is the…

Ending: which, like I said, was extremely unsatisfying and makes me want to rant from the rooftops.

Characters: Terrific! Maya is complex and well written, and the supporting characters have a lot of depth too.

Writing: Very good. The descriptions are vivid and lovely. I could almost smell the forest.

Content: Lotta making out, some gore and dead people, underage drinking and a few non-graphic mentions of sex. No swearing that I can remember.

Overall:

Shut your face, I am reading this book and it’s really awesome.

Like I have said… three times now, the ending. It angers me. However, the book is very good, and after I’m done raging about imbalanced plot arcs, I’ll start looking for information about the sequel. The Gathering is an excellent book. Go read it.

Note: We were given a copy of The Gathering to review long ago, and I got mine from the library. So thank you library and HarperTeen!

Meet My New Co-Blogger: Virginia!

Hi guys! So over the years it's been just me running this blog, and while I've loved every second of it, it's a lot to handle. And now that I got my first job, I decided I needed some help, and I'm so so excited Virginia is the person to help me! She's not only fun to be with, but I love her passion for books, and I know she's going to be a great addition to Shut Up! I'm Reading.

                Hello blog readers! I’m so excited to meet all of you. My name is Virginia, and I’ll be writing here part time.

                 I’m a friend of Jessica’s from the fabulous writing retreat we both went on late last year. I was totally wowed by her writing prowess, and her successful blog. This girl wrote a 40,000 word book in two weeks! She’s got mad dedication.

                Anyway, a few days ago, she put out a call for a co-blogger. As I understand it, she’s starting to get busier, and the books are starting to pile up. She just doesn’t have time to read and review all of them. I have school and homework and writing and stuff of my own, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this, so I jumped in and said I would write with her. So, I will be posting here anywhere from twice a week to twice a month. Depends on my schedule, but I’m really excited to be here and I want to be a good blogger, so I’ll try to post around once a week.

                A little about me. I’ve been homeschooled all my life. I’m sixteen years old. I like driving, dogs, knitting, cooking, the woods, science, making zines, long walks, caffeine, skype, indie/grunge/rock music, texting, existential crises, journaling, Shakespeare, hair dye, and staying up late. I also like writing and books, of course. I learned to read when I was four. The very first book I read was the Magic Treehouse Series #1, the one with the pterodactyl. Over the last twelve years, I’ve remained faithfully nerdy. I love the classics: Harry Potter, Narnia, etcetera. Never been able to read Tolkein, though he is on my list. I was pretty hardcore about Shakespeare in 8^th grade. I was even in A Midsummer Night’s dream as Titania.
                I had a long epic fantasy stage, including Stuart Hill’s Icemark Chronicles, Cinda Williams Chima’s Heir Trilogy, and all the things by Tamora Pierce. And the Inheritance Cycle. I still haven’t finished the last one, though, because it’s almost 900 freaking pages. Don’t tell Christopher Paolini. I’ve met him, and he’s a really nice guy.

                I love the recent trend in dystopian fiction. I’ve read the Hunger Games, Divergent, The Eleventh Plague, Myra Grant’s Newsflesh Trilogy, and many more. This is my current obsession, so you’ll probably see me talking about the decline of society and human nature and robots and stuff a lot. I feel like I don’t read as many classics as I should, but with so many new books coming out, I feel like I have to keep up with them too! I’m a pretty tough reviewer, but I try to be fair too. I can find a redeeming quality in almost any book, but I can’t stand a two dimensional character or a poorly paced plot. Or love triangles. I’m getting really, really tired of love triangles.
                My favorite author is a tossup between Barry Lyga and John Green. Lyga’s books can hit really hard. I Hunt Killers and Boy Toy were both brutal. I loved the characters. I love how tough and honest and real they are, but how caught up and twisted in their own minds they are. I am currently on a quest to get my hands on the ARC of Game, the sequel to I Hunt Killers.

                Green, though. He’s… just… amazing. How do I even say? His writing is beautiful, and profound, and, just, go read his books right now. John Green fandom is one of the first things Jessica and I bonded over. We were talking about his books, and she said she’d never read Will Grayson. I immediately started yabbering about how much I love that book and how she needed to read it, but she stopped me and said not to spoil it, because she was saving it for a rainy day when she really needed a new John Green book. I admire her willpower.
                Only four books have made me cry. Looking for Alaska, by John Green; The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by our lord and savior J.K. Rowling; and The Perks Of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. I may have also choked up at the end of the Perks movie. It was beautiful, and it really did justice to the book.
                Anyway, I just finished reading The Hunt, by Andrew Fukuda, when I was on the bus yesterday. I liked it quite a lot. I’m going to write up a review and post it soon. Until then, cheers, and DFTBA.

To celebrate this new chapter for my blog, I've decided to host a giveaway! I've got an ARC of Between Here and Forever, and a hardcover of Pushing The Limits to give to one lucky winner. US only, please. Ends on April 20.
a Rafflecopter giveaway