The First Thing About You by Chaz Hayden

Lynnie

young adult, contemporary fiction

When 15-year-old Harris moves from California to New Jersey with his family (lacrosse stud brother Ollie, overworked dad who's so important I can't even remember his name, and caregiving mother, Clare), Harris is determined to reinvent himself as more than the kid in the wheelchair. The first order of business is finding a new nurse so that his mother does not have to be his school companion. Miranda, a young nursing student and former student as Harris' school is beautiful, capable and sees Harris as more than his disability. Of course, nothing can be that easy, can it? No, of course not.

I really wanted to like The First Thing About You much more than I did.

First, the good- the author, Chaz Hayden, writes about Harris with the authenticity that only someone who shares these experiences can. Hayden does not sugarcoat the experience of being in a wheelchair or living with physical disabilities in high school, nor does he allow Harris to pity himself. Harris is simply living the life in front of him and it's a pleasure to read that.


My problem with the book was always Harris' aide, Miranda. She's... awful. I know, she was going through her own stuff but I didn't like her from the beginning and that made it very difficult for me to have any empathy for her. It was tough to watch Harris contort himself to try to comfort her or get her attention when he was the one who should have been getting more care.

All that said, I did really adore Harris' family and his other friends. Zander and Nory were wonderful, but so much of the story was devoted to Miranda that she overshadowed the good.

Roar of the Tides (Under the Never Sky #4) by Veronica Rossi

Amy     
Lynnie 

young adult, fantasy

 

This fourth novel in the Under the Never Sky series was just published nine years after the original trilogy's final installment. Our reviews for the original trilogy can be found here. Since we both loved the trilogy, we read this one with mixed opinions. 

The community has been living in their new territory in the Still Blue for about a year when they receive an SOS from someone back on the other side of the aether curtain. A small group (which excludes Aria and Talon) travels back to their old land to attempt a rescue. However, upon their arrival, situations have changed and they run into misunderstandings, failing technology, and political struggles which need to be worked out before they can attempt to return to the Still Blue.

Amy's Review

Although the premise of Roar of the Tides felt unlikely to me, I went along with it to spend more time with these characters. But I felt much of the novel was overly contrived and a few of the characters I loved were acting very differently or were absent from the story. I found it very easy to put down after a chapter or two and then would forget about the book for a few days. Perhaps it was just a bad time for me to read it. But this one lacked the luster of the original three for me and never grabbed me.

I never really got behind Tempest. And it took a good portion of the book before Roar seemed interesting. So, while I enjoyed seeing Roar get a happy ending, I don’t feel this installment came close to the quality of the trilogy. Veronica Rossi had never intended to write it when she finished the trilogy and, sadly, it shows. It had some good moments which is why I’m being generous and giving it 3 stars. But if I hadn’t enjoyed the other three novels so much, I probably wouldn’t have finished this one. However, looking at the ratings, I'm in the minority opinion here.

Lynnie's Review

I was very happy to learn this book was being released as I really enjoyed Veronica Rossi’s Under the Never Sky series. Roar was one of my favorite characters so I was very happy to spend time with him as the main character. I was not disappointed.
I enjoyed the story from start to finish and being back with these characters didn’t fail to put a smile on my face. Rossi did a great job of recapturing their voices (something that doesn’t always happen with so much time between books), and her writing style was fun to read. That said, there were definitely a few things that had me rolling me eyes to the back of my head and kept me from giving this book five stars.

The main thing was the Aether. The entirety of Into the Still Blue was about how to get through the Aether. They literally sacrificed a character to get through the Aether, but now just one year later they just find an easy way through all of a sudden and then poof! It’s never a problem again. Seriously?

But, the good absolutely outweighed the bad in this book. I loved revisiting so many characters and getting to know new ones, and I love that Rossi imbues these characters with loyalty, friendship, found family, and love for one another.

Rossi leaves plenty of loose ends if she wants to write additional sequels- it’s been long enough that the thought of it doesn’t even make me mad. But talk to me three sequels from now and I may feel differently. 

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

Amy  

mystery

Told from alternating “now” and “then” timeframes, Then She Was Gone describes Ellie’s family’s ups and downs since the time she disappeared ten years earlier. It’s taken ten years for some new developments to come to light and for Ellie’s mother, Laurel, to emerge from her fog.

I was worried about reading Then She Was Gone. Kidnappings and disappearances really scare me, personally. I was concerned this book might bring on some nightmares. Told from Laurel’s and Ellie’s points of view, Laurel progresses through the understandable variety of feelings one would expect of a mother whose child has disappeared. Then, ten years after the disappearance (and still within the first quarter of the novel), Laurel meets a man who breaks her out of her constant depression.

At that point of the novel, I had a good idea of where this plot was going. Thankfully, my worst fears weren’t met but it was still a terrible tale. In homage, the novel even referenced one of my all-time least favorite novels, The Lovely Bones, which was all about a tortured, kidnapped teenage girl. Thankfully, Then She Was Gone wasn’t as upsetting.  If you get through the first quarter of the novel and want to keep reading, I imagine you’ll finish it. But if you are very upset by the topics, just know that it’s bad but not as bad as it could be. It’s definitely my least favorite Lisa Jewell novel because of the topic. But Laurel is a calm, rational protagonist which helped defray my anxiety a little. And the ending was actually tied up extremely neatly—almost too neatly. In fact, the epilogue was entirely gratuitous.

The narrator, Helen Duff, was a good voice actor and had some variety of voices and accents. However, why she chose to give two young women in the story such low voices is a mystery to me. They were ridiculously low--lower than any of the male characters--and took me out of the story every time one of them spoke. I'll give her an A-.

   

The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore

Lynnie

contemporary fiction

Sloan Parker is a librarian who looks forward to her daily arguments with grumpy older patron Arthur McLachlan. When he does not come to the library for a few days, Sloan becomes worried and disregards library policy to find Arthur and make sure he is okay. It turns out, she is not the only one who's concerned.

I listened to the audiobook of Lucy Gilmore's The Lonely Heart's Book Club and I really enjoyed it. Another entry into the #GrumpLit genre (see: A Man Called Ove, The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett, or Eleanor Olyphant is Completely Fine), here we have Arthur McLachlan- grumpy former professor and library patron who must learn to accept the outreach and love of those around him.

As usual, the cast of characters is generally wonderful- Sloan, the librarian who first reaches out to Arthur, Maisey, the busy-body neighbor with a heart of gold, Mateo, former librarian and nurse, Greg who turns out to be Arthur's estranged grandson looking to right some past wrongs, and Nigel, an old frenemy. Friendship, books, and found family are always things that bring a smile to my face and Gilmore delivers on all three.

Still, some of the characters are stronger than others and parts of the story take longer to get where they are going than they should. The payoff, of course, is the section of the book where Arthur finally takes over the narration and tells his own story in his own way.

The audiobook was read by Angie Kane and I enjoyed her for the most part but I hated the choice she made for Mateo's voice- I wanted to fast forward and skip ahead whenever it was his character's turn to narrate or speak. For Mateo, and Mateo alone, she gets a B-.

Still, I enjoyed the book and recommend it as a summer vacation read.

 

 

 

The Miniscule Mansion of Myra Malone by Audrey Burges

Amy  

fantasy

Due to childhood trauma and parental mental illness, Myra leads the life of a hermit. However, she has her very special miniature house—it is not a dollhouse, as she says, because no dolls live there—which is the center of her life. She spends practically all her time redecorating it and makes a living writing and blogging about it. Meanwhile, Alex discovers that his actual house, including its interior furnishings, have been inexplicably replicated in miniature in Myra’s miniscule mansion. He must find out more about Myra and her mansion.

I enjoyed this creative story. How many of us have ever imagined that our play actions in our doll house are magically controlling the lives of some other people somewhere else in the world? That was the memory I recalled while reading this novel. True, The Miniscule Mansion of Myra Malone isn’t overwhelmingly plausible, but I did find it overwhelmingly enjoyable.

Before Alex discovered Myra’s website, Myra and Alex were unaware of each other. But there was obviously some connection on a supernatural level. Before this realization, Myra had always felt the magic within her mini mansion.  The growth of their relationship was satisfying to read. Audrey Burges jumped between timeframes to illustrate a little of the mansion’s story at a time. The quirkiness of the story and the characters pulled me in.

The audiobook narrator, Christine Lakin, was really terrific with multiple voices for various characters including male voices. Her voice acting was spot on and there is no reason to withhold an A+.

   

The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) by R.F. Kuang

Amy  

fantasy

Rin, a war orphan who has been suffering mistreatment by her foster family, is desperate to escape her small town and arranged marriage. She studies extremely hard and miraculously qualifies for a free education at an elite, competitive military school in a huge city far from her home town. After completing school, Rin is assigned to an infamous unit to assist in the third Poppy War.

The Poppy War’s skeleton is similar to many other stories: a coming-of-age, underprivileged/undervalued/mistreated child with determination and brains manages to break out of their terrible life, meets interesting people, gains rivals/enemies and friends/admirers, faces more adversity, and discovers special skills to, eventually, help them rise above their detractors. There are so many novels I’ve read with this basic outline. But it still entertained me.

Rin was a particularly hardened character—putting up with an outrageous amount of pain and hardship in order to create a new life for herself. She was tough and determined and this reader couldn’t help but root for her.  Set in an intriguing China-like setting, I was willing to put up with the book’s battle strategy sections (which normally turn me cold) because the characters were terrific and the mystery around Rin’s power was compelling.

RF Kuang did a remarkably great job of continually shaking things up. She frequently introduced new facets to the story that would bring all the characters to a different environment and/or situation. It really kept things moving and managed to keep me from getting unhappy with the war aspects of the story. It was never boring and a great adventure.

WARNING: This book has some very harsh sections…lots of extremely descriptive violence (including rape) that gets worse as the book goes on.  And, not because of this, exactly, but because the characters are motivated by hatred, I will likely not read any more in this series. There is enough hatred in this world and I don’t relish stories glorifying haters, no matter how understandable (in some cases).

The narrator of the audiobook, Emily Woo Zeller, was phenomenal! She had to voice so many characters and did an excellent job with the multitude including multiple male voices!  Truly, an amazing repertoire! And her voice acting was perfection.  Even when characters were out of the story for a while and later re-appeared, I knew exactly who they were based on her voice for that character before the story announced their name. A+ for sure!