Mirror in the Sky » Book Review

I cannot stress this enough, Mirror in the Sky is NOT in any way a science-fiction novel. I typically don't like to delve too deeply or research books before picking them up. I saw that Penguin was hyping up this book, realized that it was written by an Indian author and featured an Indian-American protagonist and decided to pick it up from my local library. I also made the mistake of assuming that there would be stronger sci-fi elements to the book.

Yeh Tara Woh Tara

Our protagonist's name is Tara Krishnan. Tara means 'star' in Hindi and happens to be part of the title of one of my favorite Hindi songs (hence the sub-heading). Tara is half-Indian with an Indian father who runs a restaurant and a white mother who teaches ballet. She is entering her junior year at Brierly without her best friend, Meg, who has decided to study for a year abroad.

Their world soon discovers the existence of a mirror planet, where things seem similar and yet a little different. This sparks a lot of spiritual and philosophical debates amongst Tara's family and friends. That is the extent of the science-fiction premise in the novel. The rest reads like a contemporary high-school story about Tara, and her family, and her friends. In fact, Khorana calls it a contemporary speculative novel, which describes the atmosphere of the book very well.

Family & Friends

I loved Tara and her family. Her relationship with her parents was genuine and wonderful, but not suger-coated. All three of them have dealt with serious disappointments and that has had a substantial impact on the family. I thought Khorana did a great job depicting the loving bonds that existed and persisted through their hardships and struggles. It was woven together with the appearance of the mirror planet, and the self-reflection that came along with such a discovery.

Without Meg, Tara felt absolutely bereft at her high school. She hated her school and feared having to sit in the library for lunch. There were moments that I felt she was just being a little over-dramatic. But then, I thought about my high school years and remembered the holy terror I felt having to walk into a cafeteria when I knew absolutely no one, and realized she wasn't being all that dramatic after all. Lucky for her, she happened to accidentally become friends with the popular crowd. Even better, one of them is Nick, her crush. Only he's crazy in love with Halle.

Halle is the Queen Bee. Everyone in the friend group revolves around her, especially Nick. Tara then spends the rest of the time trying to deal with her crush, and navigating the new friendship dynamics she finds herself in.

Being Indian

This book addresses what it is like to be a brown teenager in an all-white school. As such, Tara has always felt like an outsider even after she is deemed a part of the popular crowd. She often feels stereotyped because of her skin color, and has some struggles with her guidance counselor because of that. I thought it was an interesting topic to read about especially since I have never felt discriminated against for being in Indian in America (at least the places I've lived). I don't know if this is the right thing to do, but I often take advantage of the stereotypes.

People assume that Indians are smart and great at school. I happen to enjoy that inherent assumption. When I first moved here at the age of fourteen, numerous people remarked upon my perfect use of American English down the accent. Many more told me how surprised they were that I could speak and write so well. I took it as an opportunity to disavow my Indian heritage since I had spent the majority of my life out of India anyway. I hated being thought of as backward, and I disliked living in India anyway, so I didn't embrace that part of my identity. For these reasons, I couldn't relate to Tara's struggles with racism, but I am glad to have gotten to opportunity to read and understand her perspective.

Pacing

I wasn't very pleased with the pacing of the book. Mirror in the Sky kept my attention, but I found the first two-thirds of the book to be a little too slow for me. Towards the end of the book, we get to see Tara and her friends celebrating their friendship with child-like joy. That was the moment when I realized how much I enjoyed these characters and I wished we could have spent more time with them in that state of being. The last third of the book felt a little rushed. A ton of things were happening at once, but that was when I truly felt engrossed in the book. It's just a pity that it took so long to get there.

I wanted to address the romance aspect very quickly. I LOVED how the author chose to write it. It is one of the more realistic depiction of a high school crush/romance that I can think of. I think Tara handled herself with true maturity, while remaining a 16 yr-old girl.

Last Thoughts

I believe Mirror in the Sky is a promising start to Khorana's writing career. I look forward to reading more of her stories!

Every Ugly Word » Book Review

This review is my attempt to finally get through some of my Netgalley backlogs in the hopes that I can pull up my dismal feedback ratio to a reasonable level. I was supposed to review this more than a YEAR ago.

Let that sink in guys... and let the walk/write of shame, begin.

Every Ugly Word

This is a difficult book for me to describe, let alone review. I was just so surprised by how much it moved me. I thought it would be like many of the other contemporary YA books out there. Compelling enough, but lacking some fundamental depth. However, Every Ugly Word didn't pull any punches.

The novel starts off with Ashley, the main character, sitting in a psychiatrist's office at an inpatient mental facility. She is desperate to leave that day, and the only way to do so, is by recounting the events that led to her commitment in the hopes that the doctor would believe that she has recovered enough to go home. Every chapter begins with conversation and analysis with the doctor, followed by an episodic account of her life. This served the dual purpose of building tension within and across chapters while giving us information and background on our protagonist.

There is an element of magical realism within the story. Ashley can see an older version of herself in the mirror and has frequent conversations with her. Older Ashley tries to be a source of support for current Ashley, in the hopes that the younger Ashley would choose a different path and have a healthier outcome.

I was very intrigued by the author's choice to use that element in her story. I have been in outpatient therapy for several years for a variety of issues, one of them being trauma. In therapy, I have been frequently encouraged to 'talk to the little girl inside me'. It sounds wonky, I know. But it's done in an effort to help you be there for yourself through those past traumatic memories without having to rely on others, especially those who have been unsupportive in the past. I found the parallels between the aforementioned therapy technique and Ashley communicating with her older/younger self quite surprising. I wonder if the author had made that connection on purpose, or if it just happened to be a coincidence.

The romance in the book is also very realistic. Most contemporary YAs make the fatal mistake of introducing the concept that love conquers all, even trauma and mental illness. And nothing could be farther from the truth. In the beginning of the book, Ashley views Matt with love-blind glasses. But as the novel progresses, we see Ashley realizing that Matt is just as flawed as everyone else. She realizes that Matt can't fix her, and that sometimes there is nothing to fix. There is nothing to do but to just get through those terrible moments with whatever willpower there is left, and have hope for a better future.

There is a wonderful quote towards the end of the book that sums up what it's like to go through a horrific event and feel how different you are. How empty, yet hopeful.

"I was afraid because, even after everything I'd overcome, I still had holes. My dreams were coming true - but they weren't filling the gaps. I still felt... less than. I'd decided to keep fighting, keep searching for answers. Because as long as I did that, there would always be a chance my holes would heal. I could have hope. My gaps only became inevitable when I stopped believing they could be filled."

Every Ugly Word is free through Kindle Unlimited.

You Know Me Well » Book Review

 

I want to smash something.

I guess it's a positive that Levithan made me so attached, so allegiant, to his character, Mark, that I want to throttle the fictional character who hurt him.  I haven't felt this worked-up over a book since The Handmaid's Tale...

Okay. The suffering that Mark goes through in You Know Me Well is not comparable to the rape-y horror of Atwood's dystopian novel. Comparatively, it's mild.  But goddamn if I don't feel utterly enraged, if I don't feel like injustice has been done. Why, oh why, [spoiler]Ryan[/spoiler]? Why, oh why?

How This Whole Thing Started

You Know Me Well starts at the beginning of Pride Week in San Francisco.  Two teenagers, Mark and Katie, both gay, both attending the same high school, run into each other at a LBGTQ club.  Mark is there with his best friend, Ryan, who is also gay.  Mark happens to be in love with Ryan — small fact.  Mark and Ryan have messed around, but always in secret, because Ryan is closeted.  Katie spots Mark after he wins a scantily-clad bar dancing competition, much to Mark's embarrassment. Katie, impulsively, asks Mark to be her friend.  He agrees, bemused, and the two take off together when Ryan wants to stay behind to flirt heavily with another guy. Ugh.

Katie has her own problems.  She's been in love with her best friend's cousin, Violet, from afar for a long time.  That night, Katie and Violet are supposed to meet at a party through arrangement, but Katie takes off before the meeting due to nerves. After running away and ending up at the same bar as Mark,  Katie wanders off with him to find adventure in the city, which sets off a chain of events that will leave them changed.

I'm Still Mad

Just to remind you, I'm furious.

LaCour and Levithan — Who Was the Stronger Writer

As you might have seen, You Know Me Well was written by two (gay!) authors — Nina LaCour and David Levithan.  In my opinion, Levithan's writing blew LaCour's out of the water.  I trudged through LaCour's chapters but ate up Levithan's greedily.  I wish the entire book had been written by him. (Yes, even despite the fact that he emotionally demolished me with this book.)

In comparison to Mark, Katie's character was fairly watery. She wasn't as vivid or full of life as Levithan's character creations.  Moreover, I didn't like Katie's strange combination of impulsive forthrightness and cringing hesitancy.  Call me a critic, but those are some contradictory qualities right there.

Overall, Levithan was was electric. LaCour was only so-so.

 So Do I Recommend This Book Or What?

I do! It's a short read and Levithan wrote a powerful half of a story. LaCour isn't bad enough to drag the story down to unreadable levels, either.

As for my rage... siiiigh. I'm still remarkably upset about [spoiler]Mark's lack of a fairytale ending[/spoiler]. Maybe some reader's would be less upset than me, but the situation struck me hard.

Anyways, this book would have been a  4.5 read if not for LaCour's just-okay writing. I give the book 3.5 and recommend.

[rating stars="three-half-stars"]

Places No One Knows » Book Review

Places No One Knows is a decent novel about fantasy and reality... but it's written in a jumble that neither raises pertinent questions nor provides answers. I disagree with Maggie Stiefvater's blurb. I slept on this book and did not "wake up satisfied." Instead, I woke conflicted.

What This Book Is About

The story of the book is built along a premise that we see quite often in YA — "you can find your soulmate as early as high school!" You'd think what would follow from that would be equally starry-eyed. Well, we get a surprise there. Unlike most books of similar premise, Yovanoff dares to present us with an unlikable heroine.

Waverly is flawed — cold, cunning and frankly, bitchy.  She's obsessed with strategy and likes to practice her manipulation skills by being the mastermind behind the most popular clique in school.  But, "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown." Waverly has critical insomnia and runs her body into the ground in order to scrape together a few hours of sleep each night.

The story takes off when Waverly tries a new relaxation method.  She lights a strange candle and falls asleep, only to appear materially by the side of the school stoner, Marshall Holt.

What I Thought Was Good

I loved how the normal rules of social interaction were severed by Waverly appearing magically wherever Marshall happened to be.  It allowed for some really electric situations and exchanges.  For example, Waverly smashes through Marshall's concept of "fantasy."

It's a dream of most teenage boys for their crush to appear in their bedrooms, right? Well for Marshall, this happens.  The the perfect, high school queen bee, Waverly, who he's infatuated with, appears to him, night after night. However, she comes to him at the most inopportune times — when he's having a bad acid trip, when he's touching himself, when he's drunk and throwing up, when his dad is yelling at his mom... She's there at his most exposed, a real person looking back at him.

This element of "fantasy meets reality" really drew my interest.  What I took away from Waverly's nighttime visits is that fantasy, if ever made real, has to be integrated with the other realities of your life.

What Did Not Work

Now, the magic "system" in this book is never really explained.  It's strongly suggested that Waverly's candle has magical power, but that angle is not explored.  It is the only element of magical realism in the book, too, which makes it stick out like a sore thumb. Actually, the more I think on it, the more the dream visitations seem poorly explained. Ironically though, the dream visits were also the most interesting parts of the book.

The rest of the novel was about ridiculous high school drama.  Waverly has wrapped herself up in teenage social politics, which I found to be very dull, pointless, and overall, cruel.  Weirdly, our author seemed to be aware of this.  One intelligent character, Autumn, says over and over again, "What is the point?" I KNOW, RIGHT? By the time that Waverly gets with the program, it's too late for the reader.  We've already been dragged through hundreds of pages of silly machinations.

Lastly, I felt like the book suffered from an almost intangible problem.  This is my third draft of this review, and I had to stop myself from starting all over with a fourth.  The problem seems to be that I can't explain my main issue with the book, even to myself.  I'm not sure if it was 1) too many underdeveloped themes and plotlines, 2) an insufficient character arc for Waverly, or 3) a lack of a clearly defined point to the story. Perhaps it's all three.

In any case, I felt like Places No One Knows piqued my interest partially, but largely had me stymied and uncertain. [rating stars="two-half-stars"]

Wink Poppy Midnight » Book Review

Do you judge a book by its cover?

This book received a lot of buzz prior to its publication because its cover was so undisputedly amazing.  With its stretched, sharply serifed type, cut-out illustrations, and darkly muted color palette,  the packaging of Wink Poppy Midnight was making everyone ga-ga.  Add onto that the cool title and the success of the anthology Slasher Girls and Monster Boys, which Tucholke edited, and bloggers were hot to get ahold of this novel.

After the release, however, the reactions seemed to be mostly lackluster. Reviewers weren't responding well to the book. Because of this, I was expecting to be disappointed.  Maybe it because my bar was so low,  but I wound up liking Wink Poppy Midnight, enough to give it 3.5 stars. (The cover gets full marks, of course.)

Beyond the Packaging of Wink Poppy Midnight

The novel is character-driven, as can be expected — the book's title is the three narrator's names, strung together. Midnight is a lovely-faced, teenage boy who is experiencing a lot of growing pains.  He's been infatuated with his beautiful, yet cruel neighbor, Poppy, for as long as he's known her, but when his family moves across town, Midnight sees an opportunity to leave the mean girl in the dust.  Helping him along is Wink, the mystical eldest daughter of the Bells, a family renown for their fortitude.  Poppy, however, won't be forgotten.

What happens next is... sort of a muddle, but it's a nicely written muddle.  Many reindeer games are played and there's a lot of mystery over who's calling the shots.  Is manipulative Poppy in control? Or is Midnight coming into his own power?  And what about Wink — you know what they say about the quiet ones.

I suppose my main criticism with Wink Poppy Midnight is that it flirts with pointlessness.  There was a huge WHO CARES?! cliff that I almost fell into throughout the whole novel. If you happen to not respond well the characters, Wink Poppy Midnight won't have a leg to stand on. As it turned out, I was ambivalent towards Wink and Midnight, but I kept listening to the audiobook because of Poppy. I loved her fierce character.

I can't see Wink Poppy Midnight being a book that everyone loves, so I hesitate to recommend it. Nevertheless, the novel has given me plenty to think about. [rating stars="three-half-stars"]

The Truth Commission » Book Review

I had to pick up The Truth Commission after it got very high ratings from two of my most respected reviewers — Tatiana and Emily May. I don't always agree with these (really well known) internet critics, but when they simultaneously love a book, I sit up and take notice. I'm very glad I did in this case, because The Truth Commission was a wonderful read.

Like many people have pointed out already, Juby's book is very similar to old-school E. Lockhart (The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, Ruby Oliver, We Were Liars). There's a sassy narrative voice, footnotes, and symbolism.  Also — hilarity, weirdness, and a small dash of romance.  I think it can be a good thing when a new author is an obvious inheritor of another well-known author, or at the least, has a similar voice.  It brings on a wonderful sense of nostalgia. But don't get me wrong, The Truth Commission is it's own book.

For one thing, (again, as others have pointed out already) there is a character whose type and personality is very rarely, if not ever, seen in YA lit.  Other reviewers have written that this character made them flaming angry.  I have to say, I reacted with disbelief at this character's actions as well. However, I also felt a lot of pity.  It was a case where a clearly mentally ill person was made out kind of villainously.  It makes sense — mentally ill people CAN be villainous.  However, I have huge amounts of sympathy for this character, because if someone isn't in the right frame of mind, they can act erratically and harmfully.  I thought the way The Truth Commission handled the character and situation was highly unique.  What surprised me was how I ended up siding with multiple viewpoints at once.  It's the sign of a complex book.

Going along with that, the main character, Normandy, or "Norm," acted like a voice of reason and 'norm'alcy in a cast of crazy characters.  She attends an arts-based high school where her older sister, Kiera, is a famous alumna.  Norm has been living in the shadow of greatness for so long, that she underestimates her own creative spirit.  Her own sister may be a famous graphic novelist, but Norm does photorealistic embroidery and writes creative nonfiction (the book is one of her school projects).  She has two highly artistic friends — painter and movie-buff, Neil, and aspiring taxidermist, Dusk.

One thing that Juby nailed on the head is how art students are constantly 1) doing projects and 2) searching for meaning around them. It's too true! So it made perfect sense how Norm, Neil, and Dusk would start the "Truth Commission," where they ask people around their school for the truth about rumors.   But, unlike Neil and Dusk, who are eager and ravenous for the truth respectively, Norm believes that the truth should sometimes stay hidden away.  So, who's right?  Should the truth always be out there, as opposed to lies? Or does the truth hurt more often than it heals?

The Truth Commission, like a true work of art, doesn't offer easy answers to those questions, but it does provide lots of content for thought and discussion.  It wasn't a full-on masterpiece, but the novel was immensely readable, charming, and meaningful. I really liked it!

[rating stars="four-stars"]

Paper Princess » Book Review

I shouldn't have enjoyed this book as much as I did, but it was a fun little traipse through the gutter.  "Gutter," you say, Ellen?  Mightn't that be a touch harsh?  Nah.  Ask the author to her face about whether or not Paper Princess is even moderate literature, and I bet she'd be like, "No, no, no. This book is just for funzees."

The novel is a rags-to-riches tale following Ella, a seventeen year-old who is a smart cookie, but also a burgeoning stripper.  She's taken to naked dancing following the death of her mother, who was her sole caretaker.  Ella would like to graduate high school and even go to college, but she has to keep herself fed and off the streets, first thing. She's moving right along, making it work, when the best friend of her long-lost father shows up and insists upon becoming her guardian.

Ella accepts his offer and he jets her off to his home on the southeastern coast.  There's a problem though, Daddy Warbucks has five teenage sons...

LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!

I'm sorry for laughing, but it's just so gratuitous! Stepbrother romances are NOT a new thing under the sun, in fact they're a full-on trope, but I've never seen a book that's like, "We'll have one, two three.. FIVE stepbrothers. Yeah!" Talk about going all in. And making them all teenagers, too... Lol.

But anyway, the combination of a troubled girl moving into a mansion full of buff stepbrothers reminded me very strongly of Fallen Crest High, the flagship novel of indie author, Tijan.

Against my better self, I have a huge soft spot for Fallen Crest High.  I remember reading that book a number of years ago and thinking, Wow. This is like the Iliad of high school drama. The book is about a girl, Sam, whose mother has an affair with one of their California town's multimillionaires.  One day, Sam comes home and her mom is all, "I'm leaving your father and we're moving in with my uber-rich boyfriend. Pack up."

What follows is a dark, twisty little fairytale that ends in the triumph of feral children over their pathological parents.  The series has since lost its theme and has become one big epilogue, but I will always remember fondly the experience of diving into the weird brilliance of Fallen Crest for the first time.

Paper Princess is both everything like Fallen Crest High and nothing like it. The books have very similar content but are somehow worlds apart.  They're not unlike identical twins — same DNA, unique manifestations. And it's so funny... Paper Princess is the better written book, undeniably, but somehow, it manages to be inferior on every other level to Fallen Crest High.

But down to the bottom line... Should you read this book?  Why the hell not?  I can't promise that you'll be impressed, but I guarantee you'll be entertained.