5 Stars

ARC Review: Beautiful Broken Things

19:16

Beautiful Broken Things
By Sara Barnard

 Source: Netgalley
Release date: 11th February 2016
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mental Illness, 

Goodreads Synopsis:
Best friends Caddy and Rosie are inseparable. Their differences have brought them closer, but as she turns sixteen Caddy begins to wish she could be a bit more like Rosie – confident, funny and interesting. Then Suzanne comes into their lives: beautiful, damaged, exciting and mysterious, and things get a whole lot more complicated. As Suzanne’s past is revealed and her present begins to unravel, Caddy begins to see how much fun a little trouble can be. But the course of both friendship and recovery is rougher than either girl realises, and Caddy is about to learn that downward spirals have a momentum of their own. 

I don’t even know where to begin with this book. I expected (and desperately hoped!) that it would be amazing, but I really didn’t imagine it could be so hard-hitting and emotional. I had no idea that it would destroy me in the ways it did, and shatter my poor heart into a million pieces. I am beyond words (though I will try to make a decent review!), because this book has rendered me utterly speechless.

This is one of those books where I can never words say just how amazing it is. I don’t know if I’ll be able to encourage you enough to go and buy this book when it comes out, because I just loved it so much. Loads of people have said that a book you love is always the hardest to write a review for - this one definitely takes the lead for hardest review! You just need to read the book.
There’s no romance at all, which I loved. As soon as I heard it would be a book entirely on female friendships, I requested it from Netgalley straight away. It’s so refreshing to see a book that doesn’t need romance to make it interesting. This was probably my favourite element because I hate romance it was so original, which was one of the reasons it was so hard-hitting. It captured the essence of true friendship so realistically so it’s definitely the best portrayal I’ve ever read.
I raced through this book, because I was enjoying it so much. There were parts in which I was welling up, and parts when I was breathing heavily because of how nervous I was, but overall, it was such a fun read. Sure, the ending wasn’t fun at all (I am broken!), and there were plenty of chapters that were tough, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom. There were lots of fun scenes, which really made me smile, and love the characters even more. There was loads of light-hearted bits to balance out all of the sadness, which just made me adore it even more.

It was perfectly paced, and beautifully written. When this book comes out in February, I’ll definitely be buying a physical finished copy because the cover is so pretty it’s such an exquisite book. I definitely want to read this again, and I know that everyone will love it when it’s released. I know this enchanting story will stay with me for a long time (que major book hangover), and it’s become one of my all-time favourites. I’d highly recommend (as you can tell by this gushing review!) picking this up next February - don’t forget about it, because it’s truly amazing!

2.5 stars

Review: The Program

09:00

The Program
By Suzanne Young

 Source: Personal purchase, e-book
Genres: Young Adult, Dystopian, Romance, Science Fiction, Mental Illness, 

 Goodreads Synopsis:

 Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment. Sloane’s parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they’ll do anything to keep her alive. She also knows that everyone who’s been through The Program returns as a blank slate. Because their depression is gone—but so are their memories.

Under constant surveillance at home and at school, Sloane puts on a brave face and keeps her feelings buried as deep as she can. The only person Sloane can be herself with is James. He’s promised to keep them both safe and out of treatment, and Sloane knows their love is strong enough to withstand anything. But despite the promises they made to each other, it’s getting harder to hide the truth. They are both growing weaker. Depression is setting in. And The Program is coming for them.

 My review:
I expected this book to be amazing. The concept was really promising for a heart-breaking and gritty dystopian, that could have been painfully relatable to today’s society. Although it was scarily similar to today, I was disappointed. It was a love story first, dystopian second. Some may find it beautiful and heart-wrenching, but I just got a bit fed up with the book. It was a bit repetitive, and I thought it had the potential to be so much better.

My main problem with the book was the focus on romance. I was disappointed with the lack of world building and the description of the dystopian setting. I know some will really enjoy this book, but it just wasn’t for me at all.

It got a little repetitive and slow moving towards the middle too. Sloane was a very annoying lead, so I got tired of her ‘mourning’. I feel like she could have done more to change her situation (because she obviously wasn’t happy with it), instead of just thinking about herself, and how she was feeling at the time.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I feel it has too many flaws for me to continue with the rest of the series. The ending was very inconclusive, but not much was left to happen, so I think this would have worked as a stand-alone too. I know that fans of romance will really enjoy this, so I would recommend it to fans of Shatter Me, though the writing style isn’t as poetic or beautiful.

Rating:

3 Stars

Review: Fans of the Impossible Life

12:37

Fans of the Impossible Life
By Kate Scelsa

 Source: Netgalley, ARC
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Coming of Age, LGBT+, Romance, Mental Illness, 

 Goodreads Synopsis:

 This is the story of a girl, her gay best friend, and the boy in love with both of them.

Ten months after her recurring depression landed her in the hospital, Mira is starting over as a new student at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to act like a normal, functioning human this time around, not a girl who sometimes can’t get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when she’s with Sebby. 

Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who’s been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn it’s as if he’s been expecting this blond, lanky boy with a mischievous glint in his eye. 

Sebby, Mira’s gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him like a backlit halo. Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and secret road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives. 

As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira’s world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who don’t understand their quest to live for the impossible.

 My review:
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review via Netgalley
I expected this book to be amazing. From the first line of the synopsis (This is the story of a girl, her gay best friend, and the boy in love with both of them), I expected there to be a bisexual love triangle with lots of romance. I was disappointed because there was barely any romance - more friendship and self-discovery. I enjoyed the characters, and the plot was okay, but the writing style really let this book down for me.
The characters were all instantly likeable. Everyone was funny and charming on the surface, yet were well developed and had lots of depth. They all had their own private problems, and were all fighting their own personal battle.


I liked the dynamics between each character. They all had different relationships - my favourite was Mira and Sebby. The author had captured the essence of being best friends so it felt very realistic. Their relationship was unusual yet very special.


My main problem with the book was the writing style. It was very disjointed and chucky because it constantly switched between Mira (3rd person), Jeremy (1st person), and Sebby (2nd Person). It got a little confusing at times - I would have been able to enjoy the book much more if everything was in 3rd person.


This book tried so hard to be meaningful and beautiful, but in my opinion, it really wasn’t. There were too many themes explored (bullying, suicide, depression, mental health, homophobia, drugs, friendship), and I thought it got too crowded. Because it was so busy, it wasn’t able to fully explore most of these themes. This made me feel like the book wasn’t as important as it would have been, if it delivered a strong and poignant message about just a couple of themes.


I found the ending frustrating. It didn’t give enough closure, and I was left feeling confused. I really cared about the characters, so I was very disappointed for it to leave us wanting more. It was too ‘poetic’, and tried too hard to be beautiful, and left to the reader’s interpretation. Just a few more pages would have rounded off this book so much better.

I thought this book was a very fun contemporary. At many points, I was smiling and laughing with the characters: I enjoyed the book a lot. The writing style mainly let it down for me, and the way it tried too hard, but it definitely had potential to be a very important book. I'd recommend for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, or I'll Give You the Sun.

 Rating:

4 stars

Review: Am I Normal Yet?

18:20

Am I Normal Yet?
By Holly Bourne

 Source: e-book
Page count: 434
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Romance, 

 Goodreads Synopsis:

 All Evie wants is to be normal. She’s almost off her meds and at a new college where no one knows her as the girl-who-went-crazy. She’s even going to parties and making friends. There’s only one thing left to tick off her list...

 But relationships are messy – especially relationships with teenage guys. They can make any girl feel like they’re going mad. And if Evie can’t even tell her new friends Amber and Lottie the truth about herself, how will she cope when she falls in love?

 My review:
As soon as I heard that Holly Bourne had a new book coming out, I knew I had to have it. I pre-ordered it on my kindle, and even payed for wifi when I knew I was going to be away (it wouldn’t deliver until I was connected to the internet). I think it’s fair to say that I anticipated this book to be amazing!
Thankfully it was everything I hoped it to be. Not only was it a harshly accurate representation of mental-illness, it had themes of friendships and loyalty, which made the book for me. It made the book lighter (and less intense), so I was able to enjoy it much more.

The thing that let the book down for me were the bits on feminism. Not only were they unrealistic (what group of friends randomly starts talking about all these issues?), the ideas discussed were unoriginal. The reason I feel this way may be because of the strong opinions from Tumblr, so I’m open to new ideas that most people haven’t thought about. Though I am still very pleased to see an author include this (more than any book I’ve read before), I would have preferred for them to be more daring and that pushes more boundaries - things I’ve never even thought about before.


Evie’s mental illness and the parts about OCD made this book more original. All other books I’ve read about mental illness glossed over the gritty parts, only to focus on romance or something that readers would be ‘more interested in’. This book definitely did not do that. It exposed the reality of OCD, and was dealt with extremely well. It is a real eye-opener, so I’d recommend this book to everyone who doesn’t have much experience in the topic.

I already liked Holly Bourne as a writer, and this book has just made me love her even more. All of her books are on very important issues, so teach me something from reading them (but not in an annoying school-book way). Not only are they enjoyable, they tackle important and relevant issues, and I recommend her to everyone (especially this book).

 My rating:

2 Stars

Review: All the Bright Places

12:32

All the Bright Places
by Jennifer Niven

 Source: Personal purchase, paperback
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Mental Illness, Realism

 Goodreads Synopsis:

 The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning!
 
Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.
 
Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.
 
When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

Although this book was compared to TFIOS by many people, I just overlooked that, and went into this book with an open-mind (well, someone spoiled the ending for me *angry face*, so I went in as open-minded as I could). I was wrong. This book - and I hate to compare books, but I just can’t help myself in this case - was so similar to The Fault in Our Stars.
This book has been described as “The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park”. I didn’t like TFIOS, but I liked Eleanor and Park (at the time - if I read it now (I read it around a year ago), I’m sure I wouldn't like it). Whoever said this definitely hit the nail on the head - if you enjoyed TFIOS and EaP, you are bound to love this novel.
My main problem with this book was that it was boring. I can see how some people would enjoy it (a lot of people enjoy this sort of thing), but it’s really not for me. I like more action, or if it is going to be purely romance, at least make their relationship have something more special about it.


There was practically no plot. For the majority of this book, it was just Violet and Finch falling in love (I promise this isn’t a spoiler - dual POV, really... what did you expect?), which bored me. I don’t mind romance, but I prefer the romance to just be a sideline plot, not the main point of the book.


The thing that bugged me the most about All The Bright Places was how it was told through Violet and Finch’s POV. I just found this unnecessary and confusing. I found it hard to keep track of who I was reading about, meaning I had to keep flicking back to the start of the chapter to see who was talking. This would have been easily fixed by writing in 3rd person, or just one person’s POV. This would have made the story much better for me.


The thing that I did like about this book (I know, I’m not an entirely bad person for giving a bad review on this book...) was how the relationship between Violet and Finch developed. It wasn’t some annoying insta-love. They grew to like each other overtime, which made this book a higher rating, and made me enjoy it much more.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book. I found it boring as there was basically no plot. I think it’s definitely fair to say this one isn’t for me.

 My reaction:

Rating: