REVIEW: HOUSE RULES by JODI PICOULT

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

   This is yet another book that my mother recommended to me, and it is yet another book that did not disappoint.

   HOUSE RULES is about a teenager with Asperger's Syndrome who is accused of murder. It's one part feel-good family, one part murder mystery, and one part courthouse drama with a sprinkling of autism awareness and romance. And it also happens to be an incredibly interesting and a powerful read.

   Thanks to the cover and title, when I first saw this book and knew nothing about it, I kind of assumed that it was about a dull suburban family doing dull things and ruining each others' lives in the process. I'm happy to report that this was the complete opposite. Our suburban family is interesting, realistic, and damaged, but close, and the plot keeps you going until one in the morning. {I say this from experience.}

   It's clear that this book was really well-researched, but I do feel as if some parts were slightly over-exaggerated on the author's part–almost all of Jacob' symptoms, for example. I mean, seriously, it doesn't matter how bad you are at picking up the feel of a room, if you're arrested for murder, you're probably going to know that you're getting arrested for murder. Needless to say, having the main freakin' character not even understand how much shit he's in for more than half the book was endlessly frustrating. Eurgh, Jacob, you sound like a sweetheart, but sometimes I just wanted to smack your head. {Does this make me a terrible person? Possibly.}

   Okay, but aside from that little nuance, Jacob was the kind of character that you couldn't help but root for. Although to be frank, I was probably really just rooting for Emma Hunt, who was honestly the most good-natured, caring, and likeable Hot Mom type fictional mother I've ever read. Anything less would be someone detestable. Like the absent father. The instant he showed up in the narrative, I felt an intense desire to reach into the book and strangle him. Eurgh. 

   I can already see that this is turning into a paragraph-by-paragraph essay on each of the characters, so I'm going to cut myself off here and follow with this before I delve into the real stuff: Oliver? Adorable. He's competing for the title of 'Most Adorable Character' with his poodle, in my mind. Theo? Strangely earnest and realistic. I was surprised that I wound up liking him quite a bit.

   The police officer was really too minor a character to really analyze–of the five narrators, he was easily the least significant. This makes me sad, probably because I have a weakness for law enforcers, but mostly because he was introduced as a potential love interest/figure of romantic conflict to Emma and then was kind of just shucked aside and labeled as 'that bad man who arrested the autistic kid.' I mean, is it just me, or does it seem like everything that doesn't feature a cop as the main character has the police as a sort of unified force of evil and injustice? Obviously, American law enforcement isn't in its prime at the moment, but that certainly doesn't mean every police officer ever is a massive jerk when doing their job.

   To be fair, Rich had some redeeming qualities, and really, my beef with this character is really minor and personal, so you shouldn't even take me seriously on this. I find that I usually have to have at least one thing to complain about in everything I read or watch, because otherwise, these reviews would all be very short, wouldn't they?

   So, I suppose in the end, I simply don't know how to express how fascinating and riveting this book was for me, in my experience. Of course, like everything, it had its flaws, but like many good and enjoyable things, they didn't detain from the overall experience that the story, characters, and setting provide. It's a heartwarming tale about autism and those who live with it struggling against prejudice and misunderstanding in a white American suburbia–okay, I'm just going to cut myself off now, because apparently I can't formulate my words into actual, coherent thoughts at the moment. If I come up with a way to word my now-stale emotions towards this book, I'll get back to you guys.

OVERALL RATING:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆     

2013 Wrap-Up

   Well, happy New Years, you guys! Congrats on making it this far.

   I didn't feel motivated at all to make an actual vlog to honor the turning of the year, so I guess I'll just be doing this instead. I'm not entirely sure what this is quite yet, but I'm sure it'll involve books somewhere.

   It's kind of been a big year, book-wise, for me: I discovered the wide and glorious world of booktubers and book bloggers, for one, and I also found that lovely thrift book store that has now consumed all of the money I ever thought I had. To be quite honest, I'd fallen off the reading bandwagon in favor of other pursuits, so fall/winter of 2013 was more or less my rebirth as a reader. Like the second coming of Pages Christ, except not at all, because that was a terrible joke. I'm going to hide my head in a blanket now.  

    But in all seriousness, returning to reading, for me, was more or less a defense mechanism. 2013 was a problem year for me. An unyielding string of tragedies hit me really quickly in an extremely condensed point of time, and I was completely unequipped to deal with any of them, so I fell into a weird state of dazed angry-sadness and threw myself into physical training while I was overseas studying martial arts/weaponry. Then I came home, managed to patch some of my problems back together with an unsteady layer of duct tape, found a few unexpected allies, and learned to deal with the ideas of death and loss, in my own way. And in November, I found booktubing, and I honestly don't think I've ever felt better in my life. Seriously, even my attitude has markedly improved. Just ask my mother.

   Sure, I don't expect life to be perfect from here on out just because I've rediscovered reading as an escape hatch–I've already hit a low point, seeing as the holiday season did not agree with me–but I think I'm at peace with myself. {There's a saying about this somewhere–with every darkness there is a dawn??? Something????}

   So, here's me raising my glass of pomegranate juice to the sky and welcoming in 2014, because I now know it's completely within my scope of ability to overcome whatever challenges the new year may present.

   {That was shorter than I expected it to be, but oh well. Happy New Year, folks.}

 

REVIEW: THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER by STEPHEN CHBOSKY

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

  Today, I present to you... One of the only books in the world whose 'movie cover' looks better than its original cover. 

   Again, here, I'm late to the party with this one–it's grown to be extremely popular in the world of readers, so it was only a matter of time before I was forced to grit my teeth and pick up a coming-of-age.

   I feel like I've never been able to fully appreciate contemporary fiction, mostly because they're usually romance heavy, angsty, and an extremely inaccurate representation of high school life. The last one in particular bothers me, because a lot of the time, I read books and am forced to wonder whether the author suffered severe amnesia immediately after graduating high school. I mean, yeah, obviously there are differences in different countries and districts and what-not, but sometimes they just get ridiculous.

   PERKS was alright for me in that front, I suppose. I mean, honestly, schoolwork wasn't focused on all to much. Uh, the focus was more along the lines of drinking... And sex... And drugs...

   I might come off as a tight ass saying this, but whenever I read about teenagers going crazy on the alcohol and cigs in books, I grow concerned for their fictional immune systems. Okay, yes, it adds a gritty dash of 'realism,' but it's everywhere??? Can't we have good, stable kids who don't fall ploy to peer pressure and/or feel the insatiable urge to completely destroy their livers??? {I swear that I'm not from the Prohibition era or anything. I'm just grossed out by alcoholics and users. Also, contrary to popular belief, not every teenager in the world is universally dysfunctional and incapable of making smart decisions.}

   Holy shit, I've complained way too much already. Uh, anyway, PERKS is written in the form of a series of letters from our adorable main character and budding writer, Charlie. They're all dated and addressed, 'Dear friend,' and according to Charlie, the names of the characters have all been replaced. It's also a really short book, but hefty for its weight. By hefty, I mean to say that it's jam-packed with emotional distress and emotions in general. 

  And here's the real question: Despite my fervent dislike of alcohol abuse in the book, did I enjoy reading it?

  Yes, actually, I did. I found it charming at first, then horribly disturbing, then sweet and fulfilling. Because despite the fact that Patrick and Sam are by far the worst people to have ever laid hands on poor, sweet, unsuspecting Charlie, they are also his best friends, and they love him, albeit dysfunctionally. 

  And the characters were all adorable and sweet and relatable {even though I thought Charlie had some sort of learning disability for a while there} and I really did enjoy reading about them. The tone of the book was easy to delve into and straightforward, honest. Can tone be honest? I think it can.

   I plan on seeing the film when I find the time, because a) Emma Watson, and b) I've heard a lot of good things about it. So hey, why the heck not?

   There are a few triggers that I feel obligated to warn you about if you intend on picking up this book. Substance abuse, for one thing. Emotional turmoil for another. And finally, the awkward, not-at-all erotic sex scenes. 

   Honestly, even though I'm complaining a lot about this book, it's not bad in the least. {In fact, it's quite the opposite.} It's cute, funny, emotional, and compulsively readable. So, if you've watched the movie and haven't read the book, I'd recommend it to you. I'd also recommend it to people who are in for something quick and easy, but not too light, and also for folks who don't read often and need something with easier language to grip on to. Basically, this book seems to me like it could appeal to fans of all genres, so go. Read. Shoo.  

OVERALL RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

REVIEW: THE LOVELY BONES by ALICE SEBOLD

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

   This is the story of a teenage girl who is raped, murdered, and sent to heaven, where she keeps a steadfast eye on her family and friends from up above while they scramble around to (unsuccessfully) solve the mystery of her death and then (unsuccessfully) to find her killer. Obviously, there are quite a few trigger warnings attached.

   THE LOVELY BONES has been described as a modern classic, and I wholeheartedly agree with that title. By my definition, a classic is a book that can be enjoyed and empathized with during any time period, by any person, and I feel like the morals and feelings and reasoning put forward by Sebold are more or less universal. This book explores how humans feel about both death and life with incredible depth.

   The only real issue I had here was the fact that the plot seemed to take a turn for the scattered somewhere in the middle of the book. It went from murder mystery to 'everyone is sad. Let's fuck our lives up.' in about two point five seconds, and yeah, it contributed to the poignant message of this book, but that transition felt like giving up to me, and my interest kind of faltered for a bit.

   However, even with that, the book kept me reading, mostly because of my attachment to the characters. All of the characters. {Except for George Harvey, due to obvious reasons.}

   Speaking of Harvey, I was left feeling kind of unsatisfied with the ending. I know this makes me sound like a terrible person, but I wanted him to suffer. Even with the backstory that Harvey was given, I fucking hated him, and all I wanted was to have him die terribly, or have Susie kill him, or something. {Never put me in charge of the lives of terrible people.}

   The characters were, in general, endlessly, frustratingly realistic and relatable. Susie was one of those narrators who you can just connect to. With first person narration, it's can sometimes be difficult to completely immerse yourself in the book if you have trouble understanding and relating to the person whose voice is telling the story, but I didn't have that problem with this book, so yay! {I mean, there were still some actions that she took that were weird and didn't make sense to me, but as a whole, you know.}

   I feel like this book is really famous and that I've arrived late to the party. Actually, the weird thing about this is that I found my {fairly beat up} copy of it just lying around on the shelf one day. I'd never seen it before, so I figured my mother had ordered it, but it turned out that she'd never seen it, either. It's been a month, and I still haven't solved that mystery, so I'm going to assume that a friendly dead girl left it on my shelf for me to cry over. {I meant that as a joke, but now that I've written that I'm a little freaked out and I think I'll sleep with the lights on tonight.}

   So, all-in-all, THE LOVELY BONES is a touching, heartfelt read that might not be recommendable for people who are sensitive to subjects like death, rape, family issues, and a bunch of other things. Personally, I'm someone who is really sensitive to the ideas death and dying, thanks to plenty of recent loss, but I truly to feel like braving through this book sort of softened the blow for me. Not enough to be drastically life changing, but enough to help. 

   

OVERALL RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ 

How to Write the Most Obnoxious Romance Possible

  Since I've been doing nothing but posting reviews here lately out of pure lack of ideas, I've subsequently decided to make a few 'How-to's' in an attempt to educate all of you adorable budding young authors out there. So, this is a quick lesson on how to create the most irritating, frustrating, snore-worthy love story possible!

Step One: Create a main character. Actually, you know what, don't even. Just take a transparent version of yourself and stamp her right onto the page. You'll be writing exclusively in first person anyway, right?

Step Two: Put your main character in some boring suburban town in the middle of nowhere full of nothing but white people. Make her the outcast for no particular reason, too, because everyone loves an underdog who never, EVER wears makeup or does anything remotely interesting and does nothing but complain.

Step Three: Enter the hot main guy {!!} Make sure he's absolutely physically flawless in every way, so readers won't notice that he has no real personality and is actually kind of creepy. Basically, stick classic sociopath behavior into an attractive husk that might be an angel/demon/vampire/werewolf/god/Cthulu. Go, you!

Step Four: Well, obviously HOT MAIN GUY and BORING MAIN CHARACTER are going to end up together, but you've essentially written ten pages, so you're going to need to draw this out for a painfully long time to really bring in the big bucks. Why not try...

       1) Creepy rapist situation! HMG stalks BMC, who vehemently attempts to throw off his unwanted affections due to foggy reasoning. HMG makes continuous references to danger, sex, and dangerous sex, and this wins the BMC over. Eventually.

       2) You-saved-my-life, let's-procreate situation! BMC, who is actually physically incapable of doing anything on her own, has her life saved by HMG. BMC decides this means she should love HMG, despite knowing nothing about him. Terrible forced romance ensues.

       3) TEEN ANGST situation! BMC finds herself 'inexplicably drawn' to HMG, and eventually uncovers his twisted past. Decides to pity-love him because of her own, equally disturbing history, and they decide to make sad, angsty love in a dark bedroom by the train tracks while crying and awkwardly touching each other's scars.

Step Five: If you honestly believe that this is plot enough for you and your beloved HMG, move on! Go ahead and publish. You deserved it. If you're one of those who feels like you might be lacking a little something, it's time to come up with some sort of weird conflict/plot whose only duty is to get pushed aside by the steamy {and possibly uncomfortable romance between the HMG and BMC. Just come up with something off the top of your head. Honestly, you can do it in five seconds. Here, I'll time you.

Five....

Four...

Three...

Two...

One!

Got it? Okay! Now, just sort of awkwardly wedge that plot in there. Now, stand in front of the mirror and try to keep a straight face while practicing your reasoning for why your book is 'deep.' {Don't panic, it's not supposed to be deep in any way at all. You and I both know that you just wrote that shit to jerk off to, but does America really need to?} 

Congratulations. Your novel is complete! Now just find an agent dumb enough to represent you and publish that sucker with some big company that's fallen to shambles in the last decade. Then rake in the moolah and drink a gallon of alcohol for each week your byooootiful literary masterpiece stays on the NY Times Bestseller list. You've deserved it, you asshole.

{Please note that this was only meant to be extremely offensive to people who actually write this way. Fuck you guys.}

REVIEW: HYPERBOLE AND A HALF by ALLIE BROSH

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

   I actually bought this book as an early Christmas gift for my beloved twin, but then she finished it in two hours and forced me to read it.

   HYPERBOLE AND A HALF {god that's long; I'll just call it H&aH} is a paper adaptation of Allie Brosh's popular blog by the same name. To my understanding, half of it is brand-new content, and the other half consists of pre-existing stories picked off the blog. The book is unique in its presentation: it chronicles a collection of short stories in amateurish comic strips accompanied by short blocks of text. {I'm pretty sure it spawned a few memes, too, if that's relevant.}

   Anyway, explanations aside, this book is fucking hilarious. Brosh uses the perfect mixture of intelligence and crude humour to create both honest, laugh-out-loud comedy and a surprising level of introspection. From the tale of a manic dinosaur/serial killer goose to Brosh's own explanation and inspection of clinical depression, H&aH made a delightful read for me, and nearly everyone who was near me when my twin opened the gift. Seriously, we passed this thing around like a hot potato pretty much all day. I think I howled CAAAAKE at least ten times, because I'm essentially a five year old. 

   My experience with Brosh's blog itself was actually limited; I vaguely remember having someone show me the original cake story a year or so ago. But since this book does have stories that were never featured on the blog, I'd strongly recommend that fans of it pick this up, as well. {Also people who've never had exposure to Brosh's work before, because again, it's funny.} 

   I wish I could say more about this book; I really do. But honestly, all I can think of to mention is that I'm pleased to say that this is the first five star rating I've had on this blog yet, so happy holidays! 

  

OVERALL RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 

REVIEW: MATCHED by ALLY CONDIE

Matched by Ally Condie

   Euuuuuuuurgh. 

   Hey, at least I only paid two dollars for my copy of this snooze-fest.

   Honestly, the cover is glorious. The entire trilogy's covers are super artistic and lovely and symbolic and I think they're incredible. Unfortunately, I don't think the contents of the book come even remotely close to living up to the standard that these pretty, unique covers set for them, and that's sad.

   MATCHED is the first of three books in a trilogy by Ally Condie. Again, this is another fairly popular book that's been out for a while, and I must say that I was disappointed. The premise sounds interesting enough, if heavily reminiscent of Lois Lowry's THE GIVER: the main character, Cassia, lives in a dystopian/utopian Society that controls every aspect of its citizen's lives, including marriage, family, work, and even death.

   The worst part about this book is that it didn't have to be as bad as it was. The characters, although boring as hell and oftentimes frustrating, were all honestly decent people, so ethically speaking, you couldn't hate them. I hated them anyway, but I felt kind of bad about it. I mean, none of them are terrible people, they're just boring and have nothing to contribute. Plus, Cassia's fucking useless and a pain in the ass.

   I guess this could be seen as 'kind of the point,' because the Society that all of the characters live in more or less wipe them of their personalities, but come on. The main character's annoying little brother was more interesting than Cassia and her two love interests combined.

   Speaking of love interests, I guess the one thing this book didn't fuck up completely was the romance, because at least it wasn't completely dysfunctional, and both boys genuinely did seem to love her. I was especially proud of Xander, who, instead of going into the stereotypical jealous rage and becoming evil and killing everyone, helped Cassia find the one she truly loved.

   That's love, bitch.

   But, still, I've got to give this book two stars, because it lacks such a massive key component that I kind of feel weird calling it a book at all.

   It pretty much has no plot whatsoever. No rising action, no climax, no denouement, or any of that whole swishy hill thing from, like primary school. The whole thing is a super transparent, heavily symbolic commentary on our own modern society, which is fine in its own right, but come on, you don't have to give up plot for the sake of symbolism. It's not even remotely necessary. What the fuck.

   I was so disappointed, too! This really interesting set-up is presented to us, and you keep reading, thinking that something's going to happen, but no. Nothing happens. Half the book is literally Cassia describing motherfucking letters and hiking in the fake woods and Mr. Angsty Poetry Man {Ky}. I honestly expected her to join an awesome rebellion of renegade poets and writers and artists at the end and take back her man and make the entire book worthwhile, but nope.

   I already knew I wasn't fond of stories that are almost exclusively focused on romance. Some people are, and that's fine, but I just can't handle it. So, although I can sort of see why this book garnered attention, fuck that, I'm not reading the rest.

OVERALL RATING: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆