Review: Kiera Cass, The Selection

I admit, I was pretty skeptical going into this book. The Amazon summary made it sound like the author just borrowed ideas from Matched, Wither, and The Hunger Games and so I wasn't expecting to find much original here. But...all in all, I am happy to say I actually liked this more than I expected to. There were definitely some things that irritated me, but in general this wasn't bad!

 A brief summary of my own rendering. This takes place in the future sometime after the Fourth World War, in the Americas. The USA no longer exists: it has given way to a fragile country called Illéa, in which society is divided into a rigid caste system arranged by number, with ones being at the top (royals) and eights being at the very bottom (basically homeless). Our protagonist, America, is a five, which is a pretty low caste, meaning her family has often struggled just to put food on the table. Then the Selection happens. The Selection is this bizarre ritual whereby 35 or so of the most beautiful girls in the country are chosen to come to the royal palace in order that the prince may eventually choose one of them to be his wife. The whole "selection" process is televised for national entertainment (like a less bloody version of the Hunger Games). America is Selected (to be one of the 35)...only her heart already belongs to another. DRAMAAAAA!!!

America herself is pretty likable, if predictable. She's your typical YA heroine: unlike all the other lemmings in the Selection who go out of their way to suck up to the prince at every chance, America is a rebel! She refuses to wear tons of makeup and -- *gasp* -- would rather wear pants than a gown! She is actually rude to the prince! She doesn't even want to win the crown! So I'm sure it will come as a huge shock to everyone that the prince finds her irresistible. That whole setup was a little cliché...the trope of the feisty antiestablishment tomboy heroine. But that's okay, I still liked her, and I thought Cass did a decent job developing her and giving her her own voice.

I also very much enjoyed Aspen, America's forbidden lover. Aspen is a six, meaning he is even poorer than America. He's got a huge chip on his shoulder about dating a girl who is wealthier than him, which leads to him occasionally acting like a huge douche, but in an endearing way. And he is very sexy...I am totally team Aspen here.

So, I liked the main characters and I thought the book moved along at a good pace...I enjoyed reading it and never felt like it was a chore. However, there were definitely some drawbacks. First and foremost, all the rebel attacks on the palace. The rebel attacks amped up the action in the book, so that was good, but I just didn't really feel they were all that believable. Seriously, how do these imbeciles keep managing to break into the castle again and again? Maybe rather than spending a fortune on bringing 35 women into the palace and giving them each a team of maids and a new custom designed gown for literally every day they are there, the royals could use that money to amp up their security a bit? Like drop 5 of the girls and hire 5 extra security guards instead? I mean come on...it just seemed a touch ridiculous that the palace could afford to host something as elaborate as the Selection, but then didn't have enough security to prevent vagabonds from breaking in again and again and wreaking havoc.

Also, the world building felt a bit off. I just kind of felt at times like there was a disconnect between the casual, almost normal way the characters talked to each other and how America conceived of herself and her situation and, on the other hand, the really rather grim situation she was actually in. Like she is participating in a really bizarre event...this one man is courting dozens of women who are expected to be okay with basically being objects with no autonomy--the entire thing is televised for national entertainment--all while rebels are constantly trying to break down the door and murder them all. The prince can kiss America today and then someone else the next day and that's just the way it is, everyone has to be ok with it. And you do see America occasionally acting out about that, but I don't know, it just felt a little superficial to me sometimes. It felt a little too much like our own world...I just thought the mood of the book didn't always match the subject matter. For example, when reading books like The Hunger Games, or even Divergent and Wither, you never really forget for a moment that this world is Different than ours in some seriously dark ways, even if there are similarities. The world building in The Selection just didn't have quite that complexity, I didn't think.

I started to get sort of bored about halfway through the book when it just felt like nothing much was happening except America and Maxon pulling their ears at each other, but then there was a major plot twist that I will not spoil for you here which was EXCELLENT and from that point on I was hooked. I have just purchased the sequel. Onward!

3.5 stars

Feature and Follow Friday

In this week's Feature & Follow Friday (hosted by Parajunkee & Alison Can Read), we are to discuss this question:

What book (or TV show or movie) have you not read that seemingly everyone else has?

You know, I never read A Tale of Two Cities. Sometimes I tell people I have, but in fact, I'm pretty sure what we read back in 7th grade was an abridged version. Shameful!

In the YA realm, I've never read The Mortal Instruments series. I tried once but got distracted. One of these days!

I've also never watched Lost and couldn't get into Arrested Development. It bores me!

Happy weekend to all!

DILEMMA: Should I try to finish Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys or is it ok to give up???

I was not a huge fan of Shiver, but I read so many good things about The Raven Boys that I thought I'd give Maggie's writing another chance. And now, at 25% through the eBook, I am having a dilemma. I'm just not really feeling it. I keep forcing myself to open the book, trying to just plow through it so I can move onto something else, but it feels like a chore. And that is not why I read YA! I have to read plenty of things that often feel like a chore for my day job....but this stuff is supposed to be fun. It's a hobby, after all! So I'm tempted to cut my losses and give up now, but am wondering if people think that's a grave error. Maybe if I can stick it out for another 50 pages or so, I'll see what all the fuss is about? Anyone?

There are some things I like about the book: namely, Maggie's writing. I want to like this more than I do because it actually is really well written--much better than the average YA paranormal. I think Maggie has a really unique voice for storytelling. I love the third person POV; it's so refreshing when 99% of these books are done in the first person, and gives the author a lot more flexibility than a first person POV.

The opening chapters about Blue were okay, but at this point I'm feeling like her situation (the prediction that she'll cause her true love to die) is a lot more interesting than Blue herself. Maybe that shouldn't be a problem for me, but it kind of is. I just can't really get that invested in her yet. However, I was willing to give it more time...

And then we got to the scenes with the raven boys, and that's where this really started to grate on me. Maggie introduces us to what seems like a dozen characters all in one scene and it's just overwhelming/boring. I feel like this book needs a character chart! I cannot keep straight the difference between Noah, Adam, Declan, Ronan, etc., and I'm not really too motivated to try. Everyone is so angsty and has some depressing backstory that is alluded to in bits and pieces and I just felt like it was a burden to try to keep track. It really just didn't pull me in at all and I soon found myself skimming the sections with the raven boys (which, admittedly, probably contributed to my difficulty distinguishing one character from the next, woof, vicious cycle!).

Gansey's obsession with Glendower is an interesting concept, but at 25% through the book it's frustrating not to have any idea why he cares so much about this, why the other raven boys are similarly obsessed, who Glendower really was, etc. etc. etc. I just basically don't feel connected to the characters at all and since character development/relatability is the most important thing to me in these books, that's kind of a deal breaker.

HOWEVER. I am only 1/4 through this. Maybe it will get better? If anyone is a fan of this book I would love to hear some arguments for why I should plow on ahead! I really do like the writing and that's basically what's been keeping me going so far.

Hayelp!

Review: Neal Shusterman, Unwind

So, my blog died for a few years, but during that dark time I was still reading plenty of YA, and plenty of YA dystopian novels in particular. Looking through my Kindle, I realize I've read the first book in a lot of these "hot" new dystopian series, such as Divergent, Under the Never Sky, Enclave, Matched, Delirium, and probably others I'm forgetting. I think I even enjoyed most of these. But, now that some time has passed, all of them run together in my brain. I literally had to look up the Goodreads summaries for each of them just now to even recall what each was about and what the difference between them was. Obviously, I enjoy these types of books as I'm reading them or I wouldn't keep devouring more. But at the same time, I think it's kind of telling that I couldn't remember whether it was Matched or Delirium that opens with a banquet  where the main character finds out who her husband will be, or whether it was Enclave or Divergent in which the protagonist has to go on dangerous missions underground to fight monsters and bring back food. Now, it could be that my memory is disintegrating as the ever darkening twilight of my 20's draws to a close, or it could be the fact that all these books are just really similar. Or some combination of the two.

Anyway, the point I am clunkily trying to make here is that of all these dystopian books I've read in the last couple years, the one with the most staying power is undoubtedly Unwind. The premise of Unwind is similar to Never Let Me Go, though the books are very different. From the Amazon tagline:  "In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would 'unwind' them." The lead character is a boy named Lev whose family has decided to "tithe" him, meaning his body parts will be donated to the system upon his 18th (if I recall correctly) birthday. Lev considers this a great honor, until it starts to get closer to the hour of his "unwinding" when he begins to have some misgivings. The book is fast paced, well-written, with interesting, relatable characters who grow in believable and pleasing ways as the book progresses.

I read this book at least a year ago, but there is a scene towards the end that I still think of regularly and am still haunted by. I don't think it is giving much away to say that in this scene, a certain character cannot escape his or her unwinding. The unwinding procedure is detailed vividly and horrifyingly, with a good portion of black humor sprinkled throughout. It begins with this creepy passage:

No one knows how it happens. No one knows how it's done. The harvesting of Unwinds is a secret medical ritual that stays within the walls of each harvesting clinic in the nation. In this way it is not unlike death itself, for no one knows what mysteries lie behind those secret doors either.

What does it take to unwind the unwanted? It takes twelve surgeons, in teams of two, rotating in and out as their medical specialty is needed. It takes nine surgical assistants and four nurses. It takes three hours.

SHIVER. Anyways. Unwind has stayed with me in a way that none of the other dystopian blockbusters (since the Hunger Games) have. I highly recommend it!

A rare 5 star book for me.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Book Turnoffs You Encounter While Reading

1. Underdeveloped lead characters
This is my biggest pet peeve in YA fiction. It happens all the time. We have some protagonist who is described as having one or two personality traits (stubborn, passionate!) and a unique physical characteristic (something like red hair or violet eyes) and that's literally the extent of this character's development. It really chaps my rear end. A couple key offenders: Claudia in Evernight and Zoey in the House of Night series. Truly cannot abide. In contrast, for examples of truly well developed characters, look at Rose or Sydney in Vampire Academy/Bloodlines or Seraphina.

2. Underdeveloped romance 
This is related to the last one. I love a pair of star-crossed lovers. I am not ashamed to admit it. Rose and Dimitri, Will and Lyra, Merit and Ethan...mmmm. But the author has to convince me! And that takes time. Nothing grinds my gears more than than this type of scene (which happens ALL THE TIME in YA books): I walk into the room and a boy is there. Oh, my God. His eyes. His smile. Then, as if it couldn't get any better, he opens his mouth. Oh, my God, his voice. MARRY ME, BOY. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but this really does happen constantly and it is so disappointing. Some key offenders: Meghan and Ash in the Iron Fey trilogy (which I loved very much otherwise!), Mary and Travis in The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Nora & Patch in Hush, Hush.

3. Unconvincing/annoying love triangle
This is basically the same as #2. I love a good love triangle, but it takes work. I need to be invested in the characters and I need to believe that the member of the love triangle who has to decide between the two other members is actually invested as well.

4. Lame, incomplete, illogical, rushed endings
Nothing is more disappointing than enjoying a book only to reach the end and it feels like the author has just given up or was in a huge rush to meet a deadline so s/he's just slapped some stuff together to quickly wrap it up. Off the top of my head, the worst offenders that come to mind are The Reckoning (final book in Kelley Armstrong's Darkest Powers series), and The Girl of Fire and Thorns. I actually really enjoyed the Darkest Powers series up until The Reckoning and The Girl of Fire and Thorns up until the last couple chapters. It's not even that I was angry at how the authors decided to end the books; I just felt like the endings were sloppily done and not at the same caliber as the rest of the book. Humph.

5. Inconsistent/indistinct voice
This is linked to #1. I find that this problem is most severe in books where two lead characters take turns narrating. An example of a book in which it was really well done is Simone Elkeles's Perfect Chemistry. Alex and Brittany each have a distinct voice, and it really makes the split narrative structure work. Code Name Verity is another success. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I would list Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver as a failure here.

I know this is Top Ten Tuesday and not Top Five Tuesday but I have to run! Maybe I will update with another five later in the day. Thanks to The Broke and the Bookish for hosting this weekly event!

What are your turnoffs?

Moribund Mondays

Let’s face it, Mondays are literally the worst. Doesn’t matter if you’re a student or a workin gal or guy, there is nothing worse than the feeling of dread we experience as Sunday draws to a close and we wonder what fresh hell awaits us in the coming week.

In the spirit of these cheerful reflections, I decided to invent a book blogging event called Moribund Mondays. Why did I settle on “moribund”? In sooth, I am not sure. I wanted to do an alliterative meme that would capture the agony of Mondays, and the word moribund just popped into my head. I’ll admit, I wasn’t completely sure what moribund even meant until a few moments ago when I Googled it. I had a feeling it wasn’t exactly a positive descriptor, but that was the extent of my knowledge. For those of you who, like me, have long since forgotten the majority of your SAT vocab words, I present MORIBUND (courtesy of Merriam-Webster):

mor·i·bund (adj.):

• being in the state of dying :  approaching death
• being in a state of inactivity or obsolescence

Examples of MORIBUND:

• an actor who is trying to revive his moribund career
• The peace talks are moribund.

Because I am not a completely glass-half-empty type of person, I thought we could use this Moribund Monday to discuss a book we’ve recently read wherein a moribund character manages to overcome his or her moribundity (not a real word, sadly), whether in the literal sense (e.g., a character on his/her death bed who makes a stunning recovery) or more abstractly.

A quintessentially moribund character that immediately comes to my mind is Julian Carax in Carlos Ruin Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind, which I read this summer.

WARNING: THIS IS KIND OF SPOILERY.

The young Carax is full of promise. He is a brilliant novelist and he has secured the love of a beautiful lady. Unfortunately, he is barely out of grade school when everything he holds dear in life is systematically ripped away from him. He loses the will to write, if not to live, and for the next couple decades plummets into a state of deep despair. Physically, he is disfigured and sickly; mentally, he is unhinged. He is pretty much the definition of moribund. But then through a sequence of incredible events, which I will be vague about so as to not completely spoil this book for you, he manages to pull himself out of this sad state and turn his life around. Hooray!

Like Carax, I feel pretty moribund these days when it comes to my writing. I keep saying to myself, WRITE YOUR NOVEL. But I remain inactive, moribund. Here’s hoping it doesn’t take disfigurement and several near-death experiences to snap me out of it, amiright??!

What characters have inspired you with their ability to cease being moribund?? 

Review: David Levithan, Every Day

This book is whackadoodle in the absolute best of ways. The premise is so far out there that I'm actually surprised this book has sold as well as it has amongst the YA crowd. In essence: the story follows an individual called A who wakes up every morning in a different body. A spends the day in that body, and then the next day whoever is the rightful owner of the body returns to their life and continues on with no memory or awareness that they were "possessed" the day before, while A moves onto the next body. What's especially crazy is that it could be a male body or it could be a female body, so A has no real gender identity. It's always someone around A's age (16-17ish) and within an hour or two drive at most of where A was the day before. A's main priority is to slide under the radar so that no one will suspect that anything is amiss with the person whom A has "possessed" for the day. Like many YA books, a lot of the book takes place in various high school classes, and A has to cope with many of the usual YA challenges like fitting in, dealing with isolation, trying to avoid being bullied, etc.

Things heat up quickly one day when A happens to fall in love with Rhiannon, the girlfriend of the boy A has possessed for that day, who is, incidentally, a complete oaf. A has gotten really skilled over the years at not getting attached to his daily surroundings. Otherwise, it's too painful to wake up the next day in a new life knowing the life s/he was in yesterday is dead and gone and utterly unretrievable. But falling for Rhiannon brings up all the old anxiety about the fact that tomorrow A will wake up in a different life. So A begins to break all of A's rules and finds ways to stay in touch with Rhiannon long after A has left the body of the oafish boyfriend. Rhiannon gradually begins to return A's affections, but the obstacles to engaging in any sort of stable relationship with a person who wakes up the next morning in a different body/gender/location seem insurmountable. Eventually, A learns that there may be a "cure" to his/her condition, but one that comes with a terrible price.

I will not give anything more away about the plot, but I will tell you that this book really moved me. Barf, I hate to admit it when something moves me. But this did! Without giving away the ending, I can tell you this was heartbreaking the entire way through. I really felt connected to the character of A, even though A's existence (waking up in a different body every day) is so bizarre and unrelatable on the surface. A is always an outsider, and you see A longing desperately for the type of family life and human connection that so many of the bodies s/he inhabits get to enjoy, even while studiously attempting to avoid emotional entanglement with any of the people who flitter in and out of A's life. A's motto is "do no harm" - or, essentially, leave things exactly as they were before you hijacked someone's life for the day. What a sad existence! Levithan does a brilliant job of conveying the heartbreak of living this way, while also presenting a book that is funny and strangely uplifting at the same time.

The only thing I didn't love about the book was Rhiannon. I feel like I am starting to sound like a broken record in these reviews, but I really just didn't grasp what it was about Rhiannon that inspired such a wild transformation in A. She seems like a pretty average girl, and A's immediate, overwhelming attraction to her was the only aspect of A's character (aside from the whole waking up in a new body every day thing) that I couldn't really relate to. This definitely didn't come close to ruining the book for me though--it was just a mild annoyance.

4.5 stars!