YA

Story in Review: The Last Summer (of you and me) by Ann Brashares

November 19, 2015 by Abbigail Kriebs Leave a Comment

The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares is one of my favorite books. I first read it when I was about the same age as the main characters, which I think always makes a book feel more immediate to a reader, more pertinent to where they are in their life right then. Yes, it’s the same Brashares as the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fame, but this time she’s written a novel for a slightly older audience.

Alice and her older sister Riley have spent summers on Fire Island for as long as they have been alive. Riley’s partner in crime lives next door. His name is Paul, and Alice is in love with him – and always has been. This summer is the first in three years where they will all be on the island together, and everything that can happen does – for better and for worse.

While the book at it’s heart is a love story, it’s also a novel about true friendship, about growing up and whether or not you can bring your childhood loves with you.

Favorite Quotes:

She preferred to save her lies for the people whose names she knew. – p. 4

You loved what you knew. You couldn’t help it. He couldn’t, though he did try. – p. 6

How familiar it felt to want his wants for him. That much had not changed. – p. 11

[As children] they talked about fish and they talked about God. But it was all the stuff in the middle that came to preoccupy you as you grew older. – p. 18

Sometimes you couldn’t face the sadness of being forgotten until you felt the comfort of being remembered again. – p. 19

So great was Riley’s imagination that she did not bother with the distinction between what was real and what wasn’t. – p. 45

She didn’t deserve it, which was to say she deserved better. – p. 61

There were many things in life like that. You couldn’t imagine it, and then it happened and you couldn’t imagine it hadn’t. – p. 94

Only the places she hadn’t yet visited met her expectations. – p. 105

Maybe there weren’t two kinds of love. Maybe there were a trillion kinds. Or just one. – p. 112

He was weary of being stupid. – p. 124

What if he learned to love what he had? – p. 145

A lifetime of planning could be canceled in less than five minutes, it turned out. – p. 164

Her heart mismanaged its work of beating. – p . 180

What made this a good story? I loved how deftly Brashares captures that mixture of longing and dread Alice feels at seeing Paul again, and having life move forward now that she is an adult. It’s a hard feeling to put into words, and she nails it. It’s also interesting to note that all of the characters in this book are flawed in one way or another, and yet there is something lovable about each of them. I’ve read this book no less than 5 times and every time I find something new. This read through, I felt more compassion for Paul’s mom than I may have in times past, even when she is not the most deserving person.

What could have made this a better story? I can’t think of anything. The story holds up, after multiple reads at multiple ages.

Have you read The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares? If so, what did you think?

P.S. If you liked this book, you’ll probably enjoy Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell.

Story in Review: Inked by Eric Smith

November 5, 2015 by Abbigail Kriebs Leave a Comment

If you loved the wave of dystopian YA fiction that shook our shelves in the last few years, your next read should be Inked By Eric Smith.

In Caenum’s world, coming of age means getting your Ink, and your Ink decides your future. He is all set to run away from home to avoid being branded with a future he doesn’t want when his future meets him abruptly right where he is – and in a way he never could have imagined.

Favorite Quotes:

“Just because I had to go didn’t mean I wanted to leave.”

“Ink was like that. Always suggesting and nudging, always spot on.”

“Which is exactly why it scared me. I wanted to know myself first.”

“I was busy brooding, and I was getting good at it.”

“Great things can happen if you just take the time to help, take the risk, take the chance.”

“As if I finally understood something about my strange, confusing little life. A connection to the earth, in a way my parents never had. They harvested its bounty. But I could control it.”

“The Citadel manages to keep the world under its thumb by never letting anyone try to be something greater.”

“There was joy in this.”

“Be fearless. Be bold. Be Magic.”

“We will not be like the Citadel. We will be better.”

“This wasn’t the same girl who broke down at the sight of her home burning. She radiated strength, glowed with power.”

“According to the Citadel, you might have been born to work the land. But according to the fate you’ve made for yourself, you were meant to save it.”

“When you’re fighting a war, you start to realize how little time you might have left.”

What made this a good story? This novel is quickly paced and full of action. Smith nails all the teenage feelings and heightened emotional states. The plot is superb, both following and upending some YA stereotypes, while introducing some memorable characters. Like both The Hunger Games and Divergent trilogies, Smith uses the turmoil of a dystopian society to discuss right and wrong in a way that makes the conversation relevant and engaging for teens. I could see this book being a conversation starter in middle and high school classrooms, while still capturing the imagination of the students there.

What could have made it a better story? The novel follows a good many YA clichés: there’s a love story, a chosen one (also an orphan), someone alone who can change the course of their world. But they’re clichés for good reason: it’s a formula we have all come to know and to love. We know how to engage with and root for the underdog. We love watching two people slowly swirl toward one another as they discover who they really are. I do wish there had been a little more character development in the beginning: Caenum and Dreya are in love, but why? What do they love about each other? What makes the other person special other than that they live next door? I wish each character would have had a little more story to themselves instead of only as shared with another.

What about you? Have you read Inked By Eric Smith? What did you think? If not, what YA novel should I tackle next?

P.S. Smith just announced a sequel! I’ll definitely be giving it a read in Spring 2016.

Story in Review: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

September 10, 2015 by Abbigail Kriebs 9 Comments

Oh, this book.

Reading it is like being 15 all over again. Rowell tells a simple, lovely story of falling in love but makes it so, so much bigger than a high school romance. This was our book club pick for September, and I was so happy to have an excuse to read it again. It was one of those books that I initially checked out from the library to see what all the hype was about and then instantly bought a hardcover copy of my own.

Eleanor is poor. She’s also chubby, wears all the wrong clothes, and has no way to listen to The Smiths.

Park is Korean-American. His family is firmly middle-class, he does taekwondo, and he has all the comics, batteries, and blank cassette tapes his heart desires.

And Eleanor can’t figure out why on earth Park cares about her.

And Park has no idea what Eleanor sees in him.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell is their story. From the first time Park slides his hand into hers (“Holding Eleanor’s hand felt like holding a butterfly.”) to their first and only date (“It was just that kind of night. Every time she looked at him, he was looking back at her.”), it’s a story that sticks in your head and your heart and makes you relive those full-color moments that only exist when falling in love for the first time.

Favorite Quotes:

“That’s a voice that arrives on a chariot drawn by dragons.” – p. 15

“Eleanor let her head fall over the box. It smelled like Chanel No. 5 and pencil shavings. She sighed.” – p. 20

“There was no room in that house to be a teenager.” – p. 35

“And when she handed it back to him the next morning, she always acted as if she were handling something fragile. Something precious.” – p. 42

“‘I just want to break that song into pieces,’ she said, ‘and love them all to death.'” – p. 59

“(All he really wanted to do was sit and talk to Eleanor.)” – p. 67

“Because if she was going to cry about something, it was going to be because her life was complete shit – not because some cool, cute guy didn’t like her like that.” – p. 70

“And Eleanor disintegrated.” – p. 71

“When he touched Eleanor’s hand, he recognized her. He knew.” – p. 72

“It was like he dumped all this treasure on her every morning without even thinking about it, without any sense of what it was worth.” – p. 99

“Because every second feels so important.” – p. 111

“It smelled like Irish Spring and a little bit like potpourri and like something she couldn’t describe any other way than boy.” – p. 132

“And when Eleanor smiled, something broke inside him.” – p. 163

“He couldn’t buy Eleanor a pen. Or a bookmark. He didn’t have bookmarklike feelings for her.” – p. 202

“Everything anybody ever said in this house was desperate.” – p. 227

“I’ve never really missed anybody but you.” – p. 232

“Eleanor tried one last time to be embarrassed.” – p. 248

“The world rebuilt itself into a better place around him.” – p. 269

“Everything true was too hard to write – he was too much to lose.” – p. 319

What made this a good story?

Rowell writes top-notch YA Lit. She knows teenagers. And she’s not afraid to give them big feelings in her novels, feelings that are over-the-top and so, so teenager. At the same time, she delivers characters that are smart, that you fall in love with: you can’t dismiss them as silly teenagers for all their emotional turmoil. She writes real people that you can see becoming real adults. Her characters lead big lives.

It is so hard not to read this all in one sitting. I did the first time, and it was equally hard to put it down the second time – the true tell of a book well-written.

What could have made it a better story?

I WANT AN ENDING.

Sequel, please, Ms. Rowell.

Have you read Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell? What did you think? Were you as thoroughly devastated as I?

We’re talking, Fault in Our Stars-level devastated.