Follow Friday (30)

This week's question is...

What book do you think everyone should read, and if you could, would you buy a copy for all your family and friends?

I think everyone should read Looking for Alaska by John Green because it's an incredibly moving, beautiful book of love, loss, and adventure. It's what made me fall in love with John Green's writing and to an extent, YA as a whole genre.

However, I wouldn't give it to ALL my family and friends. There is quite a bit of sexuality and profanity in the book, and as much as I think everyone should read it, I know that much of many family and some of my friends would not be comfortable reading it. For those that wouldn't, though, I would certainly give them a copy right away (and have!)

If you're new to my blog, welcome! :) Please drop your link in the comments so I can return the favor.

You Are My Only: Review

Title: You Are My Only

Author: Beth Kephart

Release Date: October 2011

Published By: EgmontUSA

Pages: 256

Goodreads Rating: 3.75 stars

Review: Emmy's only joy in her otherwise miserable life is her baby, but one day she turns around to find her gone. Fourteen years later, Sophie is being moved from place to place by her mother, running from what she knows only as the "No Good". It's only when she breaks her mother's rules and leaves the house to meet her new neighbor that she begins to uncover secrets about her past, and what she finds changes her life forever.

I was really looking forward to YOU ARE MY ONLY because I was hoping for a suspenseful, psychological novel, the kind I'm always on the look-out for. Unfortunately, I found myself rather disappointed by this book. This may be due in part to the high expectations I had for it, but there were several aspects I was quite unsatisfied by.

To start with, I didn't feel the dual perspective was done as well as it could have been. I agree that it would work just fine for a story like this, but I ended up preferring one narrator (Sophie) over the other (Emmy), so I was interested in one half of the book and not the other. This imbalance contributed in part to a feeling I had towards the whole story: some parts held my attention, and others couldn't.

There were several scenes where my attention was a hundred percent grabbed and I couldn't stop reading, and then there were times when I was bored by the book and started counting pages until the end. This gave me a general lukewarm feeling about this novel, but that's not to say that this was a bad book, or something I didn't enjoy at all.

I have to particularly commend the author on the story and how it was executed. Apart from the multiple point of view, the writing was done very well, and the story created was haunting and occasionally suspenseful. This book gave me an ache in my chest, and if only the story was adjusted to be gripping the whole time and not just some of the time, this could have been even more emotional.

All in all, YOU ARE MY ONLY had a great deal of potential and certainly lived up to some of it, but not all. The story itself was chilling at times and the writing was for the most part beautiful, but the dual perspective was imbalanced and didn't work as well as it could have. There were also too many places where the storyline dragged and my attention was easily lost. I'm not sure if I'd recommend this particular book, but I certainly look forward to reading other books by this author.


I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for review. This in no way affected my review.

Waiting on Wednesday (25)

This week, I'm waiting on...

Counting Backwards by Laura Lascarso. Here's what Goodreads has to say: When troubled Taylor Truwell is caught with a stolen car and lands in court for resisting arrest, her father convinces the judge of an alternative to punishment: treatment in a juvenile psychiatric correctional facility. Sunny Meadows is anything but the easy way out, and Taylor has to fight hard just to hold on to her sanity as she battles her parents, her therapist, and vicious fellow patients. But even as Taylor struggles to hold on to her stubborn former self, she finds herself relenting as she lets in two unlikely friends-Margo, a former child star and arsonist, and AJ, a mysterious boy who doesn't speak. In this striking debut, Laura Lascarso weaves together a powerful story of anger and self-destruction, hope and love.

How incredible does this sound? I love hard-hitting contemporaries, so this book is definitely for me.

Have you heard of this book? What are you waiting on this Wednesday?

The Un-Put-Down-Able Factor

One thing book bloggers like to talk about in reviews is the so called un-put-down-ability of a given book. But really, what makes a book so good that you can't stop reading? It's different, of course, for each person, but here is a list of what makes something engrossing to me.

1. Suspense

This is the obvious one, I suppose, but not something to be overlooked while writing. It's natural to have some variation within the speed of a book - scenes with high action and then scenes with, perhaps, more emotional involvement.

However, it's still necessary that there is enough uncertainty and worry generated that the reader has to - no, needs to - know what's going to happen next, and that is what will keep the pages turning.

2. Humor

Not all books have elements of humor, but one of the surest ways to keep a person interested in reading more is funny narration or events or both. People in general like to laugh (I wouldn't want to meet someone who doesn't), and a funny book will keep them entertained, simple as that.

3. World-Building

This applies to more than just fantasy. A writer needs to craft a world that can completely suck in a reader and engross them in that place - and therefore the story.

So, what do you think makes a book un-put-down-able?