Category: New Adult

Contemporary, Fiction, New Adult

The Royal Runaway by Lindsay Emory

Sarah

I’m a sucker for a royal romance. And given my current requirement that all fiction I read must feature Scotland in some way shape or form (and oddly enough, be an imprint of Simon & Schuster, which is probably just a coincidence…), I picked up my long forgotten ARC of The Royal Runaway one night when I was looking for something, anything, that would hold my attention.

Synopsis

From the Back Cover:
Princess Theodora Isabella Victoria of Drieden of the Royal House of Laurent is so over this princess thing.

After her fiance jilted her on their wedding day, she’s back home, having spent four months in exile. AKA it’s back to putting on a show for the Driedish nation as the perfect princess they expect her to be. But Thea’s sick of duty, so when she sneaks out of the palace and meets a sexy Scot named Nick, she relishes the chance to be a normal woman for a change. But just as she things she’s found her Prince Charming, he reveals his intentions are less than honorable: he’s a spy and he’s not above blackmail. As they join forces to find out what happened the day her fiance disappeared, together they discover a secret that could change life as they know it.

Review

Is it perfect? Of course not. It falls into my favorite contemporary fiction sub-genre – royal fanfic. Often an ARC will feature a letter in the front from the author or editor and the letter in this one promised a book that I wouldn’t want to put down and would remind me simultaneously of The Princess Diaries and The Royal We. Two books I love. Well, she was right, I’m just, once again, disappointed it took me over a year of owning said ARC to read it. I started reading around 9pm and finished the book the following morning by 11am. It was the perfect rainy summer night romp.

Character-wise, Thea is definitely a new favorite. Super smart, with a great love of history (yay history buff protagonist!) and an even greater love of speaking her mind, she is just awesome. And Nick is Scottish. And also smart. And while initially annoyed by Thea, quickly comes to accept her for who she is and, doesn’t try to change her! Again, yay! It’s a great palette cleanser of a book, which is where most royalist fiction lives, and is genuinely a fun book.

Are there plot holes? Yes. Are most of the other characters in the book mostly one-note and not at all developed? Yup. But if you just want to escape real life for a couple of hours and you want a lighthearted book that doesn’t insult your intelligence, or you’re like me and just really love royalist fiction, look no further. It’s just a fun book.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback – $16.00 – 9781501196614 – 304 pages – published October 2018 by Gallery Books – average Goodreads rating 3.47 out of 5 stars – read June 2019

Contemporary, Fiction, New Adult

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Sarah

A book? About a mysterious bookstore with a millennial cast of characters? My response to finding out about was as follows: WHY DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS BOOK SOONER?!? And then I told my boss about it and made him buy it. Yep, I’m that kind of indie bookstore manager – I upsell to my boss. 

Synopsis

The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the isles of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. But after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything – instead, they “check out” large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele’s behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends. But when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore’s secrets extend far beyond it’s walls. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave.

Review

To say that I enjoyed Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore would be to put it lightly. I had been intrigued by it for quite some time and eventually requested the audiobook on the library Overdrive app. I was hooked immediately – and for someone who has only read a handful of fiction titles this year, that’s saying a lot. There was a lot I thought would annoy me – it’s in first person, it’s a male narrator, Kindles are referenced in the first few pages… all the things that might annoy a feminist bookseller. But I kept listening, and just wow.

I now realize that I am 5+ years late to the Penumbra party. It’s a book that has been raved about in various literary circles for years now but hasn’t graced the shelves of my bookstore for the better part of those five years. Why, I asked myself, if this book is so good, do we not have it? Because it needed a champion. There is nothing about its spine to entice a reader to pick it up off the shelf. This is not dissimilar to Penumbra’s bookstore – there’s nothing about the outside that would make you necessary decide to go in and browse (other than the fact that it’s a bookstore… but, I digress on that point). There’s a mystery inside, as there is in the physical book, and there’s a bunch of references to things that you really wish actually existed, just like Harry Potter.

There are hidden gems for booksellers to find, and Clay, our protagonist and narrator, goes on a journey from Kindle reader to indie bookstore champion that all indie booksellers adore. There are secret reading rooms, artifacts from antiquity, and, most important to us millennial readers, accurate depictions of people who are disproportionately affected by the great recession. As a 2011 college grad, these are my peers in these pages. And I can relate to them all. The book is fun, the characters and their friendships are great, the whole effect of the book is great, and I know I don’t usually repeat such a useless word so often, but I’ve decided to become this book’s champion and so, if you haven’t read it, go do so. It’s really great.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $17.00 • 9781250037756 • 304 pages • originally published October 2012, this edition published September 2013 by Picador • average Goodreads rating 3.75 out of 5 stars • read August 2018

Robin Sloan’s Website

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore on Goodreads

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Mr Penumbra

Contemporary, Fiction, New Adult

Hey Ladies! by Michelle Markowitz & Caroline Moss

Sarah

I asked the publisher for a copy of Hey Ladies! because it seemed like a book I could really relate to – the lead up to my wedding was filled with many email chains.

Synopsis

Hey Ladies! is a laugh-out-loud read that follows a fictitious but all too familiar group of eight 20- and 30-something female friends for one year of their lives. Told through a series of email chains, text messages, and illustrations, this book takes you along for the roller coaster ride of holiday celebrations, book clubs, summer house rentals, wedding showers, Instagram stalking, brunches, breakups, and, of course, all the inside jokes and harsh truths that only best friends share.

Review

Let me say that I am the target audience for this book. I am the exact same age as the character, a newlywed, literally, this book was written for me. And yet, I absolutely, unabashedly hated it with just about every fiber of my book loving soul. The crap these women pulled is akin to that of women in their early 20s. It rang eerily similar to my experiences as a bridesmaid at 21 and 22. And I’m no longer friends with the brides of those weddings because of behaviors they exhibited that were oddly similar to those of the characters in this book. Women approaching 30 don’t have time for that crap in our lives – we cultivated and culled our friend lost years ago to eliminate the toxicity of such relationships. It’s not realistic.

You can tell me I’m not a trustafundarian in NYC but I can promise you my sister-in-law is, as are a decent number of my friends and they would certainly no longer be friends with these women. Not a single one of the characters is sympathetic or relatable to the modern millennial woman. I read the whole book because I was hoping, against hope, that maybe, just maybe, we would see some semblance of character growth, but alas, it was not to be.

Last but not least, I’m personally sick of gimmicky books – books written entirely in Gen Z (not millennial) language makes me a bit nuts. Stop with the overuse of acronyms and short handed language. If someone writes a book about my generation, whether the be members of it or not, I expect some semblance of relatable characters. This book fails on that count.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $16.99 • 9781419729133 • 272 pages • published May 2018 by Abrams Image • average Goodreads rating 3.47 out of 5 stars • read in July 2018

Hey Ladies! Website

Hey Ladies! on Goodreads

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Contemporary, Fiction, New Adult

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

Sarah

A few years ago I picked this book up and thought it looked adorable and perfect for a friend. A perfect chick-lity read, a book about books, that she would love. Two years later, I found the audiobook on Overdrive I figured it was time I read it as well.

Synopsis

Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.

Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.

From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to writer her own happy ending.

Review

About a year and a half ago, the big book club at the bookstore I work at read The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin and told my boss, P. K., who moved to the US from India 40 years ago, that the main character, the bookstore owner A. J., reminded them of him. Needless to say, the rest of the staff were curious and had to read this book and it quickly became a favorite among us all. As someone who succeeded in landing her present job by telling said boss that my life goal was to be Meg Ryan’s character in You’ve Got Mail, I wondered if there was a book about books with a main character like me.

Well, I’ve found her. Jenny Colgan, thank you for creating Nina and then letting her out of your head to play with the rest of us. There’s a certain amount of belief that has to be suspended to really embrace Nina’s story – there are definitely moments when you shake your head and think, really? That’s really how that situation unfolded? I have to think there’s a certain amount of magical realism at play in The Bookshop on the Corner to have Nina’s life work out so well. But her approach to life is almost always positive and with an air of Lizzie & Mr. Darcy strewn about the tale, it is an enjoyable one and got me out of my fiction slump! Seriously, in the last 7 months, I’ve read two works of fiction. Which is just crazy for me, lover of all things historical fiction and fantasy.

While I greatly enjoyed The Bookshop on the Corner, this is one of the few books I don’t think I’ll be enthusiastically recommending to all of my bookstore followers as it is fairly out of my ordinary reading habits, but also probably why it broke my slump! So, if you are in need of a bookish “palate cleanser,” The Bookshop on the Corner is for you!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $14.99 • 9780062467256 • 368 pages • published (USA) September 2016 by William Morrow & Company • average Goodreads rating 3.87 out of 5 stars • read in March 2018

Jenny Colgan’s Website

The Bookshop on the Corner on Goodreads

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Bookshop on the Corner

Contemporary, Fiction, New Adult, Young Adult

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Ann Brashares

Sarah

I have been best friends with Tibby, Carmen, Lena and Bridget for more than half my life now. The summer before I turned fourteen, I was attempting to walk to the Barnes and Noble of Virginia Beach with Moppy in order to keep ourselves busy while Mom drove Laura home to get her braces off. After wandering the parking lot in sweltering heat for the better part of a half hour, we finally found the beloved bookstore and I managed to stumble upon my four new best friends. I read most of the book that day in the store and I was beyond hooked. In 2011, nearly ten years after the release of the first book, Ann Brashares brought our best friends back, now in their late 20s and living completely separate lives, and gives them the biggest tragedy anyone could experience to cope with.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Synopsis

Four very different friends. One pair of magical pants. And a summer apart… We, the Sisterhood, hereby instate that following rules to govern the use of the Traveling Pants. 1. You must never wash the Pants. 2. You must never double-cuff the Pants. It’s tacky. There will never by a time when this will not be tacky. 3. You must never say the word “phat” while wearing the Pants. You must also never think “I am fat” while wearing the Pants. 4. You must never let a boy take off the Pants (although you may take them off yourself in his presence). 5. You must not pick your nose while wearing the Pants. You may, however, scratch casually at your nostril while really kind of picking. 6. Upon our reunion, you must follow the proper procedures for documenting your time in the Pants. 7. You must write to your Sisters throughout the summer, no matter how much fun you are having without them. 8. You must pass the Pants along to your Sisters according to the specifications set down by the Sisterhood. Failure to comply will result in a severe spanking upon our reunion. 9. You must not wear the Pants with a tucked-in shirt and belt. See Rule #2. 10. Remember: Pants = love. Love your pals. Love yourself.

Series Review

If you broke the foursome into their “stereotypes,” it would certainly be a great curiosity as to how they ever became friends. Fiery Carmen has a temper that would make even the fiercest warrior quake; shy, talented artist Lena is unsure of herself; Bridget’s mom died young and athletic Bridget is extremely reckless, and Tibby, older than her younger siblings by 12 years, feels like no one in her family understands her and rebels accordingly. They really only became friends because their mothers took an aerobics class together while pregnant and they were all born in September.

In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, the girls spend their first summer apart and away from Bethesda. Carmen’s off to see her dad in South Carolina (where she learns he’s about to be remarried), Lena’s trekking to Greece with her grandparents (where she meets the love of her life), Bridget heads off to Baja for soccer camp where she flirts with her older soccer coach and Tibby feels neglected, left at home to work a menial job and, while trying to make a video that is worthwhile in an effort to further her directing career, she meets Bailey, a young cancer patient who has a profound effect on her life. Second Summer of the Sisterhood, Girls in Pants and Forever in Blue chronicle each subsequent summer of the girls’ lives in similar fashion, three leave and one girl is at home, and they send the pants around to each other. Each book is written from all four girls viewpoints.

I could, and can still, identify with all four girls and when I first picked up The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, I felt like I’d finally found the literary version of my middle school best friends, Ashlyn, Melanie and Nina. Who we each would be and whether we’d fit into the same pair of jeans, I’m unsure, but I do know that there’s a bit of all four girls in me.  The final book, Sisterhood Everlasting, upset many of my friends and my little  sister when they read it – it starts with tragedy, and I’ll say it straight off, one of the four is no longer with us. The girls are 28, living separate lives and barely in touch. Until one reaches out to bring them to Greece to reconnect. It is here that mysteries begin and the gradual reveal of secrets begins as the young women reconnect with each other and other beloved characters from the first four books. Ann Brashares let her girls grow with her readers and for that I am forever grateful. Sisterhood Everlasting is heartbreaking, achingly beautiful, ridiculously sad, and yet, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and our farewell to our best friends is a satisfying one. The books, the friendships, it’s all beautiful and I honestly cannot watch the movies or even the book trailers without tearing up over what happens.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars for the series

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Edition: Paperback • $9.99 • 9780385730587 • 336 pages • first published September 2001, this edition published March 2003 by Ember • average Goodreads rating 3.76 out of 5 stars • read in July 2002

Ann Brashares’ Website

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on Goodreads

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128-Sisterhood Everlasting

Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, New Adult

My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares

Sarah

I picked this book up a few years ago at my favorite local bookstore (where I now work). It was shortly after I moved to the southeastern part of Pennsylvania and I was really lonely, trying to make friends and I was drawn to the story (and admittedly the cover – I’m a sucker for starry nights). I overlooked all the comparisons to the Twilight saga because I knew Ann Brashares writing – she brought the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants into my life so clearly it couldn’t be that similar to Twilight…

Synopsis

Lucy is an ordinary girl growing up in the Virginia suburbs, soon to head off to college. On the night of her last high school dance, she hopes her elusive crush, Daniel Grey, will finally notice her. But as the night unfolds, Lucy discovers that Daniel is more complicated than she imagined. Why does he call her Sophia? And why does it make her feel so strange?

The secret is that Daniel has “the memory,” the ability to recall past lives and recognize the souls of those he’s previously known. And he has spent centuries falling in love with the same girl. Life after reincarnated life, spanning continents and dynasties, he and Sophie have been drawn together, and then torn painfully, fatally apart – a love always too short. And he remembers it all. Ultimately the two of them must come to understand what stands in the way of their love if they are to reach their happy ending.

Review

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Spoiler Alert! I loved the first 90% of this book – I love the idea of Daniel following Sophia through the ages, I love the flashbacks and how Ann Brashares did not pick the popular parts of history for Daniel’s past lives but gave him wholly ordinary and typical life experiences every time he came back. She also manages to tell the entire story without any sort of religious slant, a massive achievement for a book that pretty much revolves around the idea of reincarnation. I listened to the audiobook with great interest and wonder, always hoping that all would work out well for the characters in the end. At the back of my mind, however, a feeling of dread kept circling through my thoughts, “This is the woman who killed Tibby, nothing can be ruled out.” And unfortunately, that nagging feeling followed me straight through ‘til its realization in the last few pages.

Never in my life have I wanted to physically tear apart a book as much as I did when reading the last 37 pages of this one. I listened to it in the car up until then and decided to just read the last few pages – I had to know how it ended and what a terrible way it went! I should not have overlooked the Twilight comparison – my blood boiled and I’ve only felt such immense hatred toward a book once – while attempting to read the book to which this one is compared: Twilight. I think it has been well established at this point that I detest books with female characters that I deem to be weak and pathetic and overly-womanly. I loathe plotlines that play out the stereotypical path that a woman’s life can take – love, sex, babies and then that’s it, you’ve completed your mission on this earth, pack up and you’re done – your story is no longer an interesting one to tell.

I was incredibly excited for this story because it is one of few books that I could see myself classifying as “New Adult” – new adult literature (at least for the first 300 pages). It’s a well relayed story and an enjoyable one to read. And I really hoped it ended with Lucy and Daniel finally getting to spend some time together getting to know each other. Lucy and Daniel spend 5 minutes in high school and one car ride in Mexico 5 years later talking to each other before jumping in to bed together. I have no problem with this, I was thrilled when Lucy slept with her best friend’s little brother – that’s normal. It’s a way of life for more than a few people in their 20s. But do Lucy and Daniel really love each other? I don’t see how you can really love someone without getting to know them, not some perceived former version of their soul. Sophia and Daniel loved each other, Constance and Daniel loved each other, and even though Lucy makes a point of differentiating herself from her two former lives, it doesn’t answer the question of how she can love someone she barely knows.

I got the distinct impression that Ann Brashares wasn’t sure how she wanted to end Lucy and Daniel’s story. The last section, the “resolution” of the climax, just spins wildly out of control (Spoiler Alert!) – they survive an ocean storm for hours off the coast of Mexico, their rescue is unbelievable, they had sex once and Lucy’s pregnant after Daniel couldn’t have children for 1500 years, and then he abandons her in Bhutan and she doesn’t think she can even tell him about the baby. Just WHAT??? When did the tone of the story change so completely? Why? Just why does this have to be the direction of Lucy’s life? Not every ending needs to be a happy one, but it would be nice if it made at least a little sense and didn’t sound like it was hobbled together from random odds and ends.

Rating: 4 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $17.00 • 9781594485183 • 336 pages • first published in June 2010, this edition published June 2011 by Riverhead Books • average Goodreads rating 3.7 out of 5 • read in May 2015

Ann Brashares’ Website

My Name is Memory on Goodreads

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My Name is Memory

Fantasy, Fiction, New Adult

City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte

Sarah

City of Dark Magic is a testament to how well Ben knows me. One fall day, a few years ago, we were partaking in one of our favorite Saturday afternoon activities of perusing the shelves of the local independent bookstore (where I now work) when he called me over to his usual spot along the fantasy wall. When I finally pulled myself away from the bestsellers long enough to mosey over, he handed me a very colorful book, City of Dark Magic, and the synopsis read like that of the dream book I never knew I’d find.

Synopsis

Prague is a threshold to another world – where the fabric of time is thin – a city steeped in blood. Once a city of enormous wealth and culture, Prague has been home to emperors, alchemists, astronomers, and, it’s even been whispered, portals to hell. When music student Sarah Weston lands a lucrative summer job at Prague Castle cataloging Beethoven’s manuscripts, she has no idea how dangerous her life is about to become.

Shortly after she arrives, strange things begin to happen. Sarah learns that her mentor, who had been working at the castle, may not have committed suicide after all. Soon she finds herself in a cloak-and-dagger chase with a handsome, time-traveling prince; a four-hundred-year-old dwarf; and a U.S. senator who will do anything to keep her dark secrets hidden.

Review

Fantasy, adventure, music, political intrigue, a protagonist named Sarah, and Prague as the setting? I couldn’t read this book fast enough! Sarah is, by far, one of my favorite protagonists I’ve ever been introduced to, tied for the top spot with Amy Haskel of Diana Peterfreund’s Ivy League series. She fears little and is unabashedly who she wants to be. Sarah doesn’t apologize for being herself, even when her brazen personality can offend even the most liberal contemporary, and that is what I love most about her.

Prague is my top travel wishlist destination and the more I read about it, in both fiction and nonfiction works, the more my desire to see the city of dark magic deepens. Sarah experiences the city in all its splendors, and it’s not so splendid features as well. Beethoven is her guide as she readies a music exhibit for the Lobkowicz Palace museum after the former curator, her mentor, is found dead outside the palace from an apparent suicide attempt. Before long, Sarah discovers there is so much more to the story when she retraces her mentor’s, and Beethoven’s, steps throughout the city upon discovering a time shifting drug one evening with the dashing prince Max.

A great deal happens in this book and there are about ten different stories being intertwined together but that made me enjoy it more. I cannot stand stories where it is all about the main character and written as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. While City of Dark Magic may take it a little too far in the opposite direction, it meant that I never found a boring moment the entire time I was reading. Really, I cannot emphasize how much I love this book and all the magnificently entertaining intertwining stories.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $16.00 • 9780143122685 • 448 pages • published November 2012 by Penguin Books • average Goodreads rating 3.47 out of 5 • read in December 2012

Magnus Flyte’s Website

City of Dark Magic on Goodreads

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Sarah Weston - City of Dark Magic

Contemporary, Fiction, New Adult, Young Adult

Bunheads by Sophie Flack

Sarah

When I was a little girl, I took many ballet classes and I loved it! Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good. In fact, I was incredibly clumsy, and as such, I never really managed to finish a recital or class without causing bodily harm to myself or someone else and therefore, I had to give it up. Then, after binge watching the entire mini season of Bunheads (created by Gilmore Girls genius Amy Sherman-Palladino!), I was on a dance kick and needed to read this book to further explore the lives of young ballerinas!

Synopsis

Until now, nineteen-year old dancer Hannah Ward has followed the Manhattan Ballet company’s unofficial mantra, “Don’t think, just dance.” But when she meets Jacob, a spontaneous musician, Hannah’s universe begins to change. With her eyes newly opened to the world beyond the theater, she must decide whether to compete against the other “bunheads” for a star soloist spot or to strike out on her own.

Review

I love when authors write about what they know as it tends to be the most realistic way to learn about a topic. Sophie Flack is particularly qualified to write this book and it would not be nearly as realistic if the author did not have Sophie’s ballet background. While the complaint of many reviews I read was that the book was littered with too many French, dance-specific terms, to the extent that it detracted from the story, I disagree – this is an exceptional and unique look into the lives of young professional dancers.

Hannah reminds me a great deal of one of my own protagonists, Natalie, my goalie girl. Hannah debates the merits of dedicating her life to ballet, a career that will last a decade, if she’s lucky, or following the path of most nineteen-year-olds in New York City and enrolling in college. My character, Natalie, debates following the seemingly impossible dream of becoming a professional goalie or going to college like most girls her age. In addition, the themes of Bunheads are marvelously true to life – so true that I found myself often wondering if Bunheads is semi-autobiographical. Hannah’s relationship with Jacob is completely recognizable as it is filled with confusion and muddled emotions and feelings – common identifying aspects of most relationships of actual young adults.

There’s a thought that crosses most young adults’ minds more than once during their college years, “Did I make the right choices so far in my life or is it time for a change?” While I found Bunheads in the young adult section of Barnes and Noble, it really embodies the new “New Adult” genre and fuels my dream to see more books about actual young adults and college-age girls trying to figure their lives out on the book shelves of my local book store.

Rating: 8 stars

Edition: Paperback • $10.99 • 9780316126540 • 320 pages • first published October 2011, this edition published October 2012 by Poppy Books • average Goodreads rating 3.73 out of 5 stars • read in June 2013

Sophie Flack’s Website

Bunheads on Goodreads

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Bunheads

Contemporary, Fiction, New Adult

Jessica Darling quintet by Megan McCafferty

Sarah

Jessica Darling helped me survive high school. I was first introduced to the delightfully snarky, sarcastic and spunky teen heroine of Sloppy Firsts when I was a freshman in speech and debate practice after school one autumn afternoon back in 2003. A frenemy of mine was testing out an excerpt from Second Helpings for a speech competition and it was certainly effective: I remember nothing else of the speech and debate season but hearing about Jessica handle the popular girls in a Jersey mini-mall still resonates in my head a decade plus later.

The series consists of five books and originally Megan McCafferty only intended to write the first two and they stand alone very well. I also read Second Helpings before Sloppy Firsts and while slightly confusing, I think it just made me love Marcus even more. I also had the great pleasure of meeting Megan McCafferty my junior year at Pitt and she has now started a Jessica Darling in middle school series which is quite wonderful as well, even though it differs from the originally established timeline.

Sloppy Firsts Synopsis

When her best friend, Hope Weaver, moves away from Pineville, New Jersey, hyperobservant sixteen-year-old Jessica Darling is devastated. A fish out of water at school and a stranger at home, Jessica feels more lost than ever now that the only person with whom she could really communicate has gone. How is she supposed to deal with the boy- and shopping-crazy girls at school, her dad’s obsession with her track meets, her mother salivating over big sister Bethany’s lavish wedding, and her nonexistent love life?

Sloppy Firsts looks at Jessica’s predicament as she embarks on another year of teenage torment – from the dark days of Hope’s departure through her months as a type-A personality turned insomniac to her completely mixed-up feelings about Marcus Flutie, the intelligent and mysterious “dreg” who works his way into her heart.

Series Review

There are, thus far, 8 books about Jessica Darling. Therefore, understandably, my review cannot simply be contained to one book, each reading changes and effects how I view the books so it may be a bit garbled and I’ll try to review book by book without any spoilers, but bear with me!

Sloppy Firsts I have read only once and I did so after reading Second Helpings, the stronger of the pair, writing wise. I was introduced to Jessica after Marcus, after her sister’s wedding, and after she’s met, and discovered the truth about, Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace. All of these things take place in Sloppy Firsts but I didn’t know the full story. At the start of Sloppy Firsts, Jessica is broken, though she does her best to hide it. Her best friend Hope has moved away and while Hope does not actually physically enter the story until the end of Second Helpings, I had already met her. But her influence on Jessica’s life is profound – she is her best friend, her confidant. For a young girl to have such a strong friendship is an incredible thing to behold and when that friendship is no longer as present, depression can quickly ensue. Throughout Sloppy Firsts, Jessica must handle changing feelings, embarking on a friendship she fears Hope would disapprove of, and betrayal of her trust by a new friend. The waters of high school are choppy and Jessica must learn how to cross them safely without her navigator and first mate, Hope.

Second Helpings: My copy of Second Helpings is thoroughly beat up. I love the book, I’ve read it over and over and over again whenever I have been in need of inspiration for my own writing, or when I just want to read about characters that I love dearly. So who came up with it first, JK Rowling or Megan McCafferty? Both have a character known as “he who shall not be named” and Jessica is horribly mad at the one who walks around her high school’s halls. Her feelings have been hurt, irrevocably, she claims, and she swears to never forgive the sinner. Second Helpings is set during Jessica’s senior year and from the very start, it seems as if all hell will be breaking loose. She must deal with national tragedy (9/11), personal tragedy when a beloved family member is lost, and coming to grips with her own moral quandaries and whether or not a friendship is still a friendship if secrets are kept.

Charmed Thirds & Fourth Comings: In which Jessica follows her heart and goes to her dream college and lands what she believes to be her dream job. Charmed Thirds & Fourth Comings are my two least favorite books and for the longest time I would not read them. Laura had started them and was unimpressed. However, when I met Megan McCafferty, I needed a book for her to sign and so I picked up a copy of the new edition of Charmed Thirds. I will cherish it always as it bears McCafferty’s lovely looping signature and I got to meet her with some of my best college friends. However, Jessica, is just not Jessica in these two books. While Sloppy Firsts & Second Helpings cover roughly a year and a half between them, Charmed Thirds & Fourth Comings span almost 8 years and everything feels so rushed.

Perfect Fifths: When I went to hear Megan McCafferty speak, she read aloud from the recently released Perfect Fifths and I was hooked. It was the first time we the readers get Marcus’ point of view and WOOHOO!!! I powered through Charmed Thirds & Fourth Comings just to get to the part Megan McCafferty read in the dimly lit auditorium of Frick on my beloved Pitt’s campus. As the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series did years later, the fifth book takes place when the main characters are in their late twenties. And it is pure literary gold. It’s an ending, without being final but also without fully answering all the questions that have so far gone un-answered. But it is perfect, perfect for you, yes, you to enjoy.

Jessica Darling is a relatable girl for those who grew up feeling pressure in high school, fearing being misunderstood, missing their best friend, wondering when their lives would really begin and if their relationships with others were/are meaningful. Jessica, Marcus, Hope, Bridget, Percy, Bethany and even Mr. and Mrs. Darling make up an unforgettable cast of characters. As is the case with all series, there high points and low points, both within the story and the story telling but all-in-all, Jessica is a character to depend on and a role model for those who don’t quite fit in, feel a little lost or who simply want a shoulder to cry on. She’s your girl.

Series Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

Sloppy Firsts Edition: Paperback • $13.99 • 9780609807903 • 304 pages • published August 2001 by Broadway Books • average Goodreads rating 3.94 out of 5 • series finished April 2010

Megan McCafferty’s Website

Sloppy Firsts on Goodreads

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Jessica Darling

Fantasy, Fiction, New Adult, Novella

Hear Me by Viv Daniels

Sarah

This book is known to my family as “the reason Sarah owns a dreaded Kindle.” New Adult author Viv Daniels (aka my second favorite author in the whole wide world Diana Peterfreund), originally released this book eBook only. Two years later, I found that I could order a paperback (pictured above), but of course I had to read it as soon as it was released and therefore begged my dad to get me the device I swore I never wanted for Christmas that year. And while I’m not a big “holiday” reader, this is one of the few winter/Christmas books I read in December and it really did help get me in the holiday spirit.

Synopsis

Once upon a time, Ivy belonged to Archer, body, heart, and soul. They spent long summer days exploring the forest, and long summer nights exploring each other. But that was before dark magic grew in the depths of the wilderness, and the people of Ivy’s town raised an enchanted barrier of bells to protect themselves from the threat, even though it meant cutting off the forest people—and the forest boy Ivy loved—forever.

And there’s a naked man lying in the snow. Three years later, Ivy keeps her head down, working alone in her tea shop on the edge of town and trying to imagine a new future for herself, away from the forest and the wretched bells, and the memory of her single, perfect love. But in the icy heart of winter, a terrifying magic blooms—one that can reunite Ivy and Archer, or consume their very souls.

Review

For an eBook of not even 200 pages, Hear Me sticks with me, a good 3 years after I finished reading it. In one sitting. Viv Daniels (Diana Peterfreund) has cemented herself as an extraordinary writer and story crafter. Typically, when I go about “topic-tagging” a book, as I call, it there are usually about 10 to 15 that I assign, 5 to 10 for the books that are not at all complex or intriguing. This one? Over 30. That’s on par with a good series and, it weighs in at only 170 pages.

I had previously written off New Adult as being just “young adult with a steamy sex scene thrown in.” Does Hear Me fulfill that? Yes. If there was an R rating for books, this would have it. But Hear Me does so much more than tell the tale of loner Ivy and her aching, Archer loving heart – it explores the themes of oppression and racism, self-loathing and self-acceptance, desperation, and sacrifice, all in the name of love, and in a world, that is far from kind and frequently cruel and unjust. So, as is often the question with New Adult these days it seems, does it need the sex? No. Does the steaminess make it more enjoyable? Maybe. Does Viv Daniels do an expert job in telling an interesting, intriguing, and thought-provoking story? Absolutely.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $10.00 • 9781937135140 • 204 pages • published November 2014 by Word for Word • average Goodreads rating 3.26 out of 5 • read in December 2014

Viv Daniels’ Website

Hear Me on Goodreads

Get a Copy of Hear Me

Hear Me