New Year's Resolutions #3

Welcome to New Year's Resolutions, or all those classic books you "should" be reading, but don't really want to. But I only talk about the really cool ones, that ones that are classic books for a reason! This week's theme is poetry.

Sylvia Plath (Amazon/IndieBound): Three words for you.  Best.  Angst.  Ever!  If you enjoy free verse novelists like Ellen Hopkins or Karen Hesse, then you definitely need to pick up a copy of her collected works.  Funnily enough, despite how much I read, I struggle to read poetry on a regular basis - the bad stuff seems horrendously bad and the good stuff few and far between - but I'm always in the mood for Plath's surreal and yet down-to-earth style.  I picked up this edition at the library during a featured poetry event without knowing anything about the notoriously suicidal poet - who eventually killed herself in 1963 - and was stunned by how teenage the emotions behind the poems seemed, as well as the stories they seem to tell.  Short stories have a hard time competing with this volume for beauty, impact and scope, and it's certainly one of my favorites when I'm in a contemplative mood.

Edgar Allan Poe (Amazon/IndieBound): Poe is my favorite rhyming poet, besides maybe Dr. Seuss, and is the author of all three of my favorite poems: The Raven, Annabelle Lee, and A Dream Within a Dream.  He's also one of the most famous poets and storytellers of all time, so maybe he's also a pretty obvious choice!  Deservedly so, though, because his are some of the few poems I actually enjoy memorizing!  While his poems are definitely less applicable to everyday life than Sylvia Plath's, the language is even more beautiful, and the short, haunting poems are difficult to get out of your head once you've read them even once.

Check back next week for more New Year's Resolutions!

Crank & Glass (Double Review)

 Crank by Ellen Hopkins
ISBN 9780689865190
Associate Links: Amazon/IndieBound

Glass  by Ellen Hopkins
ISBN 9781416940913
Associate Links: Amazon/IndieBound


Life
was radical
right after I met
                                       the monster...

When Kristina goes for a court-ordered visit to her wayward father, she never expects to meet the monster…better known as crystal meth.  As constant highs and first love unlock a terrible, sexy alter ego she calls Bree, Kristina finds her grades slipping and her world sliding.  Then, when a date with the monster and her charismatic dealer goes too far, Kristina ends up pregnant—and vows to stay clean for her child’s sake.  But she soon finds herself back in the grip of the monster—and this time, it doesn’t plan on letting go.

Three words to describe this book?  Intoxicating, gritty and scary.  I have never read anything quite as hypnotic as Hopkins’s trademark verse style, and these her debut novels are perhaps the most frightening things I have ever read.  Kristina’s downward slide is made even more immediate and painful by the preface, detailing Hopkins’s daughter’s own battle with meth, and also by her constant reiteration in the text of what, exactly, this monster will do to your brain—making recovery almost impossible for addicts and addiction as easy as your first taste.

Living in a rural, blue-collar area that already has crystal meth scars, facing the before and after billboards every drive past city limits; the book hits even closer to home.  While the way the verse makes you read the page can feel like eye strain waiting to happen, it also forces you to pay more attention than you perhaps normally would—ensuring that you absorb every nauseating detail.  Perhaps the most heartbreaking thing was the story of the son—who, by the way, will get his own book this year, the hotly anticipated Fallout due in August.  You couldn’t help but cringe at Kristina’s every bad decision, knowing that in the end, it’s not her who’s going to pay.

After reading Crank, I was hooked.  After Glass, I was attached at the hip.  In the end, Ellen Hopkins has crafted her own haunting, sickening style that is just as addictive as the substance she is writing about—a style and story I won’t easily forget.

The Final Verdict: Despite a little overstatement, these are two unbelievable and unforgettable novels that have already achieved the status of modern classics.  For any teenager who believes that adults will never understand, Ellen Hopkins is the author for you! Four and a half out of five stars.

Angela 1: Starting Over

 Angela 1: Starting Over by David A. Bedford

ISBN 9781608607556

Associate links: Amazon/IndieBound

After her parents’ divorce and a move to the serene, suburban coastal town of Sargasso Beach, 15-year-old Angela Fournier can’t seem to get rid of her hurt and anxiety.  But when she excels in the Honors program her mother signed her up for, makes two new friends easily and discovers her love of the beach, her fears seem to have been proven unfounded.  Soon, though, she becomes the target of Sargasso Beach’s very own group of Mean Girls, as well as a snooty high school principal that seems to have it in for Angela.  And as if that wasn’t enough, she and her friends discover evidence of corruption in the school district.  Can Angela stand up for what’s right and stay true to herself?

This is another 50/50 book for me, too wrapped up in good intentions and preachy messages for me to go one way or another on.  First of all, the messages in Angela 1 are undeniably well-meant, and occasionally even well-written.  But they’re almost entirely lost in the odd, cliched writing, not to mention their extreme, irksome obviousness.  If I like a character enough to be reading about her, then you don’t have to bludgeon me over the head with her goodness—I’ll take away whatever I’ll take away, and overstatement only makes me want to throttle the author!

My other issue was the dialogue, which occasionally did actually capture the voices of students in your average suburban high school, but mostly just sounded annoyingly cloying: “That was brilliant!” offered Benjie.  “I like that she lets us all talk.”  Fiona agreed.  “That’s a smart lady and she is going to stretch our minds.  Cool!”  We all get our good high school teachers and our bad ones, but this book would have been so much better if the author had let us form our own opinions, instead of again bludgeoning us over the head with telling adjectives instead of showing.

All that said, though, I enjoyed the ending—a lot.  I also enjoyed the sensitive and quiet way that Angela’s parents’ divorce was handled, and the sort-of romance between Angela and Miles, and even the brother in college’s friendly banter.  This is the first book in a planned trilogy, a series that is meant to give teenage girls an alternative to Gossip Girl and Twilight and other “demeaning” books—definitely a nice goal, if a doomed one.  There’s a lot of good things about the book as a stand-alone, as well.  But even though it’s a quick read, it still feels like a little too much time spent in a dream world of happy high school endings, when I could be reading something just as good that has a little more bite.

The Final Verdict: It’s got great intentions, but this book lacks the oomph to be truly enjoyable or popular.  Two and a half out of five stars.

This book was given to me by the author in exchange for a review on this blog. In no way other than the receipt of the book was I paid or subsidized by the author, publisher or Amazon.com. (See Disclosure in Accordance with FTC Guidelines) 

Movie Cast Mondays - Shiver

Want to join in the fun? Anyone can play! Here are the guidelines:

1) Create your own cast for an upcoming book-to-movie adaptation OR pick a book you'd like to see be turned into a movie and choose a cast.
2) Post the book title, author, and summary.
3) Try to pick at least 3 of the main characters to cast.
4) Grab the button please!
5) Come back and link to this post so everyone can check it out!

I will pick...

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Grace has always been fascinated by the wolf pack she’s watched for years in the shadowy forests behind her backyard—especially by her favorite golden-eyed wolf, the one who saved her life from a vicious attack by the rest of the pack when she was small.  Since Sam was seven years old he has spent summers as a human, winters as a wolf; fighting to keep his secrets and himself.  When they finally meet and fall in love under mysterious circumstances, it becomes clear that this is an enchanted summer that neither of them will ever forget.  It is also Sam’s last before he loses himself…forever.

Grace

Ashley Tisdale

The blonde hair/brown eye combination is pretty unusual, and Ashley Tisdale's got it! Though she'd definitely have to be a bit paler to be a Minnesota girl.  And she also doesn't look quite angsty enough to me.

Sam

Nolan Funk

He's got the semi-emo look that I always associated with Sam, and if he grew out his hair a bit (and wore contacts!) I think he'd be pretty close to his description in the book.  He's still a bit "pretty-boy", though, so I think maybe this role would be better-served by finding some new talent!

Grace's Parents

Sarah Clarke and Chris Potter

Sarah Clarke is probably not a very original idea seeing as she was Bella's mom in the Twilight movie, but I think her "airy-fairy" character in Shiver would be well-played by Clarke.  And Chris Potter was the dad in the sort of obscure, made-for-TV of A Wrinkle in Time, but I think he'd do a good job, too.

Rachel and Olivia

Victoria Justice and Brittany Snow

I didn't really pay attention to the description in the books of these two characters, but I always pictured Rachel with dark hair and Olivia with light blonde.  They both look a little old, but that's how I pictured them!

I really enjoyed Shiver (read my review here) and I hope that a movie comes out somewhere down the line, hopefully filmed IN Minnesota (not Canada!).