Marcelo in the Read World

Marcelo in the Real World
Francisco X. Stork
312 pages
Publisher: Scholastic
Source: library
★★★☆☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Marcelo in the Real World is the second novel by Francisco S. Stork that I've read (I read Irises earlier this year and mostly enjoyed it).  I picked it up at the library because it fit the criteria of a book challenge I'm currently working on... read a book about special needs.

Marcelo has a high functioning form of autism and has attended a special school all his life.  Now that he's seventeen and about to be a senior, his father would like him to try attending the public school for his last year.  In order to prepare him, he gets Marcelo a job at his law firm in the mail room so he can experience a bit of "the real world."  It's there he meets Jasmine, the eighteen year old in charge.  Soon Marcelo is pulled into office politics and is experiencing more of "the real world" than he ever thought he would.

I really liked the concept of the book and for the first half of the novel I was happy to read about Marcelo thrust into a world he didn't want to be in.  I was happy to see him adjust and grow up a bit as well.  Marcelo is not just a book about a teenager with autism, but it's also definitely a coming of age novel.

Ultimately, however, the characters really dragged down this novel.  I don't just mean Marcelo; he was tedious to read about, but I think that was probably the point of his character.  It was the other characters that bothered me.  I didn't feel like I got to know Jasmine very well; her character at the beginning of the novel seemed so different to me than the one at the end of the novel and I'm not sure how or why that change came out.  In addition to that the character of Wendall pissed me off.  Again, I'm sure that was the point but everything about him made me angry and I just wanted to punch him.  So much for the pleasant reading experience the first half of the novel was.

Three stars... I liked this book, but it didn't elicit any feelings of amazement from me and at times I found the characters so tedious and annoying that I had to shut the book.  If you run across Marcelo in the Real World at a discount book sale or something, I would suggest picking it up.  Several others have read the book and absolutely loved it.  In addition, it was won several awards.

In My Mailbox (32)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.

FOR REVIEW: 

Temptation by Karen Ann Hopkins

FROM THE LIBRARY: 

Death on Tour by Janice Hamrick

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth (this book is massive but sounds amazing!)

WON:

I won a giveaway for a mystery box on Lovely Little Shelf's blog and the package came this week!  If you haven't been to her blog, go take a look around, it's a great blog.  Anyway, here's some pics of what I got along with my first ever video clip of me talking about books!  

Awesome bag!

Peanut M&Ms  not shown... because I already ate them.

Total TBR: 168

The Girl in the Clockwork Collar

The Girl in the Clockwork Collar

Kady Cross

411 pages

Publisher: HarlequinTeen

Source: NetGalley

★★★★★

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

This review may contain spoilers from The Girl in the Steel Corset, the first book in the series.

The Girl in the Clockwork Collar starts five days after The Girl in the Steel Corset ends; Finley, Griffin, and their entourage have left London for New York, where they think their friend Jasper has been taken by the police.  Instead, it turns out Jasper has been stolen away by an old enemy who wants a contraption that Jasper has hidden around the city.   While Jasper must find the pieces, his love interest, Mei, has also been captured and is wearing a special clockwork collar - one false move and it will tighten around her neck choking her to death.

I loved this book just as much as the first one and for pretty much the same reasons.  The steampunk genre is rich in fantastical technology and, of course, the setting and clothing of the Victorian Era.  What's more awesome than a girl with a parasol kicking some butt?  Finley Jayne is one of my favorite heroines in YA lit - she coming of age, getting to know herself, falling in love, but she's not shy and needy.  She knows how to fight and look out for herself, which is convenient considering in order to help Jasper she has to fight her way into his captor's gang to get in on the inside.  As perfect as that sounds, though, Finley also has her human flaws, sometimes struggling to balance her good and dark side.

Eeeee... I just adore these books so much!  Even though this book is over four hundred pages, the time just flew by as I was reading.  From great settings and costumes, from fights to balls and parties, this book has a little something for everyone.

Five stars!  If you haven't started reading this spunky, butt-kicking series yet, you really ought to consider it.  The Steampunk Chronicles series is so much fun, it would be a great start for someone who wants to try out the steampunk genre.  Meanwhile, I can't wait for the next book!

In My Mailbox (31)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.

Small week this week!

FOR REVIEW:
Prom Dates to Die For edited by Mari Farthing

 

Total TBR: 168 (WOO! Back under 170!)

PS:  Don't forget to enter my giveaway to get a copy of Prom Dates to Die For and some Bath & Body Works swag!!  Click here to enter.

Prom Dates to Die For + GIVEAWAY!!

Prom Dates to Die For
Edited by Mari Farthing
140 pages
Publisher: Buzz Books USA
Source: the publisher
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Prom Dates to Die For is a collection of paranormal, prom-themed short stories by YA authors Lena Brown, Heather Dearly, Kelly Parra, Jenny Peterson, and Aaron Smith.  Each story features a different kind of paranormal, but all the stories compliment each other very well.

My favorite story was definitely the third story, "Every Breath You Take" by Lena Brown.  I thought it was the most developed of the stories and it was the one that held my interest the most.  Charlie is planning to attend prom like any normal high school girl, but it turns out her vintage prom dress is haunted by the dress's previous owner... and that owner is looking for revenge!  I loved this story!  It was spooky and wove all the characters together to the same tragic event.

The first story, "Darkness Becomes Him" by Kelly Parra, was my least favorite.  It was the shortest of five stories and the least developed.  It did feature a lot of action, though, involving a dark angel sucking souls, so that was fun.  It was certainly an example of how not to spend your prom!

I give this book four stars!  I really enjoyed all the stories except for the first one and I think this book would be the perfect read for any high school junior or senior winding down on the school year and gearing up for prom!   That's why I'm giving my copy away!

That's right!  Enter below for your chance to win an ARC of Prom Dates to Die For!  And what do you wear to prom?  Maybe a dress made of chiffon?  I'm also giving away a 3 oz bottle of Bath & Body Work's newest signature scent, Pink Chiffon in both lotion and shower gel.  It's very sweet and girly and the perfect scent for prom night!  Even if you're fully grown, the book is great and so is the Pink Chiffon, so enter below!

*Ages 13+ and US ONLY please :)



a Rafflecopter giveaway

We Need to Talk About Kevin

We Need to Talk About Kevin
Lionel Shriver
400 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Source: purchased
★★★★★

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

It's not very often that I review an adult novel on my blog, but I read We Need to Talk About Kevin for my online book club and it was so incredible and powerful that I have no choice but to share it with you.  This book was terrifying.  As someone who is hoping to have a baby someday... it's just terrifying.

WNTTAK is written in the form of letters from Eva to her estranged husband, Franklin, as she tries to figure out why her son, Kevin, went on a killing spree in his high school.  Kevin slaughtered seven students, a teacher, and a cafeteria worker and as the two year anniversary approaches, Eva is trying to work out why Kevin did this and who is to blame as she recounts Kevin's life from conception to incarceration.

Ultimately I felt this book boiled down to one theme - nature vs. nurture.  I've always believed it's a combination of the two (let's be honest, nothing in life is black and white) but WNTTAK really made me think about it even more.  For the first third of the novel I tended to side with nurture; Kevin's mother doesn't come off as very likable and she has obvious disdain for her baby.  I thought no matter what Kevin does, you have to at least in part blame his mother.  When I see school shootings on the television, I think the same thing.  These parents that cry into the camera and say they had no idea their son was capable of killing, how can I believe that?  How can you give birth to someone and not know?

But as the book continued on, I felt my opinions shifting.  Eva was trying, she really was, to get through to Kevin.  And yet all those things he did, how can that be mostly nurture?  It surely seemed a lot more like nature at that point, and that was even before the killings happened.

This was a serious, hardcore book.  It takes time to read because you have to digest every single word Eva writes to Franklin; how could you not?  In my desperate attempt to understand why Kevin was how he was, I had to read and re-read to try to understand.  It's a fictional account, but that's how well Lionel Shriver wrote it.  I was drawn in and as invested as if it were real.

Five stars!  I loved this book and even though the twist is so predictable I had it all figured out by page 138, I still thought it was perfectly written.   I highly, highly recommend even if adult fiction is not normally your thing.  This book is important and I haven't seen the movie yet, but I am very interested in seeing it now, even though it will probably terrify me even more.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky
213 pages
Publisher: MTV Books
Source: library
★★★☆☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

This was one of those YA classics that in the back of my mind I knew I had to read someday.  So what made me finally read it?  This:

(image via Google)

It's being made into a movie starring Emma Watson!  Yay!

So I picked it up from the library and got reading.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a group of letters written by Charlie, a high school freshman, to some person we will never know the identity of.  The letters contain day to day ramblings of what's going on in Charlie's life, including his unrequited love for the girl of his dreams, but ultimately he's writing because "I just need to now that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have.  I need to know these people exist." (p. 2)

Have you ever read Catcher in the Rye?  I didn't read it in high school but I read it last year because it came highly recommended by my husband as the best coming of age novel ever.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower is this generations (or last generations? It was published in 1999) Catcher in the Rye.  I found the two books pretty similar, although Perks is decidedly more modern.

What really struck me was how Charlie changed over the course of the novel.  When the novel started he's moving from middle school to high school and seems very innocent, but as the book continues on it becomes apparent Charlie is willing to drop the innocence... sort of.  He takes LSD, for example, and that's pretty much the opposite of innocent, but at the same time he his letters seem so pure.  He also struggled with his mental illness and by the end of the novel we come to learn what really happened.

But there were parts of Charlie I whole-heartedly adored, most notably his ability to stand back, take things in and make great observations about people (hence his being a wallflower).  Charlie seemed pretty realistic, even if he was something an enigma.

Ultimately, I give the book three stars.  I liked it, but I didn't fall in love with it because it was so much like Catcher in the Rye.  But I still highly recommend you read it because you should always read a book before you see the movie and Emma Watson is so charming, so you know you're going to want to see it!