Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff

From the Paperback:
Jolly is seventeen. She can't really spell. She doesn't have much of a job. And she has two little kids from two different, absent fathers.
   Jolly knows she can't cope with Jilly and Jeremy all by herself. So she posts a notice on the school bulletin board: BABYSITTER NEEDED BAD. No one replies but Verna LaVaughn, who's only fourteen. How much help can she be?
   For a while, Jolly, Jilly, Jeremy, and LaVaughn are an extraordinary family. Then LaVaughn takes the first steps toward building her own future, and Jolly begins the long, slow process of turning the lemons of her life into lemonade.

"If you want something to grow
and be so beautiful you could have a nice day just from
looking at it,
you have to wait.
Meanwhile you keep watering it
and it has to have sunshine
and also
you talk to it."

Just under 200 pages and written in free verse, Make Lemonade was a pretty quick read. I was a little worried about the free verse style because I don't normally read much of it, but it allowed the author to put emphasis on certain words and it was ultimately fun to read. Published in 1993, I kept wondering if this was a book I had read in high school, but it must not have been, I remembered none of it. It does have that feel to it though, a book that'd be assigned. It does have some content that might be deemed inappropriate by a school board: teenage pregnancy, sexual assault, and dropping out of school to name a few. The overall message is inspiring though.
   Another thing I really liked is the absence of race. There is absolutely no mention of ethnicity in this book. A reader could assume whatever they wish, but the lives presented could be any race at all. No group of people is exempt from a hard life.
   I recommend this book to those of you with little time on your hands for reading. The formatting makes every chapter a short read. It's easy to pick it up, read two chapters, and go back to your daily activities without losing much time at all. It doesn't feel like a huge commitment every time you pick it up.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

From the Hardcover:
Love makes us such fools.
   Generations of the Roux family have learned this lesson the hard way. Foolish love appears to be the family birthright, in fact, which casts an ominous fate for its most recent progeny: twins Ava and Henry Lavender. Henry is mute for much of his young life, and Ava-in all other ways a normal girl-is born with the wings of a bird.
   In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year-old Ava delves into her family's past and ventures into the wider world, ill prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for and angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and both Ava's quest and her family's saga build to a dark and heartbreaking crescendo.
   First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and haunting mythology of what it means to be born with a heart that is tragically, exquisitely human.

"To many, I was myth incarnate, the embodiment of a most superb legend, a fairy tale. Some considered me a monster, a mutation. To my great misfortune, I was once mistaken for an angel. To my mother, I was everything. To my father, nothing at all. To my grandmother, I was a daily reminder of loves long lost. But I knew the truth-deep down, I always did.

I was just a girl." 

 Sometimes when you read a book, you just know, from the first sentence, "this is going to be fantastic." That was how I felt about The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. There was an element of the magical from the very beginning, not Harry Potter magic, but something much more subtle. I love stories with just a hint of the extraordinary.

   The first half of the book goes into the history of the Roux family (just two generations back,) so you get a good sense of their peculiar traits. A mother who actually fades away, a girl who turns herself into a bird, and the grandmother of Ava, who has a very strong intuition. Love has always plagued the Roux family, often ending in disaster. While there is a love story involved, I wouldn't consider this book as a whole a "love story." It's more about what it means to be human, to be a family, to be loved for who you are.
   I can't say enough about this lovely work.There are so many different layers in this book it's impossible to sum up the depth involved. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys YA. It was a quicker read, it took me a day, but I really didn't want to put it down, it captivated me from the start.

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

From the Paperback:
After thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X-a seemingly malevolent landscape surrounded by an invisible border and mysteriously wiped clean of all signs of civilization-has been a series of expeditions overseen by a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten: the Southern Reach. Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in complete disarray.
   John Rodriguez (aka "Control") is the Southern Reach's newly appointed head. Working with a distrustful but desperate team, a series of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, Control begins to penetrate the secrets of Area X. But with each discovery he must confront disturbing truths about himself and the agency he's pledged to serve.
   In Authority, the second volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Area X's most disturbing questions are answered... but the answers are far from reassuring.

"His first full day was only four hours old and he already felt contaminated by the dingy, bizarre building with its worn green carpet and the antiquated opinions of the other personnel he had met. A sense of diminishment suffused everything..."

This second book was a little tougher to get into than the first, I enjoyed it as much as the first though. Authority had a different feel to it than Annihilation. This book felt like a spy book: paranoia, mind control, and politics. It was just as unsettling as book one, but in a completely different way. The synopsis says "questions are answered," and they are somewhat. I ended up with just as many questions given the new insights at the end. I highly anticipate the final book Acceptance coming out in September 2014. I can't wait to see what form the final volume in this trilogy will take, hopefully a fun mix of the first two.

On Positive Reviews...

After reading a few reviews you may be thinking, "This girl loves every book she reads!" That's not exactly true. While I do enjoy nearly every book I read, I don't love them all, some I don't even like. I love to recommend books though and that is my primary goal here, to recommend books I think others might enjoy. I try not to focus too much on writing style (although I do appreciate lyrical writing) but on the contents within the book.

I find I generally can't be too hard on any author, they have written and published an entire book! I think that is something to be admired, not criticized. Their writing not only means something to them, but also to others whoever they may be.

So when I read a book I don't particularly like, you probably won't find it listed here. I suppose what I'm doing here isn't really reviewing books, but recommending them. It just took me a few weeks to really find my feet, as they say.

The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp

From the Hardcover edition:
SUTTER KEELY. HE'S the guy you want at your party. He'll get everyone dancing. He'll get everyone in your parents' pool. Okay, so he's not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men's shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram's V.O., life's pretty fabuloso, actually.
   Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee's clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it's up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee's not like other girls, and before long he's in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else's life - or ruin it forever.

"Besides, it doesn't matter if it's real. It never does with dreams. They aren't anything anyway but lifesavers to cling to so you don't drown. Life is an ocean, and most everyone's hanging onto some kind of dream to keep afloat. Me, I'm just dog paddling on my own, but Aimee's lifesavers a beauty. I love it. Anyone would if they could see the way her face beams as she clutches that thing with all her strength.:"

Sutter Keely reminded me very strongly of Holden Caufield from The Catcher in the Rye, a book I had to force myself to finish. The Spectacular Now was easier for me to read, mainly because of Aimee. Aimee who even I loved through the eyes of Sutter. I felt immense sympathy for her as Sutter tries to boost her confidence while trying not to get attached. He is changing who she is without realizing it. She gains much neeeded confidence but looses the respect of her peers, and her grades start to slide. I kept hoping Sutter would realize the damage he, along with his Seagram's, was causing.
  This book was honest. Addiction is hard to end and this book shows that. If you're one of the many people who love The Catcher in the Rye this is the book for you!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

From the Paperback:
"Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires. And he enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs or the joy of watching pages consumed by flames, never questioned anything, until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then Guy met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. And Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do..."

" 'You weren't there, you didn't see,' he said. 'There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing.' "

 This was/is required reading in some high schools, not mine though. I've just read it recently and I wonder if I had read it in high school, would it have had the same impact on me as it does now? In this future books have been banned, not just some books, all books. If you're caught with a book your house is burnt by firemen. It starts by banning one book because of offensive content and escalates quickly. Within two generations most people forget they can think for themselves. It's a world of people just going with the flow, Guy can't even remember how he and his wife met.
   I think the implications of Fahrenheit 451 are obvious and something to be cautioned against. While reading this I wondered how anyone could just accept the thoughts they were fed and adopt them as their own. Guy only begins thinking for himself when he meets Clarisse who challenges him with questions and ideas he has never considered before.
   This book should be read by people who cherish the written word. Fans of dystopian novels will also enjoy this book. I imagine I'm a little behind on reading this one, but if you're like me and haven't read it before, now is the time.

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

From Goodreads.com:
"Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.
   This is the twelfth expedition.
   Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, and above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

   They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers - they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding - but it's the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything."

"The first thing I noticed on the staging level before we reached the wider staircase that spiraled down, before we encountered again the words written on the wall...the tower was breathing. The tower breathed, and the walls when I went to touch them carried the echo of a heartbeat...and they were not made of stone but of living tissue."

This is the unsettling story of the twelfth expedition into Area X. What is Area X? We don't know, but something has surely gone wrong there in the past.
   I loved nearly everything about this book. The narrator has strong antisocial tendencies which often gave me a little laugh. I loved the writing and more importantly the story. I was drawn in from the start and even more every time something strange happened, which was often. You don't get many answers but there are two more books The Southern Reach Trilogy and I hope to find some there.

  I recommend this book if you have an affinity for the eerie or like to read post-apocalyptic books.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

From Goodreads.com:
"Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out-with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes-to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There's Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limps and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan...Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins...albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family's most precious-and dangerous-asset.
   As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same."

"There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behavior and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores, in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity."

I discovered Geek Love while wandering the library, the word "geek" caught my eye immediately. I like geeks, little did I know that a geek is a member of a carnival who bites the heads off live chickens. I learned this a few pages in and the strangeness didn't stop there. As you read above the mom consumes amphetamines and arsenic while pregnant to try to create freaks to add to the carnival. They also have an exhibit of failed attempts.
The characters in this book are memorable; Chick's need to be loved, Arty's lust for power, Iphy and Elly just trying to exist, and Oly, always on the outside, watching. To the kids, their special skills, what made them "freaks," was their measure of good to the family.
I was, in turns, fascinated and repulsed by the world contained in Geek Love. I've never read another book that compares to what you encounter when you pick this up.

What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang

From Goodreads.com:
"Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else-two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren't they settling? Why isn't one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn't...
   For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she's still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable-hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet...for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything."

"If attention lingered on something with imperfection long enough, the imperfections were sure to show, however small they were."

 I don't remember how I stumbled onto this book, but I sure am glad I did. I started it as an audio-book (my first ever) at work instead of the usual music and was so absorbed I finished it reading at home the same day! It's the first in a series,The Hybrid Chronicles, that currently consists of two books. The third is due out this year. With characters you fall for, a little bit of a love story, friendships, not to mention the ever fascinating-to-me concept of two parts to a whole, I feel like this has a little bit of something for everyone. I can't wait to read the next one.
    It reminded me of The Host by Stephanie Meyer (two souls, one body how could it not?) and The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman, two of my favorite books. I'd recommend it to a fan of YA dystopian.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

From the dust jacket:
"Eleanor...Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.
Park...He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.
   Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds - smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try."

"She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something."

I know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but let's face it, certain cover art draws you in and entices you to read the teaser. A girl with frizzy, curly hair connected to a boy by music? Count me in. While reading Eleanor & Park I didn't think of much else. I felt so much sympathy for Eleanor, the oldest of 5 siblings, in a two bedroom house, with a controlling step-dad. And Park, with more privileges than he realizes. Park lets Eleanor sit by him on the bus by default her first day, no one else would scoot over, so begins their year of bus rides.
   This book brought back the feelings of first love. I adore how Park loves Eleanor, for herself, even though she doesn't seem to love herself. He tries to make her see her beauty especially when she can't. It was beautiful. This would be a fantastic book to take to the beach or on vacation. It's a simple story but it kept me enthralled until the end.

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

From the back of the book:
"Mark Helprin's magical masterpiece will transport you to New York of the Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented snows. One winter night, Peter Lake - master mechanic and master second-storey man - attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks it is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the affair between a middle-aged Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl who is dying of consumption. It is a love so powerful that Peter Lake, a simple uneducated man, will be driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature."

"We learn that justice may not always follow a just act, that justice can sleep for years and awaken when it is least expected, that a miracle is nothing more than dormant justice from another time arriving to compensate those it has cruelly abandoned. Whoever knows this is willing to suffer, for he knows that nothing is in vain."

Winter's Tale is immensely more than the synopsis implies. It is not just a love story between Peter Lake and Beverly Penn, for quite some time Peter Lake isn't in the book (which disappointed me because I had just began to adore him when he disappeared.) There are so many different lives, over many years, that weave together to form Winter's Tale. There is an element of very subtle magic to this tale, a fog or mist people disappear into and a town you must have been to in order to visit, a town not on any maps, and a white horse of legend that presents himself to Peter. This whole book I was wondering where it was going. The author's writing coaxed me through most of the 748 pages, Mark Helprin writes beautifully. However, the last 150 were very tough to make it through.

I would not recommend this book to a casual reader, but if you love the feel of magnificently written words this could be the book for you.