{Review} The Fine Art of Truth or Dare by Melissa Jensen

Sarah Moon
Books

You know that love-hate thing that everyone has with Julie Taylor on Friday Night Lights?

I had that same relationship with this book and with Ella, the narrator of Melissa Jensen’s The Fine Art of Truth or Dare. On one hand, she really is smart, and she matures throughout the story, on the other hand, like Julie, I didn’t find myself rooting for Ella to get the nice guy love interest, Alex, until the very end (kind of like Julie). 

Ella is a working with a  somewhat visible scar, on a scholarship at The Willing School, a wealthy private school in Philadelphia. Unlike her classmates, she lives in the neighborhood in which the school is located, where her family also runs a restaurant. In TFAoToD, we follow her as she navigates class differences, changing relationships with friends, mean girls, a research project about a dead artist and a budding relationship with her lacrosse star French tutor. 

Sounds like a lot? It is, even though the book is relatively lengthy for a contemporary YA at 380 pages.

There is, however, a lot to like in this novel.

{Opinion} The Never Ending Series

Laura
Opinion

I’ve recently come to the realization that I want to read stand-alone novels or series limited to 10 or so books that have definitive resolutions.

I’m tired of series that refuse to end and tired of authors recycling the same material repeatedly. Sometimes the material gets packaged into a new saga, but it’s still an extension of the same series.

It. Just. Won’t. End.

The only way these series will “end” is if/when:

A.) I die, or

B.) the author dies.

Neither of these options appeal to me.

{Bookish Find} "May the odds..." Hunger Games Bracelet

Sarah Moon
Bookish Finds

I don’t know about you, but I kinda, sorta freaked the hell out last week when I realized that The Hunger Games movie comes out in less than a month.

I am so ready to pick apart every little minutiae and compare it to the novel—I’m already completely in a tizzy about the latest trailer which reveals in essentially the first frame that they changed who game who the Mockingjay pin!

What’s next? Changing the scene with the bread from District 11? Arg! The stress of it all is unbearable!

{I Love} Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar

Sarah Moon
I Love


Editor’s Note: I reviewed this novel on Goodreads last year, and refreshed it for Clear Eyes, Full Shelves—because Raw Blue is such an important book. This is a hard book to acquire, but if you love high quality, contemporary fiction that tackles tough issues, it will be well worth your while. I left in the off-handed comment from my original review about starting a book blog for the laughs (I believe I made the same comment in my Goodreads review of Freefall, mentioned early in this review). This is the first in an ongoing series entitled “I Love,” in which we profess our love and devotion for books, authors, themes or anything else bookish we love.

I’m not even sure how to begin a review of this Raw Blue—this is the kind of novel that makes me feel like I should start a book blog to tell the world about the amazing books* they’re missing.

Given that it was a tremendous pain in the ass to acquire this book, the bar had been set pretty pretty high—and it certainly met those standards, and will be permanently filed under “True Book Love.” 

Why I ♥ Kirtsty Eagar’s Raw Blue.

{Review} Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony & Rodrigo Corral

Sarah Moon
Books

Chopsticks is probably best described as a graphic novel… sort of… about forbidden teenage love and mental illness.

But that’s not a particularly descriptive description.

Part scrapbook, part narrative, Chopsticks in an innovative approach to storytelling. This contemporary YA tells the story of Glory and Frank, next door neighbors that fall in love and are rapidly split apart by both distance and Glory’s father. Glory is a piano prodigy slowly descending into a dark world, where she’s only able to play Chopsticks on the piano and obsesses over Frank’s drawings. Frank is a gifted artist who’s failing out of his prestigious prep school. Chopsticks takes the reader through the couple’s tale in photo, snippets of IMs, YouTube video links, drawings and mementos from their relationship. 

Beyond the IMs and occasional scraps of paper with notes and lists, there are no words in Chopsticks. 

{Opinion} How I Met Tom Mackee (or A Defense of Goodreads + Libraries)

Maggie
Opinion

If you’re a sports fan, and you’ve ever made a comment on a sports blog or Twitter, you’ve been trolled.

As a female sports fan, and Asian to boot—before the Jeremy Lin phenomenon, thank you very much—well, you just have to learn to roll with the punches or punch back even harder. It can be ugly and unpleasant.

Then I found Goodreads.

Goodreads quickly became my happy place. More than that, it felt like a safe little corner of the internet where book lovers discussed what they were reading and what they wanted to read. And then things turned ugly in a very familiar way earlier this year with authors attacking reviewers and vice versa. But that’s not what this post is about. You can find posts about all that other bullshit elsewhere.

This is about how Goodreads reviewers and my local library led me to Tom Mackee and one of my favorite authors.

{Guest Review} Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves

Sandra
Books

Editor’s Note: This is a special guest review from my mom. Sandra is a retired high school English teacher with a lot of opinions and a newfound love of YA literature and urban fantasy—she’s a longtime fan of horror, campy mysteries and police procedurals. As a kid, her goal was to grow up to be Nancy Drew, so much so that she carried around a notebook to report on her neighbors’ potenital criminal activities. We’re hoping that she’ll start every review like this one—with an f-bomb.

Evisceration is so fucking cool!

Kit and Fancy, the Cordelle sisters, take you through a portal into another world that’s bizarre and fascinating.

It’s a world where evisceration’s cool, where a crowd of gorgeous people born to carry their heads in their hands have star status, where imps pass from one person to another through kisses and buried bodies grow into trees sprouting the fruit of their inhumanity.

Portero, Kit and Fancy’s hometown, is a place unlike, yet like, those we know.

{Review} My Beating Teenage Heart by C.K. Kelly Martin

Sarah Moon
Books

C.K. Kelly Martin is one of my favorite “sleeper” young adult authors.

It boggles my mind that her work is not more widely known. The Lighter Side of Life and Death is an outstanding example of authentic, engaging teen male point of view, while One Lonely Degree is a heartwrenching story of friendship. (I haven’t read I Know It’s Over, as it deals with teen pregnancy and I usually avoid that theme, but many folks have told me it’s excellent as well.)

My Beating Teenage Heart was unexpected. 

{Review} Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Sarah Moon
Books

Author’s Note: I read the Australian edition of this shortly after it was released. It is my understanding that the U.S. edition has some significant differences from the one I read.

This is one of those books that make me sound like a crazed superfan.

When I finished Graffiti Moon, I got out of bed, went to my laptop and emailed some friends a breathless message along the lines of,  

Alert! Alert! Omigod. You have to—have to—read Graffiti Moon immediately!

I love, love, love this novel that much.

{Review} Love + Leftovers by Sarah Tregay

Sarah Moon
Books

I ordered Love & Leftovers soon after I finished Audition because I’d really enjoyed that novel in verse and I’d remembered that April had really enjoyed this one as well. The verse in Love and Leftovers is actually far more enjoyable than in Audition, as it plays with form to build tension throughout the novel. If you’re nerdily interested in that sort of thing, L&L is worth reading for that aspect alone.

What I was really surprised by was how compelling and “edgy” (ugh, I hate that word) this one is. The marketing for L&L made me assume it was a “cute/sweet” read (I’ve got no problem with that at all), but it actually dealt with a lot of issues in a realistic manner, particularly teens and intimacy in many of its forms. Marcie is dragged on a permanent vacation from her hometown of Boise to New Hampshire by her mother.

{Bookish Find} Bookworm Socks from Gumball Poodle

Sarah Moon
Bookish Finds

Source: sockdreams.com via Sarah on Pinterest

From the files of book nerd things I actually own comes another bookish find—Gumball Poodle’s (formerly Rock Socks) Bookworm socks. These fab knee socks proudly (and a bit loudly) proclaim your bookworm affiliation. They’re soft like really old fashioned athletic socks that happen to be well-made and actually stay up. 

They’re available at assorted retailers, but I recommend Sock Dreams because that store is made of awesome.

{Review} Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach

Laura
Books

FNL Character Rating: Luke Cafferty/Landry Clarke*!!!!

(* I tend to be biased against Landry because he looks a lot like one of my ex-boyfriends, BUT his nerd-to-football player persona works for this rating. And I didn’t even necessarily like the main character of the book, so that works too. And I ADORE Luke, and his cute, sensitive persona works for this rating too.)

On to the Actual Review…

So, I’m at this point in my life where puberty is far enough in my past that I find teenagers bewildering. I find myself too old to relate to them anymore. When I see them hanging out at the bus stop in front of where I work, I think to myself old people thoughts like, “Why are those kids yelling while having a conversation when they’re standing right next to each other?!” Or, “Why are they texting each other when they’re standing right next to each other?!” Or, “What’s with those pants? Are they pants? Their parents paid for those pant-things AND let them wear them in PUBLIC?!” 

{Bookish Finds} "Read" Necklace from Piano Bench Designs

Sarah Moon
Bookish Finds

Editor’s Note: Reader Swag is an occasional series featuring goodies and gifts for readers. Basically, it’s our shopping list! ;) 

“Read’ wire necklace from Piano bench designs.

This necklace is one that I actually own—Laura, contributor to this blog, surprised me with it after I posted about it on Goodreads and I cannot say enough about what a wonderful piece it is.

{Review} Freefall by Mindi Scott

{Review} Freefall by Mindi Scott

Laura
Books

FNL Character Rating: Vince Howard!!!!!

{Editor’s Note: This is one of my favorite all-time novels, and one I recommend to people who think they don’t like YA fiction. I recommended this to Laura and I was thrilled that she loved it as much as I do. What’s even better is that Laura got different things out of it because of her own experiences with music, so it was doubly awesome to read her review. ~Sarah}

The first thing I loved about this book was the voice.

It is so rare and refreshing to read a YA book from a male POV. Author Mindi Scott, manages the very difficult task of making me, a 31 year old female adult, relate to a 16 year old teenage boy’s POV. It is seriously freaky how Mindi Scott managed to write wrote the male version of me (personality and humor) wise into a book character in Seth McCoy.