Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Release Date: July 8, 2014
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Age Group: Adult
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Pages: 308
Buy: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / IndieBound
Description: Goodreads
Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it’s been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems besides the point now.

Maybe that was always besides the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn’t expect to him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts . . .

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

In her online bio, Rainbow Rowell states that sometimes she writes about teenagers and sometimes she writes about adults.  I found 2011’s Attachments to have a crossover appeal for a teenager looking to branch out or even a YA-reading adult looking to, well, also branch out.  I’ve been quite grabby-hands about Rainbow’s next adult book, this summer’s Landline, since the moment I knew it existed.  As I dove into Georgie’s story, as I rabidly and rapidly turned pages, I found myself wondering how an honest-to-blog teenager would relate to this.  This is not because I think teenagers aren’t complex people with deep-seated emotions and complicated hearts—they clearly are—but Landline is very much a grown-up romance. 

And that is the exact reason I loved it so.

Normally, I’m all about the swoon of YA—the butterflies from the first glances, the first kisses that take your breath away,  the description of that seemingly impassable inch between two hands before they beat the odds and reach one another.  I basically live for that.  And those moments do exist in Landline in Georgie’s flashbacks to college when she first meets Neal (Neal, Neal, Neal), the man who would become her husband.  They are typical Rainbow (what a beautiful phrase!) which means they are vivid and gorgeous and real and aching.  They are so much of all of those things that I kept gazing at my husband as I read, recalling our own college courtship and seeing the guy he was then within the man he is.  Needless to say, it freaked him out a little bit.

This is the exact thing I adore so much about Landline.  It’s not about first love; it’s about last love.  It’s about the one you choose, the love that evolves and matures into something you could have never expected at age 20.  It’s also about marriage—the good and the bad and the ugly—and whether that evolved love is enough.  Enough for what?  Well, that’s for you to find out.

Honestly, I could talk about this for hours and days and the only person who would listen to that is my husband and even then he’d be looking for a magic phone to talk to Past Jessica and ask her to kindly shut her yapper many years in the future, so I’ll move on.

What else do I love?  Georgie and Seth’s TV show.  If I ever become a sitcom writer, I may try to recreate that show because I WOULD WATCH THAT SO HARD my eyeballs would fall out.  Also, Georgie’s kids.   Hi Alice.  Meow, Noomi.  And my most favorite bit?  An Easter Egg for readers of Rainbow’s previous books near the end that I will not ruin for you but OMG. OMG. OH. MY. GOD.


So, let’s sum up: I love this book in a mature and evolved way, I feel every married person should read this, and I would follow Rainbow Rowell into the dark.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Release Date: September 10, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: E-galley
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Pages: 416
Buy: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / IndieBound
Description: Goodreads
A coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love. 

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .

But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

Or will she just go on living inside somebody else’s fiction?

This may come as a jaw-dropping shock to you, but here goes: my name is Jessica and I am a fangirl.  (Hi, Jessica.)  It’s true.  When I am into something like a book or TV show or fandom, I want to know all the details.  I want to understand the inside jokes.  I want to gush and giggle and show my unabashed love like the proud nerd that I am.  Of course, when I heard Rainbow Rowell’s new book Fangirl was about, well, a fangirl, I knew I would love it.  What I didn’t know was just how hard it would hit me. I won’t be the first (or the last) to make this statement, but I am a fangirl for Fangirl.

First, I’ve got to ask—why aren’t there more books about the first year of college?  That is the weirdest and best/worst year.  It’s ripe with coming of age drama!  I related to Cath in so many ways—her anxiety about fitting in, her wish that there were instructions for how to go through the line at the dining hall, that odd transition from high school girl to college… girl.  Honestly, if it hadn’t been for marching band and the world’s best roommate, I would’ve eaten protein bars in my room for a month just like Cath.  I’m thankful that Rainbow tackled this crazy time, and she absolutely got it all right.  Maybe there are books about freshman year, but they’re just not as perfectly on the money like this one is.

And speaking of Rainbow, she certainly has a talent for characterization.  (IMO, she has a talent for everything, but I digress!).  I love how people-like these characters are.  They aren’t cookie cutter placeholders that blend one into another.  You can imagine their faces in your mind so clearly, even without explicit physical details.  Everyone practically leaps right off the page and into your mind like they’re all having an Emergency Kanye Party in your brain room.  The standouts are Cath (of course) and Levi.  Cath is like a slightly more functional and entirely more realistic Liz Lemon, and Levi is essentially incomparable.  Merlin’s beard, is he incomparable.

I’ve got to mention the FANFICTION.  Cath writes fanfic about story-within-the-story fantasy character Simon Snow called Carry On, Simon, and we are treated to pieces of fanfic AND “original” Simon Snow words. It's like Harry Potter and Twilight combined into a magical, vampiric omelet with three kinds of cheese.  It’s incredible.  As a member of the Harry Potter fandom for over a decade now, I couldn’t help but see the similarities between the fandoms.  I hope Cath and Wren know Watford will always be there to welcome them home.

I’m a crier by nature, but combining the nostalgia and blessedly excellent writing and the  darkly enchating story, and I cried for about the last 50 pages.  Albeit, I cried while grinning my face off and giggling giddily and occasionally wrinkling my nose in glee, but this is what Rainbow Rowell does to me.  I thought I knew what to expect with Fangirl.  I’ve never been so happy to have my high expectations not only matched but exceeded like to-infinity-and-beyond exceeded.  If you are in any fandom, this book is for you.  If you have ever felt like an outsider (Stay gold, Pony Boy), this book is for you.  I will be riding this book high for weeks.  THANK YOU, Rainbow.  Sincerely.

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Release Date: June 19, 2012
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Pages: 322
Buy: Amazon / Book Depository / IndieBound
Description: Goodreads
It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self.

To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live.

But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside.

When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

This is Not a Test isn't a novel for the faint-hearted. It's a gritty depiction of primal survival instinct. People change when survival is on the line, and when there's not much left worth fighting for they'll do things they never thought they were capable of doing.

Six people who've spent years living on the outskirts of each others lives are now trapped together, barricaded inside their high school, facing down the end of the world. Their weak ties are just strong enough to bind them in the moment, in the most far-fetched hope of survival. They cling to each other, to memories, to the remnants of life and the hope that there's still a future to be had.

This is a tough review for me to write because the concept had me hooked from the beginning, but it turns out I was more in love with the idea than the finished product. Solid as the elements are, they never gelled for me.

Told fits and spurts of thought and action, Courtney Summers captures the story of these teenagers in a series of intense moments. Summers storytelling and ability to convey complex thoughts and emotions in beautiful, concise, and poignant phrases are probably my absolute favorite things about this novel. It made for a quick read and only after I finished each chapter was I able to appreciate how much had "happened" in those few pages.

Sadly, the blending of genres wasn't as seamless as I'd hoped it would be. All the pieces were there. A people driven story full of need, regret and imperfection. A grisly, brutal world in which self-preservation is paramount. The problem was I felt more time was spent balancing the genre and contemporary elements than crafting a cohesive story.

I spent a lot of time wondering, "why zombies?" I have no problem with zombies. In fact, I've been reading a lot of them lately. I just couldn't grasp why that had to be what caused these teenagers to be trapped together.   From early on you know the zombie apocalypse is nigh, but then you go 200-plus pages without seeing another zombie. You "hear" them and the characters worry about them a heck of a lot, but zombies aren't major players in the bulk of the novel. They seem intended as a the foil for the six central characters "study" of their humanity, which in actuality is a lot of goading, in-fighting, brooding and extreme emotional displays.

Sloane, the main character, has her fair share of personal demons, and her story touches on several social issues, including abuse, abandonment and suicide. As serious as these issues are, Sloane's hyper-focus on them makes her emotionally inaccessible and strangely flat. She spends the better the novel fixated on the absence the sister who was basically her other half, and wishing she was dead, yet she hangs on so she doesn't put the group at risk. Confronting the ghosts of her past who've made her who she is offers a brief redeeming moment, but usually she reacts instead of acting. It was hard for me to like, much less get attached to such a passive character.

There's the rare moment in which the characters come together, but I think it was their inability to really connect that kept me from becoming emotionally involved. A few times I thought I would be pulled from the observation deck and sucked into the story, but all of those moments were short-lived. By the time I did find a character to become attached to, somewhere around page 250, it was too late. I had all but officially checked out of the story.

I desperately wanted to love This is Not a Test, but it wasn't meant to be. Even though the concept on the whole didn't work for me, Summer's gripping storytelling and gorgeous writing will certainly stay with me. I think This is Not a Test is sure to be a hit with readers who enjoy character-driven stories about the human condition , but if you appreciate poignant prose and vivid imagery you should take a read just for that.

Torn by Amanda Hocking

US Cover

Release Date: Feb. 28, 2012
(UK: March 1, 2012)
Publisher: St. Matin's Griffin (UK: Tor)
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Source: UK Publisher
Series: Trylle #2
Pages: 336
Buy: Amazon / Book Depository / IndieBound
Description: Goodreads
When Wendy Everly first discovers the truth about herself—that she’s a changeling switched at birth—she knows her life will never be the same. Now she’s about to learn that there’s more to the story…

She shares a closer connection to her Vittra rivals than she ever imagined—and they’ll stop at nothing to lure her to their side. With the threat of war looming, her only hope of saving the Trylle is to master her magical powers—and marry an equally powerful royal. But that means walking away from Finn, her handsome bodyguard who’s strictly off limits…and Loki, a Vittra prince with whom she shares a growing attraction.

Torn between her heart and her people, between love and duty, Wendy must decide her fate. If she makes the wrong choice, she could lose everything, and everybody, she’s ever wanted…in both worlds.

As a special gift to readers, this book contains a new, never-before-published bonus story, “One Day, Three Ways,” set in the magical world of the Trylle.

UK Cover

Obviously, it goes without saying that if you have not yet read Switched (the first book in the Trylle series) which I reviewed here then do not go any further as you may encounter potential spoilers.

Torn is of course the eagerly awaited sequel to Switched and I devoured it just as quickly as I did the first book.  It’s just pure entertainment value and easy reading - and I mean that as a compliment.  Never in my life did I think I would enjoy a book about trolls! 

You may recall at the end of Switched that Wendy ran back home with her tail between her legs but guess what?!  SHE CAN’T STAY THERE and I’m sure that will come as a big shock to you all *rolls eyes*.  What I liked most about Torn I think is Wendy’s character development.  She starts accepting who and what she is more and more, even relishing in the role on occasion.  She develops a sense of duty as she comes to understand that the Trylle need a leader, a queen.  Speaking of duty, let’s talk about frustrating yet dutiful Finn who starts pushing Wendy away because he has nothing to offer her but banishment.  I get this, I do but ANGSTY ANGST, ARGH! You know? 

In the midst of it all, we have Loki, a young Markis from VIttra who tries to kidnap Wendy and bring her to the king whose interest in her is beyond political.  Amanda? THANK YOU for Loki.  I love a bad boy with a cheeky chappy sense of humour and he certainly fits the bill.  Loki and Wendy enjoy some flirtatious banter and this of course sets up a potential love triangle between Wendy, Finn and Loki but we’ll see about that ;)

Torn delves deeper into the world of the Trylle and I enjoyed learning that whilst we tend to think of the VIttra as the bad guys, let’s just say that it’s a little bit more complicated than that.

Torn is a very enjoyable sequel and I’m looking forward to Ascend (Trylle #3) which is out now! 

Switched by Amanda Hocking

US cover

Release Date: Jan. 3, 2012 (UK: Jan. 5, 2012)
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (UK: Tor)
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased
Series: Trylle #1
Pages: 336
Buy: Amazon / Book Depository / Fountain Bookstore
Description: Amazon
When Wendy Everly was six years old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her. Eleven years later, Wendy discovers her mother might have been right. She’s not the person she’s always believed herself to be, and her whole life begins to unravel—all because of Finn Holmes.

Finn is a mysterious guy who always seems to be watching her. Every encounter leaves her deeply shaken…though it has more to do with her fierce attraction to him than she’d ever admit. But it isn’t long before he reveals the truth: Wendy is a changeling who was switched at birth—and he’s come to take her home.

Now Wendy’s about to journey to a magical world she never knew existed, one that’s both beautiful and frightening. And where she must leave her old life behind to discover who she’s meant to become…

UK cover

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you’ll probably know Amanda Hocking as the biggest self publishing success ever. No joke.  That’s right, she proved that even without an agent and publishing deal, you can still be successful and of course now, her books have been bought up and published in print by Macmillan/Tor in the UK and St Martin’s Griffin in the US.  Go Amanda!  I have to admit that I was curious to know what all the fuss is about, especially as she is a self made millionaire so the book must be REALLY good, right?  No pressure there Amanda.  I have to say that overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the book and read it in a day which I think speaks for itself.

Whilst I love traditional fairytales, I’m not a huge fan of YA books about fairies but not to worry, as this is not one of those books. This book is about trolls. Yes, you read that right. Be prepared to throw out your preconceived ideas of trolls as hideous creatures because the trolls or “The Trylle” as they are known, are both beautiful and gifted with magical abilities. My favourite Trylle? Well, it’s got to be Finn of course. I adore characters that have a sense of duty and often fight against their own feelings. * SWOON*. Needless to say, that I really enjoyed the developing relationship between him and Wendy. One thing I liked about Wendy, and this might sound a bit weird, is that she has such a normal (yet arguably old fashioned) name which was inspired by one of my favorite children’s stories – Peter Pan. Wendy is the main character and the girl caught up in the middle of everything. She’s always known that she’s a bit different and thanks to Finn, she’s now discovering why.

I need to say at this point that I also had soft spots for Rhys as the goofy, innocent guy and Tove, the mysterious guy with extraordinary abilities and I DEFINITELY want to see more of him in future books.

Stand out scenes for me are towards the end of the book and I really enjoyed the ball scene. Maybe because The Slipper and the Rose was on over the festive period but I kept picturing the royal ball from the movie where Cinderella makes her grand entrance. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s a little old now but still cute and worth watching.
 
I have to admit that Switched is one book I’d wish I’d had the sense to read ages ago as disappointedly, Amazon have taken down the cheap kindle versions that were available. The good news however, is that the print copies are beautiful and I adore both the UK and US versions. In the UK, you might notice that there are two versions – the cover is essentially the same but with orange or pink as the predominant colour. There is no difference in the content as far as I know but the pink cover is marketed as a YA book.

I really enjoyed the concept of Switched and whilst the idea of a changeling isn’t exactly original, I’ve never read a story about trolls before so you have to give her that. I loved the book enough to pre-order the next two books in the series entitled Torn (1st March, 2012) and Ascend (26th April, 2012) and I can’t wait to see what happens next!