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Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick

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Holly lost her mother six months ago to cancer, but she’s not stuck in her mind about it. She’s lucky to have a loving father, Jeff, and her best friend Nils is her next door neighbor with whom she spends most days in the backyard tool shed together, talking.

But Holly IS mourning her mother’s loss deeply, even if she thinks she isn’t. She’s involved with Paul, having sex, despite the fact he has a girlfriend. Then things get complicated with Nils, and Holly finds herself making enemies with her female friends. When things come tumbling down and the secrets of what Holly’s been doing spill, she’ll finally have to fess up to her grief and make solid decisions about who she is and what she wants in her life.

Nothing Like You is a character-driven story, and Holly is the type of girl you want to continuously give hugs to. She’s not acting as she acts for attention; she’s not entirely conscious of her actions, despite the fact she knows what she’s doing will eventually hurt people she cares deeply about.

The relationships among characters in this book are well done. Holly and best friend Nils have a very believable friendship. Quite frankly, their friendship development reminded me a lot of what friendships were really like in high school. It moved in waves and some times, they spent hours together and sometimes they went days without seeing each other, and it was okay. Holly has a wonderful relationship with her father, and it’s actually quite a refreshing thing to see. And not only were the established relationships well done, but Holly opened herself up to meeting new people in forging a friendship with Saskia, a girl she’d once judged as out of her league and annoying. From the beginning, too, we know exactly what the relationship between Holly and Paul would be, and it remained in that state throughout the book.

Plot wise, there’s really not too much going on here, and because of the strength in character development, it’s not necessary to have a heavy plot. Instead, this is a book invested in feeling, and Strasnick gets those feelings spot on.

Throughout the book, I both liked and disliked Holly. More than that, I think I really sympathized with her: she’d had a great loss not too long ago, and it was a loss with which she had to grapple even further because it was to breast cancer. It’d linger in her mind forever that she, too, might fall victim to the illness down the road. I really disliked some of the other decisions Holly made when it came to keeping secrets and not fessing up to her wrongdoings at any of the opportunities she had, but I still couldn’t necessarily be mad at her.

My only criticism of the book is that it’s not particularly memorable in a sea of books that feature similar elements: strong characters, parental loss, and finding oneself. The writing is efficient, and while the emotions are real and the situations feel authentic, it’s probably not going to stand out in my mind too long.

This is a quick read, and it’s one that readers will fall into quite quickly and not want to let go of until finished. Fans of Sarah Dessen, Siobhan Vivian, and Elizabeth Scott will find a lot to appreciate here. There is a lot of sex and drinking — more than what is featured in these similar authors — but I think because Holly realizes what she’s doing is not okay, readers will not get too tangled in this.

Despite what sounds a little depressing, Nothing Like You does have a positive and optimistic ending that will leave readers feeling hopeful. Rooting for Holly will pay off.

Secondhand Charm by Julie Berry

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I’m not usually a reader of much fantasy, and in my reading years, I’ve definitely neglected the fairy tale sorts of fantasy. They don’t really appeal to me. However, I know that there are a number of writers that teens love in this genre: Mette Ivie Harrison, Shannon Hale, Jessica Day George, and more recently, thanks to The Amaranth Enchantment, Julie Berry. Because I know this is a popular genre, I wanted to give Berry’s newest, Secondhand Charm, a shot. I’m glad I did.

Evie lives in a small, secluded village with her grandfather. She’s been blessed with the power of healing, too. She herself is rarely, if ever, sick and when a poor villager or visitor falls ill, she is able to nurse them quite quickly back to health. Oh, and the stonemason’s son has taken quite a shine to her, even if she hasn’t noticed. Evie wants to do a little more in her life, especially since she has a bit of a natural talent, but living in such a remote village won’t permit her to do so easily.

That is, until the big announcement that the King is coming to their village’s festival. When the townspeople scramble to put together the festival and the king arrives, Evie’s intellect and skills catch his attention when one of his footmen becomes ill. Her offers her the chance of a lifetime by extending her the money and admission to the University. The only catch, of course, is she must get there.

While at the festival herself, Evie purchases three charms from a gypsy, and those charms might be just the things that help or hinder her trip to the University. Is Evie the possessor of serpentine powers that she’s never known about? Could this unravel truths about why her mother is gone or help her see what the stonemason’s son could offer her life?

Secondhand Charm, despite not necessarily being the genre I’m comfortable with, was an enjoyable read. I felt the world was pretty easy to fall into because it was more fairy tale than fantasy. Evie was a great character, and I rooted for her throughout the entire book. She gets into a couple of tough positions on her way to the University, but I was always on her side. It’d be tough not to like a girl who has drive and desire to be a healer and get to school. Catching the attention of the king for her intellect, rather than simply beauty, just made me like her that much more.

The mythos of the serpentine powers worked quite well, too. I did find some of these passages in the story a little clunky, which may be the result of my inexperience as a reader, rather than the author’s writing. As far as plotting, this story does it well, moving at a solid pace as Evie travels, then encounters a bit of a challenge in actually getting to the end point. Even the road blocks that come up — a ship fight, a marriage between two people who shouldn’t be wed, the discovery of a horrible scene to steal land from the king, and the whole keeping a serpent hidden under one’s clothing for protection — don’t come off too quickly or drag too long. The only challenge I did have was a bit too much “tell” when Evie learns of potential serpentine powers from Annalise. The use of the charms Evie picks up on a whim works conveniently, as readers will discover at the end of the book. I quite liked this element of the story, as I wondered to myself more than once when certain charms would show up.

Because this is a clean story, with no language issues, and because it falls into the fantasy/fairy tale genre, this is a perfectly good story to hand off to your younger readers. The book suggests the audience as 10-14 year olds, and I think that’s spot on. Older teens will appreciate it, but I think this might be a true “tween” book. There seem to be few stories of this ilk aimed at that audience (much more traditional fantasy tends to be published here). Plus, isn’t this the age that dreams like Evie and hopes to change their lot through fantasy? Fortunately, they’ll discover that it’s truly Evie who held the reins entirely, changing the course of her life with her own intelligence and strong will.

Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales

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If ever a book cover did disservice to a fantastic story, it would be this one. Leila Sales’s Mostly Good Girls is a story that really stands out in a crowd and would appeal to so many readers, but unfortunately, this cover kills me. It suggests the story is something else entirely, and while it will draw some readers in, it won’t draw the readers in who probably want this story most of all.

Violet and Katie are best friends, and they have been for a long time. The two of them attend an all-girls private school near Boston, and both of them are go-getting type of girls: Violet is working hard to improve her standardized test scores and put together the school’s literary journal, where she serves as editor, and Katie has earned a perfect score on her tests and works with Violet on the junior yearbook. We begin this story as the two of them list other girls in their class and “how far they’ve gone.” Both get a good giggle out of the girls who are more experienced, as neither of them is all that interested in any particular boys. But that will change. . .

Mostly Good Girls follows Violet and Katie’s changing friendship through their junior year of high school. When Katie earns her perfect test score, Violet becomes envious, and in her determination to outdo her best friend, she misses her best friend change. Katie, despite having everything, chooses to start dating Martin, a high school graduate who chose to work as a barista instead of attend college. In Violet’s eyes, Katie’s lowered her standards, but that’s because she can’s see the true problem brewing within Katie. This will be the tipping point in the story, and it will ultimately redefine their friendship and call to question what friendship even is.

Sales’s book is not written in a completely traditional narrative story but is instead told in vignettes. We know the story takes place over one school year, but the chapters are brief snippets in time and in place. This works exceedingly well in this book, as so much of what the story would do to fill in time and space holes would bore readers. Violet and Katie are normal characters. Neither has a particularly challenging aspect to their lives; they are utterly relatable but in the course of being so, they don’t have a huge obstacle to overcome physically or emotionally. Or at least, that’s kind of what we’re led to believe.

Not only is there a non-traditional method of story telling at work here, but the humor! This is a funny book. There was more than one time I laughed out loud while reading it, and there may or may not have been passages I read out loud for my husband because I found them spot on funny. Violet and Katie are a little snarky, and they conquer problems in a manner I would. When the literary journal had some extra space due to a profuse amount of garbage being submitted, the girls write a joint story that mocks their school. I may or may not have done that once in my life, too.

Besides being funny, the situations the girls find themselves in ring true on so many levels. When Katie pairs off with Martin, she invites Violet along. Violet, in the interest of being a good friend, follows along, despite being extremely uncomfortable in this environment. She wants to be a good friend. And when she sees what Martin and his roommates are like, she’s further unsettled. Who hasn’t found themselves in a similar situation?

There is a little romance in this book. We see Katie pair off with Martin, and while we don’t necessarily see the romance blossom as readers. But we do see and experience a number of great moments with Violet, as she develops a crush on Scott. He attends a nearby all-boys school. Unfortunately, a lot gets in the way of their relationship developing beyond friendship, and some of these interruptions are downright hilarious (in particular, Violet needs a ride home from a night out with a bunch of Scott’s classmates and Katie, and when Scott pipes in to offer the ride, we see her imagining this being what leads to their ultimate marriage. Unfortunately, another guy — a less appealing one — offers a ride over Scott’s, since he lives closer. A dream deferred, if you will). Did I mention I was laughing a lot while reading this because I could relate to more than one incident here?

Back to my cover comments: this cover does not work. It does not scream that this is a story about friendship or that it’s a funny book. Instead, it says this is a school drama, and it probably involves skanky girls (look at how short her skirt is). The cover will appeal to fans of Pretty Little Liars and similar titles, but this book will not necessarily make most readers of that series happy. This is a much lighter book, with little to no interpersonal drama. Instead, this is the kind of book fans of Sarah Dessen, Jenny Han, and Siobhan Vivian will love. Many teen girls will NEED this book, to show to them that friendship isn’t always constant and that things change and shift and that that is okay and normal. This is contemporary, realistic, and funny, and without a lot of good handselling, I’m afraid it might not get into the hands of those who need it most and those who would see themselves and their friendships played out here. But believe me when I say this is a title that most teen collections need; there are too few stories about friendship that play out so realistically.

* Review copy picked up at BEA.

Jane by April Lindner

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It’s been a few years (probably 10 or more) since I’ve read the classic Bronte tale of Jane Eyre. Most of the details are pretty much lost in my mind. But let me tell you, reading April Lindner’s forthcoming Jane makes me want to pick the classic up again just to compare the original with the retold tale.

Jane Moore’s parents tragic accident forced her to make a decision that she didn’t want to make: she needed to drop out of her elite college in order to work. The investments that they had made for her had lost all value, and now she’s found herself seeking out nanny positions in hopes of making enough money to possibly return to school some day.

That’s when she’s placed as a nanny for Nico Rathburn, a rock star who everyone knows and adores . . . except Jane. She’s been sheltered and doesn’t follow pop culture, so it takes some research and hours of listening to his music to get caught up on who he is before she begins her job as his daughter’s caretaker.

Something strange is happening at his estate, though. She’s not allowed to go up to the third floor of his estate, despite the fact someone is living there. She’s woken up more than once to strange dreams and strange people wandering around, and there have been other strange events happening at Thornfield. But despite the feeling of something being off, Jane becomes enamored with Nico and Nico draws her closer and closer, until they find themselves in a very serious relationship, ready to make their love permanent. That is, until a horrible secret from Nico unravels before them.

Jane is a well-plotted story, with a cast of strong and memorable characters. Beyond the characterization and setting that make this book work well is an incredibly pleasing writing style. Lindner is a poet and this comes through clearly in her writing: it is vivid, smooth, and pleasing to the reader. This is a world I was easily swept away in because of how fluid her words ran.

Jane herself is a character for whom you have great sympathy. She never once tries to elicit this feeling from the reader, despite the hardships she’s had in her young life, and this is precisely why she gets it from the reader. It’s hard not to feel bad for a girl who has lost both her parents and her seemingly open future in one incident, and it’s even harder not to feel sorry for her when she becomes entangled in a romance that comes back to bite her. She’s strong willed and has a survivor’s fight within her, and with that, she’s willing to do what she needs to do in order to accomplish her goals. This is a theme we’ll see again and again with her.

Nico as a main male character is shrouded in mystery and allure. He’s your standard rock star but he has a different side to him. Throughout his interactions with Jane, it seems obvious he sees something much greater in her than simply her nannying skills with his daughter. At times it seems downright creepy (particularly in a scene where they’re spending time together in the pool) but the last few chapters made me rethink some of the assumptions I’d had about him. This in and of itself should speak to the writing skills of Lindner.

Though the book it set in contemporary times, this had all the feelings of a classic. While reading, it was hard not to feel like I was back in Victorian England along side the original Jane Eyre, despite the rock star musician and other pop cultural elements. It works well in this case, and I think it will give this book a little more staying time in an expanding teen market. This is the kind of book that would be well used in a classroom setting alongside the original. There are some language and situational issues to be aware of, but the book’s setting and characters make them work. They aren’t gratuitous or detract from the plot.

One element that didn’t quite work for me in this book was the pacing. This is a lengthy book — well over 400 pages — but many chapters have large time jumps in them, particularly in the second half of the book. Jane’s post-Thornfield time moves at breakneck speed, in an attempt to bring it to its conclusion more quickly. As a reader, this was a little irritating, as I found it hard to believe in some of the situations and some of the relationships she made after leaving Thornfield, and I wanted this to be as well-fleshed as her time at the estate.

This is a great book to hand to your fans of Victorian literature, as well as fans of the original Jane Eyre or similar titles. There’s romance, mystery, and a cast of enjoyable (and frustrating!) characters. Fans of Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s The Twin’s Daughter will find this an excellent readalike, as well. Give this one to your skeptics of young adult literature, too; it’s a fantastic example of what’s out there and could make those skeptics rethink their assumptions. And for people who haven’t read the original in a long time, it might just make them revisit the classic.

Did I mention that Lindner is a debut author, too? This is an author to keep an eye on. Jane comes out October 11!

*Review copy received from the publisher. Thanks!

Where the Truth Lies by Jessica Warman + Giveaway

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Emily Meckler’s life is, in short, charmed. She’s going to a private boarding school where her father is the president, and she gets to live with some of her best friends in the dorm. But when her junior year of high school resumes after a short break, things that once looked perfectly rosy take a nose dive with the arrival of the mysterious and utterly magnetic Del Sugar. Her school never lets in students mid-year, and since she didn’t hear a word about this from her father during break, Emily begins thinking something very strange is afoot, and she wants to get to the bottom of it.

What sounds like a girl-meets-mysterious-boy story is actually much more layered: turns out that everything Emily has come to believe about herself and her family may be lies. And we’re not just talking little white lies: these are the sorts of lies that may change her entire life.

Jessica Warman’s Breathless was one of the titles I dove into last fall upon its release because of the premise of secrets, family drama, and a little prep school suave. Although I ultimately had some issues with the book (similar to what I had with this particular one), the writing here is top notch. Warman has a very literary styling to her writing which requires the reader to slow down and engage. And engage I did; I was immediately drawn into Emily who, on the surface, comes off as a typical girl who has everything. But the further I fell into the real Emily, the more I had revelations similar to her — everyone has a deeper story than what’s explained on the surface.

Where the Truth Lies is a companion to Breathless but it is not essential to read her first novel to read this one. Instead, it’s much like the smooth connection Wendy Mass makes between her 11 Birthdays and Finally: we have a character who is related to the previous characters. This connection gave me a huge ah-ha moment and made me think that Warman was pretty clever. But those who don’t have that moment will not be missing out on anything essential to the story.

Warman’s prep school drama has great appeal to fans of realistic and contemporary fiction. We are dropped amid a world of wealth, privilege, drugs, sex, and secrets; it’s everything you imagine this sort of world to be where teens are left to live in dorm rooms away from their parents. Emily will fall in love with the off-limits Del who can convince her of everything, including breaking and entering into her own home. But oh, this will have so many consequences for her, and we’re not just talking about the sort that requires time writing the same line 500 times.

As much as I dug the drama (and I did), there were some issues that I struggled with through this book. First, the pacing and time passage in this book, much like in Breathless is a bit wonky; we meet Emily part way through junior year, but somehow there is a pregnancy that doesn’t quite time out appropriately. The book ends near the middle of her senior year, I think, and it seems that there are periods of time between that simply don’t exist. While I appreciate that we weren’t dragged into periods of nothingness in the novel, there was a sense of some plot points missing that could have been worked up a little more. Likewise, some of the characters who were initially really compelling (including Franny) seem to drop out of the story too quickly for my tastes. It didn’t quite make sense to me why we knew she had a hair pulling disorder if we never got much more of her. I also wish I had learned a little more why Emily became suddenly interested in a friendship with Renee, a known drug user/seller, after initially writing her off. Perhaps this is for a second volume or a third book that pulls these characters in again.

Where the Truth Lies will appeal to fans of Nina de Gramont’s edgy prep school story Gossip of the Starlings. These are darn near perfect readalikes for me, as both are full of scandal, unraveling secrets, illegal activity, and quite lovely writing. Fans of Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep and even Tom Wolfe’s I am Charlotte Simmons will find a lot to like here, as will fans of books along the lines of Gossip Girls, Pretty Little Liars, and Anna Godbersen’s The Luxe series. This is for more mature readers, for sure. I think this book will also have wide appeal to adults.

While I rarely comment on book covers fitting the book (haha), I just want to say that this is one of the most perfect captures of how I imagine the main character. Emily is a red head with long messy tresses, and she strikes me as a bit of an artsy dresser. In addition, the smoky element of the sky fits in perfectly with the smoke and water images that haunt Emily at night. Well played!

Want your own copy? Fill out the form below, and we’ll pick a winner at the end of the month.

*Review copy received from BEA, but this post is part of the Bloomsbury Tour.