The Book Addict Reviews: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Genre: Young Adult, Middle Grade, Historical Fiction, Mysteries & Detectives, Family Life
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Goodreads | Website
Rating: 4 stars
Borrowed this book from the library. 

In A Nutshell:
When I first heard about this book, I was not sure what to expect.  Would it feel too much like a picture book to hold the attention of an adult?  But I kept hearing people talk about it so I took the plunge.  This book is not like any picture book I have ever read before.  Yes, some elements of the story only come out in the illustrations, but the story that Brian Selznick weaves is much more complicated and full of intrigue than any other picture book I have ever read.

Review:
Hugo has been left alone in the train station where his uncle (who was serving as his reluctant guardian) serviced all of the clocks.  Afraid of what could happen to him if the officials at the train station learn he is alone, Hugo has taken over servicing all of the clocks hoping that no one notices him.  As this story unfolded, I really felt terrible on Hugo's behalf.  He went from a very loving and caring household with his father, to feeling like a nuisance and an inconvenience.

This loss of the connection he felt with his father led Hugo to fixate on the one physical thing that he still has to connect to his father.  And through the illustrations, we are able to capture some of the nuances and impact of Hugo's feelings and reactions more realistically than I imagine we would in a written text.  We see his face and how his expressions change the same way we would an acquaintance or a friend.  And that is the progression that Hugo made for me over the course of the story--he went from being an acquaintance I wanted to understand to a friend I valued.

But Brian Selznick did not just create one endearing character, he created a whole cast of them.  From the Station Inspector Hugo is constantly hiding from to the Etienne the friend who starts the chain reaction that brings Rene Tabard to Georges Melies' door, there is so much complexity and intrigue that I did not want the story to end.  Even now I want to know what happened after--what adventures did Isabel and Hugo go on after the final scene? 

Recommendations:
I just saw that Brian Selznick has another book out--and now I have to read it!

The Book Addict Reviews: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Genre: Young Adult, New Experiences, Family Life, Social Issues
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info:  Website | Goodreads
Rating: 3 stars
Borrowed book from library. 

In A Nutshell:
It is almost ironic that I had read this book and was writing this review when an event happened that changed my life forever (if you don't know what I am referring to please see Taking A Break).  After everything has happened, I re-read what I wrote and the magnitude of this story hit me even more.  As someone who has lost someone important in the blink of an eye, I can say this book has an impact beyond what I initially thought and expected.

Review:
It has often been said that your life can change in the blink of an eye.  Mia can tell you that better than anyone.  One moment she was in the car with her family listening to a classical song and finguring  the next moment she is looking at the crumpled remains of the family car and watching the emergency rescue people trying to save her life. 

Wait--how can she be watching that?  Mia struggles with seeing everything going on around her, seeing everything that is happening to her, but not quite understanding what it all means.  Is she alive?  Is she dead?  Does she want to continue to fight to live?  Does she want to join her family?  But the biggest question she has is how to make what she decides to do actually happen?

I have seen this idea of the consciousness leaving the body in movies such as Ghost Dad and Ghost, but I feel that Gayle Forman has added something different to the mix.  In both Ghost Dad and Ghost, the ghosts desperately want to get back to their bodies or their lives.  Mia struggles with what she wants to do.  Either way, she knows her life has changed.  So which way will she choose? 

Recommendations:
In some ways, the ending disappointed me a little.  There was no closure, but I just learned that there is more to Mia's story:

The Book Addict Reviews: Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Genre: Young Adult, Poetry, Family Life, Social Issues
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Website | Goodreads
Rating: 4 stars
Borrowed from the library. 

In A Nutshell:
Every time I start one of Ellen Hopkins' novels I know I am in for quite a ride.  Crank was no exception.  Because the topic is so heavy, it is hard to say I loved it--but I am glad I read it and cannot wait to read more!

Review:
Ellen Hopkins' novels are always hard for me to read and review.  Her style is so different from any other author I have read.  Her poetry allows her to get to the heart of the matter, to get inside the head and heart of her characters without having to be concerned about grammar and sentence structure.  It feels very raw, very emotional, and very real.

But her stories are not light-hearted or easy to read.  She addresses issues such as addiction and rape head on.  While I appreciate her honest and open handling of these issues, it is not always easy to read. 

I think what scared me the most when I read most when I read Crank was how quickly and how completely the monster took over Kristina/Bree's life.  We get glimpses of her life before--and it seemed fairly normal.  But suddenly she met the monster and it ended up taking over her life.  As a parent, I find myself asking what could I do to stop this situation from happening to my daughter?

We get mentions that Kristina was struggling with Bree before she ever went to her dad's house, but that is one thing that we did not learn more about as Kristina/Bree fell deeper and deeper into the grasp of the monster.  I am hoping that in the next installment we can learn more about that struggle--how did it start and does she eventually conquer it?

Recommendations:
I already have the next book on reserve at the library!

This book allows me to see what other authors thoughts were on both Crank and Glass.  I cannot wait to be able to read it!

The Book Addict Reviews: Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

Genre: Young Adult, Poetry, Family Life
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Website | Goodreads
Rating: 4 stars
Picked this book up in a Paperbackswap game.

In A Nutshell:
As I closed Tricks, I literally cried for these characters. I was so taken with the loss of hope they each expressed. The loss of hope that led them to prostitution, gambling, and drugs was overwhelming. I kept coming back to the thought that we as a society have to figure out how to ensure that everyone has hope. Everyone has a chance. Everyone has choices. And everyone has value.

Review:
The more I read Ellen Hopkins, the more I gain a love and appreciation for poetry. Her poems allow her to express the thoughts and emotions of her characters in a way that I have not seen in traditionally written stories. When something happens in my own life, when I have to think through my feelings or emotions; I do not always think in complete sentences. A lot of times it is fragments, images, or just words tumbling out. I get that feeling about Ellen Hopkins’ characters from her poetry. It feels very authentic and allows me to connect to her characters in a way that I don’t see myself connecting to characters in other stories.

Tricks is not an easy story to read. Her characters are struggling with their sexual identity, the relationships with family members, death of a parental figure, abuse, and misguided affections. In many ways, they feel like they have lost their hope that things can be better or different, and that can be hard to read. But I learn from it. I learn a lot about how teens think. As an adult, I could see the flaws in their thinking and in the decisions they made that led them to prostitution, gambling, and/or drug abuse. But I could see how the teens in Tricks could feel as though they had no other choice. And I think we as a society owe it to our teens (to everyone really) to ensure that they do not lose their hope.

Recommendations:
After my review of Identical by Ellen Hopkins, I told you all that I wanted to read more of her books.  Tricks increased my desire to read all of her books.  Next on my list:

Series In Review: Summer Novels by Jenny Han

Series are a tricky thing. I have series that I love as a whole, but an individual book within the series did not impress me.  So I am not always sure that reviewing the individual books is fair to the author's vision. However, I do not want to postpone all of my reviews of the books within a series until the end. With those thoughts in mind I decided to start Series In Review. In these postings, I will be looking at more than one book in the series or if possible the entire series at one time.
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**This review may contain spoilers for some of the books in the series**

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Friendship, Family Life, Romance
Books Released in Series: The Summer I Turned Pretty, It's Not Summer Without You, and We'll Always Have Summer
Author Info: Website | Goodreads
Rating: 2 Stars
Books purchased or borrowed from friends.
  
In A Nutshell:

After reading the first two books, I was glad I read this one and saw how the story came to an end, but I would not recommend this series to someone who has not already started it.  I struggled with the love triangle involving two brothers for a good portion of the series.  While I do believe Jenny Han ended this series in the best way possible given everything in this storyline, I would not describe the end as satisfying.  

Review:

I started this series because I was intrigued with the memory of the summer I turned pretty—the summer when boys started to see me as a cute girl rather than one of the boys.  However, there were also other small aspects of this series that I had trouble with even in that first book.  First, I do not think a teen girl would continue using the nickname Belly, particularly once she started high school.  It particularly did not ring true for me that she would keep going by Belly after the boys she had a love interest in called her nicknames, such as Belly Button.   

Second, I have struggled with the love triangle involving brothers since the end of the first book.  I admit that I was so intrigued that I felt compelled to continue reading until the end of the series to see if this story could end in a satisfying way.  I say compelled in the same sense that people are compelled to rubber neck on the freeway when they see an accident.  But can a love triangle that involves two brothers really have a happy ending?  Can they still have a close brother relationship if they both asked the same girl to marry them?  I can only imagine how family dinners will be in the future, but the word “awkward” comes to mind.  I commend Jenny Han because I can see she strives to accomplish a happy ending, and I could not see a better ending than the one that she wrote.  However, I would not say I necessarily felt satisfied at the end.

Third, one brother repeatedly pushes Belly away and leaves her alone when she needs him the most.  His actions towards her ruined many of her memories, including her memories of going to prom.  His actions towards her affected how she saw herself, how much she valued herself; she consistently wanted to please him.  The other brother hooks up with someone else while he and Belly were “on a break” and then comes back to her without telling her anything.  If he had told Belly about it, I would not have been so frustrated with him.  I probably would not have even considered it cheating since they were “on a break,” but he only admits it happened after Belly overhears the girl talking about it at a party. 

So I found myself asking repeatedly throughout the series, “why does she love them?”  The attachment comes off as more based their shared history and in some instances her affection for Susannah.  Is that true love?  Is that really what people should be striving to find?  Is that “love” going to last?  I have doubts.  And there were many times throughout the series that I found myself wishing Belly would see that she did not deserve to be treated this way. 

Fourth, in the end there were a lot of claims that things had changed.  In particular that Conrad valued Belly more and was willing to give her the love she deserved, but there was little proof offered to the reader.  There were glimpses and allusions to things he had done to prove that he had changed to her.  However, after spending the bulk of We’ll Always Have Summer detailing a few months of their lives, the last couple of chapters chronicled a few years without many details. 

One detail in particular that I was sorry to that the reader did not get to see Susannah’s letters to the boys. Since we were able to read Susannah’s letter to Belly, I really felt we should have seen Conrad’s letter because Susannah’s letter to Conrad was a turning point for him.  It seemed to be one of the things that led Conrad to value Belly and her love more. 

 

Recommendations:
While I may have not been gushing about this series, part of what kept me reading was that I liked Jenny Han's writing style, so I would like to try other Jenny Han books.
 
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