The End of Everything by Megan Abbott, narrated by Emily Bauer

Synopsis:

Lizze has a wonderful life for a 13 year old girl. Since her parents’ divorce she doesn’t see her father – he moved to California – but living next door to her best friend Evie Verver makes Lizzie feel as if her family is complete. Evie’s feminine yet strong older sister Dusty is more central to Lizzie’s life than is her own brother, and Mr. Verver is a father-figure extraordinaire, plus perhaps a bit of a crush of Lizzie’s. When Evie disappears suddenly after school, though, Lizzie’s entire world turns upside down. As the person who spent the most time with Evie, Lizzie is convinced that she must know something that nobody else knows, something that can save Evie. Without her friend, Lizzie feels empty, and she cannot bear Mr. Verver’s pain, or the speculations of the girls in school as to what has become of Evie. The more she digs into her friend’s disappearance, though, the less convinced Lizze becomes that she really knew Evie at all.

Thoughts on the story:

Missing girl novels are not exactly few and far between, and they have been attempted by some fabulous authors – Stewart O’Nan’s Songs for the Missing and Hannah Pittard’s The Fates Will Find Their Way come to mind – but The End of Everything proves to be a very strong entry in the field. Looking at the entire incident from the point of view of a young girl brings an entirely different perspective. So many of these books are told at least partly through an adult’s eyes (or the eyes of multiple adults), but Lizzie brings an innocence and an urgency to the situation. So often the adult characters move very quickly to despair, or a hope that somehow seems bereft, but Lizzie continues to believe not only that Evie can be saved, but that she is the one who must somehow hold the key. Despite the fact that so much of the book is very internal with few actual plot points, Lizzie’s perspective on the situation makes for a compelling read.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Emily Bauer and Kate Simses are absolutely my favorite female narrators of young adult books. Like Simses, Bauer is both compelling and believable as a teen or young adult. While she doesn’t quite sound 13, she definitely has a young enough voice to allow the listener to suspend disbelief and accept her as a young teen without being pulled out of the story by an overly mature voice. She does a wonderful job narrating the oft-disturbing The End of Everything, thoroughly convincing me that the problems I had when listening to one of her prior audiobooks had much more to do with the story and the way the character was presented by the author than the way Bauer voiced her. This is definitely a strong audio.

Overall:

Abbott has created an extremely strong story of loss and fear, which is only enhanced by Bauer’s compelling narration. This is a great listen, but would likely be just as fabulous in print, pick it up either way.

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Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*

I encourage you to review any audiobooks on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.

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The End of Everything by Megan Abbott – Audiobook Review

Treasure Island!!!

A pet lending library (yes, that it just what it sounds like) is perhaps not the most prestigious place for a college graduate to work, but then again, it wasn’t all the great being an ice cream-scooper or gift-wrapper either. Not only is our unnamed protagonist stuck in the deadest of dead end jobs, but her relationship with her live-in boyfriend (read: the guy she mooches off of) is somewhat sub-par as well. But, while she’s not really happy, she’s also not motivated enough to change anything about how she is living – until she reads Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Never has a book had such a deep and immediate impact on a reader as Treasure Island has on her, that it is life-changing is not even hyperbole. Armed with what she sees as the books Core Values of boldness, resolution, independence, and horn-blowing, our unnamed protagonist is now ready to take on the world with hilarious results that are both predictable (to the reader) and unexpected (to her).

Never has a book been so poorly interpreted as Stevenson’s Treasure Island is by the narrator of Levine’s Treasure Island!!!. Her assessment of the Core Values may not be too far off, but her method of attempting to live them out is, frankly, bizarre, and generally involves taking little to no responsibility for her actions. Now, none of this is in any way meant to be a criticism of Levine’s Treasure Island!!!, she has actually created a wryly story about an incredibly misguided and socially inept girl who completely misses the point of what she considers to be incredibly transformational literature.

Levine’s Treasure Island!!! is fun and funny, and may make you wonder if you have ever completely missed the point of a book. If you’re interested in Levine’s process and how she came to write Treasure Island!!!, check out our interview with her on What’s Old is New.

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Source: Publisher, for an episode of What’s Old is New.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

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Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine – Book Review

Come In and Cover Me

Ever since discovering the work of a potter and artist, Ren has been a star of the archaeological community – although she hasn’t told anyone that it was the ghost of the artist who led her to her find. Professionally, she is a rising star, but personally she is damaged. The death of Ren’s brother Scott when she was twelve, and the ensuing distane the occurred between Ren and her parents, has permanently scarred her, making her unable to meaningfully engage in any relationship. Now Ren has been called in on a new dig with a man named Silas who believes he has discovered her artist in another location. Working with Silas will push Ren both personally and professionally, as she struggles with her feelings for him, and struggles to explain to him that her hunches on site are actually the result of ghosts showing her the way.

The first fifty pages of Come In and Cover Me work beautifully to draw the reader in. What is going on with Ren? Is she really seeing her dead brother’s ghost? Who is this artist whose work she has found, and how are the two of them connected?

From there, though, the book falters a bit. Phillips is a strong writer, but Ren is very difficult to connect with. Something isn’t quite right with her response to her brother’s death, namely her inability to make peace with it more than twenty years later. Her alleged ability to see ghosts also functions to distance her from the reader. Part of the issue is the question of whether or not she is actually seeing the spirits of the deceased, Silas obviously doesn’t think so, and it is never particularly clear to the reader. It does seem at times that the ghosts are a manifestation of her unconscious, but that returns to the question of how precisely she became so damaged that she pushes away relationships and sees things which aren’t really there.

Although Ren is a difficult character, Phillips has put together and interesting book – the archaeology is particularly fascinating – and I am interested in reading her first book, and whatever she may write in the future.

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Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

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Come in and Cover Me by Gin Phillips – Book Review

The Strangers on Montagu Street

This is the third book in the Tradd Street series. I previously reviewed the first two books, The House on Tradd Street and The Girl on Legare Street.

As Melanie continues renovations on her historic Tradd Street house, she finds herself confronted with yet another disturbing being. This time, though, the creature is not a ghost, but the thirteen-year-old daughter that Jack never knew he had. Newly motherless, Jack’s daughter Nola is going through a difficult time – one that is not helped when the dollhouse her grandmother buys her turns out to be haunted by malevolent spirits. Now Melanie and Jack have a new mystery to solve – if they can keep from either killing or jumping one another.

It has been two years since I read the first two books in this series, but I have fond enough memories of them that I jumped at the chance to review this book when it was offered to me. Looking back at my reviews, those memories don’t’ seem to have been distorted, I liked The House on Tradd Street fairly well, and really enjoyed The Girl on Legare Street. The Strangers on Montagu Street, however, is a huge disappointment.

I am no longer amused with the flirty will-they-won’t-they relationship between Jack and Melanie, at this point Melanie seems like more of an emotionally stunted thirteen-year-old than Nola does. I’m also sort of sick of the fakey-fake “I pretty much only eat donuts, but I’m so skinny!” characters, of which Melanie is a prime example. This sort of description adds nothing to the actual development of the character, and it is just eye-roll-inducing.

Perhaps if the ghost plot line had been novel or surprising in some way, The Strangers on Montagu Street might have been saved. Alas, the secret being hidden is obvious from half the book away, and Melanie (and Nola)’s experiences with the ghosts have much less emotional impact than in the other books. Although there was a ghost terrorizing Nola, Melanie seems too distracted to do much more than mention it as an aside, which does not help the reader buy into the fear and tension.

I think the last straw, though, is that it actually ended with a “to be continued.” This is obviously a series, and the ending very obviously leaves loose threads, there is no need to spell out the cliffhanger so bluntly. It smacked of emotional manipulation, and made me loathe to go any farther in the series.

If you want to read Karen White, pick up one of her standalone novels, or stop with the Tradd Street series after The Girl on Legare Street, you won’t miss much.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Author’s publicist.

* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

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The Strangers on Montagu Street by Karen White – Book Review

Populazzi

Ever since Cara peed her pants in kindergarten, she has never stood a chance of being one of the cool kids, the Populazzi. Now, in her junior year of high school, she might have the chance to change all that. Cara is moving to a new school, and her best friend, Claudia has the perfect plan for how Cara can move up the Populazzi ladder. Things start out well: meet a guy, date him, leap from his social group to the next one up. Soon, though, feelings get involved and things become complicated.

Okay, I loved Populazzi so, so, so much. It might have been easy not to, the picture of high school was totally cliche and I could spot the ending a mile away, but honestly, none of that mattered. Allen’s writing is engaging to the point of being infectious, and she has a gift of creating characters that you can’t help but love, even when they are doing incredibly stupid and even hurtful things. Also, I love Archer, the first guy Cara meets, so incredibly much it wasn’t even funny. He is just adorable beyond words.

Beyond her fun writing and lovable characters, Allen is not afraid to discuss issues of teen sex, lying, drug use, and eating disorders. She walks a perfect line between neither glamorizing nor overly moralizing these realities of teenage life, which is incredibly refreshing.

All in all, Populazzi was an incredibly addictive book that I simply could not put down. Highly recommended.

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Populazzi by Elise Allen – Book Review

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, narrated by Tara Sands

Synopsis:

Abandoned at birth, Victoria Jones has been a ward of the State of California her entire life. She has, of necessity, learned to be hard and guarded, expressing her feelings – typically of hate and misanthropy – through the Victorian language of flowers, taught to her by Elizabeth, the one women who was nearer than anyone else to being her mother. Now that she has aged out of her last group home, Victoria must learn to live life on her own. She finds she can make a living arranging flowers; her bouquets are imbued with meaning as she chooses flowers based on the hopes each customer has for the effect of the arrangement. Just when she thinks she is gaining stability, however, she is forced to both let down her guard, and remember in excruciating detail what went wrong in her life with Elizabeth.

Thoughts on the story:

Vanessa Diffenbaum has created in The Language of Flowers a beautiful and moving story that nearly gave me a heart attack more than once. Victoria is a worrying character, initially, seeming very hard and closed off, but it is not long before the reader is sucked into her life, experiencing her 18 years of pain, and the slim hope that she has for the future. Her growth is really, it happens organically and, although it experiences setbacks, it produces beautiful results. The language of flowers is woven perfectly into the story, enhancing both plot and character development, and giving the book an extra something special to really set it apart.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Narrator Tara Sands was perfect for this part. For one thing, she sounded age appropriate for Victoria, which is always something that worries me in audiobooks with young protagonists. More importantly, however, she was able to capture the contradictions in Victoria’s character, the fragility under her crusty veneer. For more information on the audio, please see my review for Audiofile Magazine.

Overall:

This was a beautiful book and an lovely audio production. Enjoy it in print or in audio! Highly recommended

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*

I’m launching a brand-new meme every Friday! I encourage you to review any audiobooks you review on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.

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The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh – Audiobook Review

Practical Jean

Her mother’s death hit Jean Vale Horemarsh hard. Really hard. It isn’t so much that Jean misses her mother. On the contrary, Marjorie was always fairly terrible to Jean, or at least not very nurturing and maternal. No, the hard part for Jean about her mother’s death is just how painful and degrading and difficult it was, no human being should have to go through that. It would have been so much better had Jean thought to spare her mother the pain and simply ended things early. Ah, well, it is too late now for Marjorie, but Jean and her acquaintances are aging rapidly these days, and just maybe she can spare her friends the same fate that consumed her mother. Ending their lives in a moment of happiness, before they become sick and infirm; what could be more practical?

Practical Jean is a fascinatingly dark look at aging and the bonds of friendship. What is our obligation to the ones we love? What if those friends don’t have quite the same expectations of your friendship? Jean is an oddly sympathetic character. Clearly something in her snapped at her mother’s death for her to want to provide her friends with a moment of ultimate happiness and then kill them, but the way Cole develops Jean’s character and the story, she seems almost – but not quite – logical. One thing that Cole does really well in Practical Jean is give Jean’s friends enough depth to make them life-like, without making the reader truly attach to them so that the plotting of their deaths makes Jean seem monstrous.

There is a bit of a slow start to Practical Jean, before Jean decides the best thing she could possibly do would be to kill all of her friends when the story just sort of meanders. Once she gets going, though the reader cannot help but turn the pages with morbid curiosity. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

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Practical Jean by Trevor Cole – Book Review

Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber, narrated by Tamara Marston

Synopsis:

Avis and Brian Muir have what seems like it should be a happy life. They live in a big house in a wealthy community in Miami. Avis has a job that she loves. Brian has a job he at least likes, and one that more than pays the bills. They have two lovely and intelligent children. When their daughter Felice runs away at thirteen, though, the entire family falls apart. Now, five years later, they have fallen even farther, even as they continue to hope that they may someday because a “real” family again, whatever that might mean.

Thoughts on the story:

Abu-Jaber is extremely skilled at getting inside her characters heads, going so far as showing the reader the neurosis of which the characters themselves may not even be aware. In Birds of Paradise, she manages the often difficult task of fully fleshing out all four members of the family, making each of them seem real, bringing to life their hopes and their foibles. Felice’s storyline is particularly interesting. Although the secret that drove her to running away is relatively easy to guess, it is believable, even logical by the standards of her young teenage self.

Thoughts on the audio production:

This is where Birds of Paradise fell apart for me. Marston seemed more like she was reading Abu-Jaber’s text than like she was narrating or performing it. She had a great command of accents – a necessity for the multicultural world in which the Muirs live – but there was little to no passion in her voice, which is somewhat of a problem in a book with such deep emotions from its characters. Also, she had an incorrect and obnoxious pronunciation of the state Oregon that just pulled me right out of the book and annoyed me every time she said it. Marston’s narration really detracted from the potential power of Abu-Jaber’s story.

Overall:

Be prepared to become emotionally involved in the lives of the Muirs if you pick up Birds of Paradise, but for full effect choose print.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*

I’m launching a brand-new meme every Friday! I encourage you to review any audiobooks you review on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.

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Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber – Audiobook Review

Little Gale Gumbo

In 1977, Camille Bergeron fled New Orleans and her abusive husband with her daughters Dahlia and Josie. A Creole woman willing to work a little voodoo didn’t exactly go over well on Little Gale Island in Maine, but the Bergeron women made it work for themselves, made at least some of the inhabitants of the town love them – enough to bring them into the fold a bit, as well as to get them into trouble. Now, in 2002, their pasts have caught up to them and suddenly their father is dead and the man they always thought of as their father is in a fight for his life.

Dahlia and Josie are rich, complex characters who lead very interesting lives as fish out of water in Maine. They are mostly accepted by townspeople, but truly welcomed by very few, even after having lived on Little Gale Island for 25 years. Marks draws them realistically, especially considering that their present selves are only the stars of half of the book, since the other half deals with the time from when Camille met her husband up through the girls’ lives in Maine. In addition to having wonderful characters, the plot of Little Gale Gumbo pulls the reader right along, trying to figure out what really happened between the two men, as well as what might still happen for the sisters and their love interests.

A quick and satisfying read. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

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Little Gale Gumbo by Erika Marks – Book Review

If Jack’s In Love

If there’s anything worse than being a 12-year old boy, it is being a brilliant 12-year old boy born into the family that the whole town shuns. Oh, and even worse than that is having your brother suspected in the disappearance of one of the town’s most popular young men, who just happens to be the older brother of the girl you have a crush on. Actually, life as Jack Witcher is just sort of crummy in general.

If Jack’s In Love is a wonderful coming-of-age story. Jack is a compelling young man with a very interesting voice. His character was consistent with that of a 12-year old, without falling into the trap of being particularly obnoxious in an effort on Wetta’s part to prove that Jack is indeed 12.

The storyline Wetta has created is very interesting, looking at the incidents between Jack’s brother Stan and the missing boy, wondering whether or not Stan really did something dire and irreversible. The real heart of the story, however, is Jack and his reactions to the world around him, his fight to be accepted without giving up who he is at heart.

There is much discussion these days about what constitutes a young adult book, and what an adult book. Many people would likely classify If Jack’s In Love immediately as young adult, due to the age of its main character. It seems, however, that Wetta is coming at this from a distinctly more adult point of view, while still staying true to Jack. Although there is certainly cross-over appeal for teenagers, If Jack’s In Love is a bildungsroman written for an adult audience – and a good one, at that.

Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

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If Jack’s In Love by Stephen Wetta – Book Review