Category: Z-Old Users (Page 34 of 50)

BOOK REVIEW – Fell of Dark by Patrick Downes

June 27, 2015 /
BOOK REVIEW – Fell of Dark by Patrick DownesFell of Dark by Patrick Downes
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:

A book that challenges the word "powerful" and obliterates it

Written in searing prose, this is the story of two boys: Erik, who performs miracles, and Thorn, who hears voices. The book chronicles their lives as their minds devolve into hallucinations, and shows the way their worlds intersect, culminating in a final stand-off.

This debut novel offer a raw, insightful look at the forces that compel us to act against our will. Even more so, it captivates and dares us to look away, knowing full well we can't.

► Trust me, if a book can become an instant favorite and yet make me wary to recommend it, it’s this one. From what I could read, the opinions are mixed (just look at the ratings) and I can’t say that I don’t understand why – anyway, sorry if it comes out with know it all vibes, but to me? This book deserves more praise, because it challenges yourself as a reader and delivers a complex cast of characters that I’m not likely to forget anytime soon. And if we get our new vampire or cute romance every week in the new release charts (we do), I can’t find another book like this one – how powerful it is for a compliment, tell me?

“Speak only when they’re something worth saying. Speak only when it’s necessary. When is there anything worth saying? Can you tell me? When is it necessary?”

After reading several reviews, the complaint that emerges the most is the fact that there’s no plot. With this I both agree and disagree (and now you can wrap your head in your arms and yell, because I do realize that I’m telling anything and everything with this sentence).

Yes it has no regular, well-wrapped plot, as we follow slices of life from two different narrators, Erik and Thorn, throughout several periods of times. Therefore if you expect a beginning, a middle, and a end (exposition – rising action – resolution) you’ll probably end disappointed.

However, I never stopped thinking that the path that we readers followed was making sense but perhaps I’m just that sort of weird. Maybe. Boris Vian and André Breton have owned my heart all my teenage years, after all. So, who knows – surely not me.

“I wish all the voices I hear inside my head would melt down into one voice, a voice I can trust.”

Nevertheless, what I do know is the fact that Fell of dark was such a gripping, compelling read that I couldn’t put it down from the moment I started it, even though I only planned to steal a glance at it.

As for the writing, I found it absolutely incredible, and I’m weighing my words here. Actually, this is the kind of books that make me overjoyed to be able to read in English, because I’m not sure a translation could do justice to all the beautiful experimentations Patrick Downes uses, from the haunting metaphors to the short and even one word sentences. I loved it to pieces, as in my opinion nothing is useless and every sentence serves its purpose, whether it’s to make me think or feel.

“You people. You people.
Youpeopleyoupeopleyoupeople. Cowards, every one of you. What, what, what, what keeps your legs from breaking under all the weight of your fears and lies and hatred? Human beings. I’m not one of you. I’m outside your fences. I’m running around you at the speed of light, you goddamn beasts. But you think I’m the monster.”

I felt everything – every struggle the characters must face, and trust me, there’re plenty. Indeed from Erik’s letter to its future wife to Thorn’s wanderings through the several voices spreading from his head, what Patrick Downes offers us is a poignant descent into madness that managed to break my heart and made me tearing up at the most random moment. Now, that’s what I call a brilliant author, and I’m not too shy to write it : Patrick Downes, I admire you.

► To be frank, the only reason that prevented me from rating it 5 stars is the ending, which was strangely anticlimactic in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about what happened in the end, no. But the truth is, I expected another way to relate it, something else than the dialogues that left me feeling almost empty. Anyway, it’s a matter of personal taste, so perhaps you’ll like it more. Please tell me.

BOOK REVIEW – Crushed (Soul Eaters #2) by Eliza Crewe

June 26, 2015 /
BOOK REVIEW – Crushed (Soul Eaters #2) by Eliza CreweCrushed (Soul Eaters #2)
by Eliza Crewe
Purchase on: Amazon
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:

Meda Melange has officially hung up her monstrous mantle and planted her feet firmly on the holy and righteous path of a Crusader-in-training. Or, at least, she’s willing to give it a shot. It helps that the Crusaders are the only thing standing between her and the demon hordes who want her dead.

The problem is, the only people less convinced than Meda of her new-found role as Good Girl are the very Crusaders she’s trying to join. So when a devilishly handsome half-demon boy offers escape, how’s a girl supposed to say “no?”

After all, everyone knows a good girl’s greatest weakness is a bad boy.

► I’m the black sheep of the crowd on this one, and to be frank, it’s the first time I pondered if I would post a review or not, because at first I felt like I wouldn’t be able to explain my feelings. But it was without counting my complete inability to shut up. Hey, everyone has his own flaws, right?

Just – hear me out : I can’t deny that Eliza Crewe does an INCREDIBLE job at ruining all the stereotypes we can expect in a PNR, and for that, really, BRAVO. As you will see, I developed more my reproaches because let’s face it : most of readers agree with what I loved. No need to explain again why Meda is amazing.

▒ Awesome facts about Crushed ▒

▧ No TSTL heroine, but Meda, basically the most powerful weapon living on earth and a believable selfish person by the way (believable because really? How many selfless people do you think there are on Earth? Huh? Am I pessimistic? I am pessimistic). Not to mention her sarcastic thoughts and her craving for freedom. Favorite scene? Her coloring-bonding with little children. PRECIOUS.

▧ No instalove, but characters who struggle to trust each others, and WITH REASONS, because duh, war it is.

▧ No girl hate, but FRIENDSHIP GUYS!! Woot woot! (I missed Chi, though)

▧ Armand is quite stereotypical but then, his puppy sexy eyes won. Well this and the fact that he doesn’t hide behind false pretences : you want a demon? You got a demon. Bad, bad me. Oh, and for ONCE here’s a French character who doesn’t annoy me (even if the French accent has no effect on me, of course). I even giggled a little at his “mademoiselle” –

Mademoiselle. Do you know that officially this word isn’t meant to be used anymore in France? YES BECAUSE WE’RE ALL MADAMES NOW (yes, it’s in the law, for the official papers anyway). And I fucking love it. It’s no one business if I’m married or not, and I don’t need to be married to get the “adult word” that “madame” always was. Not to mention that men never had this kind of “young word”. But I digress, sorry.

“You arranged a murder?” Awww, that’s so sweet.
“Nothing elaborate, of course.” He grins slyly. “Didn’t want to overdo it on a first date.”
And he ruins it.”

▧ Feminists vibes, which if subtle, were definitely here. My favorite of the bunch is …

“Some might call me a ‘tease’, but I don’t believe it. ‘Tease’ implies that I owe him something, that I should feel guilty. As if my flirtation is forced on him and he merely tolerates it for an eventual pay-out. That’s bullshit. We both have goals in our little game; why should his goal (sex) take priority over mine (to mess with his head)? Is it because he’s a man?”

YOU GO GIRL. *thumbs up*

▒ Let me down facts about Crushed ▒

▧ In my opinion the story dragged in the first half, and if I always loved Meda, the plot never captivated me. Look, I see what makes this book a favorite for a lot of my friends, I really do. This is a complete case of “It’s not the book but me”, because I have to admit that I wasn’t enthralled as I thought I would be. To be frank, I think that I’m not a PNR reader anymore – Plots involving demons and all that stuff just rub me the wrong way and that’s the same thing with Urban Fantasy : It’s not for me, not for now, anyway.

▧ We don’t know enough things about the demons AT ALL. Maybe that’s just me, but I like to make my opinion by myself and as it is, I don’t know them enough. One might argue that DUH, demons are demons for fuck sake (!!!) but isn’t it the whole point of the series? If Meda gets to catch our attention and love because nothing is as simple as it seems, why couldn’t we learn more about the demons and their possible complex nature?  Because tell me, if the demons are bad and the crusaders are the good ones, what’s new to this? Let’s face it, we already know that the crusaders aren’t perfect, and I LOVE THAT. I only want for the demons to not be Manichean either, but perhaps am I asking for too much.

▧ Miscommunications. Hey, don’t look at me. I never hid that it IS one of my peeves. I can’t wrap my head around situations where people only had to TALK to each others for the story to change.

▧ Was I supposed to not guess one of the end’s major twist? Huh? While it didn’t prevent me from liking the story, I can’t say that I didn’t see it coming. And frankly, I didn’t feel a lot of things. I don’t know. Oh, well. I can’t force myself to feel invested.

► Here I am – while I liked following Meda again, sadly the story didn’t hold my interest the whole time I was reading and yeah, I’m disappointed. But then, I’m clearly in the minority on this one, so don’t let my opinion stop you from meeting Meda, because the girl ROCKS.

BLOG TOUR + BOOK REVIEW + GIVE-AWAY – Under the Lights (Daylight Falls #2) by Dahlia Adler

June 24, 2015 /

BLOG TOUR + BOOK REVIEW + GIVE-AWAY - Under the Lights (Daylight Falls #2) by Dahlia Adler

BLOG TOUR + BOOK REVIEW + GIVE-AWAY – Under the Lights (Daylight Falls #2) by Dahlia AdlerUnder the Lights (Daylight Falls #2)
by Dahlia Adler
Purchase on: Amazon
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
Josh Chester loves being a Hollywood bad boy, coasting on his good looks, his parties, his parents' wealth, and the occasional modeling gig. But his laid-back lifestyle is about to change. To help out his best friend, Liam, he joins his hit teen TV show, Daylight Falls...opposite Vanessa Park, the one actor immune to his charms. (Not that he's trying to charm her, of course.) Meanwhile, his drama-queen mother blackmails him into a new family reality TV show, with Josh in the starring role. Now that he's in the spotlight—on everyone's terms but his own—Josh has to decide whether a life as a superstar is the one he really wants.

Vanessa Park has always been certain about her path as an actor, despite her parents' disapproval. But with all her relationships currently in upheaval, she's painfully uncertain about everything else. When she meets her new career handler, Brianna, Van is relieved to have found someone she can rely on, now that her BFF, Ally, is at college across the country. But as feelings unexpectedly evolve beyond friendship, Van's life reaches a whole new level of confusing. And she'll have to choose between the one thing she's always loved...and the person she never imagined she could.

“The thing is, K-drama, sometimes you just have to accept that no one else’s opinion means shit, you know? Sometimes you just have to do what makes you happy and say fuck to everyone else.”

► These characters sound so REAL to me, I can’t even express how much I find this fantastic. Yes, I have to admit that it took me ages to warm to them, but in the end? In the end I’m glad to have had the opportunity to follow them.

✘ Josh is this guy we see in a Reality TV show and ask ourselves what the fuck he did to deserve (Haha, talk about a super prize) to show his life on TV. The fact is, I’m not objective because I hate that stuff. I have zero interest in anything celebrities related, especially when it comes to their love life/partying/children. I don’t fucking care about that. So, you know, I should hate him. I should despise him – I don’t. Truth be told, he annoyed and maddened me sometimes, but no, I don’t loathe him. Yet I did get pissed at his continual comments about girls doing blowjobs to him. I mean, was it really necessary to refer to them every time he was at a party? Every fucking time? I don’t think so. But move on.

So, yeah. Josh’s an asshole and a womanizer – sorry but there’s no other way to put it. Josh’s an asshole and yet, I doesn’t hate him, because first he’s unapologetic and doesn’t ask for people – including the readers – to love him and then he isn’t the love interest here. Don’t get fooled, I’m not saying that he’s that kind of super jerk but broken inside many authors LOVE throwing at us, because he’s not. He’s way more complex and interesting than that. According to me, although he doesn’t strike people as the unconfident type, he’s afraid and doesn’t trust himself for shit. In my opinion? He’s just feeling lonely but hey, I’m not a psy you know, only a teacher^^. Anyway – Josh struggles to become the person he wants to be, hell, he doesn’t even know who he wants to be, and to see him growing up was fantastic.

✘ I’m not gonna lie, Vanessa wasn’t my favorite person in Behind the Scenes. Not because of the scheme they had to play with Liam (in my opinion Allie should have said what she thought, but hey, who am I to judge?) but although she was an interesting character, I had a hard time relating to her and yes, I have to admit that to me she was quite a bore.

So, did she improve here? Well, I kind of hated her at first. She annoyed me so much. But in the end? Definitely. Even if she doesn’t become my favorite character, being in her head helped me to understand her better, and in the end, I’m glad to have gotten the opportunity to really know her, even if I wasn’t always feeling involved in her story unfortunately. I mean, I enjoyed her romance with Brin, but in my opinion we didn’t get enough time to really become involved in their relationship. I definitely wanted more of them together, let’s say.

✘ I know they aren’t under the lights here (Haha) but can I say that I was ecstatic to see Liam and Allie again? Well, let’s be frank, mostly Liam. Really, I don’t know under what spell I fell, but every time he appears I can’t help but smile like a complete moron. However, I have to say that to see their relationship’s evolution through Vanessa and Josh’s eyes worried me something fierce. Of course I understand that life goes in the way and that people, even in love, don’t always act perfectly but damn, that was painful for me, and sometimes I felt like Liam acted out of character. And… Oh, fuck that. I’m just gonna say it : I cared more about Liam than I did about Josh or Vanessa, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing. Is it because I love his character too much that I wasn’t able to completely invest myself in their story? I don’t know. Maybe. It’s just how it was.

✘ Finally, the other girls – namely Shannah and all – were portrayed as such stereotypical bitches, for real, and as in Behind the Scenes, it did bother me. Really, it made me wonder if I was just too naive about the girls living in that world – anyway, I can’t believe that they’re all like that, I can’t, and if I’m wrong, well, it’s on me.

► When I reread what I wrote about the characters, it occurs to me that you may wonder why I liked this book if I wasn’t their biggest fan, but THAT’S THE THING!I’ll take flawed but realistic characters over perfectly boring ones any day, as long as the author doesn’t try to justify their actions. Dahlia Adler never does that. Josh is an asshole? Sure. Nobody is forcing me to love him – yet he is complex and multi-layered, he evolves, so YES, he IS interesting as a character (and he did make me laugh so much, but then, I may have an horrible sense of humor, because you know, I’m French and all)

Well, despite the fact that I didn’t quite like it as much as Behind the scenesbut let’s face it, I’m such a fangirI when it comes to Liam, I can’t even believe myself, I thought it was a pretty courageous book, for starters, because it comes as a surprise.

Indeed this is NOT our regular contemporary romance. And this is so much BETTER as it is.

✘ This is not about a guy who’s going to fix some girl – or some guy, for that matter.

▪” /> This is about finding your place in the world.
▪” /> This is about difference and how to live in a world that put people in little boxes.
▪” /> This is about emancipation and how to learn to be true to yourself.
▪” /> This is about friendship and family – and what we’re ready to do to protect it.

And yes, we get to see Liam again but I have to stop being obsessed now. I swear, I will!

Oh, and by the way, this writing? I’m in love with it, and I shall read anything Dahlia Adler writes.

 

“Anyone who doesn’t want you to be happy with who you are is an asshole. Fuck pleasing everyone else. You only live once. Who are you gonna do it for?”

► What are you waiting for? Go discover these awesome books!

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Follow the Under The Lights by Dahlia Adler Blog Tour and don’t miss anything! Click on the link to see the tour schedule.
I’m an Associate Editor of Mathematics by day, a Copy Editor by night, and I blog at The Daily Dahlia, YA Misfits, and the Barnes & Noble book blog. I also write contemporary YA (The Daylight Falls duology) and NA (The Radleigh University series). Rec-ing books is approximately my favorite thing in the universe, with macarons being a close second. Come say hi on Twitter, where I’m @MissDahlELama!
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BOOK REVIEW – Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S King

June 21, 2015 /
BOOK REVIEW – Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S KingEverybody Sees the Ants by A.S King
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:

Lucky Linderman didn't ask for his life. He didn't ask his grandfather not to come home from the Vietnam War. He didn't ask for a father who never got over it. He didn't ask for a mother who keeps pretending their dysfunctional family is fine. And he didn't ask to be the target of Nader McMillan's relentless bullying, which has finally gone too far.

But Lucky has a secret--one that helps him wade through the daily mundane torture of his life. In his dreams, Lucky escapes to the war-ridden jungles of Laos--the prison his grandfather couldn't escape--where Lucky can be a real man, an adventurer, and a hero. It's dangerous and wild, and it's a place where his life just might be worth living. But how long can Lucky keep hiding in his dreams before reality forces its way inside?

 

Let’s clear the air right away : Each and every one of the characters is complex and believable, from the teenagers to the adults in their lives. As it is, they’re flawed. They’re realistic. Once again I have to say that in my book that’s the most important in a contemporary. I don’t care about perfect people, otherwise I would read old fairytales, you know, those where the girl is waiting for her perfect guy to step in to save the day. *pukes*

✐ A.S King created such a believable and relatable voice for Lucky – I mean relatable in the “I talk 2659 words in a minute way” because strangely, while reading the book I couldn’t help but feel like Lucky spoke in a really fast fashion. Am I weird? Tell me? Anyway – I talk like that. Well, I learnt to talk slower because, DUH, it’s better for a teacher when your pupils actually UNDERSTAND what you say but in my personal life? Talk with my boyfriend, he’ll tell you. I’m exhausting. But move on.

“Apparently, Evelyn Schwartz went blabbing to the guidance counselor about my questionnaire. She said it was “morbid” and “creepy”. (Evelyn Schwartz has a T-shirt that says HE DIED FOR ME with a picture of a dead guy nailed to a cross on it. Oh, the irony.)”

Moreover, I’m a sucker for this kind of irreverent humor, and from the moment Lucky joked about the guy who died for this annoying girl, I knew that he and I would be BBF forever. And guess what! I was right! Happy dance right now because to be right is such an awesome feeling (sorry about that). Don’t get fooled by his sarcastic humor though, because Lucky’s inner thoughts are sometimes full of self-deprecation – don’t say you don’t know what I mean. But I’ll come back to that later.

► This book made me furious. So angry at all these cowards, because you know what? That’s sadly believable.

“Because it’s not about kicking his ass. It’s about getting away from him. Getting away from all assholes. I don’t want to become one – I just want to escape them.”

Indeed this book deals with bullying , and in my opinion A.S King handled this tough issue with a lot of honestly and talent. Indeed contrary to other books I could read, every struggle, every fear, every despair Lucky feels strikes an honest and familiar chord, making him so relatable to me even though I’ve never been bullied. Yeah, I’ve never been bullied, maybe (I hope) you’ve never been either, but then, who can say without a doubt that he never felt awkward or worthless or lonely someday? Who? Let’s be frank : nobody. Everybody sees the ants, guys. Everybody knows these moments where it seems that nobody can understand who they are and what they need.

Moreover, to me the way the adults were portrayed was pretty realistic, as it showed the different reactions children meet when facing bullying. As a teacher, I often have to deal with children’s fights or altercations and the two most frequent reactions from adults are 1)You have to ignore them and 2)Why didn’t you fight back?. The truth is, it doesn’t work most of the time. It doesn’t work, and children know it – they need us to step in and help them, to frame the discussion between them. Young bullies need someone to tell them that IT’S NOT RIGHT, and bullied need to be heard and feel understood. In my opinion to let 7-10 years old children deal with this kind of things alone is a fucking coward move, but sadly, it is how most of adults react. This or as Aunt Jodie, calling specialists without even LISTENING for starters. Oh, and do you know what maddens me the most? People who tell me that it’s “children worthless stuff”. Yeah, right. Because it’s so funny to be pushed or belittled. I mean, come on. Stop being assholes. Yes I believe that children need to talk together to solve their problems but they do need us to provide them a safe bubble to manage that. I don’t care who their parents are, at school they’re all equals and each and every one of them must follow the rules. That’s all. For sure I’m not saying that I have all the answers, because I don’t, and maybe there aren’t right answers. But I try. It’s frightening, but I try, and if I’m sure that I fuck up badly sometimes, well, I do my best anyway, and I can only hope that it’s something.

So, yeah. Lucky’s story moved me. However, I had a hard time connecting with the characters in the dream part. Indeed whilst it didn’t put me off completely, I have to admit that it confused me and decreased my interest. I’m not usually thrown off guard by weird stuff, but what can I say? It didn’t work for me, as I couldn’t help but disconnect from the story each time we were brought into one of his dreams. More generally, I got the impression that the plot dragged at some parts (in the middle in particular) and if I wasn’t bored, I wasn’t captivated either unfortunately.

Anyway, despite my inability to thoroughly love this book, some parts punched me in the guts and I feel the need to let my rating at 3.5 because I frankly believe that this kind of realistic stories is needed. Teenagers need to read about bullying. Adults need to acknowledge it. I know, I know, most of adults would say that they do acknowledge it but trust me, in real life? They don’t always do it. I don’t want to live in a world where we have to slap someone in order for him to let us alone. I don’t care of what everybody says. There are other ways to deal with it, and I see every day that it works. Yes, that’s true, it takes time and energy, but for real? It’s so worth it.

“The world is full of assholes. What are you doing to make sure you’re not one of them?”

BOOK REVIEW – More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

June 19, 2015 /
BOOK REVIEW – More Happy Than Not by Adam SilveraMore Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:

The Leteo Institute's revolutionary memory-relief procedure seems too good to be true to Aaron Soto -- miracle cure-alls don't tend to pop up in the Bronx projects. But Aaron can't forget how he's grown up poor or how his friends aren't always there for him. Like after his father committed suicide in their one bedroom apartment. Aaron has the support of his patient girlfriend, if not necessarily his distant brother and overworked mother, but it's not enough.

Then Thomas shows up. He has a sweet movie-watching setup on his roof, and he doesn't mind Aaron's obsession with a popular fantasy series. There are nicknames, inside jokes. Most importantly, Thomas doesn't mind talking about Aaron's past. But Aaron's newfound happiness isn't welcome on his block. Since he can't stay away from Thomas or suddenly stop being gay, Aaron must turn to Leteo to straighten himself out, even if it means forgetting who he is.

Adam Silvera's extraordinary debut novel offers a unique confrontation of race, class and sexuality during one charged near-future summer in the Bronx.

Oh, boy. I won’t.

More Happy Than Not didn’t turn out to be what I expected, and let me tell you, it was so much better than I thought it would be. Messed-up when you think about it, this containing one of my biggest pet peeve make it plural : several of my biggest pet peeves – nah, I won’t tell which ones, I can be annoying like that. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

There are books that makes you feel like a voyeur, as the characters seem so real that you get the impression to spy on them, somehow. More Happy Than Not definitely belongs to that category, and hooked me from the very first sentence.

“Sometimes your story is worth reading about because your life sucks,” I say. “And I don’t think your life sucks.”

How can I explain why? It just – spoke to me, because I found the characters weirdly relatable. Weirdly, because although my family always navigated on the artistic side of life (yeah, this is so the nice word for odd, sorry mum, love you) I never lived in such a hard way. Yet I can relate on so many levels that I couldn’t help but feel drawn into their stories – to feel involved in every fucking event they live.

This book is full of big issues – issues you better not drop in a book if you don’t intend to HANDLE them (including suicide, depression, and homophobia). Well, the fact is, they all were correctly dealt with, and frankly, I’m, kind of, maybe, for sure in awe of Adam Silvera for that. Not that everything is perfect and gets its HEA, NO. It’s not. It’s messed-up and weird and flawed – yet it’s incredible, because you know what? THAT’S HOW LIFE GOES.

“Memories : some can be sucker punching, others carry you forward; some stay with you forever, others you forget on your own.”

TRIGGER WARNING : Suicide

I know, I KNOW, my personal interludes appear pretty often lately, but I can’t help myself when it comes to subjects that have a particular resonance for me and oh, well. Don’t read it if you don’t care. Anyway. Aaron, the main character, has to deal with the consequences of both his father’s suicide and his own suicide attempt and expresses how difficult it is for people he loves to trust him again with his own life. In my opinion Adam Silvera captured perfectly how this kind of decisions can affect friendship and family relationships. The truth is, when I was 16 a person very close to me committed several suicidal attempts, and I’d want to say that I was supportive and understanding, I’d want to say that I understood why and how she could do this, I really want to. But sadly, I can’t. Sadly, I didn’t understand shit. Sadly, I was fucking pissed, because I love her and I couldn’t forgive her to give up on us – yes, because I couldn’t deal with the Guilt. This fucking guilt you feel when you realize that people you love and live with can suffer without even you noticing. I couldn’t deal with the guilt, so I was pissed, furious, mad, everything but what I should have been. But you know what? That’s how people react in real life. They aren’t perfect. They don’t always understand. It took us years to rebuild our relationship after that – it took me years to stop being a fucking brat and accept what she did. Although I’m not proud of it, that’s how it is, and I often have a hard time reading stories where characters try to commit suicide because to me, everything is way more complicated and fucked-up that it’s portrayed most of the time. All of that is to say that in my modest opinion, the way the author handled this subject here is realistic and really great.

END OF THE PERSONAL INTERLUDE

This book? This book caused the weirdest reaction to me : Indeed the day after starting it, I found myself thinking about Aaron, Thomas, Genevieve… like they were real. Like they were friends of mine. And this? This is the best thing I can say about a book.

Truth be told, every one of them is realistic and many of them are unlikeable. Despite the fact that I hated several of them first of all Brendan. Talk about a joke of a friend, of course I LOVED how real and complex they were! To be frank, I can’t say that they didn’t bring memories of actual people I know or used to know, and this is fantastic. Moreover, the writing is perfect because in addition to giving to Aaron a believable, original and oh so endearing voice, it captured perfectly how confusing teenage can be, how difficult it is to resist peer pressure and speak for yourself and for people you love and admire. To fight for who you are and who you want to be. Growing up often goes hand in hand with fucking up (badly). Well, let’s be frank, adulthood too. Now, nothing is set in stone. Stand up and deal with it.

So, yeah. It was cringe-worthy, crude or even annoying at times, but I wouldn’t have changed one sentence.

Most of all I absolutely adored their interactions – sometimes heartbreaking, often smile-inducing, always realistic – they made me so happy, I can’t even.

(Later I learn that there’s even an abandoned musical in his closet about a robot that time-travels back to the Mesozoic era to study dinosaurs while singing about surviving without technology.)

To sum up :
There is porn. There is swearing. There is weed. There is despair. There is fear. There is love. There are comics and YES, cute geeks. There is sex. There are a lot of random stupid games they play to. There are fucking mistakes and maddening decisions. There is LIFE. This sounds true to me.

In a word, this book was a page-turner for me and guys, GUYS! MY FEELS ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Seriously – some parts punched me in the guts and made me sob, others made me want to hit something, yet I smiled so big I can’t even express how much love and attachment I feel for Aaron – despite his flaws, his wanderings through life reached out to my heart. That’s all I can say.

Oh well, I’ll say it. He fucking broke my heart.

“I don’t want you too either. Just remember that I love the hell out of you, okay?”

PS : More Happy Than Not is shelved as Science-Fiction and you might wonder why I didn’t address this subject. Actually, even if there are definitely scifi vibes going on at times, and some unexpected twists (HOLY COW), I mostly read it as a contemporary, because it’s where lies its strength in my opinion. But I have to admit that it scares me shitless. Trust me, you’ll get what I mean. Anyway, I can see why readers could find it unsettling and weird – Promise you’ll keep your mind open, okay?

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