Fangirl

Fangirl

Rainbow Rowell

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

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

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

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

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

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

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

Review:  This is another book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and did not want to put down.  It's a coming of age story about a nerdy and awkward college freshman who spends most of her time living in the made-up world of a popular young adult magical fiction series.  Cath is quirky and charming and completely relatable, and the supporting characters are also entertaining.  It's obvious to the reader what Cath needs to do, to grow up and live in the real world, and it's also obvious who her true friends are and who her romantic interest should be, but it's not obvious to poor Cath, who struggles through a difficult first semester.  I would have rated this book a 5, until I got to the ending.  There's nothing wrong with the ending, but it fell flat for me; in fact, I kept reading the acknowledgement section, thinking that it was another chapter, because it seemed like the end of a chapter, and not the end of the novel.

Rating: 4.5 stars

The Far Side of the Sky

The Far Side of the Sky

Daniel Kalla

Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  November 9, 1938—Kristallnacht—the Nazis unleash a night of terror for Jews all across Germany. Meanwhile, the Japanese Imperial Army rampages through China and tightens its stranglehold on Shanghai, a city that becomes the last haven for thousands of desperate European Jews.

Dr. Franz Adler, a renowned surgeon, is swept up in the wave of anti-Semitic violence and flees to Shanghai with his daughter. At a refugee hospital, Franz meets an enigmatic nurse, Soon Yi “Sunny” Mah. The chemistry between them is intense and immediate, but Sunny’s life is shattered when a drunken Japanese sailor murders her father.

The danger escalates for Shanghai’s Jews as the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Facing starvation and disease, Franz struggles to keep the refugee hospital open and protect his family from a terrible fate.

The Far Side of the Sky focuses on a short but extraordinary period of Chinese, Japanese, and Jewish history when cultures converged and heroic sacrifices were part of the everyday quest for survival.

Review:  The premise of this story is unique, educating readers about the thousands of German and Austrian Jews who escaped to Shanghai prior to World War 2.  The descriptions of the city were fascinating, and the plot was enjoyable.  But I felt like the characters were a little flat, the dialogue occasionally awkward, and some events too stereotypical.  The author also depicts snippets of life during a four year period, often skipping 6 months or a year before moving on to the next section.  Some of these gaps didn't bother me, but others seemed like they skipped too many important parts of the story.  The ending also came at a surprising time, about halfway through the war, and I would expect that the second half of the war would be equally challengeing for the Viennese refugees.  I wonder if a sequel is planned?  I wanted to love this book, but instead, I'll just say that I enjoyed it.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Mambo in Chinatown

Mambo in Chinatown

by Jean Kwok

Genre: Fiction

Synopsis:  The elder daughter of a ballerina and a noodle-maker, immigrants from Beijing, Charlie Wong grew up in Manhattan's Chinatown.  Although she is an ABC (American-born Chinese), at twenty-two she has hardly left that neighborhood, her entire world fitting within its familiar boundaries.  She still lives in the only apartment she has ever known, a tiny one-bedroom she shares with her widower father and eleven-year-old sister.  And she works as a dishwasher at the neighborhood noodle shot that employs her father.  Neither academically gifted like her sister nor exceptionally pretty like her neighbor, Charlie does her best to accept her limited options, taking joy in helping to raise her sister and support her father, and practicing tai chi whenever she can.

When Charlie then surprises even herself by landing a job as a receptionist at a ballroom dance studio uptown, her expectations are upended.  Far from the streets of Chinatown, she is introduced to an entirely new world, one that encourages her to imagine a bigger life than what she has know.  Keeping it an elaborate secret from her father, with his suspicion of all things Western, she spends more and more time at the dance studio, and awkward Charlie's natural talents-and dreams-begin to emerge.  But as a local witch has told her, "What one sister gains, shall the other lose," and soon enough, Charlie's blossoming coincides with the appearance of chronic illness in her younger sister.  With his distrust of Western medicine, her traditional father insists on treating his ailing child exclusively with Eastern practices, to no avail.  Charlie is forced to try to reconcile her two selves and her two worlds-Eastern and Western, old and new-to rescue her sister without sacrificing her newfound confidence and identity.
from the book jacket

Becky's Review:  After reading Jean Kwok's Girl in Translation, I was excited to read this book when I saw it on the bookshelf at the library.  But unfortunately this book fell short of my expectations.  This book was far too contrived and convenient for me.  Everything lined up too well and changes in characters were highly uncharacteristic.  The book kept me reading so something was well done.  But the more I thought about the story, the more unrealistic it seemed.  Charlie was a terrible receptionist but yet the studio would take a gamble on her dancing abilities after she's shown her clumsiness?  The other thing that bothered me was Charlie's willingness to sit by and watch her sister deteriorate but not try harder to get her to a medical doctor.  I understand the cultural differences but Charlie seemed much more Western than Eastern. I just wish that this story wasn't wrapped up so neatly.  It had potential.

Marcie's Review:  I have seen this book at the library for the last few months, and I kept picking it up and putting it back because I thought Becky had read it and not rated it highly.  But I wasn't entirely sure, and it kept calling to me with its bright red cover, dancing shoes and story about ballroom dancing, so I finally checked it out.  It was a fast read that I definitely enjoyed; I loved learning more about ballroom dancing and seeing the transformation in Charlie from an awkward girl to a confident woman.  But there were quite a few things that took away from my enjoyment, namely that so much of the story was unrealistic.  How Charlie got hired at the studio, how she became a teacher, how quickly she picked up dancing and became a professional, how she didn't take her sister to a Western doctor, her romance with her partner, and how neatly and quickly everything was tied up at the end of the book.  It was just too unbelievable.  Basically, I agree with Becky's review 100%.

Becky's Rating: 3 stars

Marcie's Rating: 3 stars

Me Before You

Me Before You

Jojo Moyes

Genre: Women's Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

Marcie's Review:  This was a wonderful book!  The blurb and the cover and the author's history make it seem like this is going to be a romance, but it is definitely not.  Yes, there's a bit of a love story, but this is nothing at all like a traditional romance.  It's so much  more than that!  It's about Lou's process of self-discovery, Will's struggles with the limitations of his new quadriplegic life, and the difficult topic of euthanasia.  The author presents the challenges of life in a wheelchair, including how Will and Lou are treated by strangers, and then tackles Will's desire to end his life, and his family and friends feelings about that.  It made me think about euthanasia in a different way.  I cried buckets towards the end!

The only complaint I have is that the author included a few chapters written from the point of view of some of the other characters - Will's mom and dad, Lou's sister, and Nathan the medical caretaker.  It disrupted the story a little - I guess I don't read the chapter titles at all, because I didn't realize those chapters were from someone else's perspective until I was a page or two in, and I was very confused!  It was interesting to hear snippets from Will's mom and dad, and it helped me understand them better as characters, but I think I would have preferred the story without them.

Marcie's Rating: 5 stars

Becky's Review:  I almost didn't read this book because of the cover art.  It looked like a light romance novel or maybe chick lit and generally looked unappealing to me as a reader.  (I hope the publisher takes note of this and other people's complaints about the cover!)  I am so glad that Marcie made me read this book as it was very addicting!  I stayed up far too late many nights to read this book.  I needed to know if Louisa could make Will happy and I truly wanted Will to learn how to enjoy life as a quadriplegic even though it would be enjoying life in a different way.  The author made me love these characters and feel very deeply for them which is why this book has stuck with me.  I think it will be a while before I forget about it and that is the mark of a good book!  I could not stop tearing up and crying at the end of this book.  My heart was breaking while reading this book.  I agree with Marcie's complaints about the chapters written by other characters-I didn't feel that they were necessary and in fact I found them distracting.  I'm still trying to decide if the ending was what needed to happen or if I would have been as content with the book if it ended a different way.  This is definitely a 5 star book and if I had more stars I would have given it more!

Becky's Review: 5 stars

The Shadow Throne

The Shadow Throne

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Juvenile Fiction

Synopsis:  One war.  Too many deadly battles.  Can a king save his kingdom, when his own survival seems unlikely?

War has come to Carthya.  It knocks at every door and window in the land.  And when Jaron learns that King Vargas of Avenia has kidnapped Imogen in a plot to bring Carthya to its knees, Jaron knows it is up to him to embark on a daring rescue mission. But everything that can go wrong does.

His friends are flung far and wide across Carthya and its neighboring lands.  In a last-ditch effort to starve off what looks to be a devastating loss for the kingdom, Jaron undertakes what may be his last journey to save everything and everyone he loves.  But even with his lightning-quick wit, Jaron cannot forestall the terrible danger that descends on him and his country.  Along the way, will he lose what matters most?  And in the end, who will sit on Carthya's throne?

From the book jacket

Review:  As the third book in this series, it seemed very similar to the first two.  King Jaron of course is going to get himself into a pickle and use his sharp wit and clever strategies to save himself and his country.  He did very similar things in the second book with the pirates.  But in this story some things seemed very convenient to save King Jaron.  It just got too unrealistic for me and too similar to the first two books.  This book did have suspense that the other two did not.  I had no idea what was going to happen at the end.  I had hoped for the best but I wasn't sure that things would turn out well with the direction that the author took the war.  Overall this series was enjoyable, probably intended for late middle school and early high school due to the violence, and a good series for boys.

Rating:  3 1/2 stars

My Family for the War

My Family for the War

Anne C. Voorhoeve

Genre: Historical Fiction, Young Adult

Summary (from Goodreads):  Escaping Nazi Germany on the kindertransport changes one girl's life forever

At the start of World War II, ten-year-old Franziska Mangold is torn from her family when she boards the kindertransport in Berlin, the train that secretly took nearly 10,000 children out of Nazi territory to safety in England. Taken in by strangers who soon become more like family than her real parents, Frances (as she is now known) courageously pieces together a new life for herself because she doesn't know when or if she'll see her true family again. Against the backdrop of war-torn London, Frances struggles with questions of identity, family, and love, and these experiences shape her into a dauntless, charming young woman.

Originally published in Germany, Anne Voorhoeve's award-winning novel is filled with humor, danger, and romance.

Marcie's Review:  I really enjoyed the story of Franziska, a young German Protestant with Jewish ancestors, who escapes to England on one of the last kindertransports.  I hadn't realized that even people with Jewish ancestors were subject to persecution, and it was interesting to watch Franziska (known as Frances in England) learn about her Jewish faith through her foster family and friends.  As a heroine, Frances had her faults and her personality wasn't always likable, but I felt like that made her realistic - she's a tween girl after all.  What did confuse me is why her friend Bekka played such a prominent role in Frances' memory, while she seemed to forget about her mother so easily.  Perhaps it's a reflection that friends are more important to tweens than parents, but as a mother, I was saddened at how badly she treated her mother and how quickly she replaced her birth family with her foster family.  While I would understand a refugee child needing to do this to survive, it seemed like the author could have spent more time developing that need, and not treat it so casually.

Marcie's Rating: 4 stars

Becky's Review:  I found this book quite fascinating because I did not realize that people of Jewish heritage who never had been Jewish but in fact Protestant were persecuted by the Nazis and had to flee from Germany if they could.  It was ironic that Ziska was taken in by an Orthodox Jewish family in England and she learns what it means to be Jewish from the family.  I enjoyed reading about Ziska's experiences in England.  I had to remember while reading that this is a young adult book so there wasn't as much meat to the story as I am used to.  I felt like events and subsequent feelings were being told to me rather than trying to let me experience them. I didn't feel an emotional connection to any of the characters in the story and I didn't feel anything while reading the story.  I also didn't understand how Ziska could forget about her mother and I didn't feel that the author adequately explored the relationship between Ziska and her mother at the end.   There were times that I was confused by what was happening in the book.

Becky's Rating: 3 1/2 stars

The Summer Kitchen

The Summer Kitchen

Lisa Wingate

Genre: Women's Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  With her adopted son missing and the rest of her family increasingly estranged, Sandra Kaye Darden is drawn to the little pink house where her Uncle Poppy once provided security. What begins for Sandra as a simple painting project, meant to prepare the house for sale, becomes a secret venture that eventually changes everything.

Cass Blue is having trouble keeping food on the table since she ditched foster care. When Sandra Kaye shows up with lunch one day, Cass has no way of knowing that the meeting will lead to the creation of a place of refuge that could reunite a divided community.

In this moving story of second chances, two unlikely allies realize their ability to make a difference...and the power of what becomes known as the Summer Kitchen to nourish the soul.

Review:  Years ago, I read a couple of Lisa Wingate's early novels, and I enjoyed the gentle stories and positive messages they passed along.  This book was just what I expected - a nice story about a  suburban mother who is facing some challenges in her family life and steps outside her comfort zone by providing food to hungry children in a poor area.  It is also told from the perspective of Cass, a young runaway girl who is struggling to make ends meet while caring for a preschooler.  It's well-written and easy to read, although Cass's chapters are written in a young girl's dialect that I found a little distracting....  There weren't any surprises in this book, but I was looking forward to the typical happy ending, and so I enjoyed it.  The only complaint I had is that everything happened a little too coincidentally and easily to be realistic.  But it was a delightful read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rating: 4 stars