The Packing House - A Powerful New Young Adult Novel by G. Donald Cribbs! - A Review

TITLE: THE PACKING HOUSE
 
AUTHOR: G. DONALD CRIBBS

RELEASE DATE: January 18, 2016

FORMAT/PAGE COUNT: Kindle/384 pages

PUBLISHER: BOOKTROPE EDITIONS

PURCHASED: AMAZON

SYNOPSIS: 

The Packing House is about a teen who must choose between protecting his dignity and exposing the person responsible for his debilitating nightmares.

When sixteen-year-old Joel Scrivener has a raging nightmare in study hall and someone records it on their phone, he awakens to a living nightmare where everyone knows the secret he's avoided for ten years. Reeling from a series of bullying incidents posted on YouTube and an ill-timed mid-year move, Joel takes to the woods, leaving the bullies and his broken home behind. However, life as a runaway isn’t easy. Joel finds it difficult to navigate break-ins, wrestle hallucinations, and elude capture. He races to figure out who his dream-world attacker could be, piecing clues together with flashes of remembered images that play endlessly inside his head. Besides these images, the one constant thought occupying Joel’s mind is Amber Walker, the girl he’s been in love with for years. Amber sees little beyond the broken boy Joel has become, despite the letters they’ve written back and forth to each other. But Joel is stronger and more resilient than he looks, and it’s time he convinces Amber of this fact, before he runs out of chances with her for good. (From GOODREADS)

EXPECTATION: Full Disclosure---I read one of the original drafts of this book. I met Donald online. We connected through two things---We are both YA writers, and we are both survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I loved the original draft of this novel. I was extremely excited to read the published version, as I knew how dedicated Donald was to getting every little detail right. He is an exemplary dedicated writer. I could not wait to get my hands on the final copy!
 
REVIEW:

This story is an exceptional internal dialogue with self. And yet, it does not waiver in the least from also letting the reader in on the external world of the protagonist, Joel Scrivener. What the reader can see here, more than anywhere else in literature that I know of, is the internal struggle the survivor of childhood sexual abuse faces on an ongoing relentless basis.

What Cribbs has done here is phenomenal. I knew as soon as I read the draft of this novel that it was special. It takes us down the deep dark rabbit hole of confusion faced by many sexual abuse victims. It shows how the mind plays tricks on the survivor in order to help them to move forward in the world without checking out of it. Joel Scrivener is painted as a boy in the midst of confusion. He knows that everything is not right...but the kernels of truth he needs to complete the puzzle and get to the bottom of the problem are just outside his reach.

Only a survivor of sexual abuse can know the frustration of having great swaths of their lives cordoned off from their accessible memory. Joel struggles through a failing year of high school, while dealing with his highly dysfunctional mother and the feeling that something horrible has happened to him.

As Joel ricochets through a series of blind and frustrating choices, from running away from home to breaking into a school for shelter to recalling a botched experimental sexual encounter with a male friend, he struggles to piece together the story of his life. With parts missing even from his own view, he has no idea how to do this. On his journey, he recounts tender moments with his first love, Amber, whom he has since moved away from. We see him struggling with the side effects of his dark secret in the way he falls asleep in class and the way he cannot concentrate enough to settle into his schoolwork. There are many telltale moments in his reasoning that suggests he is a fragile egg about to crack. The ache that builds throughout this story is real. The reader will feel frustrated and sympathetic while getting an inside look at Joel's roller-coaster of emotional turmoil. And they will wonder at his strength as he chooses to take the rabbit hole he sees before him and tries to reconstruct his shattered life.

Some captured moments in THE PACKING HOUSE:

At the onset of the story, Joel admits to his way of dealing with things when he says, 'Running is my go-to response'.

When Joel speaks of how deflated and defeated he is, he says, 'I might as well be a week-old balloon, trailing limply, trying to keep from touching the ground. The fight is gone out of me. I don't even want to try anymore.' The reader feels the power of his defeat so deeply.

Perhaps my favourite passage from The Packing House is the following one:

The stuck place I'm in is too familiar, like the final box unpacked after a move; sometimes it's not ready to be unpacked, or we're not ready to face everything that's inside, so it sits there until we have to face it, one way or another.

 That, dear readers, is the perfect analogy for the victim of childhood sexual trauma. And one never knows when that box will unpack. It is the threat in the heart of the shattered life...the threat of the last box's unpacking. Cribbs has written of an incredible journey here. A journey that moved me to tears and wonder.
 
Though a fictional one, this is a true documentation of what happens to the victim of this horrific crime. One look into the snowballing careening fall of Joel Scrivener, and the reader will get an idea of what it is to struggle with this terrible secret...one they often don't even know they carry. Sometimes the brain knows that the only way to survive is to send the terrible secret into a deep dark cellar somewhere inside its buried chambers until it's ready to be accessed. Or until it just cannot be contained any longer. Cribbs has perfectly captured this journey in telling Joel's story. And he keeps the reader at Joel's side through every step of the journey, expertly revealing the kernels at just the right moments of Joel's struggle.

I suggest everyone read this story. It's one of the most important ones I have ever read, and moreover, it is beautifully told. Cribbs is an exceptional writer...I look forward to more from him and I'm excited to see where he goes from here. After telling the story he needed to tell, there's no limit to what he can do with the stories he wants to tell!

My hopes with THE PACKING HOUSE? That it begins (or continues) the much needed conversation that some are unwilling to partake in. Childhood Sexual Abuse is an epidemic. 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys prior to the age of 18 will experience an unwanted sexual act, either including touch or not. That's unacceptable. Dialogue helps prevent future occurrences. G. Donald Cribbs's THE PACKING HOUSE is a perfect jumping off point. READ IT NOW! Don't be afraid to take this sometimes hard, but always beautiful, journey.


SIZE: 5 1/2

"This is What it Feels Like When Your Life Starts Happening" - DUMPLIN' by Julie Murphy - A Review

TITLE: DUMPLIN'

AUTHOR: JULIE MURPHY

RELEASE DATE: September 15th, 2015

FORMAT/PAGE COUNT: Kindle/384 pages

PUBLISHER: Balzar & Bray

PURCHASED: AMAZON

SYNOPSIS: 


Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin’” by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked . . . until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back.

Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pageant—along with several other unlikely candidates—to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any twiggy girl does. Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City—and maybe herself most of all.

With starry Texas nights, red candy suckers, Dolly Parton songs, and a wildly unforgettable heroine— Dumplin’ is guaranteed to steal your heart.  (From GOODREADS)

EXPECTATION: The cover. Nuff said! It just sounded like an adorable story I would love. 
 
REVIEW:





This ended up being one of those books I highlight the bejesus out of. I just loved the writing in this story. Julie Murphy's style is delightful. If there was a TICKLED ME PINK category for Best Novels of 2015, this one would win it hands down. 

Okay, so THIS is one of the highlighted bits I saved to delight over. THIS totally captures the attitude of Dumplin' and the perfected style in which this novel was written:

'I don't sigh. I want to, but my mom will hear. It doesn't matter how loud the TV is. It could be two years from now and I could be away at college in some other town, hundreds of miles away, and my mom would hear me sigh all the way from home and call me to say, "Now, Dumplin', you know I hate when you sigh. There is nothing less attractive than a discontent young woman."'

That is just gold! I just felt that there were so many quotable lines in this book. I loved it. 'My first kiss. It's the fastest thing that lasts forever.' Lines like that. Murphy just nails what you have always thought about a thing. And, one of my faves... "Well, aren't you just having a come apart?" I found myself wanting to use her lines...hoping they'd become catch phrases. :-) "Sometimes half of doing something is pretending that you can."

Such gorgeous lines. I know, I know...a book is more than the sum of its most gorgeous lines.

Still...my ultimate favourite from DUMPLIN'? I must share it...

'I want to always look at it, hanging in my closet, and remember this night in November when I stepped into my own light.'

God, I loved that line. I stopped dead in my tracks when I read that line.

Is this a review? Not really. I'm so bad at reviews when I love a book to bits.

Willowdean was a delightful character. She took on entering the beauty pageant her mother ran as a way of saying she's unwilling to accept that only perfect 10s can be a part of that world. But she also took it on as a bit of a lark. I loved her defiance and I loved that there were girls who accompanied her into this foray into the land of the beautiful and flawless. I loved the message that put out there. It was almost like a take-back protest by the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys, a sly little 'we're not gonna take it anymore' from the school outcasts.

The fact that Willowdean's rebellion was steeped in Dolly Parton made it all the more lovely, really. I even loved the awkward secretive and then not so secretive love interest in Bo. That character was so well played. There's not much I did not like about this book. Every time I prepared to pick it up again, I found myself excited to discover the next highlight-able nugget.

Rounding out the story was Willowdean's relationship with her mother. SO well played. It hurt sometimes to see how raw her oblivious mother left her. But Willow always seemed capable of the bounce back...which is another thing I liked. She was strong, and at times unfazed by things that might cripple a weaker person. Her other reason for taking on the pageant, her recently dearly departed aunt, was just a lovely thing. Willowdean Dickson is a REAL person. So strong and so vulnerable. I loved her voice.

Do yourself a favour and read this feel-good story. I dare say, it tickled me pink. :-)
 


SIZE: 5


Find JULIE MURPHY online at her WEBSITE, on Twitter, and, on Instagram.

Some Kind of Normal by Juliana Stone is Some Kind of Fantastic! (Review)

Some Kind of Normal

By Juliana Stone

Sourcebooks Fire

May 5, 2015

Praise for Juliana Stone

“Just what readers need.” –School Library Journal

“A contemporary romance with a conscience…Stone writes it with confidence and style.” –Kirkus

“The classic miscommunication, the emotional pushing and pulling, the ‘will she?’ and ‘won’t he?’ of the destined-to-be-in-love. Readers of Miranda Kenneally, Jenny Han, and Susane Colasanti will enjoy Stone.” –VOYA

“A story of family, first love, and forgiveness. I couldn’t stop reading. I loved it!” –Miranda Kenneally, author of Catching Jordan

Book Info: 

What is normal? For Trevor, normal was playing fast guitar licks, catching game-winning passes, and partying all night. Until a car accident leaves him with no band, no teammates, and no chance of graduating. It’s kind of hard to ace your finals when you’ve been in a coma. The last thing he needs is stuck-up Everly Jenkins as his new tutor, those beautiful blue eyes catching every flaw.

For Everly, normal was a perfect family around the dinner table, playing piano at Sunday service, and sunning by the pool. Until she discovers her whole life is a lie. Now the perfect pastor’s daughter is hiding a life-changing secret, one that is slowly tearing her family apart. And spending the summer with notorious flirt Trevor Lewis means her darkest secret could be exposed.

This achingly beautiful story about two damaged teens struggling through pain and loss to redefine who they are, to their family, to themselves, and to each other is sure to melt your heart.

Amazon| Apple | B&N | BAM | !ndigo | IndieBound | Kindle

Juliana Stone: USA Today bestselling author Juliana Stone fell in love with books in the fifth grade when her teacher introduced her to Tom Sawyer. A tomboy at heart, she split her time between baseball, books, and music—three passions that carried over into adulthood. When she’s not singing with her band, she’s thrilled to be writing young adult and adult contemporary romance, and does so from her home in Canada.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

TITLE: SOME KIND OF NORMAL

AUTHOR: JULIANA STONE
RELEASE DATE: May 5th, 2015
FORMAT/PAGE COUNT: Kindle/304 pages
PUBLISHER: Sourcebooks Fire

PURCHASED: NOT PURCHASED - Net Galley in return for an unbiased review
(GOODREADS) 

EXPECTATION: This one sounded right up my alley...exactly what I like to read. I had high hopes!


REVIEW: 

Can we talk about the opening line for a second? 

I used to be the guy who had it all. 

How is that for a hook?! The promise of what was lost, of a dire future. What happened? I love this kind of hook.

I was invincible. I had goals and dreams, and I was damn close to getting them. Until I wasn't.

Stone manages to pull the reader in with just a few sharp sentences that serve to kind of take your breath away. The anticipation of story is palpable.

I love sweet contemporary young adult romance stories. This one hit all the right notes, flawlessly. Trevor and Everly are two characters that will have a place in the hearts of those readers who love Eleanor and Park, and Hazel Grace and Augustus.

Everly is the looks-perfect-to-the-unsuspecting-outside-world heroine with extremely heavy secret issues in the home-camp. Trevor is the boy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and had all his hopes and dreams dashed in an instant. This set-up almost guarantees a lovely heartening read.

Trevor was in a car accident when his best friend Nate drove under the influence of alcohol. Trevor's hopes and dreams? A rock band. Shooting to the anticipation of stardom and having it ripped away from you just when you can start to taste its sweetness is one of the big issues Trevor faces. But the biggest is the brain injury he suffered as a result of the car accident. Stone portrayed his struggles wonderfully. Trevor was at times inexplicably hostile, scared, determined, and confused. His fear when he started to have seizures was palpable. What began as regret for losing his chance to be a rockstar became something deeper as he began to fear for health itself.

And Everly, though at times in tune with Trevor's coping difficulties, was going through just as huge an issue at home. She is losing all faith in her preacher father, who is keeping secrets that can most definitely shatter her safe and happy family home. And Everly is the only one who knows, or thinks she knows, what those secrets are. As her situation eats away at her like a cancer, the reader can really empathize/sympathize with the huge burden she carries.

One isn't sure which of these two characters is dealing with the heavier load. When one of those characters is suffering a traumatic brain injury that threatens his entire future, it truly is a testament to Stone's ability as a storyteller to make the reader feel just as deeply about the other main character's situation.

Without giving too much of the story away, it was a wonderful ride. The two characters who at first almost loathed the possibility of hanging out with each other fell in love in a truly authentic way. Not instantly. Not perfectly. Not gushingly. At the mere idea of spending his summer being tutored by Everly, Trevor said, "The only thing worse than being stuck in Twin Oaks for the summer without my best buddy, Nathan, is being stuck in Twin Oaks for the summer and having to spend most of my time with Everly Jenkins." That is not a boy who loves a girl. That is outright dread.

But it is in their weaknesses, their individual heartbreak, that Everly and Trevor slowly strip away the wall of dread they have put up against each other. Their brokenness and pain allows empathy to enter into that place where dread and stubborn near-dislike once lived. And in slowly realizing they can talk to each other about their pain, they begin to find a common ground. They kiss.

This is a lovely story. Immediately upon reading the last sentence I downloaded BOYS LIKE YOU, which is SOME KIND OF NORMAL's predecessor. You don't need to read Boys Like You first...but you do learn more about what happened to Trevor in it. AND what happened to Nate after he made that terrible mistake that put Trevor into his new world of brain injury victim. In fact, I liked reading Some Kind of Normal first. Everly and Trevor are two characters who will stay with me for a long time. Stone did a fantastic job sculpting them into real live vibrant characters. You will love them. 

EXPECTATION?: I really adored this book. It surpassed my expectation. Though I will be honest and say I was a bit leery at the onset when it was revealed that Everly was the preacher's daughter. But the issues she dealt with on that front were pretty extraordinary and the possible good girl meets rockstar bad boy cliche was quickly erased in the unveiling of her character. This book is filled with tender moments...I adored it.

SIZE: 5

ALSO BY JULIANA STONE:


Also by Juliana Stone:

NEW IN PAPERBACK!

Boys Like You

Sourcebooks Fire

Book Info: 

Two Broken souls…one hot summer

Nate Everet’s life was all about acoustic guitar, girls in short shorts, and hot Southern nights.Until the accident.

Monroe Blackwell’s life was full of soccer goals, flirty skirts, and bright city lights. Until the accident.

Now Nate has a best friend who might never wake up, a summer of community service, and enough guilt to drown him. Monroe has a family that’s falling apart, a summer of banishment to her grandma’s, and a choking grief that makes it hard to breathe.

Nate and Monroe are two lost souls struggling with grief and guilt. But together, they have a chance at acceptance and finally finding the forgiveness they crave.

Amazon | Apple | B&N | BAM |!ndigo|  IndieBound | Kindle | Kobo |  Nook

And now for a special treat! Here's an excerpt from SOME KIND OF NORMAL...hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Excerpt from Some Kind of Normal: 

“You got any?” he asked.

“Any what?”

“Tattoos?”

“Me?” I had to laugh at that. Wow. Before last year that would have been grounds for major punishment. Heck, up until my senior year, I hadn’t been allowed to wear lip gloss. Now I wasn’t so sure that my mom would even notice, and since I avoided my dad whenever I could…

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “My skin is untouched.”

His eyes widened a bit, and I felt heat creep up my neck. Great. Now I was blushing again.

“Untouched,” he said with that lopsided smile that made my stomach dip. “I like that.”

“You do?”

“Yep. A clean slate. There’s something almost poetic about that, you know? Tragic too. How many people get a do--over?”

Trevor reached for my hand, and though my first instinct was to snatch it back, his long fingers enveloped mine before I had the chance. He turned my hand over so that my palm faced up and then traced the little blue lines that ran down my wrist.

I can’t lie. It felt weird and good, and my heart took off once more, so fast that I was surprised he couldn’t hear it.

“This is…kind of…like ink,” he said, his words a little slow as if he was thinking hard. “But it’s alive.”

He glanced up again, and all I could do was nod before my eyes dropped to his hand. Mine was still there, small and pale next to his large palm and tanned skin. I saw the thin blue veins that ran down my wrist, the ones that carried blood from my heart, electrifying my cells and feeding my body.

His thumb rested just beneath my pulse, and I swallowed thickly. Crap, he was going to feel how fast it was, and that would be embarrassing.

“Your fingers are rough.” I blushed harder and thought that there was no way I could sound any more like an idiot. Not even if I was trying.

“Yeah,” he answered. “It’s from playing guitar. I practice a lot so my calluses are nice and strong.”

“I used to play piano.”

Wow. Good comeback. I guess it was better than a clarinet or trombone, but really. Dork much?

…Had he always looked this intense?

“What?” he asked. He smiled again and I thought that on a scale of one to ten, his smile was a total eleven. “You’re into the classics. That’s cool. Didn’t picture that.”

“Really. What exactly did you picture?” Shoot. Did I really want to hear this?

“I don’t know. PBS and that Jane Austen?”

Okay. First off, I was impressed that he knew who Jane Austen was, and secondly…he knew who Jane Austen was!

I dropped my eyes, because I was pretty sure that my cheeks were as red as the roses planted just outside the library. Trevor Lewis wasn’t anything like what I thought he’d be. He wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t arrogant. He wasn’t slow or weird.

He seemed pretty normal to me.

You know, for a guy with tattoos and blue hair.

WILL IN SCARLET - A Wild-Ride of a Novel by MATTHEW CODY

TITLE: WILL IN SCARLET

AUTHOR: MATTHEW CODY

RELEASE DATE: October 8, 2013

FORMAT/PAGE COUNT: ebook/272 pages

PUBLISHER: Knopf Books for Young Readers

PURCHASED: NOT PURCHASED - Net Galley

SYNOPSIS: 
Will Scarlet is on the run.

Once the sheltered son of nobility, Will has become an exile. While his father, Lord Shackley, has been on the Crusades with King Richard, a treacherous plot to unseat Richard has swept across England, and Shackley House has fallen.

Will flees the only home he’s ever known into neighboring Sherwood Forest, where he joins the elusive gang of bandits known as the Merry Men. Among them are Gilbert, their cruel leader; a giant named John Little; a drunkard named Rob; and Much, an orphan girl disguised as a bandit boy.

This is the story of how a band of misfit outlaws become heroes of legend - thanks to one brave 13-year-old boy. - (From GOODREADS)


REVIEW:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Having said that, there was a thread or two I would have liked to have seen the end of. But I'm sure that's just me. I do know one certainty about Will In Scarlet...young boys will LOVE this book. It would have been just the book I'd look for when I was a young teen. The hero is 13...he's fortunate, being a Lord's son...but he's not fortunate enough to be royalty. It's as his house falls around him that the story really sparks for me. He sees the other side of life and his first reaction is to try to make things better for those less fortunate than he had been in his previous station.

I found this to be very much like Siddhartha, in this respect. Will had the luxury of living in a castle and having servants. But when he sees outside the castle for the first time, when he escapes its overthrow, he sees poverty. Like Siddhartha, who took to the streets and witnessed poverty the first time he was paraded around his kingdom, Will has his eyes opened.

This novel is filled with rich characters and a lot of action. And the intensity of the peril was palpable, too. There's a great attack scene when Will and "Much" (a girl who lost her parents and joined the Merry Men disguised as a boy!) return to Will's lost castle to help the other Merry Men escape hangings. Look for it. The story really explodes there.

I loved the way Cody made Rob a fallible character...the reader sees him overcome himself just as Will sees it. His transformation from Rob to Robin Hood is not only timely and quite awesome...but fully believable. I also very much loved the POV switches between WILL's and MUCH's characters. I liked knowing what each was thinking about the other. There's a great push-me-pull-ya play with them. They go from almost hatred, with a touch of compassion, to admiration and...yes...maybe even BIG CRUSH TERRITORY. That's all I'm saying.

As I said, just a few loose threads that got to me. BUT...I am not aware of one thing! It COULD be a series. And if it is, I forgive the 4 1/2 rating. I would certainly be in line for a book two if this turns out to be a series. It seems pregnant with potential...and with such an exhilarating pace that keeps you reading until you've devoured the entire book in one sitting, I'd love to keep going!

I would highly recommend this title for boys of 10-14. But I wouldn't stop there. It appeals to the inner child big-time. Memorable characters and great action! It fully fulfills its promise to show us the boy behind the Robin Hood legend.


Size: 4 1/2

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B - A Review of the Novel by Teresa Toten

TITLE: The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B

AUTHOR: TERESA TOTEN

RELEASE DATE: August 27, 2013

FORMAT/PAGE COUNT: ebook/256 pages

PUBLISHER: Doubleday Canada

PURCHASED: NOT PURCHASED - Net Galley

SYNOPSIS: 
Two-time Governor General's Award nominee Teresa Toten is back with a compulsively readable new book for teens!

When Adam meets Robyn at a support group for kids coping with obsessive-compulsive disorder, he is drawn to her almost before he can take a breath. He's determined to protect and defend her--to play Batman to her Robyn--whatever the cost. But when you're fourteen and the everyday problems of dealing with divorced parents and step-siblings are supplemented by the challenges of OCD, it's hard to imagine yourself falling in love. How can you have a "normal" relationship when your life is so fraught with problems? And that's not even to mention the small matter of those threatening letters Adam's mother has started to receive . . .

Teresa Toten sets some tough and topical issues against the backdrop of a traditional whodunit in this engaging new novel that readers will find hard to put down. (From GOODREADS)

REVIEW: 

LOOOOOOOooooooOVED IT!

It's only the best books that suck the reader in so completely that they begin to experience the feelings of the main character. This book has reached that goal in SPADES! Be careful. This is a story of a teen with OCD...and the OCD group he attends. Toten does a spectacular job of injecting the reader into that group. What a ride! I was there, sitting in a circle looking at all the other OCD sufferers...listening to their facilitator, Chuck, as he attempted to lead the group to a healthier less obsessive compulsive lifestyle. I cannot say enough about the way Toten guided the reader through the real--and real painful--world of the OCD sufferer. Spectacularly crafted!

Though the backdrop of Unlikely Hero was OCD, there was so much more to the story. Toten takes the reader on a ride as the main character, Adam, falls in love while falling apart. I've a feeling this will be my pick for FAVOURITE READ of 2013. I love the way Adam's inner dialogue played out; his fears, his feelings for Robyn (the girl of his dreams), his thoughts on the interactions with his mom, his step-mom, his dad, his brother Sweetie, his therapist..and even Thor, the quiet hulk of a teen who attended the OCD group Adam was part of. Just a great insight into the main character's itchy scratchy obsessive compulsive world. This book is REAL.

Without giving away too much of the story, Unlikely Hero is, IMHO, a story of a boy struggling to keep it together AND the illness he takes on as a result of that struggle. His mother plays a keen role in this struggle. Adam tries desperately to combat the forces of his OCD by attending his therapist's teen OCD support group. But Adam's mother is a hoarder. As he tries to repair his ticks and obsessions, he lives in a home that is getting swallowed up by itself. Throw on the fact that his mother is being stalked, and Adam's stress level is a thousand. Amid the chaos, he is falling in love with fellow support group member Robyn. He complicates this relationship with his axiom, Everybody Lies.

I guarantee you will be on the edge of your seat as all the loose threads in this freight-train of a story begin to come together. Just when you think Adam cannot take another thing thrown into his path, something bigger and more stressful happens. And it all culminates in a satisfying ending that will have you gasping.

When this book releases, pick yourself up a copy. I will be purchasing a copy! It's one of those stories you can read again and again.

Size: 5 1/2 (1/2 for the feeling of OCD symptoms that plagued me for the duration of the story!)

Matthew Quick - The Silver Linings Playbook - Review

TITLE: The Silver Linings Playbook

AUTHOR: Matthew Quick

RELEASE DATE: Originally released in September, 2008. 

FORMAT/PAGE COUNT: Kindle

PUBLISHER: Macmillan USA

PURCHASED: Amazon

SYNOPSIS:
 
Meet Pat Peoples. Pat has a theory: his life is a movie produced by God. And his God-given mission is to become physically fit and emotionally literate, whereupon God will ensure him a happy ending—the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. (It might not come as a surprise to learn that Pat has spent several years in a mental health facility.) The problem is, Pat’s now home, and everything feels off. No one will talk to him about Nikki; his beloved Philadelphia Eagles keep losing; he’s being pursued by the deeply odd Tiffany; his new therapist seems to recommend adultery as a form of therapy. Plus, he’s being haunted by Kenny G! ~ from GOODREADS

This was a re-read.
 

REVIEW:

 

I recently re-read The Silver Linings Playbook in an effort to re-familiarize myself with the story prior to seeing the movie. I loved this story. I’m always looking for quirky characters and Quick does an excellent job in creating them for this story of broken couples and broken people.

This is the story of Patrick’s decline. It is also a reluctant love story. Patrick’s friends and family want him to get better. After losing so many years to ‘the bad place’, all Patrick wants to do is get back with his wife Nikki. He wants the ‘apart time’ to be over so that the two of them can return to their normal life. What Patrick doesn’t realize is that he’s been locked away from the real world for a lot longer than he thinks. Life has moved on without him.

Enter Tiffany…another broken character. Tiffany and Patrick are set up on a date by family and friends. So begins the reluctant love story. This story is an exquisite look at how people can program themselves to think they’ll make it…that things don’t change if they don’t want them to. It’s a beautiful story of brokenness. The reader will love following Patrick along on his somewhat confusing journey from being lost to being on the mend. And Quick has given us some great characters to meet along the way. Not the least of whom, is Cliff Patel…Patrick’s new therapist, who eloquently crosses the line from therapist to friend simply by standing. The two share a love for a football team…and become regular tailgate party friends. Quick crossed this doctor/patient friend line effortlessly…I didn’t question the validity of this happening even once. And yet, it is something one couldn’t imagine happening in real life.

The relationship/non-relationship between Patrick and Tiffany is so brilliant. These are naïve people who have had some hard knocks. Their families don’t understand them. Their friends no longer get them. They are both navigating minefields…and neither have overly supportive people on their side. It seems the world can put up with broken for only so long before it gets frustrated by it. Quick is a master at painting the way relationships crumble under the stress of mental illness. But he is also a master at making the reader suspect that the crumbling will stop and the walls will be shored up. But nothing is certain in a Matthew Quick story.

I loved this story! I’m sure that if you pick it up, you’ll find yourself immediately immersed in its pages. I was rooting for Patrick all the way…and wildly frustrated with him for continuing to wait for ‘apart time’ to be over between him and his wife, Nikki. Quick is a master at bringing out a reader’s emotions…and having them want to read on to see the cracks filled and the dents pounded out. If you do snag this novel, and like it, don’t forget to check one of Quick’s YA offerings, Boy21. It’s another unique story, well told. These two books have made me a staunch Matthew Quick fan.

MY REVIEW OF BOY21 

Now if I can just get to the movie on a day that it's NOT sold out!

SIZE: 5 -- I suggest you try this book on for size!

 

Boy Toy - Review

Title: Boy Toy

Author: Barry Lyga

Release Date: September 24, 2007

Format/Page Count: Kindle/410

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company

Purchased: Amazon 

Synopsis:

Josh Mendel has a secret. Unfortunately, everyone knows what it is.
Five years ago, Josh’s life changed. Drastically. And everyone in his school, his town—seems like the world—thinks they understand. But they don’t—they can’t. And now, about to graduate from high school, Josh is still trying to sort through the pieces. First there’s Rachel, the girl he thought he’d lost years ago. She’s back, and she’s determined to be part of his life, whether he wants her there or not.Then there are college decisions to make, and the toughest baseball game of his life coming up, and a coach who won’t stop pushing Josh all the way to the brink. And then there’s Eve. Her return brings with it all the memories of Josh’s past. It’s time for Josh to face the truth about what happened.
If only he knew what the truth was . . . (From GOODREADS)

A fan created book trailer for BOY TOY. Complete with some great quotes from the book!

Expectation: To be honest, I went in to this one with only one hope...I hope the author gets it right. I was tentative, because of the subject matter, but interested to see how it was handled.

REVIEW:

TRIGGER ALERT: This story is one of sexual abuse. Be forewarned that it may contain triggering content. It is the story of a 12-year-old boy being sexually abused by a female teacher. If you could potentially experience triggering through reading a story of this nature, BOY TOY may not be for you.

This story opens with a list. ‘Ten Things I Learned at the Age of Twelve’. It’s a quirky little list that could have been created by any twelve-year-old boy. Until you get to the last item on the list. #10 is both shocking and disturbing. #10 brings the reader immediately into the heart of this earth-shattering story.

After the list, Boy Toy opens on the remembrance of the narrator Josh Mendel’s 13^th birthday party. Josh has already lived through sexual abuse at the hands of one of his female teachers, Mrs. Sherman. What the reader is given to understand is that everybody else knows what has happened to Josh, but that Josh himself is not very clear on the subject. What goes wildly wrong in the first chapter is the result of Josh’s lack of understanding. When he finds himself in the basement closet of his friend, Rachel, Josh really has no idea what is appropriate and what is inappropriate where thirteen-year-old relationships are concerned. Mrs. Sherman took all understanding away from Josh the day she started sexually abusing him.

This is a story of a boy coming back from sexual abuse. It is an achingly beautiful read and it is a story well told. Looking into this boy’s story gives readers an understanding of the difficulties faced by victims of molestation. Lyga does an excellent job showing the skewed understanding and mixed emotions Josh deals with as a result of his abuse. As Josh narrates the story, he is actually eighteen. He’s getting ready to finish high school and he carries a huge burden. He feels guilty for destroying his teacher’s life…for wrecking her marriage, for causing her to lose her teacher’s career and end up in jail. What he doesn’t realize is that none of it is his fault. His feeling are a direct result of the huge trauma he underwent while the abuse was happening.

When Josh’s teacher is released from prison, he feels her presence everywhere. He’s just waiting to come face to face with her. His fear and guilt is palpable…but so is the sense that he wants to see her. It is around the same time that Rachel, his friend from the 13^th birthday party fiasco, comes back for another round. Rachel wants Josh. I’m not sure if this relationship is what Lyga intended…it’s rather sketchy to me. Rachel, in my opinion, is abrasive and pushy. Quite frankly, I could see her actions actually re-traumatizing Josh, if nothing else. This was the part of the story that stood out as iffy to me…and my reason for reluctantly giving it four stars instead of five.

Josh’s relationship with his best friend, Zik, was extremely well played. Zik was constantly there for Josh…but the whole time there was a wall between them. We shall not talk of this became such a huge barrier that it became something else for Josh to feel guilty about. The way the relationship was played out was deeply satisfying.

I readily admit to being totally conflicted by this story. If not for the way Rachel was portrayed, it would have been a 5-star read for me. I just don't understand the motivation behind having Rachel being so forceful with Josh. Maybe it was intentional, I don't know. I can't pretend to understand the author's reasonings.

I do know that should you choose to read Boy Toy, you'll love it. It's well written and it's a skilful look into a topic that is often taboo. I applaud Lyga for tackling it...and for doing it justice. I do highly recommend Boy Toy--Rachel objections aside.

Expectation: Lyga did an amazing job representing Josh’s conflicted feelings for Eve (Mrs. Sherman). Josh’s emotional rollercoaster was so well played, as were his struggle with right and wrong and the confusion he experienced regarding guilt and blame/aggressor and victim. This book far exceeded my expectations. A great read!

Size: 4