Reads things. Writes things. Fluent in sarcasm. Willful optimist. Cat companion, chocolate connoisseur, coffee drinker. There are some who call me Mom.
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About If You’re Gone Lillian White was planning for the perfect summer- spending every waking minute at the lake with her heartthrob boyfriend, Brad Lee. But her world is shattered when Brad mysteriously disappears the night of his graduation ceremony- the same night he tells her he loves her for the first time. After law enforcement dismisses the case, classifying Brad as voluntarily missing, Lillian becomes desperate to prove that he couldn’t have just walked away. Not from his family. Not from his friends. Not from her.
Heartbroken but determined to find answers, Lillian begins to uncover secrets from Brad’s past that force her to question everything she thought she knew about him and their relationship. Will the truth lead her to him? Or are Brad’s lies just the beginning of the mystery?
My Review
I liked that this story explores a different side of a missing person case. While Lil believes only something terrible would keep her boyfriend Brad from coming home, she can’t help but be concerned about the things he kept from her. She believes he must be out there somewhere, which only makes it harder for her to find her way through her grief process—something she struggles to communicate to her family and friends.
Her mom’s response to Brad’s disappearance frustrated me. I felt like there were several characters all hitting the same flat note where they had used up all their patience and compassion and sort of wanted Lil to snap out of her depression and worry. I’m sure that’s a realistic experience, but I guess some of the similarities in response made some of the scenes and characters feel repetitive or two-dimensional.
The end definitely wasn’t what I expected, which I also found appealing in concept. What was harder, though, was that there are several things that happen in close succession near the end which feel like sharp turns, and I felt like I didn’t always understand the abrupt changes in Lil or the people around her. It felt like there should have been more explanation or a slower progression or some additional development to better anchor those changes into the story.
Overall, though, If You’re Gone is a quick read with an unusual take on a popular YA theme. If you’re into missing person stories, put this one on your list.
Recommended for Ages 12 up.
Cultural Elements
Few race/cultural details. Most characters seem to be white.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content Brief kissing between a boy and girl.
Spiritual Content Lil prays sometimes, usually in the desperate way of someone overwhelmed and longing for God to ease burdens. She and her family attend church regularly, and church values are a significant part of Lil’s life.
Violent Content None.
Drug Content
Lil celebrates with friends, sharing a bottle of champagne with them.
I liked the fast-paced storytelling and the way you could read this book without remembering what happened in (or without reading) the earlier books. I had some issues with the theology, which you can read about in my review.
I had a hard time following the story in this book. It’s got a wide cast of characters and a lot happening. If the story interests you, I’d recommend starting with the first book in the series instead of this one.
One of my favorite books of all time– though it’s out of print. I love the characters, and the story still feels fresh to me even after reading it easily a dozen times.
Gabrielle says: Overall, I give this book 4 stars. While not terribly life-altering (it leans more to the ‘fluff’ side than the profound), it was a delicious read, and as such, merits my approval. Fellow Janeites looking for a quick, easy read will enjoy this one.
I read this book because I so enjoyed Thomas’s other books about Moritz and Ollie. This one is very different, but I found the same compelling characters and great descriptions of emotion in here that made me fall in love with the other books.
This might be the best Christian dystopian book I’ve ever read. I really enjoyed reading it and liked that the story so seamlessly supported its Christian message.
I struggled with this book. While I found the story interesting, I feel like it was really issue-driven, to the point that everything else seemed to take a back seat to the issue of women’s sexual equality. It’s an important issue, for sure, but I felt like it dominated the story too much for my taste. If you like issue-based books, though, it might be a good one to check out. See the notes after the review for content information.
What did you read in February 2018?
What about you? Did you find any books you have to talk about or books you want to recommend? Leave a comment below sharing them with us.
Also, if you’ve read any of the books we reviewed, leave a comment telling us how you liked the book or what you thought about it!
About Tess of the Road
In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess, stubbornly, is a troublemaker. You can’t make a scene at your sister’s wedding and break a relative’s nose with one punch (no matter how pompous he is) and not suffer the consequences. As her family plans to send her to a nunnery, Tess yanks on her boots and sets out on a journey across the Southlands, alone and pretending to be a boy.
Where Tess is headed is a mystery, even to her. So when she runs into an old friend, it’s a stroke of luck. This friend is a quigutl–a subspecies of dragon–who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road. But Tess is guarding a troubling secret. Her tumultuous past is a heavy burden to carry, and the memories she’s tried to forget threaten to expose her to the world in more ways than one.
My Review Since I enjoyed the books about Seraphina, Tess’s half-sister, I looked forward to revisiting the story world in Tess of the Road. I still enjoyed the complex and intricate setting with its cultural and spiritual elements. It took me a while to get into Tess’s character. At the beginning of the story, she’s bitter at the world and desperately trying to drown her sorrows and her self-pity in wine or spirits. At first I felt like she was self-focused and self-pitying. As the scenes revealed her backstory, I felt more sympathy for her.
Tess’s journey gave the story a bit more structure. I didn’t find her goal super compelling because it was really about helping her friend Pathka reach a goal he had set, and she still seemed to be floundering as far as her own goals and needs. The most dominant force in the story remained the politics of equality (or really, lack of it) in Tess’s world. Sometimes the narrative felt preachy and forced.
Once Tess began her interior journey of healing from past trauma, I began to like her a lot more. I liked her journey companion, Pathka, too. Overall, it might be cathartic for someone who has endured some past sexual trauma to make this journey with Tess toward healing and recovery. See below for content information, though. Tess of the Road contains some strong sexual content.
Recommended for Ages 16 up.
Cultural Elements
I don’t remember race descriptions of the characters. Tess’s cousin is gay. She meets another gay man on a job she works. She also meets a traveling prostitute who tells Tess she services both men and women.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently. More often there are made up curses related to the saints in the story. My favorite is, “St. Daan in a pan!”
Romance/Sexual Content Tess has been curious about sex from a young age. At one point she made her sister and her cousin play wedding, and tried to get them to play wedding night by sending them to bed together, but they were little kids and none of them were sure what was supposed to happen. She remains ignorant, other than teachings from St. Vitt, whom her mom believes in. The teachings place a lot of shame and blame on women for any sexual acts, even if they didn’t wish to engage in them. The culture allows men freedom to sleep with whomever they choose, but a woman who becomes pregnant or is found to have had sexual partners is treated poorly.
Tess has had a sexual experience with a young man whom she admires. For most of the story, we don’t really know what happened other than that she got pregnant and he’s gone. It was an unhealthy relationship, clearly, but not until almost the end of the book do we learn what actually happened between them. See spoiler section below for more information and trigger warning.
Disguised as a man (she believes it would be too dangerous to travel as a woman unaccompanied), Tess meets a prostitute who will service both men and women. She does not sleep with the prostitute, but marvels that this woman seems content even happy about her choice of vocation. It flies in the face of everything she was taught to believe about women like this. The woman also challenges Tess by suggesting that women can enjoy sex as well, which Tess wasn’t raised to believe. Much later, Tess masturbates (it’s implied rather than described) and marvels again at how different the experience was from her previous sexual experience.
Eventually, Tess meets a man and develops feelings for him. He teaches her about herbs which prevent a woman getting pregnant and again suggests to Tess that she should enjoy sexual acts. She eventually becomes his lover and they sleep together. It’s not graphically described, but some details are mentioned.
Several people make comments about Seraphina’s relationship with the queen and her consort, implying that she has a sexual relationship with one or both of them.
Quigutls like Tess’s companion change gender several times in their lives. When Tess knew Pathka initially, she was female. Now he is male, though another character still refers to him as mother, since Pathka did lay the egg that hatched her.
Spiritual Content People worship various saints with various creeds on how to live life. The saints are actually people who are part dragon, like Tess’s half-sister Seraphina. When Seraphina gets pregnant without being married, Tess marvels that since her sister is a saint, no one can judge her the way they judged Tess.
Violent Content Tess punches a seminary student in the face for insulting her. Later, she smashes the back of her head into a man’s face when she feels threatened by him. Tess’s companion, Pathka, is a quigutl, a small reptilian creature, and in Pathka’s culture, problems are resolved by the offended party biting the other party. Pathka has several bite encounters with others in the story, some causing pretty severe injury.
Early in her journey, Tess steals food and supplies. She feels guilty, but doesn’t stop for a long time.
Drug Content
At the beginning of the story, Tess has a drinking problem. She gets drunk to avoid remembering the man with whom she got pregnant and to block out her mother’s harsh words. She gets drunk and spills a secret that hurts someone she loves. She also punches someone while drunk. She eventually wrestles with the problem and tries to give up drinking and learn other coping strategies.
SPOILER AND TRIGGER WARNING
Late in the story, Tess reveals what happened between her and her first lover. She tries to tell it as a funny story, but the truth is that he took advantage of her and raped her. There are some graphic details. Her attitude is more reflective rather than being caught in the trauma of the event, but still might trigger readers with past experiences.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
About Discovered
Simon has never been satisfied with the carefully controlled life his government limits him to with its curfews and totally structured time. He longs for a nebulous something more.
When he spots a secret door opening into his father’s workshop, and stumbles onto a secret society charged with protecting spiritual truths long outlawed, Simon leaps at the chance to become involved. Soon he’s training to be a Messenger, carrying bits of scriptures nearly lost from one outpost to another. As he learns more about the man Jesus and the truths he spoke, Simon realizes it’s not enough to carefully guard the secrets. He must find a way to tell others what he knows, even if doing so costs him his life.
My Review
At first I wasn’t sure how much I’d like a story so completely steeped in its spiritual themes, but I think the dystopian world and the gradual unveiling of Jesus’ teachings really works here. My only criticism of the spiritual components is that Simon is just being introduced to these ideas, and in some places, I felt like there wasn’t enough explanation of various rituals or elements. For instance, at first he doesn’t know where the Bible passages he’s learning come from, but at some point the references (Book, chapter, verse) are introduced but never explained.
I liked Simon’s character a lot. He’s thoughtful but vulnerable. At first I worried he would be too snarky and know-it-all, which tends to get on my nerves, but it quickly became clear that he was more than the trouble-making smart-mouth. I kind of wished there were more interactions between him and other teen characters. The cast is weighted and there are a lot of scenes with adult and mentor characters. I think it worked okay because the story stayed focused on Simon’s discoveries and hinged on his developing understanding and planned actions, but I wished there was more involvement from other younger characters and more dialogue to break up some of the longer narrative sections. On the whole, though, I really enjoyed reading it.
I really liked the fusion of dystopian elements and Christian elements. This book is definitely going to have the most appeal to someone looking for strong Christian themes. Fans of Rachelle Dekker’s Seer Series should add this to their reading lists.
Recommended for Ages 10 up.
Cultural Elements
Simon is described as having dark eyes and olive skin. There weren’t very many details like this or any racial identifiers.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content Simon feels some attraction toward a girl.
Spiritual Content Simon learns about a secret group of Christians. They teach him about Jesus. Several passages contain scriptures and some sermon-like moments.
Violent Content Vague dreams haunt Simon. In them, he’s restrained and threatened by an unknown man. In one, he’s held upside down. In another, water drips onto him.
About When Light Left Us When the Vasquez siblings’ father left, it seemed nothing could remedy the absence in their lives . . . until a shimmering figure named Luz appeared in the canyon behind their house.
Luz filled the void. He shot hoops with seventeen-year-old Hank’s hands. He showed fourteen-year-old Ana cinematic beauty behind her eyelids. He spoke kindly to eight-year-old Milo. But then Luz left, too, and he took something from each of them. As a new school year begins, Ana, Hank, and Milo must carry on as if an alien presence never altered them. But how can they ever feel close to other people again when Luz changed everything about how they see the world and themselves?
In an imaginative and heartfelt exploration of human—and non-human—nature, Leah Thomas champions the unyielding bonds between family and true friends.
My Review When Light Left Us is a really odd book. Some of the oddness kind of made it hard for me to get into the story at first. I liked all three of the kids, though, so as I got to know them, I got more into the story. The writing is amazing. Even when the plot didn’t hook me, I would find myself lost in the stark descriptions of things, especially of the emotions of the characters. Thomas finds these really powerful and often unorthodox ways of describing things that is like tossing you into a swimming pool of that emotion. Suddenly, you’re swallowed up by feelings. I loved that about her earlier books and found it to be equally true in this one, too.
I liked that the siblings had really distinct traits and ways of thinking and talking. Ana with her sarcasm and Hank with his uncertainty. Milo with his helium-filled optimism. So great! I wasn’t crazy about the fact that their mom had her own point-of-view scenes at first, but it did add to the story. I’m not sure if teen readers would connect with her the same way that I did as a mom, though. Lots of the things she said and did resonated with me.
All in all, the story never gets un-weird. A strange alien-ish creature changes the lives of the humans it contacts. They must fight their way back from the trauma of losing their dad and then losing contact with the alien presence. But the characters, the power of the storytelling make When Light Left Us a strong, unforgettable story.
Recommended for Ages 14 up.
Cultural Elements
Hank, Ana, and Milo’s dad is Mexican and their mom is white. Hank is gay.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.
Romance/Sexual Content Kissing and references to kissing between a boy and girl and a boy and boy.
Spiritual Content Luz is possibly an alien or other sentient being who communicates with his hosts and can take control of their bodies.
Violent Content Hank remembers attacking two people and trying to choke them. Ana has a history of cutting herself and briefly remembers some of those experiences. A boy attacks Hank, punching and kicking him. Luz seems fascinated with death and nearly forces two people to end their lives while he controls them.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
About Hawk’s Flight When Taverik Zandro impulsively befriended a struggling young fellow merchant, he had no idea of Marko’s desperate secret. Something of a black sheep himself, he had no desire to become involved in affairs outside the ordinary. But after that first helping hand, Marko’s turbulent past entangles Taverik in a world of high politics and dark magic, and turns his own comfortably materialistic way of life upside down in more ways than one. When it is proven to him that he has been chosen along with Marko to defend the land against an encroaching evil that seems inexorable, Zandro wants nothing to do with his god-given role. Of course he has no choice…
My Review Hawk’s Flight has been one of my favorite books since I was in seventh grade. I’ve probably read it more times than any other novel, and I hate that it’s out of print.
I hadn’t read Hawk’s Flight in years before picking it up now, and while the story still drew me in from the first page to the last, I did wince a few times at small contradictions or awkward writing in a few places. Honestly, though, I love the characters and the story far too much to care very deeply about that stuff.
The spiritual content is pretty pronounced, and follows a pretty strong parallel to Christian faith. Both Taverik and Marko realize they can’t sit back and be simple merchants anymore—they are caught up in a spiritual battle and have to choose a side. I loved Taverik’s quick wit and the way he hid what was important behind his cavalier humor, and the way Marko saw straight through all that. I loved the dynamic between them. I felt like they had great balance in strengths vs. weaknesses.
The cast of characters with point-of-view scenes gets pretty large as the story unfolds, but I didn’t have too much trouble keeping track of anyone. There is a character glossary in the back of the book to help in any case. The story also contains some interesting Pakajan language terms. My favorite is a strong insult—ikiji—second best. I thought it was cleverly used.
So… this book is out of print. I’ve never had trouble finding used copies for sale online, though. I’ve probably bought at least four or five copies over the years, mostly because I end up lending my copy out and buying another when it isn’t returned.
Six of Crows fans should check out this title. If you like fantasy with strong spiritual content, high adventure, and great romance, you definitely need to get a copy of this book. It’s been a long time since I read it for the first time, and it’s still one of my favorites.
Recommended for Ages 13 up.
Cultural Elements
Racial tension runs high between the native Pakajan (feels like a Nordic-type people) and the Massadarans, who’ve colonized the land and imposed restrictive laws against the Pakajans. Massadarans have dark hair and gray eyes—maybe more like Southern Europeans? A third race of Bcacmat people is a war-like race with harsh rules concerning women’s conduct.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used moderately frequently.
Romance/Sexual Content A man tries to check a companion’s chest wound only to discover that his friend is a woman. A few kisses between a man and woman. A couple teasing comments about masculinity or whether someone is gay. At one point a man makes asks his friend if he’s slept with a woman.
Marita worries about her menstrual cycle. One man refuses to touch her when he learns she’s on her cycle, claiming she’s unclean.
Spiritual Content Very strong Christian parallels in the spiritual content. Pakajans (and Massadarans) traditionally worship a creator God called Zojikam. Taverik begins seeing signs of a cult who worships a black eagle and interacts with other lesser spiritual beings. The story follows a spiritual battle as well as a physical one, and Tav and others find they must choose a side as the spiritual battle spills over into their lives. The villain, who serves the Black Eagle, has several out-of-body experiences as he travels as a giant eagle, serving his master. They hear rumors of human sacrifice in the name of the Black Eagle. At one point, Tav and his friend encounter an angel-like being who helps them escape an evil spiritual being sent after them by followers of the Black Eagle. At another point, a giant Black Eagle attacks Taverik and he calls on Zojikam for help escaping. Tav and others attend prayer services honoring Zojikam and more than once a priest shares a prophecy.
Violent Content Several battle scenes and fatalities. Bandits kill a boy during a caravan. Assassins kill several people for political reasons. Mostly these are sword wounds and knife fights. The descriptions aren’t grisly, but there are multiple scenes showing battles.
Drug Content
Taverik and others drink ale, wine, or brandy (they are of age). At one point Marko plans to get some rude students drunk so they can slip away without further trouble from them. She drinks too much brandy at one point and regrets it when her head becomes thick and she winds up with a headache.
