Review: When You Leave by Monica Ropal

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

when-you-leaveWhen You Leave
Monica Ropal
Running Press Kids

For Cass, the girl who survived her father’s desertion and best friend’s battle with cancer, love doesn’t come with the possibility of loss but the certainty of it. When the hot boy at her new school seems interested in her, Cass keeps their relationship a secret. At first it’s just flirtation and fun, but Cooper isn’t satisfied with the cool exterior Cass shows everyone else. He wants the real her.

And just when she’s ready to let him into her heart, he’s gone. Dead. Murdered. Worse still, her friend Gavin gets blamed for it. All Cass can do now is try to piece together who Cooper really was and why the real killer wanted him dead. Her search unearths truths she is barely able to face and forces her to confront her own losses again.

It’s rare to find a book in which every character surprises you. When You Leave is about a girl trying to solve a mystery, but instead of looking for the murder weapon and simple motives, she uncovers a host of secrets and discovers that the students she meets are never what they seem. I loved the little things, from the surprising décor in Cooper’s kitchen to the way Cass still hears Mattie’s voice in her head even though he can’t speak aloud. I reached the last page and still wanted the story to continue. Days after closing the book, I still find myself thinking about the characters. Ropal did a fantastic job capturing the identities and conflicting layers of teens.

Language Content
Extreme word choice, moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
Brief descriptions of pretty intense kissing. Seems like things don’t really go further, but it’s a bit fuzzy.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Three boys attack Cass’s friend Gavin. A boy’s body is found. He’s been beaten to death. Cass doesn’t witness this, and there aren’t any detailed descriptions of what happened to him. A boy attacks Mattie and Cass in the woods. Descriptions are pretty brief but moderately intense.

Drug Content
References to a boy selling pot to kids at Cass’s school.

Review: Between Shadows by Kathleen Cook Waldron

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Between Shadows
Kathleen Cook Waldron
Coteau Books

When his grandfather dies unexpectedly, Ari and his remaining family gather at the cabin deep in the woods. At the reading of the will, another surprise greets Ari, his dad and his aunt: Grandpa left the cabin and all his land to Ari. Uninterested in the remote property that conjures painful memories, Ari’s dad and aunt make plans to sell everything. Ari is determined to change their minds.

Author Kathleen Cook Waldron brings to the story her own experience living in the bush. The details of the cabin and surrounding land and community are told in vivid detail so that even the most urban readers can perfectly picture the serene woods, playful stream and peaceful lake.

Through Waldron’s clean storytelling, we follow a grieving family as they wrestle with loss. I loved how each member of Ari’s family reconnected with his grandfather through the experience of staying at the cabin. Though he’s no longer present, his love for his family is so clear in the things he left behind. Each character discovers and responds to these unwritten love letters from their father or grandfather. In these moments, Waldron’s writing is moving, subtle and clever.

This is a great story about the opportunity grieving families have to rediscover their lost loved one and renew relationships with one another. The rustic setting gently reminds us to consider what’s really important.

Language Content
None.

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
None.

Drug Content
None.

Review: On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

On the Jellicoe Road
Melina Marchetta
Penguin Australia

Taylor Markham has been at the school on the Jellicoe Road since she was six years old. It’s her turn to lead the students in the annual territory wars with the Townies and Cadets from a school in Sydney. But lost memories of her childhood, her mother and a man she hopes is her father distract her from the game. When her caregiver, Hannah, disappears, Taylor studies the stories Hannah left behind, looking for clues to her whereabouts. She forms unlikely alliances with territory rivals, and together they work to solve the mysteries behind many things that happened on the Jellicoe Road.

When I started reading this novel, I felt a bit lost. It seems like two stories are happening simultaneously, and it’s hard to figure out which parts of which stories are significant at first. I love Marchetta’s Lumatere series, so I really wanted to stick with this book. In reading other reviews, I found other readers who’d had similar experiences, so I kept reading. And it definitely paid off.

The stories do intersect, and so many things make sense once it’s clear how they fit together. I loved the elements of history sort of repeating itself among Taylor and her friends – it’s kind of the redeemed version of the other story. The characters are fantastic. The romantic tension is delicious. Really great stuff.

Language Content
Extreme profanity, mild to moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
Kissing and references to sex. A couple of scenes briefly describe couples leading up to having sex. A couple times teens see each other in their underwear.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Some kids fist-fighting. A fire destroys a house and two girls go missing. A shooting accident kills a boy (No description of his injuries.)

Drug Content
None.

Review: The Key by Jennifer Anne Davis (Audiobook)

Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

The Key
Jennifer Anne Davis
Clean Teen Publishing
Published November 15, 2013

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

A bloody coup overthrows the king and wipes out nearly the entire family. Only a baby girl escapes with the help of a palace guard. Rema grows up knowing nothing of her past or who she really is. Her only clue is a necklace with a cryptic message inside.

Though she is raised as the daughter of a horse merchant, she catches the eye of Prince Darmik, commander of the king’s army. His jealous brother, the Crown Prince, sees Darmik’s affection for the girl and blackmails her to marry him instead.

Torn between her attraction for Prince Darmik and the Crown Prince’s threats, Rema does the only thing she can: she pledges herself to Prince Lennek to spare her family from harm.

Rema is a high-spirited girl, one who will not easily be broken. Prince Darmik is an honorable man. Though his father the king makes some terrible choices, Darmik will uphold the law and support his king. Both are complex characters with internal as well as external conflicts.

Prince Lennek and the king were much less complex. The king is evil because he is greedy. He’s greedy because he is evil. Prince Lennek is spoiled and that motivates all sorts of disastrous choices. I felt like there were a lot of unexploited opportunities for tension and complexity in both these characters. I couldn’t understand why Darmik would blindly serve them if they were indeed so vile.

I found the economics of the story world a bit distracting. The farmers grow the food, which the king then collects and sells back to the people, though much of it spoils before it can be distributed. Servants receive only bread and water twice a day. The people are not allowed to travel from one district to another. How does this make any sense for trade? If the king is levying high taxes against the people, how are there barons or lords still wealthy? A nearly bankrupt kingdom – now that would give the king some greater motivation than greed. Seventeen years of this seems like it would leave the kingdom bankrupted with a rebellion mounted long ago.

Also (spoiler alert) at one point Rema is accused of betraying her engagement to Prince Lennek by being caught with another man. She refutes this as a lie. Um… but like two scenes ago she was kissing another guy?! I was confused.

One thing I did enjoy was listening to Michelle Michaels narration of the story. Her voice carried the intensity perfect for the suspenseful or high-action scenes. Her accent fit the story well. Sometimes the intensity of the narration seemed a little high for the scene at hand, but overall she definitely kept the feeling that important things were about to happen throughout the entire audiobook.

A lot of readers have raved about this book on Goodreads. Honestly, I couldn’t really get into it. There were too many things that made me sit back and scratch my head. For readers looking for a fantasy fix, I recommend the series Tales of Goldstone Wood by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (very clean, Christian content.) The recently released novel Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard is a bit similar in plot but, in my opinion, more well-executed.

Language Content
None.

Sexual Content
Brief kissing. References to Prince Lennek’s promiscuous behavior. A palace servant is discovered to be pregnant. She claims Lennek is the father. Darmik and some of his soldiers visit a tavern at which some girls approach them. Darmik sends them away.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Darmik uses military force to capture rebels spreading rumors that an heir to the former king lives. He plans to torture the rebels to find out more, but descriptions are extremely brief. When Rema is sent to the dungeon, she finds terrible conditions there.

Drug Content
Darmik and his men visit a tavern for ale and information.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Upcoming Reviews on the Story Sanctuary (April 2015)

Lists, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Over the next few weeks, The Story Sanctuary will be home to reviews for some great new releases as well as some catch-up reviews on recent or past releases. Here are a few you can expect to see…

When You Leave by Monica Ropal

This was one of those stories that left me pining for another chapter. Really great characters and tension. Very angsty story, which is so often what I crave in YA.

Between Shadows by Kathleen Cook Waldron

I had the pleasure of meeting this author and talking about the book with her late last year. Her description of the story and its characters were so intriguing that I’ve been thinking about them ever since. Can’t wait to crack the cover on this one!

Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee

I found myself drawn to it because it’s so different from my usual reading pick. Boxing and political intrigue? I’m so game.

All the Rage by Courtney Summers

Apparently NetGalley flagged this one for me because I loved We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (which I definitely did!) So I’m nervous – it’s usually a bad idea for me to go into a book expecting it to be like another book – but hopeful. Sounds like it’s got some deep psychological exploration in it, and I’m always up for that.

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Twitter has been abuzz with praise for this novel. It’s sort of X-men meets fairy tale. Loads of political drama, intrigue and betrayal.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

This is a book that caught my eye on another reviewer’s to-read list. The cover is really intriguing, and I find myself really curious about a story in which the goblin is the good guy. There aren’t too many of those.

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

This is one of those rare series in which I’ve read all the books leading up to this one. I’m super excited to read it. Meyer brings really imaginative story world to every book in the Lunar Chronicles. I’m as interested in Queen Levana’s history as I am in how Meyer constructs Levana’s world.

Fix by Force by Jason Warne

I’ve almost picked this novel up several times, and this month I’ll finally read and review it. It’s a coming-of-age plus drug battle type story, another of my known literary weaknesses.

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Guilt and Innocence in The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

Book Review and Content, Magical Realism, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

The Walls Around Us
Nova Ren Suma
Algonquin Books

Violet’s best friend Ori would have done anything for her. That’s what best friends do. At least, that’s what Violet tells herself happened that night behind the theater, the night those two girls died. After that, Ori gets sent upstate to a girls’ prison.

Amber waits for her new prison roommate. She’s known the girl will come since the night the doors opened, the night she saw the girl who didn’t belong. She also knows the new roommate starts the beginning of the end. That they will all die in a few weeks’ time.

In poetic narrative, Suma delivers a story of three girls and the guilt or innocence that binds them to one another. It’s thick, dark, and supernatural.

As a former dancer, I enjoyed the references to ballet and the role the competitive dance world played in shaping Orianna and Violet. It created a natural foundation of tension and sense of rivalry that kept me turning page after page of the story.

The supernatural element comes into play when all the prison doors open one night and many prisoners leave their cells. Amber meets a shadow of a girl who doesn’t belong and afterward sees glimpses of the prison as it looks in the future. It pretty much freaks her out and she worries that she’s losing her mind.

Suma pulls the threads of all the girls’ stories together powerfully in the conclusion of the tale. Again, it’s dark, but it also feels necessary. This is definitely less a feel-good tale and more a deeply thoughtful, balance-in-the-universe sort of story.

Language Content
Infrequent profanity.

Sexual Content
Both Ori and Violet are sexually active. Ori has a loving relationship with a devoted boyfriend, where Violet chooses shallower, physical relationships. In one scene, Violet engages in oral sex with a boy. She’s caught and possibly photographed in the act. There are also several brief references to girl-on-girl experiences within the prison.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Amber’s stepfather physically abused her. Amber fantasized about ways to murder her father in a journal. Descriptions are brief. The description of his death in a fire is also pretty brief.

Two girls bully another girl pretty severely. There are some brief descriptions of things they do. They’re less violent than straight up horrible.

Drug Content
A vine with flowers, a powerful hallucinogenic, grows outside Amber’s cell window. Some girls smoke the flowers to get high. Another inmate, Peaches, trades drugs to the other girls. No point-of-view characters use drugs in the story.