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Review: The Sea is Salt and So Am I by Cassandra Hartt

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The Sea is Salt and So Am I by Cassandra Hartt

The Sea Is Salt and So Am I
Cassandra Hartt
Roaring Brook Press
Published June 8, 2021

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About The Sea Is Salt and So Am I

West Finch is one hurricane away from falling into the sea.

Yet sixteen-year-old Harlow Prout is determined to save her small Maine hometown. If only she could stop getting in her own way and find someone, anyone, willing to help. But her best friend Ellis MacQueen “fixes” problems by running away from them―including his broken relationship with his twin brother, Tommy. And Tommy’s depression has hit a new low, so he’s not up for fixing anything.

In the wake of the town’s latest devastating storm, Tommy goes out for a swim that he doesn’t intend to survive. It’s his unexpected return that sets into motion a sea change between these three teens. One that tests old loyalties, sparks new romance, and uncovers painful secrets. And nothing stays secret in West Finch for long.

My Review

This book wrecked me so badly. In a good way, I think? Haha.

It’s got big emotions. Secrets. People who desperately care about each other but somehow go to great lengths to do anything besides deal with the ways they’ve hurt each other. I couldn’t stop reading it. I thought about it for days after I finished reading it.

The writing is so steeped in feeling. It’s got an amazing small town setting, where everyone is waiting for storms to hit and knowing they might destroy the places they love. The story is complex. It’s deep. It’s unforgettable.

And then the ending. I… don’t even know what to say.

The ending is great, just…. abrupt? I love the book, and I’m not unhappy with the ending, I think it just left something unclear that I wanted more completely spelled out for me. But even that doesn’t dim the incredible journey that reading this story was for me. I loved it.

I think readers who enjoy books with big emotions and small towns packed with secrets will love this one. Fans of John Green or Kyrie McCauley should absolutely check this one out.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Tommy has depression. Ellis is bisexual.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing betwen boy and girl. Kissing between two boys. A couple scenes show people kissing without shirts and reference sex.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content – Trigger warning for suicide attempt.
One character tries to die by suicide by swimming away from shore.

Drug Content
Tommy is on medication for depression but isn’t happy with how it makes him feel. He stops taking the medication at one point. He drinks beer with Ellis at one point, which he isn’t supposed to do on his medication, either.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of THE SEA IS SALT AND SO AM I in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Double the Danger and Zero Zucchini by Betsy Uhrig

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Double the Danger and Zero Zucchini
Betsy Uhrig
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published September 22, 2020

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About Double the Danger and Zero Zucchini

Books aren’t supposed to be dangerous. Are they?

Alex Harmon prefers running over sitting still reading. But when his aunt offers to pay him to point out the boring parts in her children’s book, he figures it’s an easy way to make ten bucks. The problem is that her book is about a grumpy frog and a prize-winning zucchini. It doesn’t have only a few boring pages…the whole thing is a lost cause.
br>Alex gives his aunt some ideas to help her out—like adding danger and suspense. But books can’t just be interesting. They also have to be believable. Soon Alex recruits his friends to help him act out scenes so he can describe all the important details. He’s even getting plot twists from a mysterious stranger (who might also be a ghost). Too late, Alex discovers that being a real-life stunt double for a fictional character can land you in terrible trouble—even if your friends are laughing their heads off!

My Review

You know that wonderful feeling you get when you need a really good story to pull you out of a really terrible week, and you find exactly the right one and it somehow makes your life so much better? This was my experience with DOUBLE THE DANGER AND ZERO ZUCCHINI.

I was having a really rough week. My cat had surgery, and I had my own health issues. I wasn’t sleeping much. I really didn’t feel like reading, but I didn’t feel like doing anything else, either. So I picked up this book hoping for hilarity and miracles, and it absolutely delivered.

First off, I was intrigued by the opening– we learn about a famous book that had a difficult beginning. And we meet Alex, a goofy, determined kid who doesn’t have a lot of faith in his own imagination and has a whole lot of trouble sitting still. He gets roped into helping his aunt fix her very boring book, and soon he and his friends are off testing scene ideas and chasing down a helpful writing ghost. I loved Alex’s friends and the relationships he forms with members of the senior center. This is one of those books that keeps you laughing and reminds you of the power of community to help one another and family to stick by each other. It’s packed with spunky characters and adventure and absolutely full of heart. It was exactly the book I needed to read.

I also love that the story championed audiobooks as an alternative way to read and that the crafty librarian is a hero, too. I think readers who enjoy funny stories and powerful friendships will love DOUBLE THE DANGER AND ZERO ZUCCHINI.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Alex’s friends are Latinx.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Alex and his friends joke that his neighbor’s house has a ghost.

Violent Content
Alex and his friends create a model for the final battle in his aunt’s story and discuss what kind of injuries it might cause the characters.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support running this blog.

Review: Frank by Ece Gurler

Book Review and Content, Middle Grade 8-12, Sci-Fi, , , , , , , ,

Frank
Ece Gurler
BookBaby
Published December 1, 2020

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About Frank

Have you ever dreamt of an alternate world? A world full of second chances and lost dreams, found again. Just like the one Frank has stumbled upon.

Frank, an eleven-year-old science nerd, fashions a hiding place in his closet with his favorite things. He calls it the “Aurora Shell”, where he retreats whenever he feels upset or scared. The day he learns that he was adopted, he discovers an empty space behind his Big Bang Theory poster, in the Aurora Shell.

He decides to crawl in and find out what awaits him at the end of this dark tunnel. There, he meets an incredibly cheerful kid, Andy, who becomes his first true friend. Soon after they realize that this is not just a simple passage, but it is a bridge that connects two parallel universes! Frustrated that he was unwanted by his biological parents in his own world, Frank decides to take his chance in this new universe to gain acceptance. Maybe this time his parents would welcome him and love him?

Grabbing their backpacks, the two friends set out on a quest to find Frank’s birth parents in Andy’s universe. In the beginning of their journey, everything looks brand new and astonishing to Frank. But this adventure will hold dangers they never could have imagined. Will they be able to survive the grave challenges and find Frank’s family in the end? Was their secret going to cause them trouble?

My Review

I’m definitely a fan of stories about friendship and family, so even the idea of this book held a lot of appeal for me. I liked that Frank’s family isn’t perfect– they’re going through some hard times, and that impacts their relationships with one another. It also seemed cool that Frank and Andy had very different personalities and ways of dealing with things.

While some of the dialogue was a little bit awkwardly worded, I thought the banter between Frank and Andy added some fun to the story. The pacing slowed a bit toward the middle of the book, and I was surprised by some of the directions the story took, but the speed picked up again toward the end.

On the whole, I think it’s a sweet, if a little bit dark, tale of friendship, family and the multiverse. Ha.

Update 1/18/21: The version of FRANK that I read was a pre-release version. The author had a final edit to remove awkward wording (English is her second language) and any swear words.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 9 up.

Representation
I think the characters are white, based on the illustrations.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used about a half dozen times.

Update 1/18/21: The version of FRANK that I read was a pre-release version. The author had a final edit to remove awkward wording (English is her second language) and any swear words.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Reference to praying. At one point Frank’s mom says, “Thank God…”

Violent Content – Trigger Warning
Some brief descriptions of domestic violence and child abuse.

Drug Content
A couple of adults drink alcohol and behave cruelly when drunk.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support running this blog. I received a free copy of FRANK in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Gifted, the Talented, and Me by William Sutcliffe

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

The Gifted, the Talented, and Me
William Sutcliffe
Bloomsbury YA
Published October 13, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About The Gifted, the Talented, and Me

Fifteen-year-old Sam isn’t special. He’s not a famous vlogger, he’s never gone viral, and he doesn’t want to be the Next Big Thing. What he likes most is chatting to his friends and having a bit of a kick about.

None of which was a problem until Dad got rich and Mum made the whole family move to London. Now Sam is being made to go to the North London Academy for the Gifted and Talented, where every student is too busy planning Hollywood domination or starting alt-metal psychedelica crossover bands or making clothes out of bathmats to give someone as normal as him the time of day. Can Sam navigate his way through the weirdness and find a way to be himself?

Laugh-out-loud funny and instantly recognisable – not since The Inbetweeners has a coming of age story been so irreverent and relatable.

My Review

I really, really struggled with this book. Some of it is super funny. I laughed out loud more than once. There are a lot of references to penises, and I get that it’s a thing that does occupy the mind. It was just a lot, sort of the same joke over and over.

If you’ve read many other reviews of this book, you’ve probably come across some discussion of the queerbaiting content, so I want to talk about that first. Basically, what happens is this: Sam’s brother, Ethan, joins a queer band (every band has to have a “thing,” he tells Sam), so he tells everyone he’s bisexual in order to be in the band. It becomes increasingly clear that Ethan is not bisexual, but he continues to use the label so he can continue with the band. Which is pretty clearly queerbaiting, and totally wrong.

In the story, Sam continually tells Ethan that what he’s doing is wrong and is going to catch up with him. Ethan does eventually face some consequences for his actions, though we don’t get a firsthand response from any queer characters. He does eventually have to own up to his identity and is pretty miserable about how things end up. It’s not great, and I would still say that there isn’t really a moment when he gets called out on the behavior by queer characters or anyone putting into perspective how harmful the behavior can be. But it is strongly condemned in the story as wrong and deceitful.

During Sam’s callback for the school play audition, he relates the performances of other students in a pretty derogatory way. I felt gross reading that section because he was both unkind in the way he described the other actors competing for the part he wanted, but he was also kind of superior and snobby, and none of that was ever called out as wrong.

For the most part, I really liked the dynamics of Sam’s family, especially in the scenes where they’re kind of all having snappy conversations that kind of run over each other. That felt really true to the experience of a big family with lots of funny people in it. I wish that his mom hadn’t been quite so over-the-top and such a largely negative portrayal of feminism.

On the whole, there were lots of funny things in this book, but readers may find the constant penis joke/awareness to be too much and may be troubled by the presence of queerbaiting, even though it’s condemned.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Most characters are white. A couple minor characters identify as queer. Sam’s brother falsely identifies as queer.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used infrequently. Crude humor used frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. Two references to sexual touching. Some vague references to hoping not to be a virgin until age 30.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Two boys appear to be about to have a fight.

Drug Content
One student has a house party with alcohol.

Note: I received a free copy of THE GIFTED, THE TALENTED, AND ME in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.

Review: It Came From the Sky by Chelsea Sedoti

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

It Came From the Sky
Chelsea Sedoti
Sourcebooks Fire
Published August 1, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About It Came From the Sky

This is the absolutely true account of how Lansburg, Pennsylvania was invaded by aliens and the weeks of chaos that followed. There were sightings of UFOs, close encounters, and even abductions. There were believers, Truth Seekers, and, above all, people who looked to the sky and hoped for more.

Only… there were no aliens.

Gideon Hofstadt knows what really happened. When one of his science experiments went wrong, he and his older brother blamed the resulting explosion on extraterrestrial activity. And their lie was not only believed by their town―it was embraced. As the brothers go to increasingly greater lengths to keep up the ruse and avoid getting caught, the hoax flourishes. But Gideon’s obsession with their tale threatened his whole world. Can he find a way to banish the aliens before Lansburg, and his life, are changed forever?

Told in a report format and comprised of interviews, blog posts, text conversations, found documents, and so much more, It Came from the Sky is a hysterical and resonant novel about what it means to be human in the face of the unknown.

From the author of The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett and As You Wish comes the unforgettable story of the one small town’s biggest hoax and the two brothers who started it all.

“A page-turner as engrossing as any classic Twilight Zone starring two spirited brothers who run circles around the Hardy Boys.” – Ben Philippe, Morris Award-winning author of The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

My Review

I have mixed feelings about this book. The whole situation– the explosion that leads to the alien encounter hoax– is kind of funny. I’m generally a fan of stories in which the characters land themselves in bizarre situations and then have to panic-slash-mastermind their way out of them only to have unanticipated consequences result. So this story definitely scratches that itch for me.

I just… didn’t like Gideon. I appreciated his intelligence. And I sympathized with his struggle to communicate his emotions and his aversion to sticky foods. But all of it seemed so selfish to me. He seemed so selfish. Even the idea that he could perpetrate this large-scale lie without any remorse, because it’s for science! I had a lot of trouble connecting with him.

Even though I didn’t connect with Gideon, I read the whole book because I hoped that it would have the kind of resolution that would make it all make sense and that if he really learned his lesson, it’d be worth the investment in the book.

And he does learn some things and make some changes. There’s growth. One of the things I didn’t like (and I’m going to be vague for spoilers reasons) was that toward the end, Gideon is faced with someone who has committed two different types of crimes. In my mind, one was much more personal and damaging than the other. But it felt like because the other frustrated Gideon more, he prioritized reporting it.

All in all, I thought the idea was fun, and the story was interesting, but this one isn’t for me. If you like goofy heist or prank stories, though, IT CAME FROM THE SKY is one I think you’ll want to check out.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Gideon is gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two boys. References to sex between an adult and minor.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
Gideon discovers an adult who is drunk and behaving unsafely.

Note: I received a free copy of IT CAME FROM THE SKY in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.

Review: The Boy Who Steals Houses by C. G. Drews

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

The Boy Who Steals Houses
C. G. Drews
Orchard Books
Published April 4, 2019

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About The Boy Who Steals Houses

Can two broken boys find their perfect home? By turns heartbreaking and heartwarming, this is a gorgeously told, powerful story.

Sam is only fifteen but he and his autistic older brother, Avery, have been abandoned by every relative he’s ever known. Now Sam’s trying to build a new life for them. He survives by breaking into empty houses when their owners are away, until one day he’s caught out when a family returns home. To his amazement this large, chaotic family takes him under their wing – each teenager assuming Sam is a friend of another sibling. Sam finds himself inextricably caught up in their life, and falling for the beautiful Moxie.

But Sam has a secret, and his past is about to catch up with him.

Heartfelt storytelling, perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson and Jennifer Niven.

My Review

I’ve been in such a weird reading place lately (as so many of us have during the pandemic), so while I wanted to read this book at some point, it wasn’t in the short stack of books I felt like I needed to read this month.

And yet.

As soon as I started the first page, I had to know what came next. The chapters are pretty short (or at least, they seemed that way?) and I kept “one more chapter”-ing myself into reading long past a reasonable bed time and sneaking reading time into every spare minute during the day until I’d finished. So it’s super addicting and a really compelling story.

Sam is one of those boys you just want to shake (Gently… Come on. He’s been through a LOT.). He’s a mess, and he’s quickly becoming something he fears and hates, but he so desperately wants to be loved and to protect those he loves that I really couldn’t help loving him and wanting him to figure out a way through.

Though the whole story is in his point-of-view, a lot of it centers around a girl he’s quickly falling for. Moxie is amazing. I loved her from the very first moment she appeared on the page. She is fierce, creative, and vulnerable. She confronts Sam’s issues, but she sees beyond them, too.

Conclusion

Some of the abuse elements in THE BOY WHO STEALS HOUSES are pretty dark. I’m sensitive to that type of content, and it was very close to the line for me because it’s so cruel, and because more than one character behaves cruelly toward Sam and his brother. There are maybe four scenes that were really hard to read and then other quick mentions of or references to abuse that happened to the boys. I still loved the book, but it does live up to the promise of being heartbreaking in its descriptions of these things.

If you like tragic heroes and stories about found families, THE BOY WHO STEALS HOUSES must go on your To Be Read list! I think fans of MORE THAN WE CAN TELL by Brigid Kemmerer will really like this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Sam’s brother Avery has Autism Spectrum Disorder. Moxie’s brother is gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Graphic scenes show an adult physically abusing a child. Some scenes show cruel bullying and a teen beating up other teens.

Drug Content
References to teens drinking alcohol.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.