Tag Archives: kidnapping

Review: Aftermath by Clara Kensie

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


I’m excited to share my review as a part of the Aftermath Blog Tour. Not only is this book about an issue dear to my heart, but one book blogger has taken her love of the story above and beyond and uses it to support RAINN and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, both resources the author lists for readers in the back of the book. You can win one of the Aftermath tote bags in the giveaway below, too.

Aftermath
Clara Kensie
Merit Press
Available November 1, 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Indiebound | Goodreads

About Aftermath
Charlotte survived four long years as a prisoner in the attic of her kidnapper, sustained only by dreams of her loving family. The chance to escape suddenly arrives, and Charlotte fights her way to freedom. But an answered prayer turns into heartbreak. Losing her has torn her family apart. Her parents have divorced: Dad’s a glutton for fame, Mom drinks too much, and Charlotte’s twin is a zoned-out druggie. Her father wants Charlotte write a book and go on a lecture tour, and her mom wants to keep her safe, a virtual prisoner in her own home. But Charlotte is obsessed with the other girl who was kidnapped, who never got a second chance at life–the girl who nobody but Charlotte believes really existed. Until she can get justice for that girl, even if she has to do it on her own, whatever the danger, Charlotte will never be free.

My Review
This was a tough read for me emotionally. For the most part, I thought the author kept the details of Charlotte’s captivity to a minimum, mostly hinting at her experience rather than describing it in detail. Some of the most emotional moments for me were the scenes in which she tries to reconnect with her family. I felt like her struggle to process and understand were easy to identify with. There were some moments where things seemed to happen too easily, but I think the story would have been super dark if every victory was hard won.

I really liked that the characters weren’t as simple as we at first believed them to be. Her father isn’t simply a fame-obsessed guy. Her mom isn’t simply a broken alcoholic. Her sister isn’t simply a drug addict. There are a lot of other elements at play, and as the real truth about Charlotte’s disappearance comes out and the truth about what her captor has done becomes clear, we finally understand the larger issues going on in Charlotte’s family. I thought that orchestration was incredibly well done.

If you’re interested in a story that explores a kidnapped girl but has more mild content, try Girl, Stolen by April Henry. If you liked Girl, Stolen and check the content below to see if Aftermath is the right book for you.

Recommended for Ages 17 up.

Cultural Elements
Characters are described as white, middle class, small town people. Both Charlotte and Alexa have pale skin and black hair.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Spiritual Content
Alexa tells Charlotte about the prayer vigil and memorial service held while she was missing.

Drug Content
Alexa swears she’s done using drugs, but confesses to experimenting with pot, cocaine and even heroin. She takes Charlotte with her to a party and gets drunk. Charlotte drinks beer as well, in an attempt to feel like a “normal” teen.

Romance/Sexual Content – TRIGGER WARNING
Charlotte frequently recalls details from her captivity. She makes a reference to him forcing her to perform oral sex and describes some creepy things, like his preference for brushing her hair. She tells a friend that he forced her to have sex with him every night, and that her fear for her sister’s safety kept her from fighting back. She also knows he killed another girl he kept, The One Before Charlotte. Later she learns he had abused a family member.

Charlotte tries to feel like a normal girl by persuading a boy to have sex with her. Alexa finds them, the boy’s pants are off, and Charlotte’s kneeling on the floor.

Violent Content – TRIGGER WARNING
Most of Charlotte’s flashbacks involve remembering her captor choking her. She briefly describes other instances where he beat her. She has an injury that never healed correctly from one occasion. On another, he beat her so badly that she suffered a miscarriage.

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

About Clara Kensie

Website | Newsletter | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Insiders | Goodreads

Clara Kensie grew up near Chicago, reading every book she could find and using her diary to write stories about a girl with psychic powers who solved mysteries. She purposely did not hide her diary, hoping someone would read it and assume she was writing about herself. Since then, she’s swapped her diary for a computer and admits her characters are fictional, but otherwise she hasn’t changed one bit.

Today Clara is a RITA© Award-winning author of dark fiction for young adults. Her super-romantic psychic thriller series, Run To You, was named an RT Magazine Editors Pick for Best Books of 2014, and Run to You Book One: Deception So Deadly, is the winner of the prestigious 2015 RITA© Award for Best First Book.

Clara’s latest release is Aftermath, a dark, ripped-from-the-headlines YA contemporary in the tradition of Room and The Lovely Bones. Aftermath is on Goodreads’ list of Most Popular Books Published in November 2016, and Young Adult Books Central declared it a Top Ten Book of 2016.

Clara’s favorite foods are guacamole and cookie dough. But not together. That would be gross.

Check out the other stops on the Aftermath Blog Tour

1/2: The Irish Banana Review – Review

1/3: Bibliobuli YA – 2 Truths & A Lie Post

1/4: Swoony Boys Podcast – Character Interview

1/5: Novel Ink – Review

1/6: Fiction Fare – Q&A

1/7: Actin’ Up With Books – Review

1/8: The Story Sanctuary – Review – you are here

1/9: Who R U Blog – Review

1/10: Lisa’s Loves – Dream Cast

1/11: Gabriella M Reads – Q&A

1/12: Novelgossip – Review

1/13: Such A Novel Idea – Playlist

 

Enter the Most Awesome Giveaway: Clara Kensie books and Aftermath Tote

1: A “Do It Double” Aftermath tote bag from Blu Bear Bazaar. Inspired by Aftermath‘s message to “Do it double, because some can’t do it at all,” Blu Bear Bazaar designed beautiful artwork for it and printed it on tote bags and throw pillows. Blu Bear Bazaar is generously donating a portion of all Aftermath product proceeds to RAINN and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Click here for more information.

2: Choice of TWO books from Clara’s collection of YA novels. Clara will give the winner a list of the YA novels in her collection, and the winner can pick two. Some of the books are signed by the author.

*US/CAN for the above prizes. If the winner is international, the prize will be substituted by a book from Book Depository up to $18.00, winner’s choice.

Good luck, and happy reading!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Review: Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

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

Bone Gap
Laura Ruby
Balzer + Bray
Available March 3, 2015

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

A young woman named Roza disappears from the small town of Bone Gap, and Finn, the only witness struggles to identify her captor. How do you describe someone who looks like everyone else? Everyone seems to believe Roza just up and left Finn and his brother Sean, the same way their mother did. But Finn knows Roza would never just leave on her own. Finn can’t give up. He’s as determined to find her as he is to win over the prickly bee girl with the strange eyes.

This is one of those books that I picked up expecting great writing, but having no idea what I was in for beyond that. As a Michael L. Printz Honor Book and a National Book Award Finalist, I figured it would be right up my alley. And it definitely is. Something about it reminded me of Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (even though there’s no race and the horse doesn’t eat anyone) and Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whalen.

I loved Finn right from the beginning. His complex relationship with his older brother and guardian really rang true, and the nurturing Roza totally drew me in. I was nervous about the magical-realism elements kind of throwing me out of the story. I think generally I like straight contemporary or straight fantasy, and magical realism seems to enjoy blurring those lines.

In this case, I think the fantasy elements were pretty well-grafted into the story. They were strange and a bit dark, but I loved the way Ruby tied everything together in the end, including the revelation about Finn—which I kind of saw coming but still thought was incredibly clever.

Overall, honestly, I felt like some of the sexual content was a little preachy. In one part, Petey, the girl Finn is interested in, recalls her mother giving her information about sex including conversation and an informative book. I liked the nod to parental involvement in sex education—I think that’s really important. I don’t know. Something about the way the relationship between Finn and Petey evolved felt a bit agenda-driven. It could be that I’m just be oversensitive. I like my literary fiction to read a little cleaner than this in terms of sexual content, so maybe it just felt out of place to me.

Despite all that, I loved the themes about love and about what it means to really see someone. The whole town is a bit blind to who Petey and Roza really are, but Finn, despite his other deficiencies, is the one who truly sees and knows them. I found that to be pretty powerful.

If you liked The Secret Life of Bees or the other books I mentioned above, you may want to add this one to your reading list. For more detailed content information, see below.

Recommended Age 16 up.

Cultural Elements
Roza is Polish. Other characters are more generic white, middle class people.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kisses between a boy and girl. A girl invites a boy into her bedroom in the middle of the night. It’s clear she’s willing to engage with him. She briefly reflects on the book her mom gave her about sex. References to oral sex. In one scene, a boy intends to have a girl perform oral sex with him and she refuses. In another scene a boy performs oral sex with a girl after the couple kiss and remove some clothing. It’s about a page long, so there are some limited details.

Spiritual Content
Things happen in the story that don’t make sense in the context of reality. (This is, after all, magical realism…) For instance, a horse flies. Gaps appear to connect the small town to another dimension of sorts.

Violent Content
Roza appears in Finn and Sean’s barn with some serious injuries. Later we learn about the man who caused them while he kept her captive. He’s super creepy. At one point she tries to stab her attacker. A boy attacks a man when he says something cruel about the girl he loves.

Drug Content
None.

 

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Review: Girl Stolen by April Henry

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

Girl, Stolen
April Henry
Henry Holt & Co

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Nothing was supposed to happen. Her step-mom left her in the car for a few minutes while she ran inside to pay for antibiotics. But when Cheyenne woke, instead of her step-mom behind the wheel of the car, it’s a boy with a gun. She’d been kidnapped.

Taking the car was supposed to be easy. It was running. Griffin hopped in and took it. He just didn’t realize there was a girl sleeping in the back seat. Once Roy starts calling the shots, things get complicated. The girl’s dad owns a big company. The boys want to collect a ransom. But Cheyenne’s pneumonia’s getting worse, and without antibiotics, she won’t last long. Her blindness keeps her from being able to recognize her captors, but it also makes it that much harder for her to escape.

This book really caught my attention because it’s a story about a kidnapping in which the protagonist is also blind. I liked that it was about a blind character but not about her blindness. I thought Henry portrayed Cheyenne as crafty, smart and independent. I liked Griffin, despite his flaws. He’s not the sharpest pencil in the box, but ultimately he wants to do the right thing and keep Cheyenne safe, and I definitely respected that. I liked that their relationship didn’t go wild and unrealistic places and stayed in this more ‘tentative allies’ frame.

Suspense isn’t really my thing, so I feel like it’s hard for me to evaluate the book in terms of the genre. I thought it could have been more suspenseful and intense. Because Cheyenne reasoned things out carefully, I think it tended to read with a gentler pace than some of the (few) suspense novels I’ve read. I didn’t enjoy it less for the pace, though.

Language Content
Mild language used infrequently.

Sexual Content
While the group holds Cheyenne captive, one man threatens to rape her. It’s creepy, but he doesn’t succeed.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Griffin’s dad is a violent man. There are references to things he’s done, but we don’t see him really become violent in terms of directly harming anyone in the story itself. He breaks windows on a truck and threatens to shoot Cheyenne. A man is shot in the chest with a shotgun at close range.

Drug Content
When Cheyenne is sick, Griffin describes her fevered state as reminding him of really drunk people at parties he’s been to. Cheyenne thinks the men who’ve captured her may be drunk.

Review: All the Truth That’s In Me by Julie Berry

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

All the Truth That’s In Me
Julie Berry
Viking Children’s/Penguin Group
Published September 26, 2013

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Judith returns to her small Puritan community at Roswell Station after a two year disappearance. She remains unable to speak, since her captor removed half her tongue. Her mother grudgingly allows her to live in her home, but rumors about Judith are whispered along the edges of her hearing. No one seems able to believe that she returned with her virtue intact.

Despite the murmurs and dirty looks, Judith tries her best to be kind to the townspeople, especially to her childhood friend Lucas. When an attack by Homelanders threatens to destroy the village and Lucas’s father, believed to be dead, returns to save the settlement, suspicion falls on Lucas. Has he known that his father lived all this time?

As the community begins to ostracize Lucas, Judith realizes she cannot stay silent and allow blame to fall on him for his father’s sins. She works with an unexpected ally to regain her voice and clear Lucas’s name.

The topic of abduction and the stark image on the cover of the book create the sense that this book will be filled with dark scenes and recollections of terrible abuse. In fact, that’s not so. There are a couple of very brief references to terrifying moments in captivity experienced by this young girl, but details are scarce and the author quickly moves on to other topics, leaving a strong sense of angst without the stories of abuse that some readers may not be prepared to handle.

Instead, Berry’s novel is a story of unexpected hope and heroism. A young girl struggles to regain her voice and to make herself heard in a community that has long overlooked and misjudged her. Her bravery and her unwavering love for her brother and her neighbors is inspiring and wholesome. The author’s use of prose and imagery bring to life the small Puritan town and its varied members.

As a lover of angsty teen novels, I found it refreshing to read a historical novel so emotionally charged and yet so hopeful. How many times have we read novels which ultimately condemn the rigidity of the Puritan culture? I loved that this novel didn’t go that route. Not that the leadership were without fault, but that hope, forgiveness and love – which believes the best – ultimately triumphed. Great story. Highly recommended.

Profanity and Crude Language Content
No profanity.

Sexual Content
Brief references to men’s lustful comments or actions toward Judith and discussions about whether her virginity is intact.

Spiritual Content
Judith finds comfort in a passage of scripture about captives grieving for their homeland. The pastor uses various verses to condemn a young man who is believed to have harbored a fugitive from the law.

Violence
Brief references to battle and battle-related injuries. A boy must have his leg amputated, but Judith doesn’t witness this. Judith briefly recalls an incident during her captivity where a man began to attack her, but quickly stopped. She also remembers seeing her friend choked to death. Very few details are given in these scenes.

Drug Content
None.

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Review: Tension of Opposites by Kristina McBride

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

Tension of Opposites
Kristina McBride
EgmontUSA
Available May 25, 2010

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Two years ago, Tessa’s best friend Noelle disappeared, leaving behind only her red bicycle and shattered memories. Tessa forces herself to accept the likelihood that her friend is dead. Then, in a shocking revelation from Noelle’s brother, Tessa learns that her friend is alive. That she’s been rescued from her captor. That she’ll be coming home.

Desperate to revive the kinship she once shared with Noelle, Tessa calls and visits, trying again and again to see her friend, only to be told Noelle isn’t ready. When she’s finally able to confront her, Tessa finds Noelle – who now insists on being called Elle – to be a stranger, aloof and hateful. Tessa won’t be deterred, nor will she sit idly by while Elle follows her new destructive path.

Tessa focuses so much on saving Elle that she pushes away everyone else around her, including the handsome new guy and his romantic hopes. Max challenges Tessa to reach beyond her comfort zones, to make her own needs a priority and to have confidence in her talent as a budding photographer.

While not overly graphic in its rehashing of Elle’s abduction, this isn’t a neat and tidy story, with a clear A-to-B plotline. Just as the reality of returning from horror would be twisted and messy, Elle’s re-acclimation into her family and school is raw and difficult. Her decisions reflect her turmoil. Tessa’s choices reflect her feelings of guilt and helplessness. The deep drama sucks the reader in and doesn’t let go until the last page is read. McBride strikes a good balance between darkness and hope.

Language Content
Moderate profanity, mild frequency.

Sexual Content
Brief references to what happened to Noelle after her kidnapping. No graphic details. Kissing between Tessa and her boyfriend. Elle talks frankly about planning to have sex with a boy she knows is only seeing her for the attention.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
No graphic descriptions of violence. Very brief references to things which occurred during Noelle’s captivity.

Drug Content
Teens attend parties and drink beer. Some smoke pot. Main character is seen as a “goody-goody,” though she does drink a beer at one of the parties.

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