Novel Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

Rating (Out of 5): ~4

Genre: Adult/Literature Fiction, Realistic

Publisher: Back Bay Books (Little, Brown and Hachette Book Group)

Release Date: 2010

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

 
To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world....

Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough ... not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

The Cover:

I really like the cover above, which is the one on my copy. I think it makes the emphasis on the title nice and clear, and shows the childishness of Jack, while all of the white gives an eerie or ominous feeling. There are a few other covers, as well, and I think most of them give a similarly good impression of the book. It's mostly the movie-version cover that I don't care too much for.

Review:

I've been wanting to read this book ever since it came out. I'm glad I finally got around to it.

Jack's mom was kidnapped by this guy seven years ago, but Jack is only five and he only knows this tiny room he's never left. He doesn't know what's beyond Door, and he doesn't know that he's missing anything. Anything he sees on TV, he knows is fictional.

Despite the very serious matter of this book, Jack is the one telling it, and he's a rather optimistic, cute kid. He's very smart for his age, but he also only knows the contents of Room. Everything else is fiction as far as he knows. Up until he leaves Room, at least.

I wouldn't say that Jack makes this book light-hearted, per se, but it does help. While he doesn't directly mention some of the things that happens, and a lot of things are merely said around him when they leave, it's always apparent that he's aware. He has an idea of things being wrong, even if he doesn't quite acknowledge them, or know what they are.

I really liked this book. Seeing Jack discover things is nice, even if some of those things are bad or have consequences. The ending was really well done, too. I wasn't sure where it was going to end, but the significance of that ending and where they are now, was really well done.

This is definitely a book worth reading. It was enjoyable to read, even if it was very sad at times.

Novel Review: Protecting His Own (Masters of the Shadowlands, #11) by Cherise Sinclair

Rating (Out of 5): ~4

Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance; BDSM

Publisher: Self-Published

Release Date: May 2016

Spoilers?: Not really.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Landscape designer, Beth King survived an abusive husband and built a new life for herself with the help of Master Nolan, the strongest, most protective man she has ever known. She loves him with all her heart, but the one thing he wants, she can’t give him. To her grief, the damage from her abusive first marriage means she can’t bear him children.

As Beth and Nolan change their plans and pursue adoption, they're already imagining a baby girl in the nursery. But when two boys from the local domestic violence shelter see their mother taken to the hospital, they call Beth in a panic. Agreeing to care for them temporarily, Beth soon falls in love with the two adorable boys.

Now Master Nolan has a new problem. How can he protect the children when their drug-addicted mother is released—and how the hell can he keep his sweet submissive’s heart from being broken when they leave?

The Cover:

I don't really care for this cover. The muscle-y guy looks cheesy and like it's trying too hard, when there are much more important parts of this book that it could be showing. I'm not a fan.

Review:

From what we saw in the previous book, I wanted Beth and Nolan to get a second book. I loved them originally, and have always wanted to see more. I’m so glad they got a full novel.

Beth finds out she can’t have kids, at the same time that her and Nolan find out that two of the boys from the shelter are being taken from their mother and her abusive boyfriend.

I love Beth and Nolan, and I really liked seeing their relationship growing and seeing how strong it was. The honesty they strive for, and how they both just want the same things.

I loved meeting the two little boys, as well, and the bonds they grew with Beth and Nolan. They’re clearly going to grow into good boys, and I loved seeing the lessons they learned. How the abuse from their parents had grown certain reactions in them, and how they were shown how to do things better. It was really sweet to see.

I loved this book. I really can’t wait for more, and hope to pick up the few I’m missing soon.

Novel Review: Don't Breathe a Word by Holly Cupala

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance; Abuse, Homeless

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: 2012

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Joy Delamere is suffocating.

From asthma, from her parents, and from her boyfriend, Asher, who is smothering her from the inside out. She can take his cruel words, his tender words...until the night they go too far.

To escape, Joy sacrifices her suburban life to find the one who offered his help, a homeless boy called Creed. He introduces her to a world of fierce loyalty, to its rules of survival, and to love—-a world she won’t easily let go.

Set against the backdrop of the streets of Seattle, Holly Cupala’s power­ful new novel explores the subtleties of abuse, the secrets we keep, and the ways to redemption. But above all, it is an unflinching story about the extraordinary lengths one girl will go to discover her own strength.

The Cover:

I don't mind this cover. I think that the color of the title is eye-catching, and the image of the girl works for the book. But it's not particularly pretty to me.

Review:

Joy can’t take it anymore. From her severe asthma and her overprotective parents, to her abusive boyfriend. She needs to get out. And when she meets a homeless boy, she takes the chance and runs away. It’s tough, but she finds friendships with Asher and his group, and they’re handling it.

This is definitely a harsh, realistic look at being homeless. Joy and them are homeless in Seattle, and they have a hard time getting money, finding food and shelter, staying clean. There are pimps and women who are abused and whored out. Stealing stuff is an inevitable, and they have a hard time of that. Asher plays music for money when he can, the other do what they’re able to. And Joy doesn’t really fit.

The homeless part definitely made me look at it differently. Which is good, that it changed my perspective a little. But it also made the ending a little less believable.

I wanted all four of them to have a happy ending, of course. They’d been through terrible stuff, and I wanted them to be okay. But after everything, I had a hard time believing it was that easy for them to come out okay and start working. I’m happy that they did, but still. The way Joy stood up for herself to her ex-boyfriend at the end, though, also seemed too easy.

It took a while for me to feel the chemistry between Joy and Asher, too, but I liked where they were at the end.

There were parts that didn’t quite work for me, but I do think that it was worth reading if for nothing else than the look at being homeless.

Novel Review: Be With Me (Wait for You, #2) by J. Lynn/Jennifer L. Armentrout

Rating (Out of 5): ~4-4.5

Genre: NA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins)

Release Date: February 2014

Spoilers?: Not really.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Teresa Hamilton is having a rough year—she’s in love with her big brother’s best friend, but he hasn’t spoken to her since they shared a truly amazing, mind-blowing, change-your-life kiss. She got out of a terrible relationship. And now an injury is threatening to end her dance career for good. It’s time for Plan B – college. And maybe a chance to convince Jase that what they have together is real.

Jase Winstead has a huge secret that he’s not telling anyone. Especially not his best friend’s incredibly beautiful sister. Even though he and Teresa shared the hottest kiss of his life, he knows that his responsibilities must take priority. He certainly doesn’t have time for a relationship. But it doesn’t help that all he can think about kissing the one girl who could ruin everything for him.

As they’re thrown together more and more, Jase and Tess can’t keep denying their feelings for each other. But a familiar danger looms and tragedy strikes. As the campus recovers, the star-crossed couple must decide what they’re willing to risk to be together, and what they’re willing to lose if they’re not…

The Cover:

I'm not really a fan of this cover. It just doesn't look very pretty to me, the colors don't really work, and it just doesn't feel right for the book. I don't know, it just doesn't work for me.

Quotes:

•  "'Actually, it’s experience. Things come along you don’t expect all the time, Tess. Trust me. Things that change everything about your life—about what you thought you wanted, who you thought you were. Things that make you reevaluate everything and even if it doesn’t sound like a good thing in the beginning? […] Sometimes they turn out better than you could’ve ever imagined.’” (Paperback, pg. 87)
• "'Silence is not a fucking virtue. It’s a disease—a cancer that eats away at you and fucks with your head. I know that now.’” (Pg. 90)
• "Both of them deserved the kind of love they shared, but I wanted to know what that felt like. To know firsthand the kind of love that healed instead of harmed.” (Pg. 131)

Review:

I was actually surprised by how much I liked this book.

I rather enjoyed the first one in this series, but there was a lot of drama and woe-is-me moments. In this one, there was more smut, a lot of nice attention to the romance, but also enough focus on the family relationships and serious stuff.

The chemistry between Teresa and Jase was hot. They were really cute together, but also very steamy. And the steamy stuff was very nice. There was also quite a bit of it, definitely more than in Wait For You, and I liked that. It was definitely my favorite part of the book. Jase was frustrating several times, because he kept trying not to like her way too hard, but he got better about halfway through.

I liked seeing Cam and Avery again, as well as seeing Cam as the big brother, even when he was frustrating and overbearing and a bit of a jerk. And those two are very cute together, and it was funny seeing them from Teresa’s eyes.

The serious stuff also got some really good attention. Teresa is a dancer, but she hurt her knee, and that caused her to re-think her future plans. I think she handled it pretty well, and came to a good conclusion for herself. There was also some domestic abuse stuff, and those were depressing and rather horrible, but I think handled relatively well. There was also a surprise from Jase that I wasn’t expecting and so won’t spoil, but I think it was going in a good direction by the end of the book.

Overall, I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I wasn’t expecting to like it so much more than the first one, but now I’m really glad that I picked it up. And I hope to pick up another of her books when I get the chance, especially the next in this series.