Novel Review: Five Summers by Una LaMarche

Rating (Out of 5): ~3

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: RazorBill (Penguin)

Release Date: 2013

Spoilers?: No.

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

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Bittersweet, funny, and achingly honest, Five Summersis a story of friendship, love, and growing up that is perfect for fans of Ann Brashare's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Judy Blume's Summer Sisters.

Four best friends, five summers of camp memories

Emma, Skylar, Jo, and Maddie have all come back to camp for a weekend of tipsy canoe trips to the island, midnight skinny dipping in the lake, and an epic game of capture the flag—boys versus girls. But the weekend isn't quite as sunwashed as they'd imagined as the memories come flooding back. . . .

The summer we were nine: Emma was branded “Skylar’s friend Emma” by the infamous Adam Loring . . .
The summer we were ten: Maddie realized she was too far into her lies to think about telling the truth . . .
The summer we were eleven: Johanna totally freaked out during her first game of Spin the Bottle . . .
The summer we were twelve: Skylar’s love letters from her boyfriend back home were exciting to all of us—except Skylar . . .
Our last summer together: Emma and Adam almost kissed. Jo found out Maddie’s secret. Skylar did something unthinkable . . . and whether we knew it then or not, five summers of friendship began to fall apart.

A young adult book with a friendship story that will last long after the last s'more is gone.

The Cover:

I like this cover. It's a little simple, but pretty. There's more drama in the book than it portrays, perhaps, and not so much happy-go-lucky, but I do think that it shows a good idea of what you're getting. I like that it's showing them at camp, and there are four girls.

Quotes:

• "'You are my rose, never my thorn, and through these pledges, friendship is sworn.’” (Hardback, pg. 11)
• "Nothing left to the last minute ever turns out the way you want it to; that’s when the most mistakes get made.” (Pg. 15)

Review:

I expected to love this book. I found it cheap, but it was already on my radar. It sounded like a fun contemporary book, and I’d heard pretty good things.

About half of the book is in Emma’s point of view, and I just did not care for her. She was boring and normal, and I just didn’t care for her viewpoint much at all. Her biggest storyline was with Skylar, and how she was in love with Adam, and I didn’t care much for her either. Skylar's big problem was that her father was always putting her down and she was always fooling around with a lot of guys she didn’t love. She was mostly just forgettable, though.

The other half was about Jo and Maddie. Jo is a tomboy, her father runs the camp they’re at, and her mom wants her to like makeup. Jo likes boys, and she’s a bit insecure at times, but she likes herself and wants to have her friends back. I liked Jo a lot, especially near the end. Her father was super sweet, and I liked her romance a lot. I also liked her friendship with Maddie, and how even though Maddie had been lying, they were still close. Maddie as a character was all right, sweet and getting over a breakup, better than Emma.

The last quarter of the book was exciting, when everything had finally come out and the girls were fighting and arguing and then overcoming their issues. But the rest of the ending, and the whole beginning, I just didn’t care much for. I was bored a lot of the time, and then I didn’t like Emma, and at least half of the book was her. I could have done with the entire book being in Jo and Maddie’s point of view. Adam was a jerk, and I did like how the friendship message was pushed all the way through.

Overall an all right book; I liked some parts more than others.

Novel Review: Never Cry Werewolf by Heather Davis

Rating (Out of 5): ~1-1.5

Genre: YA Romance

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: 2009

Spoilers?: No.

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

Goodreads Synopsis:

Moonlight can totally change your life.

And it all starts so simply.

You. Him.

The moon.

You're toast.

Okay, so maybe Shelby has made a few mistakes with boys lately (how was she supposed to know Wes had "borrowed" that Porsche?). But her stepmother totally overreacts when she catches Shelby in a post-curfew kiss with a hot senior: Suddenly Shelby's summer plans are on the shelf, and she's being packed off to brat camp. It's good-bye, prom dress; hello, hiking boots.

Things start looking up, though, when Shelby meets fellow camper (and son of a rock star) Austin Bridges III. But soon she realizes there's more to Austin than crush material—his family has a dark secret, and he wants Shelby's help guarding it. Shelby knows that she really shouldn't be getting tangled up with another bad boy . . . but who is she to turn her back on a guy in need, especially such a good-looking one? One thing's for sure: That pesky full moon is about to get her into trouble all over again.

The Cover:

The cover is all right. It has a very high school feel to it, which is fitting. But it also looks dark, like she's maybe in danger, which I don't think fits at all and is more misleading. An all right cover, but not for this book.

 Quotes:

• "Lost. Yeah, right. Why do we always say lost when we mean people died on us? Mom was not lost. And I’d spent the last three years trying hard not to lose myself. That’s what really happens when people die—the family left behind loses a part of themselves. A tiny piece. A tiny piece you never get back.” (Paperback, pg. 77)
• "Brave and fearless are totally not the same thing. Brave is like being fearless for an actual reason.” (Pg. 177)

Review:

I did not enjoy this book. I picked it up years ago, back when I would have enjoyed it more. Sadly I didn’t get to it until now, when I have outgrown these types of books.

I didn’t believe the character from the beginning. Shelby isn’t fleshed out. I had a hard time believing both that she was the type to help people, and that she wasn’t the spoiled rich kid everyone else she knew was. Mainly because those characteristics could have easily been swapped for something else and nothing would have changed. All of the characters were one-dimensional and none of them seemed real to me.

Which means that the plot didn’t seem all that believable, either. Shelby helping Austin because she’s nice didn’t work, and Austin telling Shelby his secret so fast didn’t seem realistic at all, especially when he made a big deal about not telling anyone and trusting her. Their attraction didn’t make sense to me, either. They look at each other, like, twice and supposedly feel a connection, when I felt absolutely nothing. And then Shelby was afraid of him being a wolf one second and then fighting her attraction the next.

And then the ending had no resolution. Nothing happened with her parents, Austin’s problem was mostly solved I guess, but mostly it just seemed like they were in the same position as when they started. Supposedly Shelby learned a lot, but I didn’t believe that.

All of the characters, including the camp setting and counselors, was hugely stereotyped, as well. The girls especially, and everyone’s problems, but also the therapy sessions and the fact that the counselors took away makeup and push-up bras. Every bit of it was ridiculous.

It also didn't seem very paranormal to me, the werewolf aspect was so small aside from the supposed fear. And I thought it was supposed to be similar to Little Red Riding Hood, and I didn't see that at all, either.

Nothing in this book worked for me, and I even debated on DNFing three times. I’m glad it’s over. To be fair, though, I probably would have enjoyed this more when I was in middle school.

Review: Leftovers by Heather Waldorf

3.5/4 of 5 Stars

Publisher: Orca Book Publishers

Goodreads Synopsis:

I make it to the flagpole second to last. No Poo Patrol for me. Not today. Today I draw the Grooming straw. Forget my own grooming; for three leisurely hours this morning, I'll be washing, drying, fluffing and brushing out the matted and dirt-encrusted coats of a dozen-odd dogs of questionable parentage. Not that my own parentage is anything to brag about. 
Fifteen-year-old Sarah Greene's father-chef by day, camera buff by night-choked to death on a piece of steak. It was the best day of Sarah's life. But a year later, Sarah still struggles with the legacy of her father's abuse. While other girls her age are determined to find boyfriends and part-time jobs and dresses for the prom, Sarah is on a search-and-destroy mission: to find the shoe box containing her father's collection of kiddy porn. After a brief skirmish with the law, Sarah is sentenced to do community service hours at Camp Dog Gone Fun, a summer program for shelter dogs. With the love of a big goofy dog named Judy, the friendship of Sullivan, a guy with problems of his own, and the support of a few good adults, Sarah begins to understand her past and believe in a brighter future.

Review:

I actually really liked this book. It was an easy read, and it wasn't amazing or anything, but it was good and I genuinely liked it.

It's about a girl, Sarah, who's father has died; a great thing for her since her father used to take kiddie porn pictures of her, leaving her scarred. After crashing her step-father's car, she is sent away to this camp over the summer for delinquents and sheltered dogs. She's not excited about it, and is surprised to see a boy from school there, Sullivan. She quickly becomes close friends, and then something more, with him, and gets attached to a dog, Judy.

I didn't get an overwhelming voice for Sarah, but I liked her, and I felt for what she was going through. Because she's trying to find the pictures that her father had taken without letting anyone know about it. Because her mother doesn't know, and she hasn't been talking to anyone about much because she's afraid. Throughout the book, she struggles with her similarities with her father, with her emotions forming for a guy, her fear of cameras, and with her family problems. It's nice seeing her overcome so many things, and seeing how she does it.

I also really liked Sullivan. He was sweet and adorable and I'd have liked to see more of him. (Not that he didn't show up much, because he was a relatively big character.) And his family was nice, and welcoming to Sarah, which she needed.

I like books with issues like this one. I haven't been through anything like it, and that's perhaps why I find it so interesting. Either way, I do and am always looking for more books with these kinds of things as I haven't read or found all that many. (Feel free to suggest some.) I think that it dealt with it rather well. The outcome was done well, and everyone's reactions were good.

The writing is nice. It's smooth, and simple. It was easy to read, while still being a really good read.

I just really liked this book.