Novel Review: Breakaway by Kat Spears

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5

Genre: YA Realistic

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Release Date: September 15, 2015

Spoilers?: No.

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

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

From Kat Spears, author of Sway, comes a new novel that asks the question: when a group of four best friends begin to drift apart, what will it take to bring them back together?

When Jason Marshall's younger sister dies, he knows he can count on his three best friends and soccer teammates — Mario, Jordie, and Chick — to be there for him. With a grief-crippled mother and a father who's not in the picture, he needs them more than ever. But when Mario starts hanging out with a rough group of friends and Jordie finally lands the girl of his dreams, Jason is left to fend for himself while maintaining a strained relationship with troubled and quiet Chick. Then Jason meets Raine, a girl he thinks is out of his league but who sees him for everything he wants to be, and he finds himself pulled between building a healthy and stable relationship with a girl he might be falling in love with, grieving for his sister, and trying to hold onto the friendships he has always relied on.

A witty and emotionally moving tale of friendship, first love, and loss, Breakaway is Kat Spears at her finest.

The Cover:

I like this cover, and I like that it goes with the cover on Sway. While I think that it works for the romance aspect of the book, but I don't think that it really shows the most important aspect of the book.

Review:

I really enjoyed Spears’ previous book, a lot, and I expected this book to be a little dark. I didn’t really expect it to be this bad, though.

Jason’s sister dies, and in the year following, he starts falling out with his friends. Jordie gets a girlfriend and starts hanging out with his rich friends. Mario starts hanging out with his druggie friends. And when Jason gets a girlfriend, he starts ignoring Chick.

I liked Raine, and I liked her relationship with Jason. They were nice together, and I liked being in Jason’s head to see his feelings about her. It was a slow romance, but one that Jason thought about a lot, and it was in a good spot by the end.

Another relationship I enjoyed was Jason and Chris’s. I won’t spoil it, although I’d figured it out way before it was officially revealed, but I liked the way Chris was there for Jason, and where they were by the end of the book.

And given how much attention the romance got, even with the hints, I didn’t expect the plot point that happened at the end. I’m not going to spoil it, and maybe I should have seen it coming more than I did, but it made sense, in a sad way. And the ending just left me depressed, honestly.

That whole plot made me depressed at the end, and I wasn’t particularly happy about that. And it reminded me of one of those tragic, depressing school-boy stories you read early in high school. With similarities between the beginning and the end, all this meandering and slow, everyday life chapters, filled with thoughts.

This book left me depressed more than anything, and I’ll be more wary reading her next book.

A review copy was provided by the publisher, St. Martin’s Press. Thank you!

Novel Review: Allegiant (Divergent, #3) by Veronica Roth

Rating (Out of 5): ~3-4

Genre: YA Dystopian Romance

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins)

Release Date: October 2013

Spoilers?: No.

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

Teaser Tuesday. Wishlist Thursday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered—fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she’s known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories.

But Tris’s new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend the complexities of human nature—and of herself—while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice, and love.

Told from a riveting dual perspective, Allegiant, by #1 New York Times best-selling author Veronica Roth, brings the Divergent series to a powerful conclusion while revealing the secrets of the dystopian world that has captivated millions of readers in Divergent and Insurgent.

The Cover:

I like this cover. I think it's pretty, it's eye-catching, and it goes with the other books really well. It represents the book pretty well, and gives the idea that it's dystopian.

Quotes:

• "I feel like myself, strong and weak at once—allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.” (Hardback, pg. 32)
• "'Wouldn’t it be more effective to unleash the whole tank at once?’ […] Doing a little at once can fix something, eventually, but I feel like when you believe that something is truly a problem, you throw everything you have at it, because you just can’t help yourself.” (Pg. 147)
• "Ordinary life surrounds me, and I am alone with these revelations.” (Pg. 190)
• "People are supposed to fear others, not themselves.” (Pg. 239)
• "'Sometimes I feel like there is so much to be afraid of, and sometimes I feel like there is nothing left to fear.’” (Pg. 239)
• "'You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true.’” (Pg. 257)
• "'She said that everyone has some evil inside them, and the first step to loving anyone is to recognize the same evil in ourselves, so we’re able to forgive them.’” (Pg. 277)
• "I fell in love with him. But I don’t just stay with him by default as if there’s no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me.” (Pg. 372)

Review:

Till about fifty pages from the end of the book, I didn’t know why so many people were upset about the book. It seemed pretty similar to the previous book, which I know quite a lot of people also didn’t like, but I enjoyed it. And so I was enjoying this one. Was thinking it was going to be a set four stars, at least. And then I had about fifty pages left, and something happened.

I’m going to do my best to keep the event a secret, because it should be a surprise, as much as it was for me.

When I first read the scene, I wasn’t sure if that had really happened. So often, something like that happens, but ends up being saved at the last second, so I wasn’t sure. And then I was a little crushed that it had really happened, because what.

On the one hand, I have to give Roth props for doing it. That almost never happens, in a book or a movie or anything. So she had guts for doing it in the first place. And the wording of when it happened was just perfect; it was stated perfectly. That’s one reason why I wasn’t sure if it was fake or not, because of how well it had been written. Also, it really makes me wonder if the movie is going to end the same way, because this kind of thing happens even less in movies.

But then there’s the fact that it kind of sucks. I wasn’t expecting it, not even a little bit. Not even as it was happening. I’m unhappy because I wanted the other ending, the ending that we always get. I was perfectly content to be getting that one. And I’m also unsure if I believe that it really needed to happen.

Would the development really not have worked out as well the other way? Was that really the correct ending for her? Really? Because I don’t know if I agree with that. I’ve taken some time to think about it, and I’m still not sure. I can see both sides, and I really can’t decide.

I’m also not sure how I feel about everything else. The ending for the compound was a little iffy for me, but I can see the upsides. I can deal with that, be content with it, at least mostly.

I found what the reason behind their being locked up in Chicago interesting, but rather frustrating.

Some things happened with some other characters, like Tobias and Caleb. I was quite intrigued by Caleb.

I’ve always like Tobias, and I really enjoyed being in his head, and thought that was done really well. Near the end, too, I really felt for him. I almost cried a little, even. There was a lot of development for both Tobias and Tris, and I loved their journey. I really enjoyed seeing it, but I don’t want to go into too much detail.

I’m not sure how to rate this book. At first I thought a four, then I want back and forth between a two and a four. Now I don’t know if it’s a three or a four. I kind of think it deserves a four, but at the same time, I’m not sure. I just don't know if the ending fits, because I'm leaning toward it not. It’s somewhere between a three and a four, though.