Novel Review: Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Rating (Out of 5): ~4

Genre: YA Historical with Romance

Publisher: Penguin (Philomel)

Publish Date: February 12th, 2013

Spoilers?: No/Very Minor.

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

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer.

She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street. Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test.

With characters as captivating as those in her internationally bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys skillfully creates a rich story of secrets, lies, and the haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny.

Something Specific:

Quotes:

• "'Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else [...] these pages must show.'" (ARC) (It's a quote from David Copperfield, apparently, [I've never read it,] that has significance to this book.)
• "I leapt eagerly into books. The characters' lives were so much more interesting than the lonely heartbeat of my own." (ARC) YES.
• "Willie said normal was boring and that I should be grateful that I had a touch of spice. She said no one cared about boring people, and when they died, they were forgotten, like something that slips behind the dresser. Sometimes I wanted to slip behind the dresser. Being normal sounded perfectly wonderful." (ARC)
• "'Let me tell you something 'bout those rich Uptown folk,' said Cokie. 'They got everything that money can buy, their bank accounts are fat, but they ain't happy. They ain't ever gone be happy. You know why? They soul broke. And money can't fix that, no sir.'" (ARC)
• "'A dame that knows the ropes isn't likely to get tied up.'" (ARC) I like that, and while it might sound a bit bad, it also worked very well for the situation and characters, in how it's phrased.

The Cover:

I really like the cover of this book. It's pretty, it makes sense for the book, and it's not embarrassing. The colors work, it has a historical feel, and the background also looks similar to what I imagine a room in the brothel looks like. I just overall really like this cover.


Review:

I ended up getting this book somewhat by chance—I had my pick of several, none were really calling to me, but I had heard a lot of good things about this book, as well as Sepetys’ first book, and decided to get it. I thought it was going to be slow, with long paragraphs and little dialogue, but that maybe it would be beautiful instead of droning—plus I’m not usually a fan of historical novels, so that adds to the wariness. I was wrong, though, and pleasantly so.

Set in the 1950’s, Out of the Easy stars Josie, seventeen years old, who wants to get away from the place that she’s stuck in. She lives on her own above the bookstore where she works, because her mother, a prostitute, doesn’t want her around. She works for the Madame of the whore house, Willie, who’s tough but cares for her in her own way. And then the dangerous guy that her mother loves comes back to town, and this nice older guy she met gets murdered, and Josie starts getting caught up in all these lies that she doesn’t know how to handle.

The writing, first. I thought that it would be long and take more time, but it was actually a really easy, rather quick read. It wasn’t heavy in paragraphs, as there was a good balance of dialogue. There were a lot of intriguing thoughts, a lot of pretty insights, that I liked, too.

I like Josie. She’s a bit lost, starts lying when maybe she shouldn’t, gets accidentally caught up in this mess that she doesn’t know how to deal with. But she wasn’t stupid, and she was very active, and she was trying to do the best that she could, she was doing the best that she believed she could be doing.

The plot was really good; Josie’s relationship with her mother was done frustratingly well, and her mother and the dangerous man she loved were just generally despicable and easily disliked. That plot, including the dead man, the debt, and all of the lies was very interesting, and easy to get caught up in. Her relationship with Willie was nice and needed. Just Willie’s character and the other prostitutes were well rounded and believable, as were all of the other characters.

The romance was a rather small plot, but it was there, and for a lot of the book, I was left wondering. There were two guys, and while I was pretty sure I knew which one I wanted (although I wasn’t positive), I didn’t know what was going to happen with the other one. (Actually, now that I think about it, it’s similar to You Look Different in Real Life in that way.) I was very happy with how the romance turned out in the end, too.

The whole ending, actually, was very satisfying.

I was very happy with how the book turned out, and with how much I enjoyed it. It wasn’t light, but it was a pretty easy read, kept my interest easily, and went by much faster than I thought it would. And while I’ve heard a lot of good things about Sepetys’ first book, Between Shades of Gray, now I know that I want to pick it up when I get the chance, as well as anything else that Sepetys releases in the future.

 A review copy was provided by Cuddlebuggery's Little Blogger, Big Ambitions project and Stephanie Sinclair, of Cuddlebuggery. Thank you so, so much!

Novel Review: Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger

Genre: Adult Historical Contemporary/Literature

Rating (Out of 5): ~4.5

Publisher: HarperCollins (Avon)

Spoilers?: No.

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

Goodreads Synopsis:

The hilarious and heart-warming story about a down-and-out kid who finds inspiration in his favourite baseball hero. In Brooklyn, 1940, a wisecracking, baseball loving twelve-year-old boy, Joey Margolis, is in desperate need of a hero. His rich father has recently divorced his mother, leaving her all but penniless, and she is forced to move herself and her son to an Italian dominated part of Brooklyn, where he's the only Jew in the area. Constant abuse from other boys in the neighbourhood prompts Joey to send letters to Charlie Banks, an up-and-coming star with the New York Giants, asking for a home run so he can tell everyone that it was for him. Joey uses every trick in the book to get what he wants and the friendship that comes out of their simple correspondence will change them both forever.

This improbable friendship is woven together through letters, postcards, notes, telegrams, newspaper clippings, report cards and ticket stubs, and includes a colourful cast of supporting characters.

o The joys and sorrows growing up will always have an audience and this novel sheds light on all the complexity of those difficult times, with humour and joy.

Something Special:

That I love:

• Everything. I tried finding a specific quote, a specific something to say about this book, but I just loved everything. It was all just so good and I can't choose a specific thing. I just loved it all.

 

Review:

First of all, I love Steve Kluger. He only has, I believe, four novels out, and I’ve only read one other, but I love that one (even more than this one), and that’s enough for me. It took me forever to get to this book, but it was fantastic. I have another book of his, and I don’t doubt that it will also be very good.

I don’t think I want to spoil anything from this book, and my main message is: “Go read this. Right now. It’s amazing.” But I do want to talk about it a little, so…

This is set in the 1940’s, in America, during WWII, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was President. It’s told in letters and recorded dialogue and grades and all other formats of not straight-up narrative voice (aside from the prologue and epilogue). Kluger does this with all of his novels, I believe, and he does it amazingly well. He knows his characters, and so it’s easy to get a good sense of who they are.

This book is sweet and funny (very funny) and witty and sad. Joey, a kid growing up in Brooklyn, has a big mouth, never stops talking, can come up with stories at the drop of a hat (usually fake, but not always); he sends letters and gets responses from the President and his assistant, and then starts harassing Charlie Banks, a famous baseball player, via letters. Charlie, at first, tries to get the annoying kid to leave him alone, but quickly ends up being a stand-in father to him. They’re the main characters, but there’s also Charlie’s girlfriend Hazel, who is awesome, and Joey’s Japanese best friend Craig. Then there’s Joey’s mother and aunt and absentee father. Those are the main characters, but there’s also mention of Joey’s teachers, and Charlie’s friends. And they all have very distinct personalities and voices and you can’t help but love them all.

This book is simply amazing. The writing, the characters, the rapid and witty dialogue… Just go read this book, okay?

Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Rating (Out of 5): ~4.5

Publisher: Random House (Knopf)

Spoilers: Very, very minor.

Goodreads Synopsis:

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

Review:

I'd heard about this book before, but never what it was about. I'd heard that it starts weird, and that it was dark, or something. But I didn't know until we started it in book club what it was actually about. And that the only reason it was weird is because it's narrated by Death. Which I don't really think is all that weird.

It's set during World War 2, which made me a little wary. I've only read and seen a few things set during that time, and I'm usually not a big fan of war or historical novels. But this one was different. What with them being Germans, and secretly not liking how things are going. Not actively fighting (for the most part), just living their lives. And hiding a Jew in their basement. The main thing that caught my attention, though, is that it's told by Death.

Death is one of my favorite things about this story, and how well he was done. Writing this book from Death's point-of-view was kind of a brilliant idea on Zusak's part. He's his own character, cynical and haunted but also unconditionally interested in humans, and he knows everything. I really liked how he was written, and how he would go forward, and warn you about things or tell you how things with certain characters would turn out, and then go back to the present with Liesel. Death is a person, just like everyone else in this story, and he doesn't kill anyone, just carries them to wherever they go after. The way it was told reminded me a bit of Mary & Max, a claymation movie that I saw recently that was also really good (I would suggest it).

And all of the characters were really well done. There's Liesel, the mostly main character, who's somewhat innocent but fun, and who loves to read and kind of 'steals' books (only not how you would think), and who cares and is smart and tough and a little impulsive. And there's Rudy, who is adventurous and impulsive and athletic and loves Liesel, and who I also kind of love. And Liesel's Papa, who's so sweet to Liesel and genuine and nice and not a Nazi. And then there's Liesel's Mama, who is crude and curses at everyone but still loves them and cares. Oh, and Max, who is Jewish and so has to hide, and is afraid but gets close to Liesel and makes her these sweet books, with perfectly amateurish artwork. There are so many different characters, and they all have their own story and personality, and they are all great. And I just love them all.

And the end, particularly the scenes between Liesel and her Papa, and Liesel and Rudy, are so sweet and overwhelmingly sad. I felt like crying at them (and I am not a crier). But I guess I should have suspected that, what with the subject matter and all. I still didn't want them to happen, though.

There is so much to this book. It's not a small book, or in any way a quick read, especially because of the length, but also because there is just so much to it. It's a little subtle, and cynical, and you know that nothing really good is going to happen, but it's not a depressing book. It's...yea, sad, but also realistic, and honest, and imaginative, creative. So many things. And it's so good.

It's just a great book, in many ways. And I see why other people think it's amazing, because it is.

(Sidenote: Also, my copy of the book, that I got used, someone had spilt some kind of liquid on, making the first quarter of the pages crinkly and colored. And, while however sad and terrible that is, I felt it was a little fitting.)