emilyusuallyreading's reviews
746 reviews

What I liked
Lauren Oliver's language was beautiful in this book. She describes things vividly, but in such a poetic way that I can't help but sigh with joy at the beauty of the English language... even during the most dark and tragic scenes.

Pandemonium was much more the kind of book I tend to like than Delirium was. Lots of action, secret codes, resistance, and fighting.

The chapters switched back and forth from "Now" and "Then," or in other words, Lena's experience in the Wilds (Then) and her reintegration as a member of the resistance in New York (Now). I enjoyed this swap between two places in Lena's life as I began to see how she had changed and why. The transitions are not jarring or abrupt, but they instead compelled me to read further and further until I was all the way through the book.

I thought for sure that after Delirum's ending, Pandemonium would be an angsty, "OMG I'm so alone," teenage book. But it wasn't at all. Lena grieved, but she grieved so realistically. The book's focus wasn't on the absence of Alex, but it instead pushed forward into Lena's determination to survive, while a lingering (but not ostentatious) hole remained where Alex was missing.

The bond between Raven and Lena was beautiful. Raven was both a mother and an older sister to Lena, even though she was only 3 years older, and this relationship was something Lena only experienced in fragments during her childhood. Watching their bond strengthen while seeing the weaknesses in Raven's hard shell showed some of the best parts of Oliver's writing ability.

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The green, yellow, and red paint and the birds as a way to signal to the Invalids... brilliant.

What I didn't like
Lena fell in love so quickly. I don't mean so quickly after Alex, but I mean in such a short amount of time after the two actually met. I don't want to give out any spoilers

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Julian

, but it felt like it took only a matter of a few days before Lena was willing to risk everything in her life out of love for someone she had only just met.

I barely had time to connect with the new love interest before the end... and what a crazy ending it was. As I begin Requiem

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here we go, love triangles that I usually despise

, I don't know if I have any attachment to the love interest

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Julian, Julian, Julian

, and I don't know what I'm going to think of this third book.

And spoiler freakout

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Alex is aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive

What I Liked
That scene. If you've read the book, you know what scene I'm talking about. That was one of the most disturbing, horrifying things I have read since Misery by Stephen King. In a way, I was glad (and horrified) that I was given a glimpse into harvest camp to see the reality behind what "unwinding" meant.

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And the moment Connor saw the familiar tattoo on his new arm was terrifying.

I enjoyed some of the Christian undertones within the story. Connor seemed to be a metaphor of Christ.

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By the end of the book, Lev was able to believe in a God and a faith and a Bible that were not shredded apart by politics and justifications.

While Unwind explored some of the dark aspects of a Christian sect that believed in "tithing" a child, or giving him up to be unwound as a gift to God and humanity, the book constantly encouraged the characters to keep faith in God.

What I Didn't Like
There were so many things that bothered me about this book that I can't come close to listing them all, but I'll name what bothered me most.

I appreciate 3rd person POV, but I just couldn't get into this one. The narrative was fast-paced, but it was choppy and undescriptive. The characters came across as two-dimensional; I never bonded with any of them. The setting was extraordinarily unbelievable.

The description of the actual harvest/"unwinding", while completely disturbing, became so unrealistic about halfway through the procedure that I became annoyed and almost put the book down.

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Keeping Roland conscious as he was dismantled piece-by-piece was horrifying. But then he looks down and there's only his torso. And then only his neck. And then all that's left is his brain and he's conscious until the brain is completely divided. That isn't how the human body works, not even remotely. How was he conscious for more than half an hour after his heart was removed from his body? How was he conscious when all that was left of him was his head?

At times I felt like Shusterman was downplaying the actual dark significance of what it meant to be unwound.

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Unwinding should be killing; it is killing, but a consciousness of the donor in its new body only proves the doctors right. After being unwound, you are still alive, only in a different way than you were before. A disturbing way, yes, but it is still a "divided state" of life, as they call it. Unwound Tyler communicated from CyFi's body. The happy reunion between the Admiral and all of the carriers of his son's body parts (who happened to all hold Harlan's memories and thoughts) greatly lessened the significance of the boy's murder.

By allowing the unwound to communicate in any conscious way from their new bodies, Neal Shusterman makes unwinding no longer seem like murder. This probably bothered me more than anything else in the book.

What I Liked
The characters in this novel were so real that I actually searched on Google to make sure that A Prayer for Owen Meany was not an autobiography. It wasn't. John Irving is a phenomenal writer. He tells a story with such a sense of nostalgia that I can't imagine the world without an Owen Meany or Johnny Wheelwright.

One of my favorite parts of the book was its layout. The first few chapters are all out of order. The memories seem to come in random rabbit trails that end in mysteries that frequently aren't solved until the very final chapter. This is exactly how one would remember their young childhood. I don't look back on my childhood in a consecutive way. Years between 5 and 12 blur together. Did an incident happen in second grade or fourth grade? It's often hard to tell. As John and Owen grow, the writing style matures as well, and the storyline progresses in a consecutive, more organized way.

At first I hated that Owen Meany's narrative was written in ALL CAPS. Once there was an entire page filled with his writing, which meant that EVERYTHING WAS WRITTEN LIKE THIS AND MY HEAD WAS FILLED WITH WHAT SOUNDED LIKE SCREAMING AND I WANTED TO SKIM THROUGH THE ENTIRE THING AHHHHHHH. But Owen Meany's obnoxious and "screaming through his nose" voice was one of the key themes throughout the story. I soon grew to appreciate that John Irving created a way that the reader could glimpse how Owen's voice actually came across.

What I Didn't Like
About halfway through the book, I began to get a little bored. The story switched back and forth between the boys in college and John Wheelwright as a middle-aged man living in Toronto. Political rants became just as common as narrative or storyline. I didn't care to hear John Irving's thought on 20th century politics, the war in Vietnam, or foreign policy (and it was clear John Wheelwright's opinions were the same as John Irving's opinions). I found myself turning pages or skimming paragraphs in boredom with the political tirades.

What I Didn't Like
Honestly, I think any anthology can be difficult to get that into. Short stories make it hard to deeply bond with a character or find oneself deeply wound within a post-apocalyptic world. Each chapter was a brand new premise written by a different author and featuring entirely different characters.

Some short stories weren't that great. Part of it may have been my own personal preference. I don't care for extreme science fiction or alien stories, so I tended to dislike the short stories in this anthology that were about those topics.

"Hw th’Irth Wint Wrong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.guv" by Gregory Maguire was one of those that I could hardly get through at all. The horrific spelling and grammar made sense, but it was so dense that I could hardly trudge through. "The Great Game at the End of the World" by Matthew Kressel and "Visiting Nelson" by Katherine Langrish were my two other least favorites.

Another thing that bothered me was the content of some of these stories. A few were sexual in nature and contained explicit language. I'm not sure how every short story in this collection could be labeled Young Adult.

What I Did Like
My favorite short stories in the anthology were: "The Segment" by Genevieve Valentine, "Rust With Wings" by Steven Gould, "Reunion" by Susan Beth Pfeffer, "All I Know of Freedom" by Carol Emshwiller, and "After the Cure" by Carrie Ryan.

After finishing a few of these, I longed for the author to go ahead and write an entire novel set in these worlds. There were some real dystopian gems in this anthology.

Overall
I learned quite a bit about the post-apocalyptic and dystopian genres from these excellent writers. Some stories I didn't like at all; others left me breathless and on the edge of my seat.

This was one of my favorite novels when I was a child. I read it again for the first time in probably a decade and I am still in love. The Westing Game is what first introduced me to the appeal of the murder mystery genre.

Ellen Raskin does an excellent job of creating vivid and memorable characters. One of my favorite things about this novel is that even though it is for children, Raskin writes about people from all walks of life—adults in their sixties and forties and twenties—as well as youth. I felt alienated from adults when I was a little girl, as I’m sure most children do, but I remember being just as fascinated about the fate of Otis Amber or Flora Baumbach as I was about Turtle Wexler. Raskin paints colorful characters that can be beloved by adults and children alike.

The mysteries woven in this novel are so clever. The clues, the names, the setting… every single piece of this story left me in amazement and delight.

This story, written in a series of poems, is devastating. It shares the thoughts of a 13-year-old girl who has grown up in an impoverished village in Nepal and is sold as a sex slave in India. Hardly anyone speaks her language. She is given shoes to wear for one of the first times in her life. She is a small, forgotten girl in a very big city. And she is taken to live in a brothel that is dirty and harsh and frightening, where she is expected (and forced) to spend her nights with men until whatever day in the distant future that her body gives out.

Patricia McCormick voices Lakshmi in a way that makes her identifiable to every young girl. She is innocent and childlike in the first pages, but the reader sees the childhood drain from Lakshmi’s words as all but vague memories of her past life are snatched from her completely. McCormick depicts many of the brutal realities of sex trafficking. It is heartbreaking to read about the deception of the poor villagers and how many truly believe that their daughters are going to work as maids in the city.

However difficult it was to read certain parts of this book, McCormick brings awareness and insight into the realities of sex trafficking. I recommend Sold to mature readers and I encourage everyone who reads the book to also look into donating to the International Justice Mission and other organizations that are fighting against child slavery.

What I Liked
Jean Hegland is a beautiful writer. She captivated me with the very tangible sisterhood between Eva and Nell. Their relationship is incredibly realistic and often reminded me of my own tangled bond with my younger sister.

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The quarrel over the Hershey’s kiss comes to mind.

Hegland describes the isolated, almost fairytale life in the woods with so much beauty. I have read very few “end of the world” novels that have taken place in such a small and quiet setting.

I appreciated the way Nell’s narrative changed and matured throughout the novel. In one scene near the very end of the book, Eva asks her something to the effect of, “Can you see yourself living in a dorm in Harvard after all of this?” and I realized that somewhere in between the first and last page, I had lost without even realizing it the character who initially obsessed over college worries and SAT scores, similar to how Nell had lost her former self as well.

What I Didn’t Like
The incestuous relationship. I don’t care if this is a spoiler; I wasn’t aware that the sisters would “make love” when I began the novel and I wish someone had warned me ahead of time. No matter how beautifully Hegland may write, there are few things that make me feel more uncomfortable than a page-long description of an incestuous romance between two sisters.

There were a few other scenes that were explicitly sexual in the novel. I ended up finishing the book because I wanted to know what happened at the end, but I found myself skipping entire pages to keep from reading things I didn’t want to see. For a novel published in the “young adult” genre, there is explicit sexual content, rape, incest, and occasional language. I wouldn’t describe Into the Forest as YA at all. This is not a book I would offer my friends at university, let alone a fifteen-year-old.

Some feminist themes really bothered me. As a woman, I appreciate reading certain feminist literature, except when it makes men out to be evil and women to be good. For example, "She wondered what was worse: a bear or a man." Another example would be,

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Nell's intense feelings of disappointment when Eva gave birth to a son instead of a daughter.

One other thing that bothered me was the lack of resolution to what was happening in the outside world. Did the war ever end? Was the government ever going to rebuild itself? Was there anyone left in the village?

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The eventual fairytale escape for forever and ever into the woods to keep from stumbling across men ever again seemed unbelievable.

I usually write my reviews on GoodReads with two sections: what I liked and what I didn't like. Having finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane this evening, I still cannot form negative words about the book.

I do not care for paranormal. I do not care for books about the supernatural. But I could not put this book down until I had devoured it from cover to cover. Any time I read a novel by Neil Gaiman, I am left in awe at the worlds he can create. I wish I could pack a suitcase and go stay in his mind for a few months.

The narration from the eyes of a nameless (to the reader) 7-year-old boy is entirely believable. I could instantly picture myself living in Sussex, England, even though I've never been there. His world was so real.

The characters in this novel are strikingly memorable. I will never forget Lettie or Ursula or even the opal miner. The horror scenes--even the threats of horror--left me shivering with terror and delight. One of the most disturbing yet fascinating passages from the book was, "Perhaps I ought to turn you inside out, so your heart and brains and flesh are all naked and exposed on the outside, and the skin-side's inside. Then I'll keep you wrapped up in my room here, with your eyes staring forever at the darkness inside yourself."

What I Liked
The best part about The Cellar is its potential. The premise is fascinating and the reason I picked up the book to read in the first place. Four pretty girls held captive in a basement, named after flowers. The thrill of a kidnapping and hopeful escape.

What I Didn't Like
The writing in this book simply isn't up to par. There is almost no descriptive language. At the end of The Cellar, I sat and stared at the last page, thinking, "What did Poppy even look like? For that matter, what did Summer or Lewis look like?" The only detailed description that stuck out in the entire book is of Clover. He is tall, dark, and has heavily-hairsprayed hair.

There is no real emotion to be found. A phrase I've been told by English professors at university is, "Show, don't tell." An example of this would be writing "My heart sank to my toes" instead of "I was scared." Natasha Preston is constantly telling instead of showing in The Cellar. There are never vivid emotions that Summer or Lewis seem to feel. Their emotions are written plainly on the page, which leaves every character vanilla and pretend.

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Even after Summer is rescued, her recovery is unrealistic. She heals extremely quickly and well from a terrifying ordeal where she is kidnapped, raped, and forced to witness multiple murders. She adapts to social life with her friends and family relatively quickly and is never urged to talk to a psychiatrist.

Clover drives me insane. He is not ominous. He is not terrifying. The most disturbing scene in the entire book is when he watches a movie with Summer and softly strokes her hair the entire time, simply because this draws on every woman's fears. It seems like Preston Googled the characteristics of a murderous pyschopath and blandly painted them across Clover's character in broad strokes. Hatred of women, need for control, a strange relationship with his mother. I was never afraid of Clover. I was rarely creeped out by his presence in the novel. Even his violence and murders did not frighten me. They seemed entirely unrealistic

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Stabbing someone in the stomach with a small knife would not kill them right away.

.

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The high volume of women he kills also seems incredibly unlikely. Clover murders several women during the few months he held Summer captive, not to mention how often he has to go through Flowers before someone messes up and is killed. He takes them in broad daylight and has dumped them in the same canal for years.

I don't think I've read a book with such poor sentence structure since maybe Twilight. Maybe. The past and present tenses occasionally seem confused from sentence to sentence (even in the first paragraph of the book). The narrative is plain, undescriptive, and awkwardly worded. A brief example of clumsy sentence structure from page 54: "I literally couldn't think of one thing to say. Everything I thought of sounded lame in my head."

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Lewis being the one to discover that Clover is Summer's kidnapper is entirely implausible.

The mild cliffhanger at the end also does not work. At all.

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If Clover has been convicted for the murder of at least 10 women (8 bodies in the canal, plus Rose and Violet) and the kidnapping of at least 4, he is going to be held in maximum security for the duration of his life, no matter how "good" he is doing in therapy. There will be no chance of escape. There will be no chance of release. Summer believes he is going to try to bring his family back together again... but wouldn't he dispose of her and Poppy since they fought back and betrayed him? For that matter, how would he possibly escape from a maximum security prison or psychiatric ward? But I see the title The Cellar, #1, so I'm going to assume that Clover will escape to bring his family back together again, no matter how implausible that is.

What I Liked
I adored Alaska as a character. Or, at least, Alaska as described by Pudge. Back and forth, chapter to chapter, I was debating in my mind whether I liked her or hated her. And she hit the nail on the head when she told Pudge, "Don't you know who you love, Pudge? You love the girl who makes you laugh and shows you porn and drinks wine with you. You don't love the crazy, sullen b----." And while I didn't necessarily love the girl who introduced Pudge to breaking practically every rule that existed at his boarding school, I did like the spontaneous, insane fireball that was Alaska's personality. I didn't at all like the moody, angry, bitter character that seemed to manipulate people left and right. As a flawed character, I thought Alaska was excellently written.

The structure of the novel was amazing. It begins with "one hundred thirty-six days before" and counts down from there. From the very first page I was agonizing over what was the after. (I'm proud to say that I guessed it from about page 20.)

On the after.

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I lost a friend to suicide when we were both 15. I appreciate more than words can say the way the novel handled this topic. There is no certainty when you lose a friend in this way... sometimes there isn't even certainty about whether they killed themselves or were just being stupid. I really liked how they listed the symptoms of suicide and tried to measure them up, but when these things are measured up in real life, it's hard to actually identify warnings with any kind of structure or understanding. All that's left is blame and survivor's guilt and confusion and stumbling attempts to bring one's life back to normalcy. Looking for Alaska is one of the best approaches to teenage suicide that I've ever read in a YA novel.

What I Didn't Like
There is a huge part of me that is disturbed when YA writers feel this need to paint teenagers as deviants (that makes me sound so old, but I'm only 21, okay?). Smoking, premarital sex, drinking, and even minor drug use are painted as quirky and a normal part of the young adult experience. I totally disagree that substance abuse is necessary for a "coming of age" tale. This is the biggest thing that makes me hesitate to share this novel with my future children or with a younger sibling. (In reality, I knew maybe one or two people in high school that excessively drank and smoked. Maybe I was extremely sheltered or maybe breaking all the rules is just a faded stereotype of young adulthood and not actually true. I have no idea.)

Sometimes I feel like John Green's characters are a little too adorably quirky. Cute nicknames, constantly quoting poetry and famous last words, memorizing the capitals and populations of countries for the fun of it. (This is something that also bothered me about The Fault in Our Stars). Every single character has an extremely unique quirk about them (except for the occasionally two-dimensional "cool kids" who are described as being obsessed with their hair and having "beady eyes"). I enjoy reading about quirky characters; I'm a pretty weird person myself. But sometimes it feels like Green pours all of these bizarre habits into his characters in a way that they become these incredibly intellectual, almost alien teenagers that happen to have insane and "normal" vices of sex, cigarettes, and booze.