Books and Sensibility

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Kat C

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

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Release Date: June 4, 2013 | Contemporary YA | 453 Pages | Viking (Penguin)

It’s the summer after high school graduation and 18-year-old Emaline is doing what she always does; working at her family’s beach rental business, spending time with her boyfriend Luke and having general ennui about what it means to live in the summer town of  Colby, North Carolina. You know, the standard Dessen fare.

But summer’s never go as planned and Emaline finds herself mixed up with a crew of New York filmmakers making a documentary about Clyde Conaway, a reclusive artist who lives in Colby. And if that isn’t enough her estranged biological father is suddenly back in town.

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Audiobook Review: This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

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  • Release Date: July 5, 2016
  • Audiobook Length: 10 hours 9 minutes
  • Genre: Urban Fantasy
  • Publisher: Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins)

V-City exists in an alternate America where acts of violence physically manifest as  beast like monsters. The Sunai are a rare form of monster, created from events of mass violence. Sunai look and act human but must feed on human souls to survive.

August Flynn is one of only three known Sunai, he lives in the south side of V-City with  Henry Flynn, the head of a militaristic taskforce. On the north side of V-City is the autocratic Callum Harker who keeps his citizens safe via extortion  Harker and Flynn have been enemies for a long time but have called a truce after a brutal civil war.

But when August is sent undercover to spy on  Harkar’s estranged daughter Kate everything starts to change.

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Audiobook Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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  • Release Date: September 9th 2014
  • Audiobook Hours: 10 hours and 41 minutes
  • Genre: Literary….Science Fiction ?
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  • Publisher: Random House Audio

I feel like three years ago you couldn’t trip anywhere in the book-sphere without falling into this book. Station Eleven is the fascinating and deeply haunting story of what happens after a flu epidemic kills 99% of the Earth’s population and infrastructure collapses.

Everything I knew about this book happens in the first 20 pages; An actor in a production of King Lear dies on stage in front of child actor Kirsten Raymonde. Jump cut to 20 years later where Kirsten is part of a traveling symphony, a theater troupe that performs Shakespeare in the small towns dotting the the desolate and often dangerous North American landscape.

I am seriously in awe of the narrative structure of this book. The novel moves back and forth through time, telling stories of people who were in the theater that night with Kirsten. Mandel effortlessly weaves her characters fates through and around each other. There is also kind of a twist, I’m not sure how soon you’re supposed to see it, but it took me by surprise.

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A Silent Voice by Yoshitoki Oima

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Audiobook Review: #famous by Jilly Gagnon

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  • Release Date: February 14th 2017
  • Audiobook Hours: 7 hrs 53 minutes
  • Genre: Contemporary Romance
  • Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins)

Did I pick up this book because the cover reminded me of Fangirl ? Maybe. Yes, yes I did.

When high school junior Rachel Ettinger secretly snaps a photo of  Kyle Bonham and tweets, ahem, I mean flits it it to her best friend she thinks nothing of it.

Until the pic goes viral.

While Kyle becomes an overnight internet sensation  Rachel becomes a target for harassment and cyberbullying.

So, in case you aren’t familiar,  this book was inspired by the phenomenon that is Alex from Target.

#famous had a strong start, we see a lot of the rampant sexism online and I really thought Gagnon was going to flesh out Rachel’s story through this lens, but the online abuse gets dropped pretty early to focus on a tedious plot where Kyle recruits Rachel to repeatedly appear with him on an Ellen type talk show.

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Audiobook Review: The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

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  • Release Date: October 6th 2015
  • Length: 6 hours and 23 minutes
  • Genre: Contemporary / Paranormal YA
  • Publisher: HarperTeen

17-year-old Mikey Mitchell just wants to enjoy his last few months of high school with his best friends and hopefully getting his OCD under control.  But he’s also kind of stuck in the middle of your favorite paranormal YA novel, except you know. . . he’s a background character.  Strange blue lights and mysterious deaths  means the indie kids–those high school kids with the capital D destinies and weird names–are up to something. Mikey just hopes the indie kids don’t  blown up up the high school….again.

Patrick Ness is a mix bag of an author, you just never know what you’re going to get. The concept of having a Mikey’s contemporary narrative  adjacent to the indie kid’s paranormal adventure made for an entertaining listen.  The indie kid’s plot is a parody of e those paranormal YA books of the early 2010’s and Ness creates a loving satire of the genre.

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