We're an Open Book
Cam “Skip” Smith is going to graduate from a prestigious prep school. Cam Smith is going to Princeton in the Fall. . . just as long as no one finds out Cam Smith is really Philips O’Rourke, the youngest member of a thieving, scheming family. Skip thought he left his family behind when he ran away at thirteen but they are pulling him in for one last job. This job could be the “big one”, but it could also be fatal.
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- Release Date: April 26, 2016
- Pages: 336 pages
- Genre: Contemporary YA
- Publisher: Point (Scholastic)
When Ellia Dawson wakes up in the hospital with a head injury the first person she sees is Liam McPherson, her boyfriend of two years. The only problem ? She doesn’t remember him. In fact, she doesn’t remember anything about the last two years of her life. Now it’s up to Liam to help her remember her past and Ellia to discover if they still fit together. But that gets pretty complicated because it seems like everyone is hiding something from Ellia.
I wanted to like this book. I really did. But I was just so annoyed by parts it, specifically by Liam who was just so freaking righteous. I’m going to rant a little here. From the beginning we know he was with Ellia when she was injured and she has some questions, but instead of just telling her what she wants to know she has to wait for him to finish the book he is writing about their relationship because he is such a special snowflake or something.
And then the worst is this scene when Liam sees Ellia walking out of her therapy session with another guy and he just walks up and makes out with her. I was shouting at the page: SHE DOESN’T REMEMBER YOU, BRO GET OVER IT !
That said I liked the character of Ellia, she’s an extreme extrovert which is nice change up for a YA female protagonist. Ellia’s journey is all about reconciling the person she was with the person she is now. The last thing she remembers is being excited about going to high school and the next thing she knows she’s a junior in high school. This honestly could have been a story on its own without Liam.
One of my favorite podcasts is Read it and Weep and they have this game called No Retreat, No Surrender where they discuss side characters in films they wish they could follow instead of the main character. I wanted to follow Cody, the boy Ellia meets a therapy who lost his short term memory in a surfing accident. Cody is only in a few scenes but all I could think about what how interesting it would be to have a relationship with where one character can’t remember the past and the other can’t remember the present. I also liked seeing how Cody used technology and other strategies to get through life with no short term memory. I was really hoping he’d take over the plot, but he doesn’t.
Keep Me in Mind had an interesting set up, but a romance I couldn’t invest in. However it did remind me of how much YA contemporary is my jam and I want to get back into reading more of it.
You’d think after reading seven In Death books about the surly and biting New York City detective Eve Dallas that reading about Hannah Swenson, a sleuthy cookie shop owner in a small Midwest town, would be a cake–er–cookie walk
And it is.
But the more I thought about it the more I realized that Hannah Swenson is pretty scary. Cause when the local milkman is found shot in an alley Hannah (because her brother-in-law is investigating) gets swept up in the case as she finds clues, makes connections and solves the murder !
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After losing the waitress job she loves, Louisa Clark takes the unlikely job as a companion for Will Traynor. Will is a handsome former corporate tycoon playboy who is now a quadriplegic, living at home with his posh family. Louisa’s job as a companion soon becomes a mission for the impossible when she learns the true reason she was hired.
I knew nothing about this book or Jojo Moyes going in, so I got culture shock by how English this book was. Like real deal, average day-to-day English. I mean how crazy is it that you can live right around the corner from an ancient castle ? What is Tesco ? Lots of Googling ensued.
Anyway, the story follows Louisa and Will on a series of small adventures as they try to grow out of the boxes they’ve put themselves in. During the course of their outings the book did open my eyes to how our world is built with able-bodied people in mind. It’s the little things you don’t think about unless you have to; like is there grass or are the aisles big enough ?
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So, you know how people think most fantasy/dystopian YA is just a thinly veiled allegory for high school ? Well the Red Queen on it’s surface is pretty much that.
We’ve got Mare Barrow another brunette YA heroine who hates her hair and wishes she was more like her sister Gisa who is pretty, talented and basically put up on a pedestal.
In Mare’s world what separates the oppressed Reds from the elite Silvers. . . is their blood. The Silver’s blood silver blood gives them abilities like controlling elements, strength and mind control.
Mare soon discovers that even though she is Red, she has abilities like a Silver. A threat to the Silver way of life, The Silvers whisk her away to live among them until they can figure out what she is.
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The popularity of this book seemed to come out of nowhere. I just remember seeing it on an endcap one day in Barnes and Nobles and the next things I knew is was blowing up.
Ember in the Ashes takes place in The Empire, a vaguely middle ages fictional land with some vaguely Arabic influences. Elias (who by the way is 20 years old….which feels oddly old for YA) is a student at Blackcliff, a ruthless academy that trains Masks, the Empire’s deadliest soldiers. Laia is a Scholar, the conquered class, who goes undercover as a slave at Blackcliff for the Resistance to help her brother.
I don’t really have much to say about this book, which is weird since the audiobook is over 15 hours long. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t click with me. I finished this book and I wasn’t amped for the next one. Thinking about the only other YA fantasies I’ve read; Daughter of Smoke and Bone and The Young Elites, I think what this book is missing is characters with skin in the game. Elias and Laia are just kind of going with the flow all the time.
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