Books and Sensibility

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Contemporary YA

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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Book Review/Audiobook Review Geekerella by Ashley Poston

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Book Review/ Audiobook Review : A Psalm For Lost Girls by Kate Bayerl

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Book Review

If someone were to ask me what it means to have a book with
a strong sense of setting I would 100% point to A Psalm For Lost Girls.  New Haven, MA is a small
immigrant city where everyone knows everyone and some secrets just can’t be
kept.Callie da Costa wants to believe her sister Tessa, whose
untimely death she is still grieving , wasn’t the miracle making saint the
town and church think she might have been. That maybe the fortuitous voices her
sister heard where.  . . just in her head?

But when a missing girl miraculously appears on a shrine to Tessa, Callie has to rethink what she truly believes. This is a great read for those who, like me, don’t think
contemporary is for them. While the story has hints of magical realism the
events in the novel are grounded in grief and loss.

 

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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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The Sun is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

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  • Release Date: November 1, 2016
  • Pages: 384
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Publisher: Crown (Random House)

Tasha Kingston’s family is 24 hours away from being deported to Jamaica after her father drunkenly tells a police officer they’ve been in the country for over a decade on expired travel visas. Tasha isn’t ready to leave America, she has a fake social security number and was prepared to go to college and become a data scientist. She resolves to spend her last day doing everything she can to find a way to delay the deportation. What she doesn’t plan on is meeting Daniel Bae, the idealistic aspiring poet  who believes their meeting was an act of faith. Tasha is pragmatic and doesn’t believe in fate or soul mates but as they spend the day together Daniel starts to change her mind and get inside her heart. But what does any of it mean when in 24 hours she won’t be allowed back in the United States ?

Honestly, I was kind of lukewarm on the romance, I just have a hard time investing in romances in such a condensed timeline. To me the most interesting thing about this book is how the story is structured. Not only do we get Daniel and Tasha’s POVs we also get these mini sections called “brief histories” that give you a minor characters past and future or give you a history on a certain subject. I liked the way these sections broadened the 24 hour timeline a little bit.

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Vivian Apple At The End Of The Word By Katie Coyle

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The only reason this book is on my radar is because it was a part of theTumblr’s Reblog Book Club. Vivian Apple is set in a modern day America where a corporate leaning evangelistic church, The Church Of America, has taken over the country.

 One morning dutiful daughter and all around good girl Vivian Apple wakes up to find her Church Of America believing parents missing and two holes in their bedroom ceiling. The rapture has happened and Vivian is all alone. But is it all real ?

Now Vivian Apple is breaking all the rules to find the truth,  She’s not the old Vivian Apple anymore; shes’ Vivian Apple at the end of the world.

With her best friend and the knowledge that there has to be something more, Apple embarks on a cross country road tip to figure of what she believes.  This book has an odd tone about religion that both questions and accepts the idea of belief,

This is my first Julia Whelan audiobook, Whelan has a broad range and a knack for teenage voices. I can’t wait to check out her other YA audiobooks.

Vivian Apple At The End of The World is one of the weird YAs where your not sure what’s going to happen next and like the characters you will question what’s is and isn’t real and what it means to believe.