Another Brooklyn - Jacqueline Woodson

RATING: ★★★★★

Jacqueline Woodson is a household name in YA, known for writing amazing books that are different from the majority out there right now. Up until last week, she was one of those authors that I knew I was supposed to have read, but never did. When I saw the cover of her gorgeous new novel, Another Brooklyn, I knew I had to read it. Technically, this book isn't sold as YA, but I'm pretty sure that any reader from 14 to 100 can enjoy and learn from this novel.

Another Brooklyn is the story of August coming of age. As August tells the reader at the beginning of the story: 'I know now what is tragic isn't the moment. It's the memory.' While this is August's story, it is also an ode to memories, tragic and not, and how our remembrances can shape us. August is an adult, thrown back into Brooklyn due to a tragic event, and tells the reader about her youth. She isn't reliable, but she is so lyrical and honest, that this book is a joy to read.

August grew up in Brooklyn with three close friends, Gigi, Sylvia and Angela. Throughout the novel, the backstory of all girls is revealed and their mutual, and very different, struggles are displayed next to each other. The book is an ode to the strength of girls, even if everything and everyone is against them.

There are a lot of time jumps in Another Brooklyn and the writing isn't a straight forward narrative. Things are left out or only alluded to, left there for you to fill the gap. However, that is what makes it so powerful. Filling the gap with an endless list of what possibly could have happened makes you relate to the characters so much more. The beautiful writing, mostly poetic throughout the story, makes it easy to relate to the girls.

I finished this novel in a day, but the story still hasn't left me. I want to know more about August. I want to hug her and Angela, Gigi, Sylvia. I want to crawl into the story and prevent certain things from happening. I want to protect them, but also experience with them. Another Brooklyn is unlike other books with its focus on memory and lyrical writing, but it is beautiful and I'm so glad Jacqueline Woodson shared this story with the world.

Heartless - Marissa Meyer

RATING: ★★★★★

At the end of the year, we always get some of the most anticipated releases! And I think that for most YA fans, Heartless by Marissa Meyer is right up there. We fell in love with The Cinder Chronicles and now she is back, taking on Alice in Wonderland in her own unique way.

Heartless is the story of Catherine, a young girl who lives in Wonderland and dreams of becoming a baker. However, Catherine's parents believe she is too good to work and needs to marry an eligible bachelor - and no one is more eligible than the king. During their courtship, Catherine meets the court joker, Jest, and the two start a secret relationship. Trying to open her own bakery, finding out how to be with Jest and living in a kingdom that is fighting the Jabberwocky is enough to make anyone go mad...

Heartless started off for me in the same way as Cinder did: cliché and slow. However, just as with Cinder, this works amazingly for the story in the long run. When you start reading the story, it seems like another cliché reworking with Alice in Wonderland characters and I was so sure I could predict exactly how Catherine's storyline would go. Shame on me for not knowing Marissa Meyer better than that by now. Just as with her other novels, Heartless is a rollercoaster from beginning to end and I really enjoyed the twists that were included.

It is no spoiler to say that Catherine becomes the Queen of Hearts (it is mentioned on the back of the book and the cover makes it pretty clear) and having that knowledge made this book very interesting to read. Catherine begins like any other girl from Wonderland, just one who happens to be an amazing baker and dreams about opening her own shop. Passages about her future dreams are heartbreaking, because as a reader, you know that it will never come true.

While I enjoyed the Alice in Wonderland references (I'm a huge Alice fan), I sometimes wished there was more description of them. On the one hand, it worked well to make Wonderland, which is a normal world for the characters, seem so ordinary. On the other hand, Wonderland is such an unique setting and it is a shame that there wasn't more detail about it. This tale takes place years before Alice shows up and it would be nice to see how Wonderland evolved during the Red Queen's reign.

Besides that, this book was an amazing read. It is original, yet is true to Lewis Carroll's world. It is in the same vein as the Cinder Chronicles, yet shows a whole new variety of characters. It is comfort reading with enough twists to keep you guessing. Just as her previous books, Heartless isn't absolutely perfect, but the characters are so engaging that you can't help but fall in love with them. Now if only someone could convince Marissa Meyer to make this a series too!

The Mothers - Brit Bennett

RATING: ★★★★★

I'm in America again!! This means that I will basically live at Barnes and Nobles for six weeks and in my first few days, I've already found some amazing new releases. I started reading The Mothers first, because I heard so many positive things about it. Even though usually books don't live up to their hype, this is one novel that I couldn't put down and I am so happy that Brit Bennett's story is out there.

The Mothers is the story of three African American teenagers growing up in California. Nadia Turner's mother recently committed suicide and Nadia is figuring out how to to deal with that while also deciding about her future and what to do after high school. She meets Luke, who is twenty-one and was a talented football player who had to retire because of an injury. He is the son of the local pastor and is waiting tables while trying to find a new dream. Another fixture in the church is Aubrey, who one day just wandered into the town looking for salvation. She lives with her sister and hides a traumatising past. 

As the title suggests, this is a book about mothers, but on more levels than I ever thought possible. It is clearly about Nadia's mother, who committed suicide for reasons no one seems to know. It is about Aubrey's mother, who is far from ideal and has put her child in some very harmful situations. It's about Luke's mother, who is a role model for the whole community and wants her son to be one too. However, it is not just that simple. Motherhood comes in many forms in this novel. Without spoiling it for any future readers, every single event that unfolds shows that motherhood is more complex than most people ever hold possible.

Besides a very strong theme, this is also just a very strong story. Nadia, Aubrey and Luke are all realistic characters with their own struggle who intertwine and relate on many unexpected novels. It's a story about growing up, and more specifically growing up African American in a society where your choices can be limited by your race. Just like Ruby, this book was an eye-opener for me to the specific challenges that seem so far from mine as a white European. This book doesn't lecture, this book shows and makes you feel everything every single character is feeling, even though it might be completely unknown to you before this story.

The writing is absolutely beautiful with every character having a distinct voice that transports you easily into their head. While I usually dislike changing perspectives, Brit Bennett does it so effortlessly that it makes the story only better.

No review will do this book justice, because it is an emotional story that stays with you long after you finished it. This isn't just about reading, this is about experiencing and I won't be able to stop recommending this book for a very long time.

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

RATING: ★★★★★

I'm out of my reading slump! After a solid two months of barely any reading, I finished three books in one week! There's no better feeling than finally returning to so many books and stories and to be able to really enjoy reading them. The first book that I read is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Now I know the hype train for this book is long gone (if you read the book, you'll catch the joke!), but I couldn't resist finally reading it too. 

The Night Circus is the story of a circus that travels around the world and is only open at night. However, this is not a normal circus. It always shows up unexpected, is completely black and white and contains many tents with wonders so magical that you can't be sure if they aren't true magic. 

What I loved about this story is the originality. Everyone has some memory of childhood that includes circus and how magical they are. I remember that I always felt like they just showed up, as in the story, and were completely unannounced. While that certainly wasn't true, I like that the book played with that element. As a child, everything in a circus seems magical and I love the idea of a place like that for adults.

Even though the book is about the circus, the key plot line is a romance story. Both Celia and Marco are magicians, trained from childhood to compete with each other in a battle that can only have one of them win. Their playground? The circus. The complication? They love each other.

Both Marco and Celia are well-rounded characters and very enjoyable to read. Throughout the story, we work towards one big climax and in the beginning this was a little confusing. There were many characters that seemed vague and unnecessary, but it all tied in in the end. The only real complaint I can have about this book is that the real plot twist could be spotted from a mile away and thus made some of the emotions of Marco and Celia fall a little flat. When they found out and were all shocked, all I could think was 'but they MUST have known this, right?'. They didn't.

But if I nitpick about something like that in my review, it can only mean one thing: I really enjoyed this story. The setting and descriptions were amazing and though I'm not as entranced as some other readers by the love story, I did genuinely enjoy reading about Celia and Marco and their relationship. It's not always straightforward and its complexity is a thing of beauty.

Update!

Hi everyone,

sorry I've been SO quiet! I moved from London to Belgium, I'm finishing my thesis and I'm trying to still vlog every now and then. I never expected vlogging to be such a great break from all the writing and academic reading! So though I've been quiet here, I have been busy!

My newest video are two mini reviews! I wanted to write these, but I really enjoyed talking about them, so let me know how my video reviews are!

Here's my summer bookhaul!

The mid-year book freakout tag!

Sing - Vivi Greene

Rating: ★★★★☆

GOODREADS

FIVE MOST IMPORTANT POINTS

1. ALL THE FEELS

2. Beach-summer setting

3. So many cute boys!

4.Great narrator

5. Predictable with a twist

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. This in no way influenced my opinion of the book. 

I'm not sure why I requested Sing on Netgalley. Maybe it was the beautiful cover or the fact that I've read a bunch of bloggers rave about it, but when it came down to reading this book I wasn't excited. All my expectations were for a cliché, overromantized story that would just annoy me. I'm very happy to say that I was ABSOLUTELY wrong about this novel. Sing by Vivi Greene made me smile with every single page and there's not a YA-loving person I wouldn't recommend this for.

Lily Ross is a world famous singer that is under the scrutiny of the media on a Taylor Swift level. She constantly dates people, even though she always vows not to, and writes her most famous hits about said boys. When her perfect famous boyfriend breaks up with her, Lily and her two friends escape to a Maine island so she can reinvent herself, her love for music and figure out why she always seems to need a boy.

Vivi Greene successfully created a narrator who is at once very removed from the reader (who of us has the same issues as a Taylor Swift??), yet extremely relatable. When I was a teenager, I was the girl who hated the girls who always needed a boyfriend. WHY? Sing actually gives me the answer to this question - and I enjoyed reading it. In a genre where there are either really independent girls or girls who do everything for boys, I thoroughly enjoyed the complexity of Lily's romantic feelings. She knows she always needs a guy and writes her song about them, but she want to change that about herself. In the end, this is a story about whether or not we can change and how much we should listen to what society tells us. And spoiler alert: it's one of the most surprising endings I've read in a while.

The setting of this novel is also great. We go from the glitz and glam of famous New York to a quiet island in New England. Now if you know me, you know I love New England and the beachy, summer setting makes this book just perfect for this month. The descriptions are gorgeous and as Lily falls in love with the island, you can't help but do the same.

Non-surprisingly, I really enjoyed reading Sing. Lily made me smile a lot and I loved reading about her self-discovering journey and the amazing friends she has along with her. This is a feel-good book that lights up any rainy summer day (which I've had way too many of!) and will make you want to dance around in your room and be your own Lily Ross.

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

Rating: ★★★☆☆

GOODREADS

FIVE MOST IMPORTANT POINTS

1. Amazing characters

2. Classics students in Vermont

3. Some REALLY messed up twists

4. Pretentious writing that put me off

5. I want to cuddle the twins and keep them safe

The Secret History has been haunting me for months. Years. Everyone has read this novel and it has been on my parents bookshelf for such a long time, that it seemed ridiculous that I haven't picked it up. But I never did. Until this summer, because if summer is for one thing, it's for long books.

It's hard to review this book and though I've said it before, this book might be the hardest one so far. Though I love the characters in this book (ESPECIALLY the twins!!), the writing was absolutely awful. I don't know why, but I felt like this was a Classics 101 class and was written in a way that was somehow pretentious and somehow for people who never read. It was a weird combination and I wasn't comfortable with Donna Tartt's constant need to show how she can describe things - something that is normally fine, but threw off the pacing of the 300 middle pages of this novel.

However, if you enjoy that kinda writing and are okay with severe pacing issues, there are some great characters in this novel. Our narrator, Richard, is new to his Vermont college and decides to join the classics students; a small group of five who only have one professor and meet in his office the whole time. Very early on, the reader notices something off about all the characters, though our narrator blissfully ignores this. 

Plot-wise, this book is one heck of a roller coaster. Many people have praised this novel for being crazy, yet plausible. I just found the whole story crazy. Nothing plausible about it. Yet enjoyable to read at times. Towards the end, I feel like it was one of those season finales where the writers know there won't be a next season anyway, so they just pull out every crazy trick they have. Donna Tartt wrapped this story up in a way that there will no re-introduction to these characters, so why not go crazy?

Like I said, I really enjoyed the characters of this novel, though I can't really discuss them without spoiling the book for everyone. I kinda wish someone else would take the twins and put them in their own, still very messed up, world with better writing. When it comes to creating characters, it's clear that not many people can do it better than Donna Tartt.

So many things about this book annoyed me while reading it, yet I can't give it less than three stars. I won't ever forget these characters and if you know me, you'll know that I love love love an amazing, well-rounded character. Donna Tarrt gave me more than five of them, which is a rare feat in one novel. But I also know I won't try to read any other books by her, because the writing is just so not my style. All I can say, try reading this yourself and figure out if the writing works for you.