Book review: The Isobel Journal by Isobel Harrop.

The Isobel Journal is no ordinary snapshot of a contemporary teenage life. A charming and vivid narrative scrapbook of the eighteen-year-old author's sketches, mini-graphic novels, photography and captions, it captures her wit, her observations and her creative talent as she takes us through the three central themes in her life: 'Love', 'Friends, Art and Otters' and 'Me'.
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The Isobel Journal is sort of a graphic novel, except not really. There are illustrations and photographs, beautiful drawings and funny captions, and there is no story line or anything that really resembles a plot.

What The Isobel Journal is, really, is exactly that. It is a journal. It is Isobel Harrop's journal, to be precise. This means that there is no solid narrative and very little structure but what is here in abundance is Harrop's wonderful drawing style and wit. Her drawings are charming and a little quirky and very much the style of a teenage girl drawing in her sketchbook. They remind me a lot of the drawings my artist friends would make in their sketchbooks when we were teenagers, in fact. Some of the illustrations are very personal and others less so but they are all lovely and they all give the reader a view into the life of this teenage girl.

I love stripes!

Above is an example of a spread from The Isobel Journal. Harrop also uses photographs and snippets of text in some of her illustrations (and one of those snippets of text won me a nice stack of books from Hot Key last month. More on that in another post!) and these techniques work together to create a real scrapbook feeling. The book is split into three sections. The first section 'Me' is Harrop introducing herself to the reader, the second 'Friends, Art and Otters' delves a little deeper into Harrop's life and interests, and the third section 'Love' almost has a narrative and is certainly the most emotionally personal of the three sections.

There may not be a clear plot to this book but Harrop's illustrations do tell a story. They tell the story of Harrop's teenage years and they do so in a way that makes this book both beautiful and relatable. I read the whole thing in less than an hour but I know that I will go back to it again and again.

4/5 stars.

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Book review: Fearsome Dreamer by Laure Eve.

In the remote country of Angle Tar, apprentice hedgewitch Vela Rue has had strange dreams all her life: mysterious and incredibly real. Then she learns that her dreams mean something more - and that her government will do anything to nurture her talent. Embarking on her clandestine training, she meets the enigmatic White, who has been forced to flee his own unforgiving country to the safer realm of Angle Tar. White is seen as a prodigy - perhaps even the ultimate weapon the government have been waiting for. But the electric attraction between Rue and White may spell disaster... or change everything.
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From the very beginning of Fearsome Dreamer Laure Eve brings the reader into a rich and intriguing fantasy world. Angle Tar, where most of this book takes place, is an alternate universe version of the UK with little to no technology, where people who live in the countryside are treated not by doctors but by hedgewitches. On the other side of the ocean is World, a conglomeration of countries that is so technologically advanced that people there have become dependant on a virtual reality system called Life.

Laure Eve's world building is fantastic and as I was reading I found myself fully immersed in the world that Rue and White inhabit and intrigued by the special Talent that they possess. There isn't a lot of action in Fearsome Dreamer and the story line isn't quite as defined as it might have been, but Eve's writing style more than made up for that. The reader is dropped straight into White and Rue's respective lives at the start of the novel and those characters and the world they inhabit are the driving force of the story.

There were many great aspects of Fearsome Dreamer, including the mysterious Talent, the fantastic world building, and the interesting characters, but I don't think I quite believed Rue and White's love story. There are moments where we see Rue and White falling for each other, yes, but on the whole I felt more as though I was being told that they were falling in love, rather than shown it. And the whole thing seemed to escalate very quickly toward the end of the book. An ending that left such a cliff hanger I ordered the sequel immediately after finishing the last chapter.

Despite it's faults I would still recommend Fearsome Dreamer for the fascinating world that Eve has created and because Rue is such a great character and I will definitely be reviewing its sequel, The Illusionists, soon.

3/5 stars.

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Book review: Paper Aeroplanes and Goose by Dawn O'Porter.

Paper Aeroplanes

It's the mid-1990s, and fifteen year-old Guernsey schoolgirls, Renée and Flo, are not really meant to be friends. Thoughtful, introspective and studious Flo couldn't more different to ambitious, extroverted and sexually curious Renée. But Renée and Flo are united by loneliness and their dysfunctional families, and an intense bond is formed. Although there are obstacles to their friendship (namely Flo's jealous ex-best friend and Renée's growing infatuation with Flo's brother), fifteen is an age where anything can happen, where life stretches out before you, and when every betrayal feels like the end of the world. For Renée and Flo it is the time of their lives.
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I downloaded Paper Aeroplanes last year when reviews of it where all over the place on blogs and booktube and I can see now why it generated so much hype. Paper Aeroplanes displays a refreshingly authentic look at the experiences of growing up as a teenage girl, losing friends, and making new ones.

The narrative does not shy away from subjects like periods and sex, things that real teenage girls experience and discuss, and that is certainly something that I think there should be more of in YA novels. However, the writing style did at times strike me as a little too young for the novel's content.

The novel is written in a style that I would expect from a book for younger readers, maybe from 11-13, and for me this jarred with the themes and subjects portrayed. The dialogue in particular at times did not feel like it fit with the ages of the girls. Renée and Flo are both fifteen in this novel and their stories feel authentic to fifteen year olds, but their voices don't. Their voices are also very similar, which caused some confusion at first because the narrative switches between the two girls. The name of each girl always comes before a section in her narrative but their voices are so similar that it took a while before I stopped getting confused about which girl was which.

I don't mean to suggest that this is a bad book, it certainly isn't, and I enjoyed the stories of the two girls and their friendship a lot, but I'm just a little unclear about who the intended audience actually is.

3/5 stars.

The review for the next novel in the series, Goose, is under the cut. I read the two one after the other so it makes sense for me to put the reviews in one post, but there are spoilers for Paper Aeroplanes in the review for Goose. So, you've been warned!

Book review: Vivian Versus the Apocalypse by Katie Coyle.

Vivian Apple never believed in the Church of America - unlike her fanatical parents. And as for the so-called impending 'Rapture', she knew she'd believe that when she saw it. But then Vivian wakes one day to a New World, and all that's left of her parents are two empty spaces. The Believers have been taken, it seems. And for those left behind, the world is a desolate and eerie place. All Vivian has now are her memories and her volatile friend Harp.

Faced with society on the brink of collapse, Vivian and Harp embark on a journey across America, in search of any family they have left, and determined to expose the truth about the Rapture. Three thousand miles through floods, fog and heat waves, Harp and Vivian and a boy with the bluest eyes and the kindest heart are driving on to their future.

But will this be a coming-of-age road trip with no return?
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The premise of Vivian Versus the Apocalypse had me from the start. How many times over the past few years has the apocalypse been predicted in America? And every time we all take it the same way that Vivian and her friend Harp do at the start of the novel, like it's all a big joke that'll never happen. But in Vivian Versus the Apocalypse it actually does happen. Maybe.

I think this is the first book I've ever read that can be classified as both contemporary and post-apocalyptic and in my opinion the combination worked fantastically. Coyle makes it so easy to imagine this possibly post-apocalyptic America as her descriptions of the country post-rapture mix easily with scenes that are far more familiar to modern-day.

Another great strength of this novel is its main character, Vivian Apple. It's so refreshing to see a teenaged heroine thrown into a situation like this and to react like a real teenager. Vivian does not immediately leap into her role as heroine. She is reluctant and scared, just like most teenagers probably would be in her situation. Watching Vivian gradually discover her own strength and bravery is definitely part of what makes this novel so great. And don't even get me started on how much I love her best friend, Harp.

The sequel to this book, Vivian Versus America, is out already and I can't wait to get my hands on it and find out what happens next (especially after that heart stopping twist at the end of the first book!) If you're into contemporary, post-apocalyptic, or just really interesting YA with badass female heroines, then I highly recommend Vivian Versus the Apocalypse.

4/5 stars.

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Book review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater.

There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up.

Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs.

The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost.

Friends can betray.
Mothers can disappear.
Visions can mislead.
Certainties can unravel.
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Blue Lily, Lily Blue is the third in Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys trilogy, which follows the story of Blue Sargent and the Raven Boys on their search for the ancient Welsh king Glendower.

I loved the first two books in the series, The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves, and I can't recommend the series enough. Maggie Stiefvater's writing style is so immersive I always feel like I can't read her books quick enough and she writes teenagers who really act and sound like teenagers, which is always a plus in YA. I enjoyed Blue Lily, Lily Blue because of Stiefvater's style, because of the characters, because of the world, but honestly I felt like not much really happened. I mean, of course things happened, but I spent pretty much the whole book waiting for something big to happen. Waiting for the story to really start.

There are new characters who don't really do anything and a plan that never actually takes place and even the things that did happen didn't really make as much of an impact as the events of the first two books. But this is a Raven Boys book so I did really enjoy it and I would still absolutely recommend the series, even if you aren't normally a fan of fantasy.

One thing Blue Lily, Lily Blue did do fantastically well was to set up the story for the next book in the series and I can't wait to read that one.

3/5 stars

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Book review: Love in the Gilded Age by Saruuh Kelsey.

Once in a hidden queendom...

There is an ocean: In the infinite distance, between one hidden world and the next, is an unmeasurable expanse of twenty seas. One sprawling edge of the world to another is filled with waters as beautiful as they are deadly, as miraculous as they are fraught. Treasure and treachery litter their ocean beds, sleeping side by side with adventurers whose travels ended abruptly, lives caught and held under a wave until all breaths fled.

There is a land: Tucked into a corner where four oceans fold together, land rises up illustrious in a jagged slash of mountains and forests, with secrets and wonders as plentiful as any water.

There are chronicles: Not of the twenty savage seas but of the fissure of land and the people who sigh life into it.
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Love in the Gilded Age is the first collection of stories in a series called The Fissure Chronicles, of stories which all take place in the same universe. The stories are all based on classic fairy tales and in this first collection we have; 'Love in the Gilded Age', based on 'Rumpelstiltskin'; 'Xanna', based on 'Little Red Cap'; and 'A Fortress of Thorns', based on 'Brier Rose'.

Each of the three stories takes the source material and turns it on its head. The stories all stray from their original fairy tales but they also all contain enough of those fairy tales to be recognisable. 'Love in the Gilded Age', for example, tells the story of a girl who must spin straw into gold for a king who keeps her locked in a tower, however this is pretty much where the similarities to 'Rumpelstiltskin' end. She does promise her first born child to someone but there's a very clever twist to that promise that I won't spoil for you.

All three of these stories are about young heroines who must save themselves, someone, or something else and although they all need help from time to time that is never portrayed as a weakness. They all remain the heroes of their own stories. The stories also feature characters with disabilities, characters of colour, and LGBTQ characters, which is a lot more diversity than you'll find in most YA books right now.

These stories are all really interesting and unique takes on some of the most famous fairy tales. They're all entertaining and full of adventure and I can't wait to read the next collection!

5/5 stars

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Book review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart.

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends - the Liars - whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True Love.
The Truth.
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We Were Liars is my first E. Lockhart book but I'm sure it won't be my last (I've been eyeing up The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks for years, truth be told.) I wasn't too sure what to expect but I'd seen a lot of reviews, all of which seemed to follow the same pattern - this book is amazing but I can't tell you what happens - and now that I've read it I can totally understand why.

We Were Liars is powerful and surprising, both in the story itself and in the way in which the story is told. I've never read anything else like it and I'm sure I never will. But. I'm still not totally convinced about the writing style. While it's definitely interesting, I found it at times to be a little annoying, almost until the end. Towards the end I found myself appreciating the style and it started to make sense retrospectively, but I can't deny that I spent a lot of the book unsure about it. Also I still don't understand why the group are called 'The Liars' but I don't think I'm the only one.

Nevertheless this is definitely a unique novel, deserving of the praise it has gotten. The story unfolds in ever more clever and surprising ways and the final reveal comes like a punch in the gut. But, like, in a good way. I'd recommend it.

4/5 stars.

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