Bright Burning Stars by A.K. Small | Book Review*

Would you die for the Prize?

Best friends Marine Duval and Kate Sanders have trained since childhood at the Paris Opera Ballet School, where they’ve forged an inseparable bond through shared stories of family tragedies and a powerful love for dance. When the body of a student is found in the dorms just before the start of their final year, Marine and Kate begin to ask themselves how far they would go for the ultimate prize: to be named the one girl who will join the Opera’s prestigious corps de ballet. Would they cheat? Seduce the most talented boy in the school, dubbed the Demigod, hoping his magic will make them shine, too? Would they risk death for it? Neither girl is sure.

But then Kate gets closer to the Demigod, even as Marine has begun to capture his heart. And as selection day draws near, the competition—for the Prize, for the Demigod—becomes fiercer, and Marine and Kate realize they have everything to lose, including each other.

Bright Burning Stars is a stunning, propulsive story about girls at their physical and emotional extremes, the gutting power of first love, and what it means to fight for your dreams.

Release Day: May 21
This story follows two young women as they deal with the stress of attending a competitive Ballet School. It's their final year at the school and they're competing to join an elite group of ballet dancers, but the year is proving to be stressful on their friendship and their abilities, causing both girls to make bad decisions. This story covers eating disorders, dating complications, drug use, and strained friendships, and more.

I did not like Kate's character at all. I found her selfish and annoying. She was so hung up on boys that she believed they loved her even when they, and everyone else, openly told her that they weren't looking for relationships. She expected everyone to move out of her way and hated everyone who was better than her. She claims that her friendship with Marine is the most important thing, but does nothing to fix it when they start fighting. In the end, she is given something that I don't think she deserved to get. She was making harmful choices that she kept trying to rationalize, but I honestly don't think she was strong enough to fix by herself.

However, I understand the importance of Kate's character. When you go to school for years competing against your classmates it's hard to have friends because even if you want them to succeed, you want to succeed more. I can understand why she made the choices she made, but they were still dumb choices.

Marine, on the other hand, I felt bad for. She still made awful decisions, but hers mainly impacted herself. She was also bad at mending her friendship with Kate, but I think Marine was better off without her. It was one of those scenarios where two people are friends for a long time but then outgrow each other. Marine wasn't able to fully shine until she let go of the drama that came with being Kate's friend.

Both of these characters show the negative effects of stress and competition. I saw this book as somewhat of a warning. It made you ask whether or not your passion is really worth what you think you have to do to achieve it.

An interview with the author:

1. How did you write BRIGHT BURNING STARS? All at once or did you outline the story?
   I wrote it all at once but multiple times! I’m trying to learn how to outline. Man, is it hard. My brain goes to the creative before the analytical.

2. What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters? Which of your characters do you most identify with, and why?
   I think that the most surprising aspect of character building is that it took me years to understand and relate to Kate. I had to spend a long time with her before she finally clicked on the page. I identify with Marine because M and I both believe that any artistic success comes not from talent but from sweat and grit.

3. What gave you the idea for BRIGHT BURNING STARS?
   I wrote a short story titled The Art of Jealousy and then I knew I wanted to write a larger piece.

4. Do you have a favourite scene, quote, or moment from BRIGHT BURNING STARS?
   I love the scene where Marine dances to Biggie Smalls and there is a Luc scene I adore but I don’t want to give it away.

5. If you could tell your younger writing self-anything, what would it be?
   I would tell her never to forget about the magic of process and to always trust her instincts.

6. What is on your current TBR pile?
   The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo, The Meaning of Birds by Jaye Robbin Brown, Wilder Girls by Rory Power, How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox, Heroine by Mindy McGinnis. I'm a sucker for books. I LOVE to read.
7. Do you write to music? If so, what artist were you listening to while writing BRIGHT BURNING STARS?I usually don’t, but as I was trying to figure Kate out I listened to Unsteady by X Ambassadors and I put on classical piano pieces, literal ballet music, while I worked on studio scenes for atmosphere and rhythm purposes.

*This review was requested, but the opinions are my own

By Your Side by Kasie West | Book Review

Reading Group: High School+ 

Personal Rating:  5 out of 5 Stars

Synopsis:  An irresistible story from Kasie West that explores the timeless question What do you do when you fall for the person you least expect?

When Autumn Collins finds herself accidentally locked in the library for an entire weekend, she doesn’t think things could get any worse. But that’s before she realizes that Dax Miller is locked in with her. Autumn doesn’t know much about Dax except that he’s trouble. Between the rumors about the fight he was in (and that brief stint in juvie that followed it) and his reputation as a loner, he’s not exactly the ideal person to be stuck with. Still, she just keeps reminding herself that it is only a matter of time before Jeff, her almost-boyfriend, realizes he left her in the library and comes to rescue her.

Only he doesn’t come. No one does.

Instead it becomes clear that Autumn is going to have to spend the next couple of days living off vending-machine food and making conversation with a boy who clearly wants nothing to do with her. Except there is more to Dax than meets the eye. As he and Autumn at first grudgingly, and then not so grudgingly, open up to each other, Autumn is struck by their surprising connection. But can their feelings for each other survive once the weekend is over and Autumn’s old life, and old love interest, threaten to pull her from Dax’s side?

Cover: The cover of this book shows people who are supposed to represent Autumn and Dax.  I like how they're wearing the outfits they're described to be wearing while they were stuck in the library.  There is also a chair, which I think is supposed to be the one Dax often sat in as he read Hamlet in.  There are a ton of books around to represent the actual library, without showing the typical library shelves, something I like because it gets the representation across in a more subtle way. 

My Review: I feel like this book is just what I needed right now.  I'm currently home for Columbus Day Weekend and I wanted to read something fun that would take my mind off of midterms and school.  Honestly, I was surprised that Dax and Autumn being stuck in the library didn't take up a larger amount of the book.  Granted, it took up about a third, but I just assumed it would take up more.  Once they were out of the library, Autumn had to learn how to balance the real world and the bubble of only having Dax around.  I loved how the two of them still hung out in locations that made it seem like it was just them alone in the world; the greenhouse, Autumn's car, the empty park.  Autumn was stuck with conflicting feelings of falling for someone who blatantly says he wants no attachments and someone who everyone is depending on you to heal.  Of course eventually, Autumn follows her heart and chooses the one who makes her feel the most comfortable and safe rather than the one who almost always has her on the verge of a panic attack.  She also eventually tells her friends about her anxiety and ends the story happily.  You guys know by now that happy story endings will always be my favorite.  I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a quick, meaningful read because even though it is a young adult novel it does cover topics of mental illness and figuring out what's best for yourself rather than what everyone assumes.     

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Ten Tiny Breaths by K.A. Tucker | Book Review

Reading Group: High School+

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Synopses: After a terrible car accident destroys her life as she knew it, twenty-year-old Kacey escapes to Florida, where she encounters an irresistible man determined to capture her wounded heart.

Just breathe, Kacey. Ten tiny breaths. Seize them. Feel them. Love them. 

Four years ago, Kacey Cleary’s life imploded when her car was hit by a drunk driver, killing her parents, boyfriend, and best friend. Still haunted by memories of being trapped inside, listening to her mother take her last breath, Kacey wants to leave her past behind. Armed with two bus tickets, Kacey and her fifteen-year-old sister, Livie, escape Grand Rapids, Michigan, to start over in Miami. They’re struggling to make ends meet at first, but Kacey’s not worried. She can handle anything—anything but her mysterious neighbor in apartment 1D. 

Trent Emerson has smoldering blue eyes and deep dimples, and perfectly skates that irresistible line between nice guy and bad boy. Hardened by her tragic past, Kacey is determined to keep everyone at a distance, but their mutual attraction is undeniable, and Trent is desperate to find a way into Kacey’s guarded heart—even if it means revealing an explosive secret that could shatter both their worlds.

Cover: The cover of this novel shows Kacey underwater wearing a white dress.  The whole thing screams innocence and rebirth, it's very baptismal.  Kacey moves to Miami to have a fresh start in life, so I think the cover is fitting.

My Review: A lot of this book is about Kacey finding her place after leaving behind such a traumatic past and moving to Miami.  She makes friends, gets a job, and falls in love.  However that all comes crashing down when she learns that her boyfriend, Trent, is actually the same person who owned the car that crashed into her father's and started a downward spiral in Kacey's life.
Trent handed over his car keys one night to a friend that said he was fine to drive.  That friend wasn't okay to drive and crashed the car killing himself, a friend, and Kacey's parents, boyfriend, and best friend.  Trent and Kacey survived the accident and Trent thought that if he could make it up to Kacey, his guilt would ease.  However, finding out the boy your dating has actually been stalking you for four years definitely changes some aspects of your relationship.  
There were traits about Trent that hinted he was involved in the crash.  He moved in at the same time she did, which he landlord points out is odd for him to get two new residents that quickly; he doesn't drink alcohol, and he drives a motorcycle, not a car, which makes it impossible for him to be the one in charge of car keys if he ever did go out with friends and he could never get stuck in a motorcycle if he were to crash it the way Kacey remembers being trapped in her car.  And looking at the situation from his point of view I can understand it.  He thinks if he reaches out to the only other survivor he can apologize and they can get on with their lives.  However, she wants nothing to do with him so he tries to figure out another way, hence how the stalking came to be.  I don't think his initial intention was to fall in love with her, that was just what happened when they got to know each other.
I know I gave away a giant spoiler from this book, but there is a lot more to it than one giant lie.  Kacey has to rebuild a life for herself and just when she thinks she's in the clear the lie is revealed and she has to start all over again.  The book covers her emotional state and how she tries to fix it herself and what happens when she can't.  The ending is also adorable, but I'll leave that for you guys to discover on your own.

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When We Collided by Emery Lord | Book Review

Reading Group: 16 years old+ 

Personal Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Synopses: Seventeen-year-old Jonah Daniels has lived in Verona Cove, California, his whole life, and only one thing has ever changed: his father used to be alive, and now he is not. With a mother lost in a deep bout of depression, Jonah and his five siblings struggle to keep up their home and the restaurant their dad left behind. But at the start of summer, a second change rolls in: Vivi Alexander, the new girl in town. 

Vivi is in love with life. Charming and unfiltered, she refuses to be held down by the medicine she's told should make her feel better. After meeting Jonah, she slides into the Daniels' household seamlessly, winning over each sibling with her imagination and gameness. But it's not long before Vivi's zest for life begins to falter. Soon her adventurousness becomes all-out danger-seeking. 

Through each high and low, Vivi and Jonah's love is put to the test . . . but what happens when love simply isn't enough?

Cover: The front cover of this novel has paint splatter behind the title, which I think is a really good representation of collision.  Yes, Vivi is very into art, and her mom is even a painter, so that could be a reason for the paint splatter, but even if that wasn't the case, I think it would work.  Splatter paint is messy, even when it's done intentionally, but it can be beautiful, and I think that is an excellent representation of this story.

My Review: I can't help but relate this book to Love & Gelato because in both stories the main female character goes looking for her dad at some point.  It's not as big of a deal in this story, but I thought it was interesting that it just so happened in books I read back to back.
I definitely liked Jonah more than Vivi.  She was just a lot for me, and even when I was reading her dialogue, I found myself going a mile a minute.  I also found myself getting very frustrated with her, especially when Jonah was trying to ask for help.  But I think that was the point.  From an outsiders standpoint, it can be frustrated when you know something is wrong with someone, but you can't help them.  Vivi wasn't taking her medication, which made her act the way she did. 
Jonah was just trying to keep everything together, but he was slipping.  Vivi came into his life when he needed her to, but she was never meant to stay.  She wasn't someone who could stay in one place for too long.  I loved the part I the hospital when Vivi admits that Jonah would probably end up with Ellie or someone like her because from the moment she came into the book I thought her and Jonah would be a good match.  
This book reminded me of All the Bright Places because it talked about mental illness and made it apparent that there are more people around you struggling than you might think, but I was pleasantly surprised that this story didn't end in death.  That's not what this book was about because that's not what mental illness always leads to, especially if the person suffering can get the proper help.  However, if you did read ATBP, I think you'd like this story as well.  
It's important to read books with topics like the many covered in this book because even if you can't personally relate, it lets you inside someone's head and teaches you how to be empathetic towards the situation if one was ever to come up.

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"Victory Lap" and "Sticks" by George Saunders

I'm cheating, and I hate to do it, but I haven't been able to finish the book I have been reading since December, and I feel bad that this was going to be the second week in a row without a book review, so I am going to talk about two short stories I've recently read.

These stories come from George Saunders's Tenth of December, and I am reading this collection of short stories for a book club I have joined at school.


"Victory Lap"
This story is about 25 pages long, and it has three different viewpoints.  The story is about a girl who gets kidnapped, and her neighbor saves her.  It was crazy because her kidnapper literally knocked on her door and then dragged her to his van.  The story is told by the girl, her neighbor, and her kidnapper.  The kidnapper definitely has some mental illness that made him believe what he was doing was okay.  He also mentions some man named Kenny, but the reader doesn't know who he is.  The girl's neighbor comes from a strict household, and he doesn't know if he should help his neighbor or just turn an eye to it.  He does decide to help, and he actually kills the kidnapper.  However, after the fact, both he and the girl are traumatized, and even though their parents tell them what they did was okay and that it saved her life, they both went through such a harrowing experience that they don't really care that the death was justified.

There was no given reason why the girl was chosen to be kidnapped.  She didn't appear to be anything special, just your typical teenage girl, but she was chosen before the kidnapping happened.  I think Saunders gets across that not everything that happens to us is for a concrete reason.  Sometimes we're just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the wrong person sees us.  The boy was taught by his parents to do things a certain way and mind his own business that he hesitates when he sees his neighbor in trouble, but when he does decide to help he acts completely out of passion and doesn't consider the consequences.  Obviously, the death was justified because it saved the girl, but it happened so quickly that the boy didn't have time to think of what it meant for him until it was over.

"Sticks"
This story is about a page and a half long, and it's a man's reflection of a pole that was outside his childhood home.  His father used to dress up the pole depending on holidays or events that happened in his life.  This man was basically obsessed with this pole and when he died, and the house sold the new family ripped out the pole and threw it away.

We all have things that have value to us in ways that they don't have value to anyone else, or we know what other people value.  However, when something only has value to one person, it's easy for another person to come around and get rid of it, and everyone else can only sit back and watch.  That's what happened in this story.  This pole that was around for everything a man went through was simply a stick to someone else.


Again, I'm sorry that this isn't a real book review and I hope I won't have to do too many more of these, but I just don't have many books here at school that is really grabbing my interest.  What books are you guys currently reading?

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Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone | Book Review

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

Reading Group: 16+/Sensitive Material (Mental Disorders, Suicide) 

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Given Summary:If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling.

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off. 

Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she'd be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam's weekly visits to her psychiatrist.

Caroline introduces Sam to Poet's Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who have been ignored by the school at large. Sam is drawn to them immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse, and starts to discover a whole new side of herself. Slowly, she begins to feel more "normal" than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . . . until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear.

Cover: The cover of this book has each word on a different scrap of paper.  Representing how the poets would write on whatever paper they had available to them when they had inspiration to write.  

My Review: I must have a thing for books that involve some form hallucinations.  I feel like I've read  quite a few books recently with this topic.  It's really only my third (Along with Vanishing Girls and Sweet Nothing), but I've read them in a short period of time.  I've also been reading a few books that contain mental health issues so this book was right up my alley for current interests.  OCD is something that seems to me one of form on mental health that isn't talked about much.  Lately anxiety and depression have been front page and other mental health issues have been pushed off to the side.  This novel does a really good job showing that OCD is more complicated that having to be super neat or having intense rituals you have to do before going to bed.  I also liked that this book had the friendship and high school aspect.  There are friends that you may have had since elementary school and even though you know you're growing apart from them, you don't want to walk away from them because you don't have anywhere else to go.  Especially once you get to high school and it seems like everyone has their friend group.  Which is why you may need to try something new in order to make new friends.  For Sam it was poetry and the secret Poet's Corner.  With this group of friends she's more willing to share small details about herself and her OCD that she wasn't able to with the friends she grew up with.  And of course, a boy was involved, and you guys know I can't help but love a good love story.  AJ and the rest of the kids in Poet's Corner are able to understand Sam because they all have something that makes them feel different and like outcasts in some way.  However, when Sam discovers that her mind conjured up Caroline as a way to help her through stressful times, she removes herself from everyone.  Anyone would be freaked out if they realized they accidentally imagined their best friend, but when you already struggle with your thoughts, it makes it even worse.  Sam needed to accept herself and realize that there was a whole group of people who were also willing to let her in, she just had to let them.
One tiny thing that I noticed and liked about this book was the chapter titles.  Sam does a lot of things in threes, so all of the chapter titles are three word phrases, even the title is three words.             

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