The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand | Book Review

Reading Group: Sensitive Topic of Suicide; High School+

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Synopses: From New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Hand comes a gorgeous, heart-wrenching novel of love and loss, which ALA Booklist called "both shatteringly painful and bright with life and hope" in a starred review.

Since her brother, Tyler, committed suicide, Lex has been trying to keep her grief locked away, and to forget about what happened that night. But as she starts putting her life, her family, and her friendships back together, Lex is haunted by a secret she hasn't told anyone—a text Tyler sent, that could have changed everything.

In the tradition of Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why, Gayle Forman's If I Stay, and Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall, The Last Time We Say Goodbye is a thoughtful and deeply affecting novel that will change the way you look at life and death.

Cover: The cover of this book pays tribute to Ty's suicide post-it note that he left on his mirror for this mother.  It's a powerful statement given that the cover of this book is reminding us that you very rarely know if when you say goodbye to someone, it is the last time.

My Review: I purchased this book a while ago, but then I kept buying more books, and so I have just gotten around to reading it.  This book was great, sad, but great.  I liked it because it felt very real, which is probably because the author lost her brother to suicide and even though she does say that the work is fiction and she is not Lex, I think certain things are just common to happen when someone you know has killed themselves, or just died in general.  
For one, Lex separates herself from her friends.  She's not the girl she used to be, and so she struggles to act the way she used to.  Her friends don't push her to be her old self, but there's a divide that wasn't there before and Lex uses it as an excuse to distance herself.
On the other side of that, Lex does reconnect with Sadie, whose dad died a few years earlier and therefore can relate to Lex in a way that her other friends can't.  It shows that it's never too late to try to reconnect with someone from your past, even if it takes a tragedy to get you to do so.  
And then there is Damian, who used to be one of Ty's best friends, the only one in their group who hasn't killed himself.  However, being that High School can be rough for the best of us, Lex is afraid that Damian may also be at risk of attempting suicide, but accidentally sends the wrong message when she tries to reach out to him.
Although I love a good love story, as many of you know, I really appreciated that this story wasn't one.  Lex broke up with her boyfriend after Ty died, and I was happy to see that she didn't need him to get through her pain.  She came to terms with it on her own, and when she was ready she reached back out, and at the end, it seemed like they would get back together (which I was excited for).  
This story is a little bit of a mystery.  Not the "Who stole the pirate's treasure" or "It was a murder, not a suicide"mystery, but the kind that I'm sure a lot of people in a situation like Lex would understand.  She kept finding things that her brother left behind - the letter to Ashley and the empty picture frames - and had to decipher what Ty would have wanted her to do with the information.  Although Lex could guess what he wanted and I think she made the right choices when it came to these things, Ty was gone and there was no way to know if the choices Lex made were the ones he actually wanted.
Obviously this book contains sensitive subject matter, but I would definitely recommend you pick it up this winter break. 

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Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher | Book Review

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Reading Group: High School+ and the whole book is about a girl's suicide so if that's not your thing I would stay far away

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Given Summary: You can’t stop the future. 
You can’t rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.  

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

Cover: The cover of this book shows Hannah on a swing, presumably at a park, which is where her story begins.  Her story starts on a slide, not a swing, but I think the message is the same.  The innocence of a children's park contrasted with a girl who commits suicide.

My Review: I feel like everyone I know read this book in high school and I'm just getting around to it now.  In fact, this book came out 10 years ago, and there's a new addition out with new scenes that I want to read, but I think I'm going to hold off a little while so that this one isn't so fresh and I don't skim through the new one.  I definitely understand why this book was a best seller and why so many people I know have read it, it was wicked good.  The topic is very heavy, and the whole time I felt like shaking Hannah and telling her to let Clay help her.  I loved that it was stories about the past and that Hannah was already dead.  I didn't like that Hannah killed herself, but that was the whole point of the book.  What I mean is that if Hannah was missing and it was unclear if she were dead or not and it seemed like Clay was in a race against time only to find Hannah killed herself, I don't think I would have liked the book.  The tapes were a slap in the face to everyone who received them because they were listening to someone they would never get the chance to apologize to.  And it's a wake-up call to everyone who reads it.  We have people in our lives and no matter what they might mean to us, how we treat them matters.  Our actions may not be a huge moment for them, but if it adds to everything else that person may be going through, it could be the last straw.  Suicide isn't the answer, and I can imagine that people hate this book because Hannah just kind of gave up when she didn't receive the help she didn't straight up ask for, but that's how suicide happens sometimes.  It's easy to look back and see everything the person needed, but it may be impossible at the time.  That's why I absolutely love the ending of this book.  Clay couldn't help Hannah.  He didn't know how to at the time and when he figure it out she was already gone, but he noticed the same actions in Skye, and he didn't let her walk away.  Sometimes awful things need to happen for us to learn something, but what matters is that you do learn something.  I think everyone should read this book because Jay Asher is a great author and this book holds an important message.  I'm glad this is the book I got to start 2017 with.

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Last Train to Babylon by Charlee Fam | Book Review

Last Train to Babylon by Charlee Fam 

Reading Group: High School+

Personal Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Given Summary: Fans of Alice Sebold and John Green will be transfixed by this sophisticated, edgy debut novel packing dark humor, biting wit, and a lot of Jack Daniels.

Who put the word fun in funeral? I can’t think of anything fun about Rachel’s funeral, except for the fact that she won’t be there.

Aubrey Glass has a collection of potential suicide notes—just in case. And now, five years—and five notes—after leaving her hometown, Rachel’s the one who goes and kills herself. Aubrey can’t believe her luck.

But Rachel’s death doesn’t leave Aubrey in peace. There’s a voicemail from her former friend, left only days before her death, that Aubrey can’t bring herself to listen to—and worse, a macabre memorial-turned-high-school reunion that promises the opportunity to catch up with everyone . . . including the man responsible for everything that went wrong between Aubrey and Rachel.

In the days leading up to the funeral and infamous after party, Aubrey slips seamlessly between her past and present. Memories of friendship tangle with painful new encounters while underneath it all Aubrey feels the rush of something closing in, something she can no longer run from. And when the past and present collide in one devastating night, nothing will be the same again.

But facing the future means confronting herself and a shattering truth. Now, Aubrey must decide what will define her: what lies behind . . . or what waits ahead.

Cover: The cover of this novel is dark, but you can see that it's an aerial view of a girl.  

My Review: This book was another one that I got in the Barnes&Noble sales bin, but I ended up enjoying it.  I liked how the chapters went from the past to present so that you could figure out all the reasons why Aubrey didn't want to go to Rachel's funeral and why they had such a big falling out after being friends for ten years.  I thought it was interesting how the girl that may or may not have been assaulted by Max was Tonya and she had the ring that Aubrey gave her.  I thought it made the book kind of come together in a full circle, showing that we really aren't that different from the people around us and we all go through traumatic events.  I also thought that Aubrey's reaction to her rape was very real.  She was struggling to put the night back together and see if she could hold any of the blame for what happened and even though I don't think anything that happened was her fault I think she responded the way most people would.  What she went through was very complicated, and it affected her for the rest of her life.  It was sad that what happened with her friend and boyfriend after that went the way it did because Aubrey was going to tell Adam everything, but Rachel got to him first.  Rachel was never a good friend, but I understand why Aubrey didn't cut her off sooner.  When your friends with someone for so long, it is harder to cut them out of your life.  The most frustrating thing about this book was that we never heard the voicemail, but at the same time I liked that we didn't.  It was something that was just between Rachel and Aubrey, so from a literary aspect I respect that the reader didn't get to know what Rachel said, but from a reader's point of view, I am super curious.    

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Me Before You by Jojo Moyes | Book Review

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes 

Reading Group: 17+

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars 

Given Summary: The beloved New York Times bestseller—with more than five million copies sold. The stunning sequel, After You, is available now.

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?

Cover: The cover of this novel is very simple, it's just the title and the authors name, but I like it.  It's almost as if this book doesn't need an image to it, which if you read it is true.  Everyone in this novel was someone else before Louisa and Will met than they were when Will died. 

My Review: I loved this book.  I finished it in one day.  It left me feeling the same way All The Brigth Places left me.  In a weird sad, but happy I don't really know what to feel way.  I loved this story, but it was definitely heartbreaking.  For me especially, the idea of dying is super freaky so for someone to chose it in the way that Will did, because it was suicide, but at the same time it wasn't just throws me for a loop.  And I felt bad for Louisa because she fell for him, but he already knew his expiration date.  How can you spend time with someone when you know it's going to end.  My sister also read this story and we went and saw the movie and she said that truthfully how long would Louisa stay with Will.  He can't do anything and she wouldn't be abel to have kids or anything so who long would it last?  And that's exactly Will's frame of mind.  His life ended when he go hit by the motorcyclist, every day after that was just borrowed time.  He wanted so much more for her and that's exactly what he was able to do.  Taking that job was the best thing Louisa could have done for herself, even if it was the saddest and hardest as well.  I loved this novel and I loved the movie, even though I know many people didn't.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is willing to have their heart ripped out from their chest. 

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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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I Was Here by Gayle Forman | Book Review

I Was Here by Gayle Forman

Reading Group: High School+; Sensitive Material

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Given Summary: When her best friend, Meg, commits suicide by drinking a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how did she miss the signs of Meg's depression? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, and some secrets of his own. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open—until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question.

Cover: The cover of this book shows a back of a girl, Cody maybe, walking down a street.  The landscape shows grass that progresses to trees that changes to mountains.  It goes from flat to sky high and it might be like this to show how things in life can escalate relatively quickly, no matter what it may be.  Once Meg's brother says that he thought the email was worded oddly, Cody starts doing some research and suddenly she finds herself in Nevada trying to find someone who supported Meg's decision to kill herself.  The girl on the cover is standing a road which may be symbolic for the journey Cody goes on literally and figuratively as she discovers more truths about her best friend that she didn't know before.

My Review: I really enjoyed this book.  You guys know I love a good love story anyway, which is what this story becomes.  I also like that it's kind of a mystery and Cody has to put together the pieces of the puzzle.  When you go looking for something, you're certainly going to find something and this novel really shows that. 
I feel as though the theme of mental health and suicide is very "big" right now.  It's the new fad for books the way dystopian novels like The Hunger Games and Divergent were a few years ago.  I do think it is a very serious topic and that by making fictional characters struggle through these things, it helps to take the stigma away from real people who deal with stuff like this and hopefully helps them get the help they need. 

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All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven | Book Review

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven 

Reading Group Rating: Sensitive Subject Matter/High School+

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Given Summary: Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

Cover: The cover of this book is blue, like Finch's bedroom after he redecorates and his eyes.  It's also covered in post-it notes like Finch's room.  The post-it's are a huge part of this book and eventually become the missing piece to the puzzle that finds Finch.  One of the post-it's has a cardinal on it to represent the one Finch wanted so much to save but couldn't (Finch is the cardinal) and another has a violet on it to represent Violet (duh) and also the flowers Finch brings Violet and the ones he plants at the scene of the accident.

My Review: Okay...This book...I feel like my heart has been ripped from my chest and then tried to be put back.  I never cry at books or movies, but this one nearly got me.  I will forever be scarred by this book.  And I'm kind of okay with that... 
I literally just finished this book, that's why ^^^^ is there.  It's like my official reaction to this book.  But in all serious, this book is truly amazing.  Completely different to the typical happily ever after I usually read (I know now why I prefer those, I can't handle the emotions going through me right now) it's major theme was mental health which I think is a really important thing to talk about.  There's a part in the novel where Finch is afraid to talk about being bipolar because he doesn't want to be labeled.  And I think a ton of people feel this way.  They've already been labeled a freak or a weirdo or a slut or whatever, they don't need anything else.  I also thought how interesting it was how the chapters started.  It was either Finch or Violet's name, but then there was something else.  For Finch it counted how many days he was Awake.  However, it also felt like a countdown until he was Asleep again because the need for the count made you feel like it wouldn't last forever.  For Violet it started with a countdown to graduation.  She needed to have something to look forward to in her life, something to keep her going.  However, after she throws away her calendar it just starts to say the day it is.  Violet no longer needed something to aim for, she learned to live for the present day and not the future.
This book is so frustrating because Finch teaches Violet (and you) so many things about life and not only how to live and enjoy it, but also to deal with the bad things.  He tells Violet to write down the bad things, but instead of putting them on the wall rip them up.  However, he's the one who need the most help to see that life is worth living.  And it's so sad because I feel like that's always the case.  It always seem to be the kids who maybe have nothing to complain about.  And Finch knows his life could be a lot worse.  It reminds us that mental illness isn't just for kids who have hard lives, it's something in our brains.  It's how we're hardwired.  Something isn't right and we have thoughts we shouldn't be having, but that doesn't make us bad.  It's okay to ask for help.
Something else I found interesting was Violet and getting in the car with Finch.  It's been nearly a year since her sister died and she hasn't been in a car.  You have to imagine that her friends and family offered to drive her places.  Maybe they didn't push the subject too hard because they knew she was still suffering so they just took her decline and went with it.  But Finch didn't really need to push her too hard either.  She just got in the car.  And he was pretty much a stranger.  One who liked to drive fast.  Which he didn't do too much when Violet was in the car with him, but the fact that she got in the car shows how much trust she had in him.
There are so many themes that weave in and out of this novel.  It's definitely one for a book club.  There is mental health, bullies, post-it notes, quotes, death, wandering, water, cardinals, family flowers, etc. the list goes on.

So after you finish the book and you don't really know what you're feeling because so many emotions are flying in and out of you at a mile a minute (I couldn't have been the only one) you go on Jennifer Niven's website and discover that not only is Germ Magazine an actual thing, but so is EleanorAndViolet and just like that BAM! 50 more emotions are added to the fly list. 

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