In My Mailbox: 2

I hope everyone had a great week! I know I did, especially this weekend (which isn't over yet!). Anyway, here is my In My Mailbox, which is a meme hosted by The Story Siren, who was inspired by Alea at Pop Culture Junkie.

From the library:

Private, by Kate Brian. It's the first book in the Private series. I keep hearing good things about the series, and since I liked Gossip Girl, I figured I'd check it out.

Purchased:

I love used book stores! Unfortunately, the one I went to didn't have much when it comes to teen books (I'm going to a different used book store next time). But, I found The Barcode Tattoo, which is supposed to be good, and since it was cheap, I couldn't resist buying it.

I finished reading Life As We Knew It earlier this week, and I am officially addicted. The first book in the series was fabulous, I adore the book covers, and I didn't want to wait to get The Dead and the Gone from the library. I would've bought the third book in the series, too, but it's only in hardcover right now, and when I buy series books, I have to buy the same formats (all paperbacks or all hardcovers, whatever. Unfortunately, this is a problem when it comes to the Harry Potter series, since I have two titles in that series that are collector's editions, and I have yet to find collector's editions for the other titles).

I really don't know much about I Heart You, You Haunt Me. I like the cover and I like the title, and the description sounds good, but I haven't heard anything about this one. I hope it's good!

Saving Zoe sounded really good. I've heard of the author, but I've never read anything by her, and this seemed like a good novel to start with. I started reading it a couple days ago, and so far, I'm enjoying it.

I have been dying to read Willow (no pun intended). I finally got a copy of it yesterday, and I am beyond excited to read it. I have heard nothing but good things about it, and it seems like it might be another dark book that I'll love. I like dark, morbid things. I'm not sure why. At any rate, I expect to love this novel, and I really, really hope I'm not disappointed by it.

I went on a little book shopping spree this week, which I loved, but I can't do it too often, since I was recently accepted to my dream grad school and I have to save tons of money during the next year. I will be hitting up the library hard for the next several months! So, that's my mailbox for the week. What did you get?

Review: If I Stay

Title: If I Stay

Author: Gayle Forman
Publisher: Speak/Penguin Group/April 2010

Pages: 337

There is an overabundance of adjectives I could use to describe If I Stay, and one of them would do the novel justice. Incredible, amazing, fantastic, and awesome are just a few adjectives that come to mind.

I really loved If I Stay. To be completely cliched, it's right up my alley. I've always wondered what things would be like if I were in a coma after a car accident: who would visit me, what they would talk about, etc. I'm the type of person woh wonders what her funeral will be like, who will attend it, what my eulogy will be, and if I will be able to see it all. Yes, it's dark and morbid. But it's fascinating to think about, and I've always hoped that if I'm in a coma after a car accident (or for any other reason, I suppose), I will be able to observe everything, the way Mia does in If I Stay. The concept that Mia is in control and everything is up to her is simply awesome. I'm thrilled that Gayle Forman wrote this novel.

The vignettes between Mia's observations of the hospital are perfect. They're quick snapshots of Mia's life before the car accident, and they capture her character wonderfully, showing that she's not a flat, one-dimensional character (none of the characters are). I love music, and I love it that although Mia is more than a musician, everything does return to music for her. It's hard to talk about these interludes without feeilng like I'm being completely sappy, since the only adequate words I can come up with to describe them are words like "lovely" and "exquisite." So let's just say this: If I Stay is one of the most wonderfully written novels I've read in awhile. And when it comes to the end of the novel, since I don't want to give anything away, all I'll say is this: Throughout the novel, I couldn't decide if I wanted Mia to decide if she should live or if she should die. She had compelling reasons to choose either option. By the end of the novel, I knew what I wanted her to choose, and I was not let down.

Rating: 5/5

In My Mailbox: #1

In My Mailbox is meme hosted by The Story Siren, who was inspired by Alea at Pop Culture Junkie. It's a fun meme to share the books you got throughout the week, whether you bought them, swapped books with someone else, received them as gifts or for review, or checked them out from the library.

This week, I bought:

If I Stay, by Gayle Forman. I know it's not new. I wanted to read it when it first came out, but I didn't, and then I forgot about. Then I went to Borders and saw it on the shelf. I fell in love with cover, I read the back to see what it was about, and remembered that I had once planned on reading it. So, I bought it.

Catalyst, by Laurie Halse Anderson. I love Speak. I adore it. I don't want to read Twisted yet, so I bought Catalyst instead. I'd never heard of it until I saw it at the bookstore. I love the colors in the cover, and it sounded interesting.

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer. I don't always like to read series books. I usually prefer stand alone books. And as a general rule, I am not a fan of end of the world type stories. But again, I loved the cover, and the story intrigues me, even if it is part of a series and is an end of the world type series. I can't wait to read it.

From the library:

Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers. So it's not a teen book. But I love A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and my boss recommended Zeitoun to me, so I figured, why not?

This Gorgeous Game, by Donna Freitas. I've had this one on hold at the library for a couple of months. It finally came in for me this week, and I was thrilled when it did. I've never heard of Donna Freitas, but as a writer, the concept of this novel is really interesting to me, since it's about a seventeen-year-old writer.

That's all I got this week. What did you get?

Review: This Gorgeous Game

Before I get into the review, let me just say, it's good to be blogging again. Several months ago, I had a book blog (under a different name) that I pretty much never did anything with it. I had a handful of posts, but I wasn't actually put any time or effort into the blog. Eventually, because I thought it was an awful blog and I hated it, I deleted it. This time around, I plan on actually working at blogging and having fun with it. That said, here's my review for This Gorgeous Game.

Title: This Gorgeous Game
Author: Donna Freitas
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux/May 2010
Pages: 224

Summary: (From book jacket) Seventeen-year-old Olivia Peters has long dreamed of becoming a writer. So she's absolutely over the moon when her literary idol, the celebrated novelist and much-adored local priest Mark D. Brendan, selects her from hundreds of other applicants as the winner of the Emerging Writers High School Fiction Prize. Now she gets to spend her summer evenings in a college fiction seminar at the nearby university, where dreamy college boys abound and Father Mark acts as her personal mentor.

But when Father Mark's enthusiasm for Olivia's writing develops into something more, Olivia quickly finds her emotions shifting from wonder to confusion to despair. And as her wide-eyed innocence deteriorates, Olivia can't help but ask--exactly what game is Father Mark playing, and how on earth can she get out of it?

Review:

This Gorgeous Game wasn't quite what I was expecting. I thought it would be about sexual abuse, not obsession and stalking someone, but even though it wasn't about what I thought it would be, I loved it. Freitas did a great job with characters. I was really able to sympathize with Olivia, and I could feel her fear of and annoyance with Father Mark throughout the novel. Not only did I feel her fear and annoyance, but I also feared for her, and I think there's a big difference between the two. Father Mark was creepy--Freitas captured his dark, obsessive nature really well. His character came off as intimidating (that's not really the word I want to use, but the best one I can come up with right now) to the point where he was able to gain almost complete control over Olivia. He was manipulative and  refused to take no for an answer, and the few times that Olivia did tell him no, he freaked out on her. I felt suffocated by Father Mark, much as Olivia did, and I liked that. For me, one way to tell a writer is doing what she's supposed to is if I can feel every emotion the main character feels, and Freitas succeeded in that for me. I also loved two of the supporting characters, Ash and Jada, who brought lightness to the novel in all the right places, without taking away from the story's overall dark tone.

I'm glad This Gorgeous Game wasn't about sexual abuse, because I think that would have been too clichéd. Lately, it seems like there's a lot in the news about priests molesting kids, so I'm glad Freitas chose to make Father Mark a stalker, not a child molester. As horrible as sexual abuse is, the novel has more of a creep-factor because Father Mark is a stalker and, as Olivia points out at one part of the novel, it's  harder to gather incriminating evidence against a stalker than it is to get evidence against a child molester. At one point, Olivia wishes she could say Father Mark had driven drunk with her in the car, or assaulted her, or raped her, because that would make it easier for her to go to police. The fact that it was so difficult for her to tell her friends and family what was happening made me sympathize with her and fear for her more.

The only thing I would change about This Gorgeous Game is the length of it. I enjoyed every word of it, and 224 pages went by much too quickly. I would have loved to see the stalking escalate more before coming to a conclusion.

Rating: 4/5