Book in Review: The Art of Secrets by James Klise

3.5 stars
Hi guys! It's me Andrea, Beryl's friend and I am here to write a guest post in the form of a book review. For those of you who are old readers of this blog, you may remember me as the one who helped Beryl a long time ago to do a DIY bow and bracelet. :) You can read that here.


 Title: The Art of Secrets
Author: James Klise
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication Date: April 22, 2014
Format: ARC
Hardcover; 272 pages
Rating: 3.5/5

Saba Khan and her family’s apartment burned down. That’s how it all started. It could have been a hate threat from somebody else, but it could be their own fault too. With friends helping them, they lived in a luxury apartment and Saba studied in a prestigious high school in Chicago. The school started a fund-raising for Saba’s family but then one artwork was revealed to be the work of a famous artist which went missing. Does Saba’s family deserve to have the money after this? James Klise reveals secrets that each character has; and splendid twists that will capture us.

I actually liked this book, contrary to what I expected. At first I was really hesitant about this book since I didn’t like the narration, but it turned out pretty well. The narration wasn’t really my type since I found it hard to understand who was narrating in the first few pages. Throughout the next pages, I understood what the author was trying to do; to have each family member have their own point of view, not just Saba and other people. Even though the narration was new to me since I haven’t read a lot of books that have multiple point of views, it just didn't work for me. I had a hard time understanding the book, because of this writing style.

Book in Review: Summer on the Short Bus by Bethany Crandell

5 star
                                                         
Title: Summer on the Short Bus
Author: Bethany Crandell
Format: ARC
Paperback: 272 pages
Publication Date: April 1, 2014
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Rating: 5/5
Received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 
Cricket Montgomery is a rich and spoiled kid, who is sent by her father to a camp. She is already dreading the fact of going to a camp, but what makes her eventually faint is when she finds out that the campers are actually handicapped. The only thing keeping her in the camp is a Zac Efron look-a-like aka Quinn. How will Cricket get through that summer camp? Which will she choose, her Zac Efron look-a-like, or her luxurious life back home? 

This book has a unique beauty in it which is rare to all books. I absolutely agree with what others say that Bethany's writing style is funny and witty. It's also very blunt and clear which makes this book very easy to understand. The writing style made the book very suitable for its target readers. I wasn't exactly laughing out loud, but I definitely shared a few chuckles in my head. I couldn't put the book down when I started reading it. As a result, I finished reading the book in one sitting. I also liked how the book is a cliche, but still wonderfully amazing. Usually, when I read books with a cliche plot, I won't give it a 5 star rating. The difference with this book is that the author was able to write it well enough that I couldn't give it a lower rating.

Book in Review: The Other Way Around by Sashi Kaufman

adventure


Title: The Other Way Around
Author: Sashi Kaufman 
Format: ARC
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Lerner/Carolrhoda Lab
Rating: 4/5 

Almost everyone around Andrew West has their own impression about him. It's either he's goth, gay or emo. You might think that a boy studying in an all girls school, where his mom is the headmaster, is ultimately popular and has lots of friends, but Andrew is the complete opposite. When Andrew experiences an awful thanksgiving, he decides to just run away from home and maybe visit his grandmother's house. Instead of going to his grandmother, he catches a ride with a bunch of older teenagers, who apparently are Freegans. He follows them as they go to different places, eat food from dumpsters and his adventure goes on.

Book in Review: Everyday by David Levithan

audrey
Every Day
Title: Every Day
Author: David Levithan
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: August 28, 2012
Hardcover: 322 pages
Rating: 4.5/5

 (We wrote this review together, so...)

 This is a story about a being named A. A doesn't have a permanent body. A doesn't have a gender (for convenience we will be calling A "Being" like a replacement for he/she/it). Being moves from body to body to body, never staying in one for more than a day. A doesn't try to change a person's life or do anything too different or significant when being does stay in that person's body. Being could be a girl today and a boy tomorrow. Being could be Asian, American, German, or anything else. Being can have blond hair, dark hair, brown hair, or dyed hair. Being can be athletic, nerdy, artsy, suicidal, an environmentalist and many more. Being can be rich, poor, or middle-class. A can be the total opposite of what being was yesterday and it's totally normally for being.

 On a certain day, A meets a girl named Rhiannon while inhabiting Rhiannon's boyfriend's body. A usually tries not to do anything too different while staying in anyone but this time, being just couldn't resist. A finds beingself liking Rhiannon and tries to find ways to meet her, even while in the body of someone else. They slowly build a relationship and get to know more about each other. Can their relationship survive under the circumstances?

 We actually read this book a long time ago but have put off making a review until now. We needed a bit of time to reflect on this book. Even now, we're not sure if we consider the ending happy or sad. There's something about this book that drew us in. Maybe it's the unique plot? Maybe it's the impossible romance?

 We loved how Every Day was able to show that though A likes Rhiannon, being is still capable of liking someone of the opposite gender. This highlights the fact that A really doesn't have any gender. Levithan was very clear on saying that A isn't a boy or a girl. A wasn't shown as a masculine character or a feminine one though others might think that A is more male than female.

 Every Day was an extremely unique book. The plot was new and fresh, totally not a cliche. We love the plot since it makes you realize how creative Levithan is. He manages to make many books with different topics. His characters don't sound the same like some author's characters do. A was the kind of character whose voice was different from the others. Being was a being (as in being-being not being-he/she/it) that had already figured out what being (back to being-he/she/it) needed to do in order to not mess up anyone's life. we loved how the book started and also loved how it ended. We loved how A, though he never really got education from the same teachers for more than a day, isn't stupid. Being makes use of being's common sense and the things being learned while inhabiting somebody's body to survive. As for Rhiannon, she wasn't stupid either. We don't like her very much but we don't hate her either. She was on our neutral side but even so, we can understand why A would like her, why A would risk so many things for her. Rhiannon didn't do stupid things or rush off into danger. She and A were good together.

 Normally, in books, we like happy endings but we realized that if this book ended happily, it wouldn't be perfect anymore and would seem forced just to please the readers. We also realized that if it ended sadly, we might hate the book, think of it as too depressing. What Levithan did was create an ending that wasn't sad but wasn't happy either. It was more hopeful than happy. Peaceful than sad.

 The writing was easy to read and would grab your attention from the very first page. It showed everything it had to show and made the events perfect. We don't know why we didn't give it a 5. There's just a tiny little thing that's missing but we can't figure out what it is. Other than that, we loved the book.

 Have you read Every Day? What did you think about it? Leave a comment!

Soupy Sundays: On Cliches (5)

audrey

Soupy Sundays is a discussion post at Geeky Chiquitas in which we talk about our opinions on certain topics. This week's topic is on cliches.


ON CLICHÉS 

Some people really hate cliches. They say that some plot lines are so overused. Of course it's nice to find a plot which is new and fresh since we tend to see a lot of the same plot lines in every genre. It gets tiring to see all of the same kind of books over and over again. They may be written differently but are, in essence, the same.

It may be so but we think that some books that are cliches are actually nice and enjoyable. We believe that a book's greatness is based more on how it was written. Maybe a book might be a cliche but if it is written well, if the plot was given justice, then it would probably be great for us. There is also a reason for why certain topics become so popular. Maybe that topic was simply great or could be worked with at so many different angles that people found it good enough to be worth reading about over and over again.

We admit that it might be hard to come up with new, fresh topics since there are so many books that you can't help but think: "What's the use of trying to think of a new topic when probably every single one has already been done?" Well, you might think that all topics are covered but we believe that if you think hard enough, you'll find a topic that's new. If you really can't think of one, you can choose to use one that you think hasn't been used much.

There are a lot of plot lines that we want to read yet haven't read yet. Sometimes, we are disappointed about how there are so many books on a certain topic but none on another. On a past post, we listed down a couple of topics that we haven't seen yet in a book that we would probably like to read. There were about ten topics there and we believe that we even had more that we didn't list down anymore. (You can check it out here.)

Even though we would like to see new, fresh topics when we read a book, we cannot deny that there's something about cliches that is kinda comforting. The feeling when you read a book and you already know what is happening is just different. It gives this comforting feeling. Makes you feel safe like nothing's gonna surprise you or anything. You already know what generally happens so you don't feel the need to analyze everything. You can just relax while reading a cliche. 

In conclusion, we don't think that cliches are bad. We believe that a book should not be judged solely on its plot line but by it as a whole. Though we think of it as such, we would still like to see more unique topics. More books that cover new territories. Every plot is worth writing about because someone out there might be looking for a book like that so we hope that writers everywhere try as much as possible to write about different things. Audrey even saw a book on Goodreads that showed you how to sharpen pencils. If that isn't unique and different, we don't know what is.

What do you think about cliches? Leave a comment!

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