In That Moment We Were Infinite

Published: August 14th, 2012 (First published February 1st, 1999)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

By: Stephen Chbosky

MTV Books

ISBN-13: 9781451696196

Charlie is a freshman.

And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his year yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.

Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can't stay on the sidelines forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

Review

     Charlie is looking forward to his Freshman year of high school.  He wants things to be different, for big things to happen in his life for a change.  But he just can't stop observing life instead of living it - until he meets Patrick and Sam.  They lead him into a world of parties, Rocky Horror Picture Show re-enactments, new music, drugs, first love and Charlie begins to live for the first time.  Also throughout the year he has an interesting English teacher who gives him extra book assignments, that make him think about life in ways he never has before.  With family issues coming up from the past and and old trauma haunting him, can Charlie get past it and learn to make it on his own?  Or will he always just be waiting for the downturn of his happy ending?  This was a coming of age book, in the tradition of Catcher In the Rye, and Ordinary People.  It has the same melancholy, anxiousness as the latter and the honesty of the former.  I liked the story enough that I kept reading, though Charlie annoyed me quite a bit in the beginning.  No one cries that much unless they are mentally unstable and have serious issues.  And no one is that naive by the time they're a teenager (although a revelation at the end of the book kind of makes it more believable to me).  The relationships with Sam and Patrick respectively are interesting and full of great moments.   I mean, who hasn't felt this way at some point or another: 

       “So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still   

       trying to figure out how that could be.”

Then again I spent most of my teenage years as an introvert, a wallflower like Charlie.  I was a serious observer of life and not much of a liver (but then I also went through some of the same childhood issues as him, so I can maybe see the correlation in some individuals between the two).  This book was told in letter form, to someone that is never given a name, but obviously means something important to Charlie for him to be so unflinchingly honest about his feelings and experiences.  The advent of drugs into Charlie's life was sort of surreal in the way he treated it so naturally.  Like, "Oh, do I want some LSD?  Sure!  Why wouldn't I?"  The closeness of his family, yet their emotional estrangement from each other is something I am familiar with on a personal level.  Maybe the reason why this book was hard for me to read and know what I felt about it at the end, was because Charlie's life was like a photograph of my own teenage years on an extremely personal level.  The only thing I can say for myself is that I am NOT such a crybaby, am not that naive and have never gone over the cuckoo's nest so to speak.  Overall a good read, with some high emotions.  But those high emotions level out leaving the reader feeling blank at the end - probably due to Charlie's emotional blankness in his letters.  That was the only true insincerity to me.

VERDICT:  3.5/5  Stars

* *No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book is now available in stores, online, or maybe even at your local library.**

It Makes You Feel Happy Like An Old-Time Movie

Expected Publication: February 1st, 2013

The Return of Abracadabra (Hocus Pocus Hotel # 2)

By: Michael Dahl

Stone Arch Books

ISBN-13: 9781434247216

Charlie Hitchcock figured out that Brack is really Abracadabra, the missing magician. But as Brack prepares to unveil his true identity to the rest of the world, magical mysteries continue to unfold at his hotel. Charlie and Tyler Yu have solved challenging tricks here before, but can they do it again before time runs out for Brack . . . and the hotel?

Review

     Charlie Hitchcock, class geek and Tyler Yu, class bully are stuck in a tentative friendship after solving the mysteries happening at the hotel Tyler's family owns so Tyler could buy the motorcycle he had been saving up for.  Now the elevator operator Brack (who is really the famous missing magician, Abracadabra) is planning to put on a show at the hotel and reveal his secret identity to the press and the rest of the world.  The only problem is that the currently famous magician Theopolis comes to the hotel and performs some seemingly impossible feats of magic - all at the same time.  Can the boys figure out how he managed it, or was it really magic after all?  And will Theopolis succeed in stealing the show and Brack's part of the hotel right out from under him?  This was a good follow-up to the first novel, which had Charlie and Tyler solving the mysteries of the hotel itself.  This time they have to find out Theopolis' secrets before Brack loses everything.  To me the illustrations were the best part, just like in the first book.  It was a cute book about friendship and mystery, but I felt like it was lacking some of the magic in the original.  The description and following picture of Brack's secret room on top of the hotel was awesome.  And the answer to the mystery was plausible, but predictable.  I think this book would have been a lot more fun if I was still under 13 years old and loved magic tricks.  Overall, a fun book that was just a good fluffy, middle-grade read to give my brain a break from all the YA and Harlequin angst.  I would recommend this to middle-school and late elementary teachers for reluctant readers and young boys.

VERDICT:  3/5  Stars

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley. No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book's expected publication date is February 1st, 2013.*

I Will Survive On My Own, Thankyouverymuch

Published:  August 2nd, 2012

Survive

By: Alex Morel

Razorbill

ISBN-13: 9781595145109

Hatchet meets Lost in this modern-day adventure tale of one girl's reawakening

Jane is on a plane on her way home to Montclair, New Jersey, from a mental hospital. She is about to kill herself. Just before she can swallow a lethal dose of pills, the plane hits turbulence and everything goes black. Jane wakes up amidst piles of wreckage and charred bodies on a snowy mountaintop. There is only one other survivor: a boy named Paul, who inspires Jane to want to fight for her life for the first time.

Jane and Paul scale icy slopes and huddle together for warmth at night, forging an intense emotional bond. But the wilderness is a vast and lethal force, and only one of them will survive.

Review

   Jane comes from a really dysfunctional family - both her Grandma and her Dad killed themselves because of mental illness.  Now Jane has attempted at least twice, so she's been packed off to the hospital where she has to convince the Doctors that she is well enough to go home again.  But Jane is just playing along, so that once she's out of there she manage to actually kill herself without any interference.  On the plane ride home for Christmas, Jane's in the bathroom with her pills getting ready when turbulence knocks her out.  Upon waking up Jane figures out that the plane has crashed and she and the guy next to her, Paul, were the only two that survived.  Now it's up to them to figure out a way to survive until the rescue crews can find them.  In the meantime will Jane figure out that she never really wanted to die and fight for her life for the first time ever?   I went into this book thinking that it was a winner for sure.  A survivalist fiction story, with a heroine who starts out like Charlie in LOST and ends up wanting to live?  If done right, it could have been phenomenal.  It was very sub-par in the way it turned out.  I was majorly disappointed that Jane wasn't really depressed and only treated suicide like a freaking family tradition.  That was very poorly done.  How can you sympathize as a reader with someone whose thought process is that ridiculously stupid???  Then there was the romance with Paul.  It got on my nerves that they barely knew each other, they were both pretty messed up (not to mention he was old enough that she was jailbait) and they ended up falling in 'love' and sleeping together.   Then one of them DIES.  What the hell?!!  The survivalist parts were few and far between compared to the boring build-up and this novel just didn't compare to the expectations that I had built up for it in my mind.  Not one I would recommend for fans of more hardcore books like the Hatchet series, or My Side of the Mountain (which I never considered hardcore per se before reading this piece of trash).  This is a romance masquerading as a survival story.  If you like that sort of thing, have at it by all means.  If not, avoid it like the plague.

VERDICT:  1.5/5  Stars

*  I received this book as part of Around the World ARC Tours, run by the lovely Princess Bookie. No favors or money were exchanged for this review.   This book became available for purchase on August 2nd, 2012.*

If I Can Learn To Do It

Published: July 6th, 2005
Princess Academy
By: Shannon Hale
Bloomsbury USA
ISBN-13: 9781599900735

Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among the girls of the village. The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess.

Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires to be chosen and win the heart of her childhood best friend. But when bandits seek out the academy to kidnap the future princess, Miri must rally the girls together and use a power unique to the mountain dwellers to save herself and her classmates.

Review

   Miri lives on Mount Eskel, where her family quarries the linder stone that is within the mountain and lives off the land.  Except for Miri, who isn't allowed to quarry with the others.  She thinks it's because her Papa thinks she's not big or strong enough to help out.  Things change in the villagers' routine when it's announced that the future Princess will come from Mount Eskel.  An academy is established to prepare all of the eligible girls for the Prince's visit in one year's time.  Miri is forced to attend the academy and at first she is miserable.  But then she decides that she will learn as much as she possibly can, trying to best the other girls for the title of Academy Princess.  Along the way Miri makes a discovery about the real worth of the linder stone and changes the trading practices of the villagers.  But when a real threat to the girls arises, will Miri's wisdom and wit be able to save them from a disastrous fate?  And who will the Prince choose to become his wife?  Miri is strong, determined and very intelligent.  Not to mention extremely stubborn!  But she's also insecure about her place in the village and in her Father's heart.  Miri is friends with Peder, a mountain boy, and she's begun to have other feelings for him as well.  The Princess Academy is her chance to prove herself, but it also drives a bit of a wedge between her and Peder.  Also Miri finally learns the truth about her friend Britta's mysterious past.  I loved the idea of quarry-speech.  The thing this book really brought to the forefront was finding your personal identity and how important it is.  I enjoyed the story, but it was so very plain at times that I almost wanted a dragon to eat someone or an evil wizard to come to the village.  I honestly don't really classify this book as fantasy.  It was basically just historical fiction, of a made-up place.  At times it was boring and I felt like I wanted to stop reading.  I also felt like the situation with the bandits was so contived that it was laughable.  Yet, this book still has something charming about it.  I would recommend it more for middle school aged girls. 

VERDICT:  3/5  Stars

*No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book is now available in stores and online.*