Crazy for Feeling So Lonely That I Decided to Read You

Published: August 20th, 2013

Asylum

By: Madeleine Roux

HarperTeen

ISBN-13:  9780062220967

For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, New Hampshire College Prep is more than a summer program—it's a lifeline. An outcast at his high school, Dan is excited to finally make some friends in his last summer before college. But when he arrives at the program, Dan learns that his dorm for the summer used to be a sanatorium, more commonly known as an asylum. And not just any asylum—a last resort for the criminally insane.

As Dan and his new friends, Abby and Jordan, explore the hidden recesses of their creepy summer home, they soon discover it's no coincidence that the three of them ended up here. Because the asylum holds the key to a terrifying past. And there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.

Featuring found photos of unsettling history and real abandoned asylums and filled with chilling mystery and page-turning suspense, Madeleine Roux's teen debut, Asylum, is a horror story that treads the line between genius and insanity.

Review

     Dan Crawford is doing something different this summer - getting away from another summer spent alone and friendless, by going to the New Hampshire College Prep program.  Once he's there Dan instantly bonds with fellow students Abby and Jordan.  All three of them have secrets they're hiding and when strange things start happening in their dorm, which used to be a mental hospital for the criminally insane, everything begins to fall apart.  Exploring in the forbidden areas of the asylum, the teens find things they never imagined hidden in the shadows.  With their pasts and futures both in question, all the teens must fight to stay sane while solving the mysteries of the asylum - especially Dan, whose connection to the place might be linked to the mystery of his birth parents.  Can Dan, Abby and Jordan stay alive long enough to uncover the truth?

     This book was a BIG. FAT. DISAPPOINTMENT.  Seriously, I have been more scared by R.L. Stine books as a child than I was reading this book!  I still get chills when I think of Fear Street and the gruesome, evil things that happen there.  This freaking mental hospital was just so unrealistically portrayed.  First of all if they've renovated it into a dormitory for a college summer course, I'm sure that in reality there wouldn't be a huge roped off section that nobody had been in since Crazytown shut down originally.  I can get past that, cause it's slightly necessary for the framework of the plot.  But the characters, plot and mystery in this book are so poorly executed that it's more pathetic that anything else.  The 'found' photographs are so obviously fake and there are so few of them to begin with that they're not really an integral part of the story.  Yet it's being marketed as the horror equivalent of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.  It is nowhere near good enough or well researched enough for that comparison.

     Roux has a serious case of the "telling instead of showing" blues.  We are told so much about the character's personalities and about the events that happen.  But we never really get to experience any of it for ourselves.  Of course, that could just be because Dan (our main character) is supposed to be a genius who's had a difficult life and is a cardboard cutout instead.  He is kind of a douchebag, who really just wants into Abby's pants and doesn't even like Jordan (who he thinks is over-emotional), but describes him as one of his best friends throughout the entire book.  Abby is the stereotypical artsy, 'creative' type and is also about as interesting as when that plastic bag is blowing in the wind in the movie American Beauty - in other words, not at all!  Jordan is the character who definitely belongs in a mental hospital, as a patient.  He spends the entire book having serious mood swings, jealous episodes and basically acting like a schizophrenic, bi-polar with the emotional maturity of a kindergartner.  Yet Dan and Abby seem to think he's this awesome person, who they absolutely have to save from himself.

     The mystery to me was what the author actually intended the mystery to be in this book's plot.  The whole thing was just really convoluted.  I was never sure whether the killer was reincarnated, possessing the living 'host' or if the 'host' had a split personality.  The two main mysteries I guess, were whether or not Dan was related to the similarly named sadistic hospital warden, Dan Crawford (I think he turned out to be a nephew or great-nephew?  Could be wrong...) and if Abby's long missing Aunt had really been in that hospital/if she was alive.  Neither of theses was resolved all that well, and I think Roux was setting up for a second book at the end.  With the lack of plot, character development (or, ya know, personality of any kind!) and overall scare, I definitely won't be continuing.  The only reason I finished it was to see how she was going to wrap things up.  NOT a recommended read, and definitely an author I won't be reading again.  Overall, a big fat disappointment.

VERDICT:  1.5/5  Stars (This is me being VEEERRRYYY generous!)

*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 was published August 20th, 2013.*

Catch Me If You Can

Expected Publication:  September 24th, 2013

Find Me

By: Romily Bernard

HarperTeen

ISBN-13:  9780062229038

“Find Me.”

These are the words written on Tessa Waye’s diary. The diary that ends up with Wick Tate. But Tessa’s just been found . . . dead.

Wick has the right computer-hacking skills for the job, but little interest in this perverse game of hide-and-seek. Until her sister Lily is the next target.

Then Griff, trailer-park boy next door and fellow hacker, shows up, intent on helping Wick. Is a happy ending possible with the threat of Wick’s deadbeat dad returning, the detective hunting him sniffing around Wick instead, and a killer taunting her at every step?

Foster child. Daughter of a felon. Loner hacker girl. Wick has a bad attitude and sarcasm to spare.

But she’s going to find this killer no matter what.

Because it just got personal.

Review

     Wick has been in foster care now for long enough to know that the only person who can really help her, is herself.  So she is farming out her hacking skills to make extra cash for when she and her sister Lily are inevitably (in her opinion) kicked out of their current placement.  She's just trying to keep her head down and stay unnoticed at school and at home.  So when her former friend Tessa Waye appears to have committed suicide, Wick is shocked to find her diary laying on the doorstep.  Someone wants Wick to find out what really happened to Tessa - who killed her and why.  It will take all of Wick's hacking skills, the help of Griff, the one boy she just might be able to let in (with secrets of his own) and her inner detective to find the truth,  But when Wick's explosive Dad is released from prison and her sister Lily becomes the killer's next target, just what will Wick have to sacrifice to save Lily - and give her a life worth having?

     This was definitely different from my normal reads.  Normally I don't go for thriller/suspense books, but honestly most of the time this really didn't feel like it was committed to those as its primary genres.  For the the vast majority of this book, I felt like the plot was fixated on the criminal, family drama of Wick and Lily's Dad, their Mom's suicide and the foster system they're being bounced around in.  To me, this book was a lot more about a girl who has been bashed around by life learning to trust someone and change her life with the help of others.  Not to mention the crazed, pedophiliac killer.  Can't forget that of course!  The relationship between Wick and her sister was one of my main problems with this book which I otherwise enjoyed.  I just did not believe they were as close as they both said they were.  Wick did everything for Lily, who treated her like dirt and basically turned on Wick when they got taken in by a couple that treats them like their real daughters.  I wasn't feeling the sort of togetherness that Wick waxed on about so much.  

     Wick and Griff's relationship was also kind of a bit much for me.  They didn't even ever really talk to each other and all of the sudden when he's drawn into a hacking job with Wick's Dad's "friend" they start a flirtation, which leads to Wick trusting him implicitly in regards to her entire life.  This includes her half-cocked plans to draw out the killer using Facebook and tracking I.P. addresses from his online activity.  I am glad, in a way, that the book was more character focused than story focused.  Because if the story had been the point, this would have been just like reading some cheap paperback thriller, only even more predictable if that's at all possible.  I knew pretty early in who the killer was and the "motivations" behind it.  Really the mystery was non-existent and the only real suspense was how it was all going to go down when Wick faced off with the killer.  I liked this book quite a bit, but it was definitely NOT the best YA thriller/mystery I've ever read - not even close to it.  I would recommend this for some light fluff, maybe a good pick for reluctant readers as it did go by awfully quick.  If you're in search of complexity, pass this one by cause it'll only disappoint you.

VERDICT:  3.5/5  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's expected publication is September 24th, 2013.*

Still Kind of Cold

 

Published:  July 15th, 2013



Frigid (Frigid #1)
By: Jennifer L. Armentrout (writing as J. Lynn)
Spencer Hill Contemporary
ISBN-13:  9781939392749


For twenty-one-year-old Sydney, being in love with Kyler isn't anything new. They'd been best friends ever since he pushed her down on the playground and she made him eat a mud pie. Somewhere over the years, she fell for him and fell hard. The big problem with that? Kyler puts the 'man' in man-whore. He's never stayed with a girl longer than a few nights, and with it being their last year in college, Syd doesn't want to risk their friendship by declaring her love.

Kyler has always put Syd on a pedestal that was too high for him to reach. To him, she's perfect and she's everything. But the feelings he has for her, he's always hidden away or focused on any other female. After all, Kyler will always be the poor boy from the wrong side of tracks, and Syd will always be the one girl he can never have.

But when they're stranded together at a posh ski resort due to a massive Nor'easter, there's nothing stopping their red-hot feelings for each other from coming to the surface. Can their friendship survive the attraction? Better yet, can they survive at all? Because as the snow falls, someone is stalking them, and this ski trip may be a life-changer in more ways than one.

Review

 

     Sydney and Kyler have been best friends since their playground days and that relationship is still going strong.  Now they're both in their last year of college, and both of them are secretly in love with each other.  Sydney is too scared of rejection to admit her feelings and Kyler thinks she deserves better so he's sleeping with a ton of different girls, trying to bury his feelings.  Going away for the weekend at a ski resort where Kyler's parents have a house, he and Sydney get stranded when a blizzard strikes.  The rest of their friends are unable to make it and with nothing else to distract them from the growing tension and the feelings they can no longer hide, things finally explode.  Just when it looks like Sydney and Kyler might actually be able to start a real relationship, a violent stalker appears on the scene putting their lives in danger.  Will they both get out of the resort alive and if they do, can they manage to make things work romantically or will they lose their friendship for good?

     I am kind of tired of the good girl/virgin/naïve heroine trope in New Adult books.  And the guys she falls for is always some tatted up, womanizing bad boy.  Been there, done that and so sick a tired of it that I'm almost completely out the door with the entire genre as it currently stands.  That said, this book did kind of take a fresh turn by making the two leads childhood best friends, who both want something more with each other.  It was extremely nice to have a romance between two people who have seen each other at their best and worst, know almost everything about each other and they still are attracted to each other after that.  Usually it's a couple people who've known each other for a month, f***** like rabbits, and now "love" each other.  Yeah, sure you do kids.

     Unfortunately, refreshing best friend aspect aside, this book was an extremely mediocre read for me.  Insecure girl, man-whore guy and some really contrived suspense to add an element of danger and make the reader "fear" for the characters' lives.  Sydney and Kyler were both somewhat two-dimensional and I think the thing that bothered me the most was Sydney's supposed naivety and inexperience when it came to sex.  She worries a lot about being frigid, which is what her ex-boyfriend called her when breaking up with her.  They only did it ONE TIME and she's basing her entire sexual self around that experience!  It got on my nerves, because yeah the first time is usually uncomfortable and a little painful.  And unless the guy is some sort of sex god, you're probably not going to get off.  That's kind of common sense, but Sydney's self-confidence issues get in the way of her realizing this and she takes it on as her fault.  This makes her even more reluctant to admit her feelings to Kyler, because of how much of a sexual person he is.  Then when they get together, Kyler is questioning her at every turn, whether or not she actually wants to be with him (which I get, cause she basically propositions him like a male hooker).  They both treat each other stupidly, even after sleeping together.  And the suspense plot is very easily figured out, with really no purpose other to lend some action to a pretty sparse plot. 

     My favorite part was the end, when Kyler and Sydney spend Christmas together and resolve their feelings, finally getting together.  Overall, I really liked the "best friends in love" aspect, but it wasn't enough to really sustain this one for me.  The characters are likeable enough, but really flat and kind of annoyingly dumb when it comes to their own and each others' feelings.  I only recommend this if you really are in the mood for some brainless fluff, with a little but better writing than average.  Cute romance, but no spine or real substance.

 

VERDICT:  2.5/5  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 was published July 15th, 2013.*

Grave Times Call For Desperate Measures

Published: 03/16/2010
The Body Finder
By: Kimberly Derting
HarperTeen
ISBN-13: 9780061779817



Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes that the dead leave behind in the world... and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find the dead birds her cat had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet on her quest to find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved to find herself hoping that Jay's intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she's falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer... and becoming his prey herself.

Review

   Violet Ambrose found the dead body of a murdered girl when she was eight years old.  But since then it's been a string of animal corpses that she buries in a makeshift graveyard.  She's mostly concerned with being a teenager and dealing with emerging feelings that are more than just friendly towards her best friend Jay, who has grown up A LOT this summer.  School has started and Violet is just living her life.  Until girls start going missing and she begins finding the bodies.  The romance aspect of this book was extremely well-done and Violet's ability, while creepy, was refreshingly different from the average paranormal bent to a YA book.  I am not so far from being a teenager myself that I can't recognize just how realistic the author's portrayls of Violet, Jay, Lissie, Chelsea, Jules and Claire are (even Claire's extreme cluelessness).  I appreciated that the parents were an integral part of the kids' lives and that they were well-drawn out and also realistic as people.  Everything about this book was pretty wonderful except for the fact that it did feel like some of the will-they, won't they between Jay and Violet was unnecessary and forced.  Other than that this was a great, quick read that you won't want to put down. 

VERDICT: 4.5/5  Stars

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