Category Archives: Contemporary

These are the books that fall into the contemporary novel genre.

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The Face Thief: A Novel by Eli Gottlieb

I really enjoyed this book. It was a great look into the minds of people and how one person can use knowledge to completely manipulate others and become the perfect criminal.

It was hard in the beginning to see how each story would tie together. The lives of John Potash and Lawrence Billings are very different, separated by the country and seemingly not connected at all. But as the story unravels, you can see just how Billings’s actions, through Margot, directly affect the life of Potash.

And then you have the story of Margot, told as she recovers from a horrible “accident.” She can’t remember who she is, but slowly, her life comes back to her. You see what led to her being the person she is and you see that she was good at one point, but life happens and you see through her slowly recovered memories what made her the perfect criminal she is throughout the rest of the novel.

What I enjoyed most about this book is I was less interested in figuring out the “who” of the crime, and more invested in the “why.” I wanted to know more about the people and their actions instead of trying to figure out what happened.

I greatly enjoyed the look into human action and what can lead a person to make the choices they do. It was a wonderful read and I plan on picking up Gottlieb’s other books soon.

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The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Jay Asher absolutely moved me when I read “Thirteen Reasons Why” and if I’m remembering correctly, I didn’t get out of bed for a couple days after so I could recoup from that experience. So when I saw his name attached to this book, I knew I had to give it a read.

It’s certainly not as deep as 13 Reasons, but it still has an important message to convey. I felt that in making Emma the vain, worrisome character they did, Asher and Mackler got the point across. Don’t worry so much about the future that you forget to enjoy today. I spent much of the novel being annoyed with Emma. She was way too worried about not getting her perfect future when Josh gets his. It was a competition with her and it was difficult for me to like her much. But by the end of the novel, I understood why she was like that and I don’t think the novel would have been as good had she been the perfect person.

And Josh! I loved him. He was sweet and nice and wonderful. He was curious about the future, but he didn’t want to make huge changes to it when it was uncertain what those changes would be. He realized that they might be able to change the future, but once changed, they can’t undo it. He <i>got</i> it and I loved that. He was happy in his present and happy in his future and that was enough for him.

I do wish some of the plotlines had been tied up a little better, but I can understand that the book had reached its end and those little plots weren’t as necessary to the overall story.

This was a great book and I devoured it. I’ll definitely be recommending it to my friends, not only for the great story, but the nice little trip down 90’s memory lane.

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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I’m biased when it comes to stories like this. I don’t have cancer, but I do have an illness that will one day kill me. I can understand the emotions Green wrote about better than a lot of people.

However, I just couldn’t connect with this book. The two main characters seemed like two halves of the same coin. Yes, teens can have deep, thoughtful discussions about life and death and what it all means. But they don’t always use big words and extreme metaphors to do it. They don’t sound like 30 year old trapped in teen bodies. I get that these are Green’s characters and he can write them how he wants. But I think I would have liked reading these teen’s words if they spoke like teens. You can have the same meaningful talks without coming across as slightly pretentious.

I’ll admit to not crying once during this book. I didn’t even tear up. Maybe that makes me heartless, but there was just something missing and I think it goes back to how the characters thought and talked. They weren’t teens in my head. It wasn’t a teen romance centered on teens with cancer facing death. Facing a terminal illness makes you grow up a lot faster than anyone else, it’s true. But it still doesn’t make you an adult. It makes you a teen with some of the worst cards life can deal.

The whole plot around Van Houten just felt unrealistic and forced. This book could have been just as thought provoking without the trip to Amsterdam. You don’t need a huge trip to someplace special to have the same impact on readers.

For all the hype that surrounded this book, I felt extremely let down. It wasn’t what I thought it would be and left me feeling a little more annoyed than sad.

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The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Haunting. There is no other word I can think of to describe this book.

Williams writes this world so well, that I had goosebumps throughout most of the novel. She wrote Kyra’s story so well and with such beautiful prose, it was able to take this book to a much more interesting place than I thought it would go. Kyra’s love for her father, her mothers, her sisters and brothers is so apparent, it hurt me to read about the world they lived in.

I applaud Williams for writing this story the way she did. Even though the world Kyra lived in was horrible, I never questioned her desire to stay with her family. It was clear that she detested her world, but even through that, she loved her family and it was incredibly touching to see how much her need to leave hurt her when it came to her family.

I also loved the dynamic Williams created between The Chosen One’s culture are Kyra’s family. Even though her father has 3 wives and many kids, I couldn’t help but admire the love they had for one another. Kyra’s father was a much better character than I thought he would be at the beginning of the book. Comparing that to the rest of the compound, where children are killed for being “defective,” where young girls are forced into marriage with much older men, and where near torture is used as a simple form of discipline. The two words almost seem to oppose each other in ways, and yet they are so intertwined you can’t forget it.

Finding an emotion tie to this book was easy and getting sucked in will happen. But this book isn’t for everyone. It’s a very tough story to read and it will make you angry, sad and everything in between. But it will also show you the power of human spirit and what it can overcome. If you can look past the religious context and embrace the story as a show of human strength, you will be moved by this book, just like I was.

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Breathless by Jessica Warman

I’m conflicted about this book. It was well written and covered a tough subject very well. But I still feel let down by it. There wasn’t anything necessarily wrong with it, it just wasn’t right.

The characters are well written and you can see the growth in most of them throughout the novel. They are realistic and I can see myself coming across people just like them in real life. I didn’t really fall in love with Drew, but that’s more due to personal reasons than the writing of him. He was a great character to have in the sea of crazy teenage behavior.

I think my main problems with this book are that it covers such a long time period and there is never really a major conflict and resolution in the novel. I always think a book should start as close to the end as possible, which is why I can typically forgive the “love at first sight” plots of young adult novels. However, this book covers 3 years of Katie’s life, and during those years, yes, things happen, but there isn’t one main event. I kept waiting for something to happen that would have me on the edge of my seat and nothing ever did. I wasn’t blown away by the plot and it felt a little ho-hum for my tastes.

Overall, this was a good book, but it just left something to be desired. It felt more like a story instead of a novel, in that things happened, but at the same time, nothing really happened. There was so much potential, and I feel like it just didn’t quite reach the level it could have.

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Slipping Reality by Emily Beaver

Alright. This review is going to be a bit difficult to write.

The emotion of this book is astounding and it was easy to connect to and feel. Beaver wrote honestly and didn’t try to cover anything up. She laid it all bare and it was raw. The ending was tough to read, even though it was easy to see coming (and I mean that in a good way.)

I have a bit of a personal tie with this kind of story; however, my perspective is closer to that of Matthew’s. It was enlightening to get a glimpse into what the minds of my family and friends might be feeling at times. But at the same time, I understood Beaver’s desire (written mostly in the Author’s Note) to have an escape from reality. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to just get away from the real world and have a place to go that’s protected from the difficulty of everyday life.

There were a couple things that kept me from fully loving this book, though. As well-written as most of it was, there were times when I could tell a 14 year old wrote this. It was still done very well, but it just didn’t seem up to par with the rest of the book. The constant naming of different TV shows and movies pulled me out a bit as well. I find it easier to go with the flow of a book if TV and movie are kept generic and non-specific. That might just be me, though. The last thing that pulled me out of the book was just one little fact that she had incorrectly stated. It probably wouldn’t bother me as much had it been about any other part of the body, but because it was about the lungs, and I know lungs extremely well (better than I’d like to), it was a little distracting.

Overall, this was a good book. It’s a good book for teens to read to read and it really gets the emotion of the death of a loved one across well. It’s a tough topic to cover, and I really admire Beaver for handling it with such grace.

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The Sausage Maker’s Daughters by A.G.S. Johnson

I’ve got a confession. I tend to judge books by their covers and titles more than I should. And when I first saw this book and its title, I wasn’t really interested. And then I read the description and I was a little interested, but my initial judgment of its cover still clouded my vision a bit.

However, the more I read, the more I loved. Kip is a wonderful character that grows throughout the entire novel and starts out a strong character, and ends an even stronger one. My favorite part about this growth is that is it done by showing Kip’s faults and weaknesses, rather than how she excels in her life. She’s exposed and put out there and by being able to see her own faults, she becomes the strong person she needs to be.

Along that same vein, even though I loathed some of the characters (namely big sister Sybel); they were some of the best written characters I’ve seen. That’s probably why I felt such strong reactions towards them. Even Sybel, while still horrible for what she did to Kip growing up, was still a person. She had strengths and faults and even though it was hard for me to find a sliver of something other than disdain for her, it’s a testament to how well Johnson wrote these people.

I’m not usually a fan of books that involve courtrooms, simply because I can find it difficult to follow and understand. Johnson was able to wrote a courtroom that seemed incredibly realistic, and yet easy to understand. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy read, though. I was focused on this book and nothing else. I didn’t want to miss out on anything by skimming.

This is such an interesting and engaging book and people need to read it. It might not look it from the cover, but it will suck you in and won’t let you go until long after you’ve finished.

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Trial of Tears by Chris Semal

This isn’t the type of book I’m usually drawn to, but I’m so glad I got the opportunity to read it. The writing is excellent and I never felt like there was a dull moment. Something I especially enjoyed was the banter Semal wrote. I love when a book’s dialogue comes across as completely believable and not forced at all. It’s wonderful to read and I found myself laughing along as I read.

The story is written from a few different perspectives and they appear to not have much in common at the beginning, but slowly throughout the novel the character’s lives begin to weave together until the very end. I loved spending time thinking about how these characters were related and tried to figure it all out, but in the end, I wasn’t that close on most of my theories.

I really wish there was more on Alice. I found her character fascinating and would really like to know more of her back story. In order to have such a unique person, she had to have been through some really interesting stuff. I also wish there had been a bit more concerning the music industry instead of some of the more graphic mob scenes.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and found it incredibly hard to put down. It’s not a book for everyone, but for those people that enjoy something in the style of Tarintino, it’s a perfect read.

I was given the opportunity to read this through JKS Communications. Please click below for more info on this book.

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The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

I wanted to love this book, I really did. Using flowers to convey feelings is something I knew a little bit about, but not as much as I’d like. I was hoping this book would provide a bit more of an insight into that language, but was left a little bit disappointed by the end.

Victoria as a character was a bit difficult to connect with and I spent the first part of the book really annoyed with her as a person and I really couldn’t find it in me to feel even a little bit of sympathy for her. The next part made me feel some sympathy, but I was still annoyed with her. The third part of the book left me resenting her a little bit, even though it was the most sympathy I had for her during the entire book. The final part of the book left me with hope for her and her life as she finally started to see a tiny glimmer of what everyone else saw within her during the rest of the novel.

Usually, I have to feel a strong connection with a character to enjoy a book. However, with this book, I think the disconnect between Victoria and myself was what made me keep reading. I wasn’t feeling what she was and I kept thinking to myself, “I would never do that,” but I needed to see if she could find it in herself to turn her life around against the odds and make something of herself.

The reason I wasn’t completely in love with the book is some of Victoria’s actions just felt too extreme and I couldn’t see any way to make them justified make her completely redeemable. Maybe that was the point of the book, but even with the ending, I just couldn’t feel towards Victoria what I needed to feel.

This was an interesting book, and I’m glad I read it, but there was just something missing that I wish was there.

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How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie DeBartolo

It is hard for me to put words together to decide how much I loved this book. It drove me absolutely insane and in turn, I think I drove my friends a little crazy as well. I wished so many times I had this book as a physical copy instead of on my Kindle because I wanted to throw it across the room, cover my ears and just block the rest of the world out because I was feeling too much.

I had a feeling when I started this book that it was going to be different. In fact, I even told my friends that I was afraid to love this book too much because writing this beautiful can’t be happy all the time. I thought this book was going to rip my heart out and stomp on it. And it did. And yet I finished this book happier than I thought possible.

I think the thing that made this book so emotional for me was the characters. They are real people. They have their flaws and their love isn’t perfect rainbows and butterflies and the writing felt so raw that I felt every single thing in this book. I soared when Eliza did and I felt my heart being slowly crushed as well.

And the writing. Oh my god, the writing. If I am ever able to put words together a tenth as well as DeBartolo did in this book, I will thank my lucky stars. There were so many lines in this book that spoke true and real. It was powerful and I think the writing itself was a character within the book.

I don’t think I will ever stop singing DeBartolo’s praises and I will tell every single person I know to read this book. It’s a romance, but it’s real, and yet I could escape through it. This was an amazing book and I’m so glad it found its way to me to read.