Read Me Like a Book
Liz Kessler
Genre(s): Contemporary, LGBT, Young Adult
Published: May 14th 2015
Pages: 297
Rating: 2 stars

“Ashleigh Walker is in love. You know the feeling - that intense, heart-racing, all-consuming emotion that can only come with first love. It's enough to stop her worrying about bad grades at college. Enough to distract her from her parents' marriage troubles. There's just one thing bothering her . . .

Shouldn't it be her boyfriend, Dylan, who makes her feel this way - not Miss Murray, her English teacher?”

When you can't stand the main character in a book, it's hard to like the book as a whole. This was the case for me when reading Read Me Like a Book.

Ash was one of the most annoying characters I've ever come across: dumb, self-centred, one-sided, and far too arrogant for my liking. There was nothing redeeming about her and she continually made stupid decisions in order to seem cool and fit in. She made everything about her, completely ignoring the fact that other people can also be affected by things and have their own problems. I can't be overly critical of her, though, as the rest of the characters were just as bad. Cat and Dylan were cookie cutter stereotypes of the badass friend and slick player, respectively.

I had issues with the writing as well; it was very simplistic and nothing felt like it was coming from teens. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't badly written, it just didn't feel like it was written for young adults as there was no challenge or complexity

Being in my fourth year of studying A-Levels and in the process of applying for university, I also couldn't help but notice some discrepancies and falsehoods about the whole college situation. Kessler did a good job at trying to capture the essence of Year 13, but it felt very much like an adults perspective of what goes on at sixth form. Yes, you have the typical parties and drunken escapades, but you also do have tutors cracking down and handing out disciplinaries for not attending or completing work. However, I did appreciate the way Ash turned things around in the second half of the novel. If it had come a little earlier it would have worked better for me, as it was too little too late.

I also took issue with the fact that the LGBT elements only really started to come into play when the book was nearly over. I went into this expecting a strong, if taboo, lesbian love story. Instead, I got an afterthought. I felt no real connection between Ash and Miss Murray - or even Ash and Dylan, for that matter - and did not buy into the idea that Ash was struggling with her sexuality.

Going into this I really wanted to like it - I mean just look at the cover! - but sadly it didn't live up to my expectations at all. For a younger audience, I feel like this could be a good gateway into realistic and LGBT young adult literature, if taken with a pinch of salt. The intention was there, which I appreciate, but it just didn't work out.

Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa

Fans of the Impossible Life
Kate Scelsa
Genre(s): Contemporary, LGBT, Young Adult
Published: September 10th 2015
Pages: 336
Rating: 1 star

“Mira is starting over at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to pretend that she could act like a functioning human this time, not a girl who can’t get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when she’s with Sebby.

Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who’s been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn, it’s as if he’s been expecting this blond, lanky boy with mischief glinting in his eye.

Sebby, Mira’s gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him. Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and impromptu road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives.

As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira’s world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who don’t understand their quest to live for the impossible.”

This book may be called Fans of the Impossible Life, but I wasn't a fan of it at all. I was hoping it would be good, seeing as it has quite a diverse cast of characters and tackles mental health, but it wasn't to my taste at all.

My biggest problem with it was the fact that I couldn't stand the writing style or the main characters. The story is told through multiple perspectives - not an issue, when done well, but this was just plain weird. Jeremy's chapters were in first person, Mira's in third, and Sebby's in second. While certainly unique, it didn't work, and I did not appreciate being turned into my least favourite character from the story. 'You did this, you thought this' no, I didn't, because I couldn't stand Sebby and didn't relate to him.

While the writing was unique, I felt that the rest of the book wasn't. It felt like every other young adult novel that tries to tackle mental health and more serious topics. The humour was very John Green and All the Bright Places-esque and I couldn't stand the pretension and try-hard behaviour of the characters. Sebby in particular felt very like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl - holier than thou, better than everyone else, selfish, full of himself, and above everything in life. The adults in the story felt very absent, too, and very dumb when they were included. It was as if the teens knew best and didn't have much respect for anyone other than themselves, especially not their bumbling parents.

Overall, things just felt very cliche and trope-y. Call me cynical, but I couldn't shake the feeling that this was written just for the sake of shoving as much typical young adult stuff as possible into one book. Kind of like The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Nothing felt real or genuine, and I couldn't even get excited about or appreciate the diversity because it all felt so fake and 'look at how inclusive I am!' Don't waste your time on it.

TBR Feature #48

TBR Feature is the chance for me to, every Wednesday, pick one of my unread books and discuss it: why I picked it up, when I'll get round to reading it, if I'm still interested in it at all etc.

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

Book Review: The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

The Art of Being Normal
Lisa Williamson
Genre(s):  Contemporary, LGBT, Young Adult
Published: January 1st 2015
Pages: 368
Rating: 3.5 stars

“Two boys. Two secrets.

David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth – David wants to be a girl. 

On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal – to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of that plan. 

When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long…”

The Art of Being Normal fooled me when I first saw it in Waterstones. For some reason - and I still don't know why - I thought it was non-fiction, kind of like a memoir or autobiography. I left it on the shelf and, when I remembered the title, looked it up online to see what it was about. 

The idea interested me; I'm all about diverse young adult literature and tackling 'taboo' and 'sensitive' subjects that many think are too 'serious' for teens, so this looked to be just my cup of tea. I felt the taboo nature come through, in how main character David struggled to tell his parents that he wanted to be a girl, even though they'd told him they support him. As someone who suffers from anxiety, I felt the anxiety coming from him, and felt bad that he felt the need to hide the things that made him comfortable. 

I'll admit, I'm not the most knowledgeable on the whole transgender/sexual part of things, and this book may have been a totally awful portrayal of the struggles and activities as those identifying that way. For me though, I find it quite insightful. I can't imagine the feeling of wanting to change my gender, or feeling wrong in my own body, so in a way this did open my eyes. That's always a good thing, I think. I enjoy taking new things away from the books that I read, and The Art of Being Normal certainly did that.

While I wasn't completely taken in by the plot - I felt like honestly there wasn't much of one - I was intrigued by the characters. I feel like this is a much more character driven novel anyway, so it didn't hamper my enjoyment too much. David and Leo I found to be very different, and very refreshing because of that. Their personalities almost came across as total opposites, and I liked that. It shows that, even if someone is going through the same thing as you and can relate, each case is highly individual and cannot easily be generalised. To me, this is an important message to send, as too often are people lumped together when experiencing similar things. Yes, person A has the same problem as person B. Just because A can do something that sends B into a panic attack, does not make their problem any less of what it is: a problem. But I digress.

Williamson has managed to piece together a good debut. I'd recommend it if you enjoy heavier reads that still manage to come across as light.