Review - "The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy"

The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 8th April 2014
spoilers? yes

Goodreads

Sometimes, the most awesome and complicated thing you can do is just stick around.

Don't be put off by the "perfect for fans of John Green" tagline - this is actually much much better than his books.

The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy is the story of what happens when a high school becomes the backdrop to a reality TV show, For Art's Sake. Needless to say, the decision doesn't go down well with everybody, and a group of students decide to take a stand by distributing a rebellious epic poem, extolling the vices of For Art's Sake.

The plot is simple. Beyond that, there's all the cliches, boy likes popular girl, boy's best (female) friend likes him, etc, etc, you know the drill. However, there's no real romance in this, and arguably there's more to Luke and Ethan's relationship than there is to any romantic relationships Ethan might have. When Luke betrayed them and went on the show, my heart broke. Not gonna lie, I thought it was going to take the gay route, but it didn't, and instead filled all Ethan's descriptions of Luke with some "no homo" shit. (Even though they did seem somewhat... involved descriptions. Are you sure there's no homo there, Ethan? Not to mention how much he obsessed over Luke later on - even his other best friends called him out on that. Look, Kate Hattemer, I just think you've missed a trick here.)

It's also pretty funny. I kept laughing out loud every now and then, which is always nice in a book (and laughing out loud because the book intended it, rather than because there was a turn of phrase that struck me as hilarious).

Overall, this book is a nice, simple read, and surprisingly enjoyable, even if it does conform to about 10 of the possible cliches.

Review - "The Walled City"

The Walled City
by Ryan Graudin
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 4th November 2014
spoilers? no

Goodreads

There are moments you wait for. And then there are moments you wait for. Moments you spend every other moment preparing for. Points of your life that click and turn. Push you in a completely new direction.

Before I review this, I just want to note there are a helluva lot of TWs in this book: child/domestic abuse, rape, drugs, forcing drugs on someone, sex slavery (involving an older man who wants to own one of the characters), and mentions of torture. It's dark, to say the least.

If I had to choose between this book and Wolf by Wolf, I think I would go with Wolf by Wolf simply because I loved the characters in that quicker than I did the ones in this. Don't get me wrong, I do love Dai and Jin Ling and Mei Yee, but I think because the book was split between their POVs, it took me longer to like them. Especially Mei Yee, who I was kind of bored by early on I gotta admit (until she decided that she needed to take action and help Dai) because she seemed to just sort of accept her lot in life and not want to do much to change it (I can understand why, given what happened to Sing, but equally it made her a little boring in the beginning). By the end, though, I loved her (although not so much her and Dai together. I don't know why, maybe because it seemed a bit of a cliche, like it's a boy rescues girl from captivity, they fall in love kind of thing).

On top of preferring the characters in Wolf by Wolf, I felt like in this, the plot didn't really kick in until about halfway through. Sure, it was there, but it was all shrouded in mystery, because Dai was keeping secrets and Jin Ling was keeping secrets and Mei Yee wasn't really able to do much. Around the halfway stage, when all the secrets came out, was when it started to get interesting (not that it wasn't before, when it was interesting in a setting-the-scene way, but interesting as in now shit is starting to go down). When it did kick in, though, it kicked in fast and everything went wrong very very quickly (and I had to go to bed with 90 pages to go and no idea of how everything would turn out. 0/10 do not recommend).

I don't think I have much more to say about this book, other than that the relationships between the characters also killed me (Dai was like a big brother to Jin Ling and I maybe teared up a little at that). Same old, same old, basically.

Review - "Understatement of the Year"

Understatement of the Year, Ivy Years #3
by Sarina Bowen
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 29th September 2014
spoilers? no

Goodreads

He kissed me between the shoulder blades. “Getting along together was never the problem with you and me,” he said. “We’re both easy. It’s just the rest of the world that’s hard.”

Honestly, Sarina Bowen is a gift with all her hockey books. I've loved all the ones I've read so far (this one, Him, and Us).

In general, this book is great. The characters are wonderful, even Skippy (who I really didn't like at first but that's because he didn't like Graham who is my favourite).

The story is perhaps a little cliched, but it's still enjoyable. Graham made me almost cry a few times, as did Rikker (which means it's a good book. Only good books make you almost cry. Unless it's so bad you're almost crying, I guess). Bella was an angel, and I probably have a complaint about how few female characters there were. But then again, that seems to have been the case for most of the sports new adult I've read.

There was one major issue I had with this book, which I didn't notice when I first read it, but then I was rereading it and I realised something. This is the exchange:

“I’m gay, Graham. Or queer, if you like that word better. Whatever. I’m attracted to guys. You won’t say that out loud, will you? I’ll bet you didn’t even say the word to your mother when you told her. Did you?”

“No,” I told the pillow. He was right. I’d only said that Rikker was not just my friend.

“It’s like… you want to be able to tell people you’re straight, for some reason. Like gay isn’t good enough for you. Like it’s second class. Which makes me second class.”

My issue with this is the assumption that not wanting to label yourself means you see people who identify with that label as second class. Which is gross. I get the point of this - Rikker just wants Graham to admit he's not straight, but the apparent justification he gives for Graham's reluctance is disgusting. Combined with the biphobia in Him and Us, I'm now pretty leery about reading any more of Sarina Bowen's books that deal with LGBT+ characters.

Other than that, I adored this book. Graham and Rikker were great, and I loved seeing Graham's development. I would have liked some idea of how the team took the big reveal though, but I hope some of that comes in the next book.

Review - "On The Fence"

On The Fence
by Kasie West
rating: ✰✰
published: 1st July 2014
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Sometimes we expect more that people are capable of giving at the moment.

So the funny thing is, I normally like Kasie West. The other two books I've read of hers I rated both 4 stars. This one, I didn't like all that much. It was a quick and easy enough read but the characters didn't do it for me and there were some tropes included that I absolutely hate.

First of all, the "best friends to lovers" trope is easily one of my favourites, and on the face of it, that meant this book should be one that I love. The problem I had with this book, and also various other books that attempt this trope, is that it dissolved into the (male) best friend becoming jealous and getting pissed off at the girl because she gets a boyfriend that isn't him (it's like a rule of this trope that one of the main characters has to get a partner who isn't the best friend at some point, I don't know, I'm just here for the pining), and all this while not having told her that he likes her like that. How could she be expected to know that he likes her? And why is she putting up with his dickheadedness? Answers fail me.

The tropes that I hated were apparent after 4% of the book, which, let's be honest, wasn't a good start. I have no time whatsoever for the "overprotective older brothers who vet/threaten all the guys the girl might want to date" trope; it pisses me off no end. What baffled me about it in this book though was that Charlie didn't even get pissed off at them. Not even when it was revealed that they'd threatened all the members of the football team if they asked her out. I would have told them to mind their own fucking business at this point. It beats me why she didn't.

The second trope was the "no guy wants to date a tomboy" trope. And guess what? The main character was a tomboy. Halle-fucking-lujah. Can this trope die a death? I don't need this shit in my life.

Another thing that irritated me was Charlie's attitude to Amber (and other girls but mostly Amber), especially once she thought Amber was interested in Braden. I'm not here for this, Kasie West. I much preferred Skye and Caymen's relationship in The Distance Between Us. (On a related note, I did like the nod to Caymen and Xander in this book, and that Skye played a minor role too.)

For some reason, I feel like the plot of this book, and the characters, weren't as fully fleshed out as they were in West's other contemporaries. The plot appeared to be lacking much direction, and the reveal about Charlie's mum seemed to come out of nowhere. There was no precedent for it, besides a brief mention by Braden of her being upset.

Besides all the issues I had with the book, it wasn't written badly or anything, and I read it pretty quickly. For me, it's just not as good as her other contemporaries.