Showing posts with label NG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NG. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Book Review: The Summer My Life Began, Shannon Greenland
The Summer My Life Began, Shannon Greenland
"But as I continued starting at the front door, the one word that kept circling in my brain was 'home'."
This book falls neatly into the realm of YA lit. Elizabeth Margaret (Em) gets an invite to stay for the summer with an aunt she never knew existed. She leaves behind a carefully planned life in New England: a summer law internship at her father's firm, Harvard in the fall, a stoic and image-obsessed grandmother, and a sister she adores. The Pepper House B&B, and the Outer Banks island it rests on, present her with opportunities to stretch her previously hidden love of cooking, two potentially perfect guys, and, most importantly, this place is clearly meant to be her home. Em learns that you can't lead two lives and be one person. When the family secret, which she's been hungry for all summer, is revealed, Em must decide who she wants to be, starting with where she will live.
There is a lot of joy and hope in this book. Even when drama llamas attack, the reader knows that Em will make it through and learn from the mess. It's a quick read and a simple story, but you will care about the characters before the end. I love the focus on food, and the fact that Em's SO passionate about it. Greenland really made a point of showing how well she knew her stuff; Em could tell you the list of spices used in a seafood dishes (in three bites or less!).
Sometimes the cuteness factor was a bit much for me, but that could be a comment on my personal preferences. I just didn't need every gesture to be a "cute wink" or a "lovingly tender smile". It made me feel (just a little bit) like I was being talked down to, like I couldn't figure out which emotions those expressions were meant to convey.
On a side note, this book felt (more than a little) like a sister story to the Gilmore Girls -- quirky little town of locals, young woman inherits a B&B, lots of focus on the best friend who happens to be a chef.
If you're a fan of Joan Bauer, Sarah Dessen, or Mauren Johnson, you'll likely appreciate this sweet and simple story.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Review: Sisterhood Everlasting (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) by Ann Brashares
**** 4 Fireworks
"I remember my mom once told me that a good family is built for leaving, because that is what children must do. And I've wondered many times, is that also what a good friendship is supposed to be build for?"
Sisterhood Everlasting returns us to Tibby, Carmen, Lena, and Bridget. They are all almost thirty, their friendship has more or less fallen apart, and each of them feels that absence to their soul's core. Out of the blue and after two years with almost no communication from her new home in Australia, Tibby sends them all tickets for a reunion in Greece. I can't describe the tragedy that strikes while the girls are in Greece without spoiler-ing, but it is world changing. The rest of the novel follows each of them as they deal with the aftermath of this personal earthquake.
The novel follows the same overall narrative arch: the girls are separated for some reason, they go through some personal traumadramallama, one of them reaches out to the others, they realize that they are MORE together. At times, I wanted to throttle each of the girls and tell them to DO something with their lives. I don't think they should forgo the grieving process, but letting it become all consuming made it painful to experience as a reader. Fortunately, Brashares has a way with words, and away with these four friends, and she managed to salvage the story well before the final curtain fell.
Instead of the style used in the earlier stories, with chapters rotating between each of the four girls, this book presents a choppier format. Each chapter offers vignette-length snippets from several of the girls. Some of my fellow "Pants"-readers complained that this was jarring, but I feel like it fits the characters at this point in their lives. They are discombobulated, and this method puts the reader into that same mindset.
Almost a decade ago, Brashares published the first Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book. I was 23, technically "too old" for it, but I've always been a sucker for oddball characters who create their own chosen kin. This book pleasantly/oddly puts the characters at only two years younger than me. So, what I'm trying to say is this - the series is technically YA, but if you've ever had friendships that came and went (and maybe came again), then this book and series are for you.
Blogger Sidenote: When I read the original books, I most often identified with Tibby. I was the weird, creative one in most of my chosen-kin groups, and the one who built the home for people to come back to. In this book, I almost solely connected with Bee. Not her pregnancy, but her restlessness and wanderlust and need to grown up, but in a safe harbor. Hmm...
"I remember my mom once told me that a good family is built for leaving, because that is what children must do. And I've wondered many times, is that also what a good friendship is supposed to be build for?"
Sisterhood Everlasting returns us to Tibby, Carmen, Lena, and Bridget. They are all almost thirty, their friendship has more or less fallen apart, and each of them feels that absence to their soul's core. Out of the blue and after two years with almost no communication from her new home in Australia, Tibby sends them all tickets for a reunion in Greece. I can't describe the tragedy that strikes while the girls are in Greece without spoiler-ing, but it is world changing. The rest of the novel follows each of them as they deal with the aftermath of this personal earthquake.
The novel follows the same overall narrative arch: the girls are separated for some reason, they go through some personal traumadramallama, one of them reaches out to the others, they realize that they are MORE together. At times, I wanted to throttle each of the girls and tell them to DO something with their lives. I don't think they should forgo the grieving process, but letting it become all consuming made it painful to experience as a reader. Fortunately, Brashares has a way with words, and away with these four friends, and she managed to salvage the story well before the final curtain fell.
Instead of the style used in the earlier stories, with chapters rotating between each of the four girls, this book presents a choppier format. Each chapter offers vignette-length snippets from several of the girls. Some of my fellow "Pants"-readers complained that this was jarring, but I feel like it fits the characters at this point in their lives. They are discombobulated, and this method puts the reader into that same mindset.
Almost a decade ago, Brashares published the first Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book. I was 23, technically "too old" for it, but I've always been a sucker for oddball characters who create their own chosen kin. This book pleasantly/oddly puts the characters at only two years younger than me. So, what I'm trying to say is this - the series is technically YA, but if you've ever had friendships that came and went (and maybe came again), then this book and series are for you.
Blogger Sidenote: When I read the original books, I most often identified with Tibby. I was the weird, creative one in most of my chosen-kin groups, and the one who built the home for people to come back to. In this book, I almost solely connected with Bee. Not her pregnancy, but her restlessness and wanderlust and need to grown up, but in a safe harbor. Hmm...
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