Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

The Stats:

My rating: * * * -or– "liked it"

Published: July 2014

Hardcover, 208 pages

The Review:

I've been hearing a lot about this graphic novel from people recommending good holiday reads (Halloween season is the only season!). I haven't spend much time reading graphic novels (a more accurate statement would be "Garfield" is the closest thing to a graphic novel that I've read). So take that into consideration with my three star rating; I'm not comparing it at all to other graphic novels.

What I liked: The illustration style is bold. Vibrant colors, lots of contrast of black and white, and thick strokes. I like this style and overall no problem with the illustration or format! I found it easy to follow and thematically appropriate. 

Not-so-liked: I didn't love any of the actual stories, which is why I only gave it three stars. I'm used to reading full on text, and I felt the lack of words got in the way of actual suspense in most of the stories. There is one story about Janna that I really liked; the prose is especially poetic. But other than that I felt like the stories weren't scary enough, even with the pictures. The visual aspect should have made it more scary but, like I said, the lack of words lead to an overall lack of story development. Instead of suspense and mystery I felt like a lot of storytelling was just left out. 

Halloween Reads: Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

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Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

The Stats:
My rating: *  * * *
Published: Dec 2010
Hardcover, 372 pages

The Review: 
Anna and the French kiss has been raved about since its publication four years ago, but I only just got around to reading it. (I'm pretty sure it's been on my Goodreads to-read list since then too.) It's the first of three connected novels, the last of which was just published this summer (Isla and the Happily Ever After).

This teen romance book centers around Anna Oliphant, a senior in high school who is forced to move to France to attend her final year of school at an international boarding school in Paris. I really like Anna's personality, it's easy to connect with a character that has clear passions and distastes. Anna is especially interested in movies, a theme that comes up throughout and really centers her her thoughts as a character. This interest was really well written by Perkins, I never watch movies in the theaters, I can't stand it, but I totally understand Anna and why she loves it. I found myself connecting even though I normally wouldn't.

The love story in this book is cute, though predictably includes the typical communication problems that make me want to sigh really loudly (I'm not annoyed enough to scream OK). Anna and St.Clair (the hunky American-British-European love interest) get into those fights that would never happen if one had just listened to the other instead of getting all heated. It's the most cliched form of conflict in a love story! But not every love story is free of cliches, and these moments are easily overlooked by the consistently great storytelling. Anna and St.Clair have a beautiful friendship that makes this story unique, it's not a mindless, passionate love story. It's a never-ending 'what did that mean?' questioning. It's a constant struggle of trying to read each other that makes the story so real to me.

Perkins also uses language in a really interesting way, moving in and out of dialogue in varying ways not just "he said/ she said."  She also has a great handle on teenage dialect, British-isms, and helping the reader understand Paris as Anna sees it. I've been there before, only briefly, and I could even relate to some of Perkins' descriptions, I really appreciate when a book has an unfamiliar setting that's real, and not just stereotyped. The author really takes the time to describe the big attractions, like the Notre Dame, but also the little intricacies of the city.

I gave this 4/5 stars, because I did like it but not so much that I would recommend it to people that don't normally read this romance-centric teen fiction. I also don't plan on reading the other two books in the series, though I like the author's style, it isn't quite unique enough to really capture me.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

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The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

The Stats
My rating: * * *
Published: Jul. 2014
Ebook, 352 pages

The Review
Honestly, three stars is a bit generous. I'm gonna go with that because that's what I rated it when I first finished it and it's been a week or so now so I don't want to doubt my immediate reaction, you know?

To start with, I was a bit lost in one of the predominate themes of this book: tragedy. It's even mentioned on the cover: "everyone gets a tragedy." The presentation of this concept was a bit lost on me, as the first example of this personal tragedy was the narrator's best friend Toby getting a severed head of another rider on a Disneyland ride landing in his lap. This situation wasn't made to be any less ridiculous than it seems, and stuck out as a weird parody of the the idea that Schneider seemed to be trying to convey. I personally didn't follow some of the other motifs throughout the book either. They seemed like they were supposed to hold more importance. Coyotes, The Great Gatsby, and his relationship with his dog Cooper, appear over and over but the climactic run-in with a coyote served little purpose except to get Cassidy (love interest) back in the story for a bit. I really didn't understand the relevance of coyotes, and I've never read the Great Gatsby so I'm assuming I'm missing a lot with those references.

The way Schneider dealt with the main character Ezra REALLY annoyed me sometimes. His "tragedy" is a debilitating accident that forces him to leave his main hobby, tennis. The problem I have isn't that he immediately assumes his "cool" and "able" friends won't want to hang out with him anymore. That's an acceptable response to me, the problem is that Schneider kept hinting that he was wrong but never discussed it fully. His friends would still invite him to stuff, but he thinks they think he's a loser now. He does absolutely nothing social with the popular crowd and still wins prom (or was it homecoming?) king- without even going to the dance. However, Schneider never fully explains his social issue with being popular post-accident.

These kind of social changes that take place are aided by the love interest Cassidy who is a typical spunky heroine that is so peculiar but still traditionally beautiful that the male is infatuated immediately. Cassidy helps him realize more about himself in the end (I don't want to spoil this because it was honestly the only worthwhile part of self-analysis that happened).

Well after starting with the bad, I'm going to explain why I don't think this is a bad book per-say. It was refreshing to read a book about a boy main character, that's definitely not something that's super common in the world of teen romance-centric novels. If that's your thing and you want something new, Ezra's perspective on a lot of social things is really refreshing. I do think Schneider did POV well. I was fine following the kind of vapid trip through his senior year because his thoughts were always entertaining, and the plot wasn't too dull; parties, cute dates with Cassidy, encounters with the jocks and cheer squad etc. Overall, because I think I've been a bit confusing: I wouldn't go out and tell people to read this book but I wouldn't be like "don't read it, it's a waste of time" because it isn't. It was fun to consider some of the topics Schneider brings up, and she has an acceptable mastery of teen-language that I enjoyed.

The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

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Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

The Stats

My rating: * * * * *

Published: Feb. 2013

Hardcover, 328 pages

The Review

Let me start by saying I was not expecting to read this super popular love story at all. I'd heard about it but equated it to other teen love dramas that wouldn't interest me. It started on my five-plus hour bus trip from Frankfurt to Münich Germany this August. My cousin was reading this book and I was spacing out listening to music (Agnes Obel's latest album Aventine) and found myself reading over her shoulder. I know- most people hate that, but I don't think she noticed. Anyways, it was somewhere in the middle of the book but I was already intrigued by, and attached to the characters, I had to read more. 

This book has a unique way of doing the switching perspective thing (which I usually hate). It switches back and forth from Eleanor's and Park's POV, but at the same time it doesn't. It's still in third person the whole time just focusing on one or the other of them. I liked this writing approach a lot and was probably the main reason I liked this book, because the style of it was easy to follow and well-crafted. 

On to the plot, I immediately related to the characters; Rowell really understands the dynamics going on on the bus and at school. I love these scenes because they are SO real. Riding the bus was the worst, but in Eleanor & Park it evolves from being the worst to the best part of their days, I just found that so endearing. The two of them are a little lost; Eleanor's out of her element after moving back in with her mother and her mother's abusive boyfriend, she's new in school and readjusting to her family life. Park has always been in their small town but has never fit in, he's constantly battling with his dad's expectations, and the strict normalcy at school. It takes meeting Eleanor for him to realize he likes being weird. She teaches him how to embrace his oddities, though it does cause social tension. In return, Eleanor is taught by Park how to accept love and affection from others, it is so hard for her to understand that Park can think she's perfect even if she doesn't fit the standard image of beauty.

As a final note, I'd just like to say I really like the setting choices Rowell made. It's the 1980's in  a sort-of hick tight neighborhood. She handled the pop-culture references beautifully: not making me feel out of the loop by name-dropping things that would go over my head, but rather painting a picture of a life of awful gym suits, permed hair, and Walkmans that run out of battery at just the wrong time. Rowell handled the setting and the various subjects in her novel masterfully, and I couldn't put it down. 

“Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it’s like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it’s like to be young and in love with a book.”—John Green, The New York Times Book Review

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

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My name is Julia (bookwormj) 
I have been an avid reader since, ya know, I could read! I went through a sad phase in high school of not reading for fun during the school year, I was busy in a pre-professional dance company and in school of course. 
BUT NOW 
I am reading like crazy again, I'm frequenting my college and local libraries more than I care to share, and I am excited to start this CHAPTER (book puns ftw) of my life :) 

Lets be honest, the easiest way to learn more about me is to know what books I've read. I'm gonna list here some books that really stuck with me, ones I still think about or immediately recommend to people. Yes, most of them are juvenile fiction, I hope to get into some more adult-y books this year but let's not discredit the AMAZINGNESS that is children's fiction. On with the list...
Top 10 Books That Stuck With Me:
(In no particular order because I don't have life THAT together) 
1. The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman
2. Harry Potter Series by J. K. Do I Even Have To Tell You
3. Matilda by Roald Dahl
4. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
5. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
6. The Series of Unfortunate Events Series by Lemony Snicket
7. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
8. The Help by Katheryn Stockett
9. The 100 Dresses by Eleanor Estes
10. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Happy Reading
~J

photo cred: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/German_American_Kids_Bookshelf.JPG

The "Welcome" Post

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