Review: The Opposite of Music

Title: The Opposite of Music
Author: Janet Ruth Young
Publication date: February 27th, 2007

Summary:

Billy Morrison's father was the kind of dad a guy dreams of having. When Billy wanted a bike, his dad helped him restore a classic to perfection. When Billy said he wanted to be a songwriter, his dad taught him to sing the blues.

But his dad just isn't the same man anymore. Mr. Morrison doesn't eat, barely talks, and even refuses to listen to his favorite records. His depression is slowly crippling his family. And to save his father, Billy will have to face decisions almost too frightening to consider.

The Opposite of Music is a powerful and realistic debut novel about the lengths a family will go to in order to save one of their own, and the strength it takes to learn to ask for help. What would you do for the ones you love?

Review:

I was honestly a bit disappointed with this book. While overall it was good, and the idea behind it was interesting, I think it could've been done better. It wasn't bad, but a lot of it just seemed unrealistic to me. Like the fact that the first thing the mother did when they found out the father had depression, was to talk to the (13 and 15 year old) kids about it and try to come up with a reason why. In most families I know, the parents would've tried to make things look as normal as possible for the children so that it wouldn't be a burden to them as well. But in this book, the children were expected to help care for the father, as if he were sick with a huge cold or something. They also withdrew from professional help, and tried to "treat" him on their own, at the house. And if it was as bad as they made it seem, I think he should have possibly been in a hospital or something. Not being taken care of by a 15 year old boy the majority of the time.

I think the issue of depression was very real and shown in a great way, but just how the family dealt with everything seemed so unreal to me, which made this book somewhat disappointing. It also seemed to just be lacking something. I'm not quite sure what. Possibly it was just the issue of it not seeming realistic that kind of threw everything off for me. I have mixed opinions about this book. While it was interesting and I don't regret the time I spent reading it, I don't know if I'd recommend it to anybody or read it again. Maybe if you were looking for something to read out of boredom, and had nothing else to read. I didn't hate it, but it just wasn't anything really special.

Characters: 6/10
Plot: 7/10
Originality: 7/10
Writing: 7/10
Overall grade: C

Finished with the 48 Hour Book Challenge

So my 48 hour time frame is officially over. I stupidly started it at a bad time though, because I didn't actually start reading until about 5 hours after I posted the start of it. Oh well, I'll know better next time! I managed to read for 15 hours (1.5 of which were spent writing reviews and networking), which is better than I thought I'd do. I was aiming for 20, but I'm proud of what I did manage to accomplish. 20 will be my goal for next year! :) I finished 3 complete books, and am 3/4 of the way done with another. That adds up to be 1,256 pages.

Since my decision to participate in this was completely on impulse, meaning that I had no time to plan strategically or clear my weekend for it, I'd say I didn't do too bad. I had a lot of fun participating, and managed to lessen my TBR pile by a few books. Not bad at all! Congratulations to everyone else who's finished so far, and good luck to those of you who haven't reached the finish yet. I will definitely participate in this again, as long as I remember about it.

Review: Identical

Title: Identical
Author: Ellen Hopkins
Publication date: August 26th, 2008


Summary:
Do twins begin in the womb?
Or in a better place?
Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family -- on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that's where their differences begin.
For Kaeleigh, she's the misplaced focus of Daddy's love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favorites -- and she is losing. If she has to lose, she will do it on her own terms, so she chooses drugs, alcohol, and sex.
Secrets like the ones the twins are harboring are not meant to be kept -- from each other or anyone else. Pretty soon it's obvious that neither sister can handle it alone, and one sister must step up to save the other, but the question is -- who?


Review:
Even if you don't like books written in poetry form, I think you'll love Ellen Hopkins' books. I've read all of her other titles (except for Glass) and thought they were amazing, and this one is no exception. It's told in a sort of free verse poetry form, which makes reading it take less time than you'd expect for such a thick book. And it still manages to have a lot of depth. Identical was especially thought-provoking, and I'm still kind of trying to piece it all together in my head. I can't say too much without ruining the book, but there's a huge twist at the end. The kind that makes you want to read the whole book over again, now that you have that new piece information. The kind that makes you see the whole story in a different sort of light and you can't quite wrap your head around it until you've had time to digest it. I LOVE it!

Then of course, as in her other books, there are the lovely sort of hidden messages within the pages. Like leaving certain words out to the side, so that when you read only those words, it forms another sentence. If you've read any of her books, you'll already know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I suggest you go read them so you can find out what I'm talking about. I think it's pretty cool, especially in Identical. Because the book was narrated by each of the twins taking turns, when it would switch from one to the other, the same hidden (well not really HIDDEN, but I can't think of a better word) message that was on the last page of one's point of view would be on the first page of the other's.

It was just kind of incredible how the whole book came together and left your head somewhat spinning at the end. If Identical sounds at all interesting to you, definitely pick up a copy. You won't regret it.

Characters: 10/10
Plot: 10/10
Originality: 10/10
Writing: 10/10
Overall grade: A+

In My Mailbox (6/1 - 6/6)

I had a great week this week with IMM! :) So many exciting books, and I even met an author today. More about that in my comments on one of these books :)

The Waters and the Wild by Francesca Lia Block

Thanks to The Shady Glade for hosting the contest that I won this from. Though my cover isn't as pretty since it's an ARC, I'm still really excited about this one. I remember reading Francesca Lia Block's other books 3 or 4 years ago, so I'm excited to see how this one is.







Love and Other Four-Letter Words by Carolyn Mackler

I liked The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by the same author, so I'm hoping that I will like this one just as well! I think just about everyone else has already read her books, so I'm probably a bit behind. Oh well!







Ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley

I'm excited for this series :) Looks interesting! The book is really heavy with a thick cover and a somewhat odd shape, I thought. The cover is pretty neat though.










Ghostgirl: Homecoming by Tonya Hurley

Sequel to Ghostgirl. As I said before, I'm excited! :D













Identical by Ellen Hopkins

It took me forever to get this one (and I STILL don't own and haven't read Glass..) but I've started reading it and I'm glad I got it! It's also signed by Ellen Hopkins, who I met today at a book signing here in Reno. She actually lives around here, which I think is pretty cool. No nifty pictures or anything of the sort to share with you guys, though. Sorry!






Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender

Yay! I've really wanted to read this one after hearing great things from people, and now I finally have a copy. Thanks to Shalonda's Blog for hosting the contest for this :)

48 Hour Book Challenge Update

Here are my stats for the 48 Hour Book Challenge so far. I haven't been doing the greatest with this, as I've had other things come up throughout the day that I needed to tend to. I'm planning on reading the rest of the night, though (maybe through the night!) and for most of tomorrow until I have to stop because the 48 hour window will be up.

So far, I've:
-read for 6 hours, 35 minutes
-finished 1 book (How To Buy a Love of Reading) and written a review for it (posted earlier)
-and am halfway through another book (Identical)

I've had a lot of distractions and just generally not felt well, so this slows my pace a bit. My goal is to read for upwards of 20 hours though, so we'll see how that goes! Good luck to everyone else participating, I'm sure you're doing much better than I am :P

Review: How To Buy a Love of Reading

Title: How To Buy a Love of Reading
Author: Tanya Egan Gibson
Publication date: May 14th, 2009

Summary:
To Carley Wells, words are the enemy: the countless SAT lists from her tutor, the “fifty-seven pounds overweight” assessment from her personal trainer, and most of all, the “confidential” Getting To Know You assignment from her insane English teacher (whose literary terminology lessons include “Backstory is Afterbirth” and “Setting is Nobody’s Slut”). When he tells her parents that she’s answered “What is your favorite book?” with “Never met one I liked,” they become determined to fix what he calls her “intellectual impoverishment.” They will commission a book to be written for Carley that she’ll have to love—one that will impress her teacher and the whole town of Fox Glen with their family’s devotion to the arts. They will be patrons—the Medicis of Long Island. They will buy their daughter The Love Of Reading.

Impossible though it is for Carley to imagine ever loving words, she is in love with a young bibliophile who cares about them more than anything. Anything, that is, but a good bottle of scotch. Hunter Cay, Carley’s best friend and Fox Glen’s resident golden boy, is becoming a stranger to her as he drowns himself in F. Scott Fitzgerald, booze, and Vicodin.

When the Wellses move writer Bree McEnroy—author of a failed meta-novel about Odysseus’s voyages through the Internet—into their mansion to write Carley’s book, Carley’s sole interest in the project is its potential to distract Hunter from drinking and give them something to share. Instead, as Hunter’s behavior becomes erratic and dangerous, she finds herself drawn into the fictional world Bree has created and begins to understand for the first time the power of stories—those we read, those we want to believe in, and most of all, those we tell ourselves about ourselves. Stories powerful enough to destroy a person.

Or save her.


Review:
How To Buy a Love of Reading was a bit hard for me to get in to at first, with the first sentence being 78 words long and the first 50 or so pages seemingly not taking off anywhere. But then I started to get used to the style of writing, the story started to pick up a bit, and I loved it. Between the interesting (for lack of a better word) style of writing and the type of world in which the characters live, it made for an interesting book. I was expecting a novel about, well, a girl whose parents try to have a perfect book written for their daughter who wants nothing to do with reading. And while that WAS the main focus of the story, in a way, it went way beyond that.

This book was much more complex than I thought it would be, and mostly went into detail of the lives of 4 main characters, it seemed. Each of them was interesting in their own way, and I came to love all of them. There was the relationship between Carley and Hunter, and the relationship between Bree and Justin. There was a lot going on in this book all at once, and in order to really understand what I was reading, I had to be right on top of it. This is not one of those books that you can sit and read in one sitting. It's not an easy book to read if you can't easily comprehend a lot of things at once, especially in the style of writing it was written. But if you can look past that and sort of adapt yourself to the book, it's full of interesting ideas and unique characters.

With this book, it seems to be either a love or hate thing. I've read reviews of people who loved it and found it interesting, with a few exceptions here and there (*raises hand*), but on the other hand I've read reviews of people who simply couldn't get past the writing and put the book down because they found it to be slow and unsatisfying. Though it did have its quirks, I personally really liked it. Just a fair warning, though - it's not for everyone.


Characters: 10/10
Plot: 8/10
Originality: 9/10
Writing: 9/10
Overall grade: A

48 Hour Book Challenge!

I just found out about the 48 Hour Book Challenge and have spontaneously decided to join in. I can't promise that anything spectacular will happen, as I'm not sure what else will be taking up my time this weekend. I do know that with school having ended today though, that I definitely need to start reading some more. I think this is a great way to start that! So I'll see what kind of damage I can manage to do in the next 48 hours.

I have officially started as of 3:45 PM on Friday. :)

This will be my first time participating in anything like this, but woohoo, I'm excited!