“‘That’s crazy,” she said. ‘I care what everyone thinks about me.”

“I can’t tell,” he said. “You just seem like yourself, no matter what’s happening around you.  My grandmother would say you’re comfortable in your own skin.”

I was really excited to read this book.  Not only was the cover AMAZING, but I adored Rowell’s other book, Fangirl, which was recently released.  Eleanor & Park is set in 1986 in Omaha, Nebraska.  The two characters, Eleanor and Park, learn more about themselves and each other as they fall in love over the course of a school year.

I hate the feeling I get after I read a good book.  It’s almost as if someone took out my heart, took a bite, and put it back as if it was as good as new.  I’m the only person who realizes that something is wrong inside my chest, and I have to fill up the hole before anyone else notices.

Eleanor & Park was one of those books.  The soul-stealing, heart-snatching book that makes you wish for more.  Before I jump to talking about the ending that made me scream into the heavens, I want to discuss a few of the novel’s highs and lows.

The characters in this book were amazing.  I think they were great because they felt normal.  They weren’t perfect.  Eleanor is a girl with crazy red hair who lives with her abusive step-father, mother, and four of her siblings.  Her family doesn’t have the money to afford many of the luxuries other people have… or clothes… or food.  Although Park doesn’t find himself in the same economic situation as Eleanor, he comes across as too weak and feminine for his macho father, and his Korean heritage makes him feel left out.

Both Eleanor and Park don’t feel as though they fit in, physically and socially, and that’s what makes their love story so wonderful.  They don’t fit in, but they fit together.  Their relationship can be defined as two forgotten puzzle pieces that are put together and lost again.

That leaves me with the ending.  The ending felt like the ending of my happiness when I figured out that there wasn’t more to it.  Though, I couldn’t find myself complaining because the book ended when it should have.

Thanks for reading,

Mingakatara

Finnikin of the Rock and his guardian, Sir Topher, have not been home to their beloved Lumatere for ten years. Not since the dark days when the royal family was murdered and the kingdom put under a terrible curse. But then Finnikin is summoned to meet Evanjalin, a young woman with an incredible claim: the heir to the throne of Lumatere, Prince Balthazar, is alive.

Evanjalin is determined to return home and she is the only one who can lead them to the heir. As they journey together, Finnikin is affected by her arrogance . . . and her hope. He begins to believe he will see his childhood friend, Prince Balthazar, again. And that their cursed people will he able to enter Lumatere and be reunited with those trapped inside. He even believes he will find his imprisoned father.

But Evanjalin is not what she seems. And the truth will test not only Finnikin’s faith in her… but in himself.

In Short

Although much of my review focus on the first book in the series, I will try my best to incorporate what I liked and disliked about all three books, and my rating is given to the series as a whole.

The Lumatere Chronicles is made up of three novels, Finnikin of the Rock, Froi of the Exiles, and Quintana of Charyn. The series follows a variety of different characters (particularly Finnikin, Froi, and Quintaina) as they struggle to rebuild their curse-ridden kingdoms, Lumatere and Charyn.  In a journey to acquire land for the Lumateran exiles who were banished by a ten year old curse, Finnikin and his guardian, Sir Topher are seemingly led by fate to meet the mute novice Evanjalin, who is rumored will be the key to

the kingdom’s savior. The curse is a result of the days of the Unspeakable, a time when the royal family was murdered by the Charyn army, and thousands of Lumateran’s found themselves trapped inside and outside the kingdom’s walls.  As the series continues, it also begins to focus on the kingdom of Charyn, and the country’s issues with their royal family, a budding civil war, and the curse that marks their land.

This was the first series I have ever read by Australian author, Melina Marchetta, but am glad to have picked it up.  The first book, recommended to me by a friend, was initially difficult for me to get into.  You are immediately thrown into the land of Skuldenore, and the amount of detail given about the different territories, the history, and the curse on the kingdom was slightly too much for me to absorb all at once.  Though, I found my original opinions about the book rebounding completely after only a couple of chapters.

The pacing, one of my favorite things about the first novel, was exceptional, and it left me hanging on the edge of my seat.  In the second and third novel, though, the pacing resembled that of sci-fi author Brandon Sanderson’s, a slow, idea heavy beginning that builds up to an exciting, tension filled ending.  Oftentimes, I found myself pushing through all of the information at the start of the novel to get to the end as quickly as possible, and of course, once I reached it, I couldn’t stop reading until I finished the book.

Not only did I LOVE the pacing, but Marchetta is a wonderful writer (and if I could double underline “wonderful” I would).  Perhaps it’s English class on the brain, but I kept finding myself making a connection between Marchetta’s writing style and William Faulkner’s writing in As I Lay Dying, and her characters, Froi and Quintana, and his character, Vardaman, were written in a similar fashion.  Melina Marchetta seemed to maintain the same stream-of-conscience style as Faulkner, but I found hers more simplistic and understandable.

I could go on and on about this series, but I will stop now because I don’t want to write you guys a couple of essays on the books.  Though, overall, I loved the characters and the plot and the setting and everything else that the book had to offer, and I definitely (very strongly) recommend this series to any fantasy lovers.

Favorite Quote

“Be prepared for the worst, my love, for it lives next door to the best.”

-Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock

Thanks for reading,

Mingakatara

Thanks for reading,

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

Favorite Quote

I spent my life folded between the pages of books.

In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters.  I lived and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association.  My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, thoughts and images all together.  I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.

In Short

My feelings about this book were mixed.  I loved the writing, but I didn’t particularly enjoy the direction that the plot went in.  The relationship was too overbearing and Juliette experienced little to no character development.

My least favorite thing about this book was the love triangle between Juliette, Adam, and Warner.  When I began reading the book, I was excited to read a book about a girl who couldn’t touch anyone, but as I

continued reading, I realized that the story was truly about an strange domineering relationship.  Every time that Adam and Juliette are together, they are either kissing or touching.  As the romance becomes the center of the novel, the internal dilemma that Juliette faces (coming to terms with her past) and the external pressure she encounters (deciding if she will help the government) becomes the subplot.

One of the things that I enjoyed about this book was Tahereh’s writing.  Although it was slightly exaggerated at certain points, there were definitely passages that stuck out.  Mafi is an incredible writer with an immense amount of talent.  The novel reads like poetry, it is lyrical and rhythmic, and though I enjoyed the repetition, the cross outs were a little distracting and some of the metaphors used were farfetched.  I would’ve preferred it if Mafi wrote in a more conventional style for this novel and saved her skills for future projects.

Overall, this book wasn’t the right book for me.  Instead of being the action packed dystopian novel I anticipated, the plot increasingly focused on the romance between Juliette and Adam.  Though, if that’s what your looking for, then this book just may be the book for you.

P.S. The author Tahereh Mafi is incredibly funny, and I definitely recommend that you check out her blog.

Thanks for reading,

Mingakatara

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.

When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living

For the seniors at Immaculate Heart High, hormones jousted with the quest for the State of Grace, and the hormones usually won. The Map of Forbidden Sexual Delights extended its boundaries nightly in the back seats of tail-finned cars. But the girls of Virgins also wanted more. Who could they grow up to be in a word where women were supposed to be seen, but not heard? They were rebels with a cause, before their time.

But growing up anytime is hard—finding, and losing first loves, discovering who you will be as a grownup. It’s a universal experience, one that readers of all ages can relate to. As the Atlanta Constitution says, it is “A novel that is fun, funny, bittersweet and always touching… because Rivers writes with such clarity of purpose and spontaneity, anyone at all can enjoy Virgins.”

About the Author

Caryl Rivers has been called “one of the brightest voices in contemporary fiction.” Her novel Virgins was an international critical success, published in the US, UK, Sweden, Germany and Japan. It was on many best seller lists and in paperback (Pocket Books) sold more than a million copies. Her novels deal with American women trying to find a foothold in a rapidly changing world. She was included in the book Feminists Who Changed America from the University of Illinois Press.

She is a nationally known author, journalist, media critic and professor of Journalism at Boston University. In 2007 she was awarded the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for distinguished journalism. She is the author of four novels and nine works of non-fiction, all critically acclaimed. Her books have been selections of the Book of the Month Club, Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Troll Book club. The Chicago Tribune says of her,  “Few other writers are as funny as she, and none funnier. Yet she is capable of wrenching your heart and soul.”  There are film offers in place for the new edition of Virgins.

Her articles have appeared in the New York Times magazine, Daily Beast, Huffington post, Salon, The Nation, Saturday Review, Ms., Mother Jones, Dissent, McCalls, Glamour,Redbook, Rolling Stone, Ladies Home Journal and many others. She writes frequent commentary for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribuneand Womensenews. Of her book Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women, Gloria Steinem says it “will save the sanity of media watchers enraged or bewildered by the distance between image and reality.”

She has co-authored four books with Dr. Rosalind Barnett, senior scientist at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis—the latest (2011) being The Truth About Girls and Boys: Confronting Toxic Stereotypes About Our Children. Articles based on the book won a Casey medal for distinguished journalism about children and families and a special citation from the National Education Writers association.

In Short