A Time to Dance (2014)

A Time to Dance. Padma Venkatraman. 2014.  Nancy Paulsen Books. 320 pages. [Source: Library]

I wanted to love A Time To Dance. I wanted to love it as much as I loved Climbing the Stairs, also by Padma Venkatraman. But I didn't. I didn't love it. I'm not sure if it was because it was a verse novel. Or if it was because of the focus on dance. That being said, I liked it well enough. For readers curious about India, Hinduism, or dance, this one may have plenty of appeal, or extra appeal. I suppose this one will also appeal to those that like inspirational or feel-good stories.

What I liked best about it was the characterization. I liked Veda, the heroine. I liked getting to know her and her family. I particularly enjoyed Veda's relationship with her grandmother. I liked getting to know Veda's friends. There is a bit of romance.

Veda is a dancer. She loves, loves, loves to dance. She's always loved to dance. It is her EVERYTHING. So when she's in a car accident and one of her legs must be amputated below the knee, she's devastated. Who is she if she's not a dancer? Dance is what makes her, her. So giving up dancing isn't an option for her. Though plenty expect just that, for her to find a new dream. She will dance again. Someway. Somehow. An American doctor offers her a second chance. His specialty is making artificial limbs. He wants to make her a prosthetic leg that she can dance on...

But it won't be an easy journey for Veda, to dance again, to live again. The book is just as much about finding inner peace and accepting yourself as it is about actual dance. It is a book with a lot of spirituality packed in.
© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

I Kill the Mockingbird (2014)

I Kill the Mockingbird. Paul Acampora. 2014. Roaring Book Press. 176 pages. [Source: Library]

Lucy, Michael, and Elena are best friends. They have almost always been best friends. I Kill The Mockingbird is about a secret summer project these three think up and orchestrate.

It starts with the announcement of Miss Caridas' summer reading list:

• David Copperfield
• Ender's Game
• Fahrenheit 451
• War Horse
• War of the Worlds
• The Giver
• To Kill A Mockingbird

 Lucy remembers that Miss Caridas was not their only English teacher that year. She replaced another teacher, Mr. "Fat Bob" Nowak, who died of a heart attack in October. He had told the class that he would assign only one book for the summer: To Kill A Mockingbird. Lucy reminds her friends of this, and expresses how she wishes everyone would read it and WANT to read it. The friends think and consider and brainstorm. What if they could manipulate supply and demand and make people really desperate to find a copy and read it?

I Kill the Mockingbird is about that project, about their misshelving books at bookstores and libraries across the state of Connecticut, about their online campaign "I Kill the Mockingbird."

It's a quick read. It has some depth to it. Lucy is worried that her mom's cancer might come back someday. Lucy is still missing the teacher who died. Lucy and her friends are thinking about life and death and legacies. But it is in many ways a light novel about three best friends who love to read and who want others to love to read too. It would almost be impossible for me not to like--really, really like this novel about reading. I still haven't decided if I LOVED it or just really, really, really LIKED it.

© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

Reread #36 Blue Plate Special

Blue Plate Special by Michelle D. Kwasney. 2009. Chronicle Books. 366 pages. [Source: Library]


I originally reviewed Blue Plate Special in February of 2010. I loved it. I loved it the same way that I love Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Blue Plate Special is a compelling, dramatic story about three daughters. (John Mayer's "Daughters" kept coming to mind. For better or worse. Also Atticus' advice to Scout: "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.") The book is very much character-driven. I don't know that I'd go so far to say that it is one of those "what it means to be human" books, but, if not it comes very close.

All of the characters are flawed; not one person within the pages of this book is perfect or flawless. Relationships in Blue Plate Special are messy. Readers meet three heroines. Madeline (1977-78). Desiree (1993-1994). Ariel (2009). Their stories are told in alternating chapters. I believe all the heroines are around fifteen to sixteen. As you'd expect, in some ways their stories are the same, yet, in other ways all three are different. All, for example, are coming-of-age stories. All focus on first love, or first significant romantic relationships. All are bittersweet, but in different ways. But each heroine is unique. The book is great at complexities. Of seeing the whole person from different angles, which made it easier perhaps to take Atticus' advice. I cared about all three.

I definitely would recommend this one.

© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

The Summer I Saved The World in 65 Days (2014)

The Summer I Saved the World in 65 Days. Michele Weber Hurwitz. 2014. Random House. 272 pages. [Source: Review copy]

It starts with Mrs. Chung. And flowers. Marigolds. My grandmother believed in what she called STs--Simple Truths. This was one of her favorites: Things happen when they're meant to happen, and the sooner people realize that, the more content they'll be. 

I enjoyed reading The Summer I Saved the World in 65 Days. Nina Ross, our heroine, is thirteen. In the fall, she'll be starting a new school, going to high school. She is not sure how she'll fit or even if she'll fit there. If there is one thing Nina knows is that so much is changing so fast. Not just for herself, but for her family, and for most if not all of her neighbors. For example, one neighbor, Mrs. Chung, has a broken leg. Another neighbor is expecting her fourth child! Every house, or, should that be every neighbor, has a story to share. Perhaps not a story they want shared.

Soon after the novel opens, Nina has the brilliant idea to anonymously "save" the neighborhood one tiny step at a time through one anonymous good deed per day. Nina wants to seek out opportunities to be kind and thoughtful. During the process, she learns a bit about herself, about life, about friendship and community.

I liked this one. I liked meeting all the neighbors. I liked the coming-of-age aspects of it. I liked Nina's optimism. Change can be intimidating, but, you have got to hold onto hope that change can be good too.

© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

Soldier Doll (2014)

Soldier Doll. Jennifer Gold. 2014. Second Story Press. 256 pages. [Source: Review copy]

Soldier Doll is a message-driven novel with an interesting premise. Towards the end of World War I (1918), Margaret Merriweather, an English woman, gives her fiance a wooden doll. This is a doll that her own father made for her when she's a child. She paints a soldier's uniform on him. She gives him as a good luck charm, a way he can carry her with him wherever he goes. After he dies, Margaret is inspired to write a poem. This poem becomes famous. The doll itself is gone forever. Or so everyone thought. Soldier Doll follows the adventures of this wooden soldier with the baby-face. The framework for all the stories is his being discovered in Toronto in 2007 by a teen girl, Elizabeth. Elizabeth is buying her dad a DOLL for his birthday. Her dad is a soldier preparing to go to Afghanistan. A moping Elizabeth ventures into a used bookstore and discovers the poem-book by Merriweather. She's convinced she's found THE DOLL from the poem. She and her Dad team up to see if this is so... (view spoiler)

The chapters alternate between the 2007 story and the doll's adventures in the past beginning with World War I. The doll also heads to other wars: World War II, Vietnam, and the Iraq War. His ownership is passed along many times. I should clarify that readers don't get the perspective of the doll at any time. It remains just an object. What readers do get are glimpses of various soldiers from various countries. It captures scenes from life on the front.

War. War. War. That is the focus of Soldier Doll. Why do nations go to war? Why do men go to war? What is the point of it all? Those are the questions asked openly and honestly in Jennifer Gold's Soldier Doll. It is an anti-war novel, as you might imagine.

I found the 2007 story to be awkward. I found the past stories to be much better. The past sections were written in past tense. The 2007 story was written in very awkward present tense. It was third person present.
© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

The Chapel Wars (2014)

The Chapel Wars. Lindsey Leavitt. 2014. Bloomsbury USA. 304 pages. [Source: Review copy]

Holly, our heroine, has inherited her grandpa's wedding chappel, Rose of Sharon. This wedding chapel is one of the classiest in Las Vegas, at least that is what Holly and her family would have us to believe. Her grandpa had a certain standard to uphold. No gimmicks. Just real romance. In other words, no preachers in Elvis suits. But poor financial decisions from several years ago has left the chapel in big trouble. Grandpa Jim knew this before he died. He failed to mention it, of course. But he speaks the truth in a letter to his favorite grandchild, Holly. Seventeen IS young to be THE BOSS, but, Holly is super-smart. She is GREAT at numbers. She has vision too. She's going to give it her ALL. She is not afraid to make decisions and stand behind those decisions even when other employees disagree. In other words, hello, Elvis. She knows that she absolutely cannot save the business IF she binds herself to WHAT WOULD GRANDPA DO?

One of the highlights of this novel, and there are many, is the romance. Grandpa left TWO letters behind. One for Holly. One for Dax. Dax is the boy-next-door. The boy-from-the-wedding-chapel-next door. He not only works at the chapel next door, he is the grandson of the owner. These two businesses share a parking lot. Though they've never really spoken before her Grandpa's death, after his death, these two become something...

I loved, loved, loved the developing relationship between Holly and Dax. I loved their conversations. I loved their dates. I loved how everything was far from perfect. I loved the emotion and tension between these two.

I also loved the character development. Many members of Holly's family were developed. And Holly had a circle of friends that were developed too. This made the novel believable. Readers were invited to share a life, a messy life.

This one will most likely be one of my favorite YA books of 2014. I just loved, loved, loved it.
© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

Searching for Sky (2014)

Searching for Sky. Jillian Cantor. 2014. Bloomsbury USA. 288 pages. [Source: Review copy]

I would definitely recommend Jillian Cantor's Searching for Sky. I found it impossible to put down. Sky and River live together on an island, or, perhaps I should say THE ISLAND. Sky and River have been raised on the island. Sky does not remember life BEFORE the island. River, who was around four or five, does remember a few things about life in California. Both remember Helmut and Petal who died after eating mushrooms. Helmut was River's father; Petal was Sky's mother. Though these two have been raised as brother and sister, before Petal's death, she told her daughter that soon--very soon--she would start having all these feelings and desires for River, and that would be a good thing. The novel opens on Sky's sixteenth birthday. These opening chapters give readers an idea of what life is like on the island for two isolated teenagers; they have survival skills to a certain degree. But the two are rescued and returned to California. Sky's world is about to crumble. It will get worse before it gets better.

Sky does NOT want to be rescued. Sky does NOT want to live in California with other people, in a society that she thinks her mother despised. She does not like feeling ashamed and scared and confused and frustrated and angry. Life has suddenly become too much, too overwhelming. Because she has no memories of life before--she was under the age of two when she arrived on the island--she doesn't understand the most simplest, basic things that everyone takes for granted: forks, plates, toilets and sinks, pencils and paper. She'll need to learn EVERYTHING if she's to function in this strange, new world that readers are oh-so-familiar with. And that might not be the hardest part to accept: there are facts about her mother and Helmut that will challenge her incredibly.

I found Sky's story to be very compelling. I would definitely recommend this one.

© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

The Good Lie (2014)

The Good Lie. Robin Brande. 2014. Ryer Publishing. [Source: Review copy]

The Good Lie is a dark, haunting, compelling story of a broken family. While each member of the family might have their own story to tell, their own version of events, readers get Lizzie Aimes' story. Since Lizzie, at times, questions her interpretation of her family's MESS, it's only natural for readers to entertain a doubt or two as well. Lizzie, when we first meet her, is quite charming. Readers see her preparing for prom with her best friend, Posie. Her younger brother, Mikey, is hanging around. There is some teasing, some laughing. Things seemed so good, so normal. Lizzie's "big" problem is Jason. She really, really, really is falling for Jason, a boy who does not share her value system. In other words, he does not want a girlfriend. He wants lots of casual partners to hook up with. He would LOVE for Lizzie to be one of them. He would LOVE for Posie to be one of them. Lizzie is smart enough to know that feeling the way she does, Jason is just trouble. To be near him, to watch him with other girls, is painful and awkward because she wants it to be her, and, not be her at the same time. Jason, of course, knows that Lizzie has a tender spot for him.

That was her "big problem" before. She returns home from prom to a different situation entirely. Her mom is gone. She's left her husband and her two children. She has admitted that she's having an affair and is in love with another man. This is the catalyst for the BIG, BIG, BIG mess that follows.

Lizzie witnesses her family crumble. She sees her father change, in some ways very dramatically change. She sees the stress on her brother. She feels it herself. But it is her worry--her deep, deep worry for him--that leads Lizzie to ultimately make a life-changing decision.

Throughout the novel, their is a focus on justice, on doing the right thing even if its hard. That is what makes The Good Lie so thought-provoking in a way. Does Lizzie do the right thing? Do the ends justify the means? Can doing something morally wrong ever be the right thing to do? In other words, is there such a thing as A GOOD LIE. There are no easy questions to these questions.

The Good Lie definitely has adult situations in it, it is not a book for younger readers.

© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

Heartbeat (2014)

Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott. 2014. Harlequin. 256 pages. [Source: Library]

Heartbeat is definitely an intense read with the potential to stay with readers. The heroine of Heartbeat is a young woman, Emma. She is in shock, in grief. She's angry; she's sad; she's all over the place. She wants things the way they were before, but, slowly oh-so-slowly coming to terms with the idea that something good could come in the future. The one person she wants to talk to most, of course, is her mom. She can physically go to her mom's room and talk, but, there will never be an answer again: her mom is on life support, she's being kept alive by machines for the sake of her unborn baby. Those ten weeks or so seem IMPOSSIBLE to young Emma. For better or worse, she can't bring herself to admit that her stepdad might be making the best decision, the right decision, the decision that her mom would make if she could. Seeing her mom alive-but-dead breaks her heart every single day. Yet, to the hospital she continues to go day by day. For the sake of her mom, or, so she tells herself. She feels that her mom is forgotten, that the unborn baby, is all. But readers don't just meet Emma. They also meet Olivia, Emma's best friend, and Caleb, a bad boy who might possibly understand the pain of loss better than anyone else in town. Emma and Caleb come together in Heartbeat, and, it's something.

Definitely recommended!

© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

We Were Liars (2014)

We Were Liars. E. Lockhart. 2014. Random House. 240 pages. [Source: Review copy]

We Were Liars isn't a novel to be read; it's a novel to be experienced. From the start, I was almost haunted by the raw emotion of the narrator, Cadence Sinclair Eastman. We Were Liars is an emotional, compelling examination of family, friendship, and first love. Most of the novel focus on a series of summer vacations, but it isn't a light, frivolous read.

Gat, Cadence, Johnny, and Mirren are best friends, at least during the summer; they've been spending their summers together on the island for years now. But one summer EVERYTHING changes...

We Were Liars has an unforgettable narrator. It is a powerful novel, very haunting in all the right ways. And its characters are oh-so-flawed that you just can't help making connections. I would definitely recommend this one!

I have read and loved Lockhart's Ruby Oliver novels. I was surprised by how moved I was by this story. It's just so good, so very different from her previous novels. 

© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

The Impossible Knife of Memory (2014)

The Impossible Knife of Memory. Laurie Halse Anderson. 2014. Penguin. 400 pages. [Source: Library]

The Impossible Knife of Memory is an intense read. Hayley Kincain, our heroine, has endured more than her fair share of problems. Her father, a soldier with PTSD, is incapable of taking care of himself. He's unable to hold a job. He's unable to keep his word. Hayley has to be the responsible one, she's raising herself essentially, and looking out for her dad too. It isn't easy. He has drug and alcohol issues. He can be violent and start fights. He can be a stubborn, fierce opponent. Hayley and her dad have returned to his hometown. They are living in her grandma's house. She is attending a (real) school for the first time that she can remember. She is struggling to learn the rules that most of her classmates have known for years. But she's got one great best friend, and, a potential love interest as well.

The Impossible Knife of Memory is a wonderful novel about broken people, very broken people. I definitely liked Hayley. I really, really loved Finn, her boyfriend. I really liked Gracie, her best friend. I was glad we got to know some adults as well: Andy (the dad) and Trisha (the "stepmother").

© 2014 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews