Tag Archives: Book Review

The Haven- Amanda Jennings

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Tara has long wanted to get out from under her parents’ expectations. What they want, “conventional achievement. Money. A successful career. A sensible car with comprehensively researched insurance. A well-showered husband and two polite children” is not necessarily what she wants for herself. When she meets Kit and his best friend, Jeremy, at university Tara feels as though she has found her people. In Kit, more specifically, she has found her person.

Life becomes more complicated for Tara and Kit when they discover they are pregnant. Although Kit comes from a lot of money, he doesn’t necessarily get on with them and wants nothing to do with their money which he resents because they’ve done nothing to earn it and they have so much “while people struggle to make ends meet.” Because he doesn’t want to access his trust fund, Kit and Tara and soon baby Skye are living in a grubby bedsit in London. That’s when Jeremy makes a crazy suggestion, partly fueled by the fact that he is convinced the world is going to go nuts when the calendar clicks over to 2000.

Anger, resentment, and dissatisfaction are boulders we lug around. It’s time to cast them off. The establishment hold us in contempt. It imposes rules and we obey like sheep. When we don’t they lock us up. Well, not anymore. I’ve had enough talking and marching. Writing slogans on homemade placards and being ignored. It’s time to start doing. I want to make a difference. Be the change I seek. […]Let’s do something. Build something. Start living properly.

So, Kit accesses his trust fund and buys Winterfell Farm on Bodmin Moor near Cornwall. Soon they have a small community working and living together in harmony.

Until, you know, things aren’t so harmonious anymore.

Amanda Jennings’ novel The Haven is a top heavy book that, while certainly easy enough to read, doesn’t actually go anywhere until the last 50 pages. The cast of characters is small and I did feel like I knew them and cared about them, particularly Tara, Kit and Skye, but not a lot happens in the first 200+ pages – unless you care about people working together to get a rundown farm back on its feet. The introduction of a couple new characters sends some ripples out into the water, but the cultish aspects of the commune come late in the game and aren’t particularly sinister.

This is more a book about a group of people with good intentions who lose their way.

Lock the Doors – Vincent Ralph

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Sixteen-year-old Tom’s mother has had a string of bad luck with men, but now she is married to Jay, who is exactly who he says he is – a nice guy – and they have recently moved into a brand new house. Not everything is perfect. Jay’s daughter, Nia, is also living with them. She’s a year older and clearly hates Tom. And although the house is Tom’s mom’s dream come true, Tom soon makes an odd discovery. It looks like someone had installed locks on the outside of two of the bedroom doors. Weird, right?

At school, Tom is tagged to show new girl, Amy, around and although Tom is slightly awkward and not all that good with the ladies, he and Amy sort of hit it off. Then Tom discovers that Amy used to live in his old house. As bits and pieces of Amy’s life are revealed Tom starts to think that things just don’t add up. But the more he pushes Amy, the stranger things get. When Tom meets Amy’s family, June and Chris and Amy’s younger brother, Will, and makes some new discoveries in his new home, well – it all makes for page-turning fun.

Tom is a clever and likeable character who suffers from OCD.

I’m worse when I’m worried. On good days, I can touch everything once and sleep like a baby. On the worst days, I check everything twenty or thirty times and only make it halfway up the stairs before doing it all again. I know it’s silly, I know it’s irrational. But it’s part of me, and it’s not going anywhere.

It is perhaps partly his OCD that makes Tom so dogged when it comes to figuring out the truth. It might also be, in part, because of the horrors his mother faced prior to meeting Jay. What if Amy is in trouble? Tom can’t imagine not helping her even if it means getting himself into some scrapes.

Of course, it all comes together perhaps a tad too easily in the end, but I had a good time reading and I think teens who like mysteries will really enjoy this one.

Blackwater – Jeannette Arroyo & Ren Graham

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Blackwater, a YA graphic novel, by Jeannette Arroyo and Ren Graham has a lot going for it. First of all, lots of representation including POC, trans, teens with health issues, werewolves, ghosts. Yes, you read that last part right.

Tony is a high school track star with a side of delinquent. Eli is the new kid who misses a lot of time because of an autoimmune disorder. Neither of these boys has the world’s best home life (Tony’s father works a lot and doesn’t seem all that invested in Tony’s life and Eli’s mother just seems completely checked out, perhaps worn down by her son’s health issues.)

A tentative friendship begins to develop between the two boys. Eventually, Tony has to admit that his feelings towards Eli might be something more than “friends.” Then, there’s an incident in the woods and suddenly Tony is dealing with a lot more than just his feelings.

Blackwater is part ghost-story, part high school drama, part m/m romance. I did feel that it was a little top heavy-so the end felt rushed. That said, it’s an hour of your time and it delivers on themes of acceptance, family and friendship.

Everything We Never Said – Sloan Harlow

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Ella’s senior year of high school is complicated. For one thing, she has to make her way through the days without her bestie, Hayley, by her side. Hayley died in a car accident and Ella is still trying to process her grief and her guilt -she was at the wheel when the car crashed, although she remembers virtually nothing about the accident.

Then there’s the problem of Sawyer, Hayley’s over-the-top hot boyfriend. The three had always been together, but since Hayley’s death she can feel the waves of anger and hate coming off Sawyer and she knows it’s all directed at her. And yet – there’s something else smoldering underneath and pretty soon Ella and Sawyer can’t keep their hands off each other. Of course, they are both aware of the optics of this development, and the fact that they are meeting secretly only heightens their feelings for each other.

But then, plot twist, Hayley’s mother asks Ella to come clean out Hayley’s room – a task she can’t bear to do. It is there she finds Hayley’s diary and although she does deliberate about whether or not she is doing the right thing, Ella gives in to her curiosity and starts to read. What she discovers throws another wrench into her growing feelings for Sawyer and also puts her in danger.

Sloan Harlow’s debut novel Everything We Never Said attempts a lot and succeeds on many levels. I thought I had it figured out early on; there are plenty of red herrings. The book does make some attempt at tackling the topic of domestic violence. It also looks at grief and friendship. Sometimes the characters seem a bit shrill and other times way too passive. I found the sex scenes a bit much – not that I don’t believe that seventeen-year-olds are intimate, but I found some of the dialogue a little cringe-y. The last third moves at a quick pace, with one or two surprises in store.

It’s a solid debut.

Hell Followed With Us – Andrew Joseph White

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Andrew Joseph White claims his debut novel Hell Followed With Us was written because he was angry. On his website, we’re told “His work focuses on the intersection of transgender and autistic identity through the lens of horror, monstrosity, violence, and rage.” Got that right.

Benji is on the run. His father has just been killed and the Angels and their Graces are hunting him down, except that there is not really any place to go. That’s because these people – part of the cult that raised Benji – have unleased Armageddon via The Flood, decimating the world’s population.

The hellscape of the world White imagines is unlike anything I have ever read before. This is a world devoid of humanity, where goods are bartered with the exchange of human ears, where the monsters are

made of corpses and the Flood – sharpened ribs lining its back in a row of spines, eyeballs blinking between sinew, muscles so swollen they split the skin

At the beginning of the novel, when Benji is recaptured by the Angels, it is not so they can kill him: he’s important to the cult because he is a Seraph, or about to become one anyway. He has the power to control the Graces and The Flood and also, his mother is kind of a big deal at New Nazareth. Before they can get Benji back to New Nazareth, though, he is rescued by a ragtag group of teen resistors from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Centre (ALC). It is his relationship with these people, specifically the handsome sharp-shooter, Nick, that propels Benji on a dangerous mission to take down New Nazareth once and for all.

Hell Followed With Us is an allegorical tale. Before Benji was Benji, he was Esther, betrothed to Theo. At their engagement ceremony, Benji’s mother tries to find a passage about marriage, something that would “hammer home” Benji’s role as a wife, something that could “beat the boy” out of him. Throughout the novel, Benji struggles to find acceptance and while the monsters might be dreamt from Whites very scary imagination, the big ideas- of acceptance, or personal autonomy, of the dangers of blindly following are anything but fiction.

Great read.

Midnight on Beacon Street – Emily Ruth Verona

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Despite suffering from crippling panic attacks, Amy is a much sought after babysitter. Tonight, she is looking after siblings Ben, 6, and his older sister Mira, 12, while their single mother, Eleanor, is out on a date. Amy likes Eleanor, and she likes babysitting there because her boyfriend, Miles, is not only welcome to visit, Eleanor “encourages it.” For someone who hasn’t had the best luck with relationships, she’s relatively smitten with the idea of Amy and Miles and their young love.”

Amy orders pizza and waits on the arrival of Miles. She’s brought a couple horror movies, her favourite genre. There’s something about them that calms her down, strange as she knows that sounds.

Emily Ruth Verona’s debut Midnight on Beacon Street begins at the end.

The blood beneath Ben’s bare feet is too fresh to be sticky. It’s hard not to slip. And so, the little boy holds still – so very still. Stiller than he has ever held before.

This is six minutes after midnight. The novel is non-linear, jumping back and forth to various points earlier in the night, but also to a time six years before, when Amy is being sat by Sadie, “a bright-eyed, fresh-faced fifteen-year-old girl.”

Amy’s night does not go as planned. There are several unexpected visitors; Mira is sullen; Ben is withdrawn. And the whole thing culminates with Ben standing in a pool of blood in the kitchen. Although not particularly swift moving (the novel clocks in just under 200 pages, but it isn’t a fast read), I found it entertaining. Amy is a terrific character and the novel nods and winks at all your favourite horror movies and tropes.

Suffer Love – Ashley Herring Blake

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When his parents separate, and his father moves to Boston, Sam’s mother takes Sam and his younger sister, Olivia, to Woodmont, a suburb of Nashville to regroup. Sam just wants to get on with life, play baseball, and graduate.

Hadley St. Claire has been looking for love in all the wrong places ever since she found out that her father cheated on her mother. Now her parents are barely speaking to each other and she can’t stand to look at her father. Her most meaningful relationship is with her bestie, Kat. That is, until she and the new kid get paired together to rewrite an act from one of Shakespeare’s plays. (And, no, they don’t choose Romeo and Juliet.)

Sam and Hadley connect almost immediately. Perhaps they sense in each other that deep well of hurt, but Sam knows something that Hadley doesn’t and so he does his level best to keep his distance.

I want her to come with me and I want her eyes on mine and her words to fill up the space in my car. There are a million voices in my head right now, screaming about what a delusional idiot I am, but with her standing right in front of me, her lashes fanning her pink cheeks, they’re easy to ignore.

And, as is the way of books like this, these two can’t stay away from each other – try as they might.

Suffer Love is a book about messy family relationships, forgiveness and first love. Sam and Hadley are both likeable characters just trying to figure it all out. The book is a little bit sweet and a little bit angsty and I appreciated that Ashley Herring Blake didn’t try to go for a happily ever after, even though you really hope these two young people actually manage to get theirs.

Dark Matter – Blake Crouch

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Jason Dessen, the protagonist of Blake Crouch’s novel Dark Matter has the perfect life. Well, no life is perfect, but he loves his wife, Daniela, once a promising artist, now a teacher, and his teenaged son, Charlie. His job as a physics professor at Lakemount College affords him a nice life but everyone knows that he could have had so much more if he had chosen a different path.

When the novel opens, Jason is off to raise a glass to his former college buddy Ryan, who has just won the prestigious Pavia Prize. On the way home, he is mugged and abducted and things only get stranger from there.

I am not going to pretend to understand anything about the science that happens in this book, but I honestly don’t think that it matters all too much if you do. Ultimately this is a book that examines the different trajectories that your life might take if you had made different decisions. It posits that every time you come to a fork in the road, and you make a selection, another version of you and the other choice carries on. That’s an extremely simplified version, of course.

The action of the story unfolds as Jason tries desperately to return to his old life while encountering versions of himself that actually want to continue living their chosen lives. Essentially, it’s the multiverse and although some of it was certainly beyond my understanding, the human side of it was completely relatable.

“Every moment, every breath, contains a choice. But life is imperfect. We make the wrong choices. So we end up living in a state of perpetual regret, and is there anything worse?”

Ah, yes, the road not taken.

House of Hollow – Krystal Sutherland

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I can’t say that fantasy is one of the genres I gravitate towards. I’m not sure what it is about other-worldly fiction; I guess I just like my stories to be rooted in reality. But that doesn’t mean I never read them nor haven’t enjoyed some of the fantasies that I have read. I very much liked Empire of the Vampire; Starling House was slightly less successful for me. Krystal Sutherland’s YA novel House of Hollow lands squarely on the winner side for me.

Sisters Iris, Vivi and Grey are special.  Not only did something remarkable happen to them when they were children (all three disappeared from an Edinburgh street, only to reappear one month later with absolutely no memory of where they’d been), but now the two oldest sisters have fabulous careers in fashion and music, while the youngest, the narrator Iris, is just hoping to get through her last year of high school.

Everyone knew who we were. Everyone had heard our story. Everyone had their own theory about what had happened to us. My sisters used this to their advantage. They were very good at cultivating their own mystery like gardeners, coaxing the heady intrigue that ripened around them into the shape of their choosing. I simply followed in their wake, quiet and studious, always embarrassed by their attention.

Then, strange things start happening in the sisters’ lives. Iris sees a strange man “wearing a horned skull over his head” during her morning run. Then her eldest sister, Grey, disappears without a trace. When she and Vivi go to investigate, they discover a dead body in Grey’s apartment. And that’s not all.

House of Hollow is a breathless romp through a malevolent fairy tale world, but it is also a mystery (just what happened to these girls when they were younger) and a timeless tale of what sacrifices siblings might be willing to make for each other. The language is lush, the body horror just squicky enough and I had a great time reading it.

Seventeenth Summer – Maureen Daly

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Published in 1942, Seventeenth Summer was written while Maureen Daly was still in college. Although S.E. Hinton’s debut The Outsiders is often considered to be the first work of Young Adult fiction, a case can be made for Daly’s book as it has all the hallmarks of the genre.

Angie Morrow lives with her parents and sisters in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. As the summer begins, she locks eyes with Jack Duluth at McKnight’s, a drug store/soda bar, and thus begins a romantic summer.

I remember just how it was. I was standing by the drug counter waiting for the clerk. The sides of the booths in McKnight’s are rather high and in one, near the back, I could just see the top of someone’s head with a short crew cut sticking up. He must have been having a Coke, for he tore the wrapping off the end of his straws and blew in them so that the paper covering shot over the side of the booth. Then he stood up to see where it had landed. It was Jack. He looked over at me, smiled, and then sat down again.

Although Seventeenth Summer is tame by today’s standards, the young people in this book drink and smoke (pipes!) and make out, but there is something blissfully innocent about Angie’s account as she navigates her feelings for Jack, a handsome basketball player. Angie doesn’t think that’s she’s pretty enough or clever enough for Jack, but despite his initial swagger, Jack proves himself to be sweet and sincere.

Daly’s book is a sweet look at a time past, but it will surely resonate with anyone who has ever been young and in love.