Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Summary 
Cath is a Simon Snow fan. 

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .

But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving. 

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. 

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to. 

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . and she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone. 

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind? 

Review 
I have always said that sometimes you need a little fantasy to survive reality. Ironically enough, this book is about fanfiction, the art of writing about other works of fiction that are not your own (which is perfectly legal so long as writings are not used for profit) and how a girl dives a little too deep into the fantasy, and can barely deal with reality. 

That girl was me in college. I hated my classes, did not want to make friends and only wanted to write fanfiction. Now look at me; a Bachelors degree, more friends than I ever thought I’d have and I am trying to get a book published. So sometimes, once we step out of the imaginary world, we can make all kinds of things happen in the real one. But not for Cather Avery. 

Cather, or Cath for short, is about to become a freshman in college with her twin sister, Wren, who she will be no longer sharing a room with anymore. And for the time in Cath’s life, she will be without her other half. Wren thinks the change will be good for her, but Cath doesn’t agree. 

Upon her arrival to her dorm, Cath meets Levi, an always smiling, happy go lucky kind of guy who takes a liking to Cath and all Cath can think is ‘Will this guy be roommate?’ Yet even more to her dismay, her actual roommate, Reagan, is scary and intimidating but that is the least of Cath’s worries. What Cath worries about is leaving her father alone for the first time and whether or not he’ll be okay. 

Now with a second abandonment (her mother being the first), a creepy-always-smiling guy, a frightful roommate and a dad to worry about, it is no wonder sometimes Cath cannot deal. Thus Cath turns to writing fanfiction about Simon and Baz from the Simon Snow series. A place where she can help improve upon the lives of other people (as fictitious as they may be) and not stress out so much about the problems in her own life she has yet to begin solving. 

So far so good.  Go to classes, check in with Wren and come back to her room and lock herself in the world of Simon Snow. Yet reality keeps finding ways to erupt her fanficition writing. Wren is spending a lot more time with Courtney, Wren’s roommate, and she and Cath are drifting apart. They are barely talking, with just a few texts here and there, and Cath has no idea what is going on with her sister anymore. On top of that, her scary roommate, Reagan has decided to be her friend, despite the fact that she doesn’t seem to like Cath very much. And thus Cath is also stuck with Levi, who is always hanging around, smiling and being nice to Cath and she cannot help but feel something for Levi, no matter how hard she tries not to. And to top it all off, Cath’s dad doesn’t seem to be coping well with her and Wren not living at home anymore. He is throwing himself into his work, keeping long hours and not eating or sleeping enough. Cath can barely keep up with her schoolwork and keep her life in check, let alone have time to write about the serious love going on between Simon and Baz in her fanfic Carry On Simon. Suddenly, Cath is finding it hard to carry on with anything. How can she balance her crazy life and still do what she loves to do?

To rephrase what I said earlier, sometimes you need a little Fanfiction in your life to help you deal with reality and maybe even escape it. However, too much of a world that does not exist can skew your reality and actually make it even harder to deal with, not help ease the stress. Still, in moderation, fanfiction is all good and fun. Fangirl is a novel that delves into the world of fanfiction to see the pros and cons of what too much fantasizing can do to a person. Fangirl teaches us that if you live too much in a fictitious world, you can miss out or not be able to handle the things in real life. But Fangirl also teaches us that you are capable of more than you know, like the characters in the books you read and stories you write. That the reason you gravitate towards the fantasy is because you see yourself in those characters or wish to be them and the things you dream can become reality. 

Reviewed by Camia Rhodes

Book Information
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication date: 9/10/2013
Pages: 448

Review: The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Summary
The Interestings is about a group of teenagers that meet in the summer of ’74 at an art camp on the East Coast. Each teen possesses “potential”—however, their varying greatnesses and failures are documented throughout the rest of the book. Bonded by similar goals of success and bright-eyed notions of talent, the group remains close-knit until something terrible happens. Its aftermath eventually rids the group of two members irrevocably, and proves to be a constant haunting presence throughout the rest of the novel. 

There is Jules—the plain(ish), middle-class girl from a less-than-thrilling suburban background who discovers an aptitude for humor; Ethan, the real genius in the group, who shows extreme promise as a cartoonist; Jonah, the son of a famous folk-singer; the Wolf twins—beautiful, wealthy, and seemingly perfect; Cathy, the voluptuous and older-than-her-years dancer. 

The reader is privy to the varying intimacies of each of the group’s members, and the heartbreak and first loves and resentments that take form, are over-ruled, and buried. Though the story at its core is Jules’, the narrative expands to each of the characters, and is linked inextricably to that first summer at an out-of-the-way art camp. 

Review
The Interestings is about life, and the ways it stretches us out, re-assigns and realigns our interests, and how a group of friends, though externally altered, can remain friends. Their closeness changes, of course: with the onslaught of coupling, the initial children to be had, and the jobs to be heavy and tired from, it’s different than the carefree friendship of fifteen. The novel is also about talent, and questions if having it is honestly enough to succeed. 

The novel has its set-backs. Close to 500 pages long, the story wains and then charges forwards once more in an untempered and not-always-enjoyable way. Its structure is a series of pieced-together “moments” spanning one scene to a few months. At first, it jumped from the group’s adolescent years to their middle age. I found this jarring as a reader and honestly would have preferred a more stream-lined narrative. There’s also a good bit of scene “fluff” that I feel could have been cut without compromising the story. Because, in its essence, the story is about life. Maybe Wolitzer was attempting to recreate that “life-y” narrative by including a few mundane scenes. Maybe it was an intentional trick to reinforce the story in its extreme realism. However, I think it unfortunately lessened the impact of those many wonderful scenes in the process.

I admire the novel’s fidelity to realism. With a story set in New York, centered around a group of precocious children, regardless of their differing levels of talent, it could have been easy as a writer to sugar-coat the story, make it easy on the readers, and dismiss the realities of a talent-choked New York. But Wolitzer refrains–she writes, instead, about the million tiny tragedies that people go through on a daily basis. She skillfully shows the small, terrible things that no one mentions, the inner thoughts that you’d rather die than admit you’ve thought. Her character studies are astute and oftentimes brilliant, and she doesn’t leave us with a happy ending. It’s faintly sad, a little disappointing, but you’re reassured they’ll be okay somehow. And that’s powerful. She writes the characters into life, readily shows their flaws, but keeps us interested, despite their selfishness. Whether or not you’re a talented playwright, one’s life is always interesting–not always perfect, oftentimes sad, but to call it uninteresting is a falsehood.

I had my fair share of qualms with Jules. Her constant, self-conscious and totally skewed idea of herself gets tiresome, especially when we find her fifty, married, and a mother. She’s starstruck by her friends, and it’s obvious to everyone but herself. She doesn’t always treat Dennis, her husband, with the amount of respect he deserves. However, Wolitzer portrays her protagonist realistically, while not allowing us totally despise her, because she’s a good person at heart, just confused and over-ridden with deep-seated jealousy for her more successful friends. There were a lot of times I wanted to reach out and shake some sense into Jules. She spent a good thirty years of her life being perpetually dissatisfied, and it felt like a waste. It was a waste. And maybe that’s the point. It’s easy to pass our lives away hoping for that often unattainable glamour.

With all that said, it’s a riveting character study on realistically-written people. They aren’t heroes, but they’re not all that bad, either. They’ll remind you of yourself, of your friends, and probably of your enemies. The novel poses a lot of interesting questions pertaining to the idea of success—what is it really? And when should you begin accepting the life that you’re leading? Is it healthy to dream big? Is talent all that it takes to “make it?”

Reviewed by M.B. Sellers

Book Information
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Publication date: 3/25/2014
Pages: 560

Review: The Peerless Four by Victoria Patterson

Summary
Running so hard you think you’ll choke on your next breath. Lungs burning like they’re drenched in battery acid. Peripheral vision blurred by the same adrenaline that drowns out the cheers coming from the full stadium. And of course, the reporters. The men scribbling furiously on their notepads so they can publish every stumble, sprain, and sniffle.This was the world of the female athletes in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, the first games in which women were allowed to compete in track and field on a trial basis. Nicknamed “The Peerless Four,” the Canadian track team included some of the strongest, most diversely talented women on the scene. Narrated by the team’s chaperone—a former runner herself—the women embark on their journey with the same golden goals as every other Olympian, male or female. But as the Olympic tension begins to rise with unexpected injuries and disqualifications, each woman discovers new fears and priorities, all while the weight of women’s future in the Olympics rests on their performance.

The Peerless Four is more than a sports novel, more than a record of women’s rights. It’s a meditation on sacrifice, loyalty, perseverance, and the courage to live a true underdog tale.

Review
Faced with gender stereotypes defined by the societal norms of the time, The Peerless Four, were four young women who “both were creators and beneficiaries of history, living a moment they couldn’t believe existed.” This was not just a sports novel about the superior athleticism of these four strong women getting to experience a moment that was unreachable but a reflective appreciation of the path that women like this struggled to carve in a male dominated world of whose rules created and limited their accomplishments and expectations.

On the cusp of making history since the banishment of women from the Olympic games, Florence Smith, Ginger Hadley, Muriel Ziegler and Bonnie Brody, known as The Peerless Four, were selected to first compete at the 1928 Olympics in track and field on a trial basis. Similar to other trailblazers, they faced their share of discouragement from many including the press. They were individually told everything from, you are not going to be able to get married, this will ruin your chances of having children, you should stay home and let the phone ring to their aspiration to be like men. 

Their story, narrated by their chaperone, who to conformity had to give up her own dreams, chronicled their experience highlighting the plight of how far women have come and the miles ahead that haven’t been touched. In a time where looking pretty and aspiring to be only a housewife were the expectation of women, it was refreshing reading characters who represent the strength of women who had an inner voice strong enough to believe in themselves when no one else did. They each had their own story to tell but collectively shared the same characteristics of strength, determination, willpower and a drive to achieve beyond what others couldn’t.

Some of you might shy away because you may think this book may just be for people who love sports but it’s more than that. It’s a well written narrative that even though if you don’t relate to the characters you can appreciate what they wanted to be and what they wanted to do with their life. These are characters that you can be inspired by because with all that they went through, it takes a special kind of person to push through that sort of pressure where your success determines everyone’s fate.

Reviewed by Michelle Bowles

Book Information
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Publication date: 10/22/2013
Pages: 192

Review: Family Matters by Christine Campbell

Summary
Sarah’s husband, Tom, disappeared without trace eleven years ago.

Now her son, David has died.

Tom appears at David’s funeral and tries to reestablish contact, which Sarah refuses but Kate, her daughter accepts. The growing closeness between Kate and her father worries Sarah because she believes that Tom is dishonest and unreliable, at best.

Then Sarah finds David’s diary and follows the steps he took in search of his father.

It becomes a journey of self-discovery: what she uncovers forces Sarah to reassess her view of herself, her origins and her certainties.

A relationship novel, but also a detection novel with a difference: this story traces a woman’s drive to uncover and understand the truth about a family she thought she knew…her own.

Review
When Sarah’s ex-husband, Tom, disappeared 11 years ago, he left her heartbroken with two young kids to take care. Not knowing what had happened, she went on with life the best she could. Then one day, tragedy came by news that her son David has died. While at the funeral, Tom resurfaces with the attempt to make amends but Sarah will have no part of it. Kate, their daughter decides differently and welcomes the invitation against the advice of her mom.

As Sarah struggles to deal with David’s death, while in his room, she finds a diary that details his life leading up to his death. In attempt to find out what happened, she discovers not only was he looking for his father but it took her on an introspective path that uncovered many secrets that changed her life forever.

The book was definitely multi-dimensional with the story being told. There are aspects of the book that I think will resonate with some people who have experienced what Sarah has. For those who ever lost a child can relate to that feeling of guilt and what ifs with internal blame. If you have ever been in a position where the death is unknown, that quest to find answers can really challenge a person’s strength. The evolution of Sarah dealing with her grief not only with the death of her son but also the husband who abandoned her made an interesting read.

Once you get going in the book, there are several layers of this story that gets peeled away that add little twists and turns that make the story engaging. The characters are well defined with depth that enable you to escape into their story with the intrigue to learn more about them and want to follow their journey. There is a section where there is a strong dialect that might be challenging but other than that it’s a quick read I think you will enjoy.

Reviewed by Michelle Bowles

Book Information
Publication date: 12/8/2008
Pages: 284

Review: Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

It’s quite hard to sum up a novel like Winter’s Tale, because it’s like attempting to sum up the world. Too many things are going on simultaneously, and every specific instance needs our constant attention. However, I’ll try to represent this wonderful story as faithfully and clearly as possible. Due to this, I’ve decided to combine the synopsis and review. 

Let’s begin with Peter Lake—he’s from immigrant parents who were not granted admission on Ellis Island due to being marked with consumption. Ingeniously, his parents steal a model-sized ship named The City of Justice, place him within it, and set him afloat towards a (hopefully) better future. He is found and taken in by the Baymen of the Bayonne Marsh until he comes of age—which is remarkably younger than what we’re used to. They send him to Manhattan, then, to make his own way in the world—he ends up learning a trade (as a mechanic) and being forcibly employed by a gang called The Short Tails. He unfortunately makes a brutal enemy of the gang’s mysterious, crazed, and color-obsessed leader, Pearly Soames, who, from there on out, hunts Peter Lake. He is saved by a mythical white horse; his name is later discovered to be Athansor, a powerful and otherworldly being. He meets a girl named Beverly Penn, a dying heiress, visionary, and beauty. They fall in love instantly, and are together until her untimely death. There are others, too—Virginia Gamely, whose daughter is ultimately brought back to life by Peter Lake, much later in the novel. There is Jackson Mead, a master engineer of bridges, who, turns out, isn’t all that human. There is also Hardesty Marratta, a run-a-way, once-heir from San Francisco. But there are so many other wonderfully-depicted characters throughout—it would take a novel in itself to describe all of their intricacies and important roles in Winter’s Tale, so I’ll stop there, and let your discover them for yourself.

In its essence, Winter’s Tale is a love letter to New York City. It isn’t based in our world, but a world that closely resembles ours. It’s ripe with the magical, mythological, and the impossible made commonplace. One of the things I enjoyed most is the narrative’s lyricism. It is quite honestly some of the most beautiful prose ever written. It fits in snugly with the otherworldly quality of the novel, raising the prose to match the novel’s core concepts and themes: justice, fantasy, time, love, and universal connections. It’s comforting in its own way because everything, despite how minor it may seem, is connected to the continuous, fluid motion of the universe. 

There are so many fantastic phrases in this novel. I found myself stopping after each paragraph, jotting down lines, mind-blowing metaphors, words I’d never come across before and longed to read again and again. This novel is for the story-lover, in that, it isn’t based in realism, but something far more powerful: hope. Don’t allow the fantasy element to dissuade you from reading it. Because it’s far more than an epic: it’s an all-encompassing love story, a study on justice and its many cruelties and benefits, and most importantly, a dream of a book that you’ll wish to never wake up from. 

Reviewed by M.B. Sellers

Book Information
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date: 1/7/2014
Pages: 768

Review: Havana Lost by Libby Fischer Hellmann

Book Summary
On the eve of the Cuban Revolution, headstrong 18-year-old Francesca Pacelli flees from her ruthless Mafia-boss father in Havana to the arms of her lover, a rebel fighting with Fidel Castro. Her father, desperate to send her to safety in the US, resorts to torture and blackmail as he searches the island for her.So begins the first part of a spellbinding saga that spans three generations of the same family. Decades later, the family is lured back to Cuba by the promise of untold riches. But pursuing those riches brings danger as well as opportunity, and ultimately, Francesca's family must confront the lethal consequences of their choices. From the troubled streets of Havana to the mean streets of Chicago, HAVANA LOST reveals the true cost of chasing power instead of love.

HAVANA LOST is award-winning author Libby Fischer Hellmann's tenth novel and third thriller that explores how strife and revolution affect the human spirit. HAVANA LOST is a testament to Hellmann's gift for authentic historical detail as well as her talent for writing compulsively readable thrillers.

Review
From an author who has gotten such high praise for her preceding work, I must say this book was everything that I had hoped it would be. Going into this book, I had my reservations about books that are rooted from history especially ones that took place during the time of this novel, but the proof is in the pages. Well written, thoroughly impressed with her historical representation based upon her extensive research, Havana Lost has all the elements that would excite and engage the reader. Not only a novel rich from its historical references but she really creates an environment for the reader that places you right in the moment. You definitely get swept up in the lives of the characters and what’s going on. Her characters are not only full of life but multi layered, spanning over three generations that entice the reader with its compulsive and addicting story line of love, rebellion, survival, loyalty and redemption. Once you start reading, you will not want to put it down. I recommend this book for all readers especially those who love historical fiction.

Reviewed by Michelle Bowles

Book Information
Publisher: The Red Herrings Press
Publication date: 8/16/2013
Pages: 300