Book Review: A Need so Beautiful by Suzanne Young

A Need So Beautiful by Suzanne Young

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Let me start by saying I really wanted to give this book 5 stars, but couldn't for some reasons which I'll discuss in a moment.

Suzanne Young can really write. It's the WOW kind of writing I felt when I read Hunger Games, or Before I Fall, or Night World. Just beautiful. Suzanne tells Charlotte's story in a way that make you believe it's real...or could be. The character development is simply amazing. Each character has its own distinct voice and you can almost see them, even those you only meet for a few paragraphs. Also, Suzanne give you just enough information, just enough stuff happens, to keep you begging for more to find out the final outcome. Even until the very end, you aren't 100% sure what Charlotte will do. I know there is a sequel to this book and I will definitely get it out from the library.

So, why didn't I give it 5 stars? The writing is stellar. The characters are solid. The plot is paced perfectly. So why not the full 5 stars?

Well, I'm going to try my best to explain. This book is written for teens. I know teens experiment with everything from sex to alcohol to drugs and more. I know they see these things on t.v., in the tabloids, in school, and in books. It's all there, so why try to hide it and pretend it's not?

Because not everything needs to glorify or normalize those behaviors. I really hoped and expected this book to have more of a moral compass than it did. I mean, the girl is supposed to be love and light and goodness embodied. She's supposed to choose good things. And yet she has premarital sex, her best friend is involved in sexual acts and alcohol abuse, and her brother and another character are openly gay. Now, please, I'm not a gay hater BUT I don't think books which are geared toward our impressionable youth need to be so mainstream and try to 'fit' the modern media-produced image of what's acceptable for teens. The same goes with the sex stuff. By putting all of these behaviors in a book about choosing what is right over wrong, or light over darkness, it makes these actions acceptable and okay. It even kind of glorifies them.

See, I truly don't think this story would be any less beautiful without the sex stuff. In fact, it would've been maybe more beautiful because I could've shared the story with my daughter. And the gay characters were given that character trait unnecessarily. They would be no less appreciated, no less loved, if they'd been straight instead. Their issues/problems would still have been real and hard to deal with. It is just an attempt at being mainstream which really just made the story less beautiful in my eyes.

The drug and alcohol abuse shown in the story was done in a way that made it known to be a negative choice. A junkie mother was going to lose her daughter. The teen drinking alcohol becomes seriously ill and loses her freedoms, friends, and even the school she was going to. Negative consequences for negative choices and for that, I was okay with it being in this book.

So, as I've said, the writing is amazing, the story unique, and the characters fleshed out and believeable. I only wish the story was a little cleaner so I could let my children read it. I definitely plan to read the next book A Want So Wicked and anything else Suzanne Young writes.



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Book Review: Firelight by Sophie Jordan

Firelight by Sophie Jordan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book earlier this year in April.  I loved it so much that I gave it to my daughter to read, and she loved it too.  I recently got book 2 for her from the library (which she devoured in a day) and, upon her recommendation, re-read book 1 before starting book 2.  Not that the reader needs a refresher for book 2, but because book 1 is  just so amazing.  Now, I normally don't like to re-read books, especially not when I've read it so recently and have such a long list of to-be-read books already, but I'm so glad I did!

Sophie Jordan is an amazing storyteller.  The tension she created between Jace and Will is swoon worthy.  Jace's own confusion regarding her feelings (what they mean for her and what she's willing to do for them) leaves the reader anxious to find out what happens next.  And the world of dragons and hunters she introduced is fascinating - ancient and mysterious yet so believable as to seem real.

Every decision Jace makes has consequences, some good, some bad, some really bad.  The decision to break a rule and fly in the morning sky starts the action in this story.  It acts as a snowball released at the top of a mountain, gaining volume and velocity as it speeds down, causing an avalanche with truly devastating effects.  I loved the cliffhanger at the end of book 1.  It left me heartbroken, hopeful, and anxious to read more.  I'm so glad I have book 2 (Vanish) to start right away, as I'm looking forward to learning more about the world of dragons and what Jace's decisions mean for the pride.  But my daughter says Vanish's ending will have me dying to get my hands on book 3 (Hidden), which Sophie just finished revising but won't be available until next year sometime.  She also claims Vanish will have me changing teams, but I'm devoted to Will.  I mean, he made her breakfast!  We shall see...

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Book Review: Angel Burn by L.A.Weatherly

Angel Burn by L.A. Weatherly

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Angels have there wicked schemes, and L.A. Weatherly takes them to new extremes. The angels exist and have come to help...themselves to humankind as their food source. And there's only one alive who can stop them. That sounds like a great story to me! I really, really wanted to love this book. And, at first, I did. Then, things got so predictable and repetitive, my budding love for it died.

Don't get me wrong, this is a great book (funky font type aside) and a truly enjoyable read, especially for the younger YA group as it is mostly clean and wholesome. The romantic scenes are sweet and chaste. The male character, Alex, occasionally uses foul language but doesn't seem to make it a habit. Also, the story idea is unique. Angels are a hot commodity in books these days, as are the half-breed Nephilim.

Angel Burn takes angels to a whole new plane…literally. They exist on the ethereal plane as angels but in human form on the non-ethereal plane. But the coolest thing about these angels is that they're actually aliens. They are fleeing their home world and entering earth via a gateway (I think of Stargate when I imagine the gateway, only without the ring). The bad thing about these angels is that they aren’t here to protect us; they’re here to feed off of us. The side effect of their touch, if it isn’t instant death, is Angel Burn – either a cult-like love for the angels or a wide variety of diseases which will eventually lead to death. And this is only the beginning. One wave of angel refugees has come through already, but more are on their way.

Enter the need for the protagonist, Willow, and her love interest, Alex. Willow is a misfit. A teenage girl who fixes cars, wears thrift-shop clothes, and happens to be psychic. Alex is a hunky teenager who happens to be an angel assassin, one sent to kill Willow. But he ends up unable to complete his task once he discovers that she isn't what he thought she'd be. The two end up on a road trip, which I personally found hilarious thanks to Kiersten White’s recent blog post about rules of the YA genre & their basic plots. Kiersten, you were right on the nose for this one! The road trip ends with Willow risking her life to save all humanity. I won’t spoil it any further by telling you how this book ends, but I will tell you it was left wide open for a sequel, one I don’t plan on buying or borrowing any time soon.

To end this review on a happy note, I will say that I loved how the story was told. The reader sees the story through Willow’s first-person point of view part of the time. We also get to see the story in third person omnipresent pov primarily through Alex’s perspective and occasionally through a few other characters. The switches were handled extremely well and made the pace remain enjoyable enough to want to finish the book.

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