Dear Vincent, How did you bear knowing that your parents found you difficult and strange?

 Dear Vincent  by Mandy Hager

 ***** Love this book!  It’s a brave subject to tackle, and Mandy Hager has done it so well.

The storyline: Tara’s family is suffering. Her father had a severe stroke 6 years ago, then a year later, when Tara was 12, her beloved older sister was killed. Tara’s Mum is cold, bitter and shows no love for Tara, refusing to speak of her dead daughter. She works long night-shift hours to try and keep the family afloat. Tara, too, works part-time after school, and spends most of her home time caring for her wheel-chaired father, “a dough ball of resentment. There is a gritty meanness in his eyes sometimes. Or worse, a bottomless sadness – the kind that rakes your soul”.  Tara is also a gifted artist, loves Vincent Van Gogh, and is able to express some of her deep emotional turmoil in her paintings. Then , aged 17, Tara finds out the truth about her sister’s death – she killed herself.  Tara is plunged into despair, but with the help of some amazing characters, especially Max, an elderly man at the rest home where she works, and his grandson, she is able to come to terms with her grief and learn about her parents tragic past.

Characters –  gritty, flawed yet redeemable, real
Plot – gripping from the opening lines, grim but with hope
Writing style – smooth, allows the story and characters to unfold and engross you, without any unnecessary padding.

This novel gets 5 out of 5 stars from me!

In her author’s note, Mandy says:  “I once lost someone I loved very much to suicide….It causes a hurt in people’s lives that never fully goes away. Suicide doesn’t just destroy one life: it’s a tidal wave that sweeps up everyone in its path.” 
Great interview with Mandy Hager on My best friends are books blog

The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.

        

The knife of never letting go;  The Ask and the Answer;  Monsters of Men (The Chaos Walking trilogy) by Patrick Ness

I have just finished reading Patrick Ness’s adult novel, The crane wife, and it didn’t blow me away like his Chaos Walking trilogy (or A Monster calls) which were written as teen books – and just happen to be about the best books I’ve ever read!!!

Summary: “Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee — whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not — stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden — a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.  But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?”

So here’s why I think  you should read these three books (and you simply must read them in order, as the plot and world-building are quite complex, and books 1 & 2 end on really treacherous cliff-hangers).

• The plot is fast-paced, terrifying, heart-breaking and the Noise is such a unique concept
• You really come to care for the 2 central characters, Todd and Viola, and the terrible choices they must make
• You’ll laugh, sob, cheer and flinch in horror
• You find yourself questioning all that you thought you believed in – even the “bad guys” in these books evoke your sympathy
• All is not black and white – just like real life

The River of Time series: time-travel, action, danger and romance!

         

Waterfall; Cascade; Torrent (The River of Time series) by Lisa T. Bergren

Every summer of their lives, the Betarrini sisters have spent their vacation in Italy with their archaeologist parents. Gabi and Lisa, now teenagers, are bored stuck amongst archaeological ruins. But things are about to get exciting beyond their wildest imagination! When Gabi places her hands on an ancient tomb, she and Lisa are transported back in time to 14^th Century Italy, arriving in the midst of a fierce battle between knights of the Forelli and Paratore clans. They are caught up in all the action, danger and romance. 

Mixed reviews for this series, from, “This book is so good! The entire series is good! I wish I could find more books like this!” and this, “Sighhhhhh. What can I say? This book has got to be one of the best books I’ve read this year. Full of adventure, suspense, and of course, romance… I couldn’t put it down” to “DNF. This has to go down as one of the silliest, if not the silliest novel ever written in the history of YA fiction.” (Comments courtesty of goodreads website).  Only way to find out – read them for yourself, and then add your comment here on teenwairead.

The 5th wave – they are coming for us. All of us!

  The 5th wave by Rick Yancey

Cassie’s world has been ripped apart. Her parents are dead and her younger brother captured by the aliens who have invaded Earth and destroyed billions of people.

“On a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs. Runs from the beings that only look human, who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan may be her only hope.” Can Evan help Cassie in her quest to find and rescue her little brother?

For the first half of this book I was thinking, why has it had such glowing reviews?  Normally I don’t persevere for so long, but I kept thinking, surely this must improve if so many reviewers have raved over it.  Well, it did improve a little and roused enough interest in me that I wanted to find out what was going to happen to the 4 central characters. 

My gripes:  I just couldn’t get close to Cassie – couldn’t build up a picture of her in my head or come close to sharing her hopes and fears, and she sure had some big ones!  Even though she had just lost her parents, and her little brother had been taken away, the writing wasn’t good enough to make me feel her pain. And Evan reminded me of Edward in Twilight – watching, stalking, obsessed with Cassie.

The plot around the alien invasion: I kept thinking, have I missed something here? Was there an earlier book and this is no.2? For me, there was too much glossing over the first 4 waves, and too much left unexplained.  The invasion scenario was lacking in detail to the point that I could not buy into it.

One of the critics of this book compares it (unfavourably) to Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy, and that was also in my mind as I read The 5^th wave.  Because if you want to read a mind-stimulating, rip-your-guts-out, cannot-put-down series with characters you would lay down your soul for, then Ness’s trilogy does it so much better – for me anyway.

But these are only my thoughts on  The 5th wave and I’d love to hear what you think of it – did you love it or think, meh? Want to add your comments? – use the wee speech bubble out to the top right.

Hostage 3: the price of life and its value are two very different things!

                  

Three books with the common theme of hostages, up on my new books shelf and available now!

Hostage three by Nick Lake.  A girl on a yacht with her super-rich banker father; a chance for the family to heal after a turbulent time; the peaceful sea, the warm sun… But a nightmare is about to explode as a group of Somali pirates seizes the boat and its human cargo – and the family becomes a commodity in a highly sophisticated transaction. Hostage 1 is Dad – the most valuable. Amy is Hostage 3.  As she builds a strange bond with one of her captors, it becomes brutally clear that the price of a life and its value are very different things.

Hostage ( Bodyguard series no.1) by Chris Bradford.    No one suspects that a 14-year-old could protect someone, but Connor is no ordinary teenager. He’s a bodyguard, trained in martial arts, surveillance, and  hostage survival. When he is hired to protect the President’s daughter, his skills face the ultimate test. Alicia doesn’t want to be guarded, she wants to have fun, and she doesn’t know that Connor is her bodyguard. When she tries to lead him astray, she and Connor are in danger from a terrorist cell. Its mission: to take the President’s daughter hostage.

The lethal target (The Malichea Quest book 3) by Jim Eldridge.   Since Jake found out about the secret Order of Malichea, he has been hounded by dangerous forces. Jake’s girlfriend, Lauren is being held hostage by Russians who are hunting down a book that holds the key to a deadly formula. Jake must protect Lauren, but can he stop her captors from creating one of the world’s most lethal weapons?