My February Wrap-Up
21:45
We've reached the time of year where my reading progressively slows until exams are over and summer arrives (not to mention February is three days shorter than the average month) so I'm allowed to have only read three books this month right...? Right. On a more positive note, two of the three I recommend you read so let's get straight into the book gushing, and the book trashing...
Falling into Place
- by Amy Zhang
3.5/5.0 stars
~
On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road.
Why? Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? Vividly told by an unexpected and surprising narrator, this heartbreaking and nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force—Liz didn’t understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesn’t understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect?
Suicide isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. You don't get away with all the shit you've put people through and automatically earn your redemption by killing yourself because you don't have the courage to face up to your sins. "Falling into Place" kind of gives the message that actually, yes, if you feel bad enough about all the bad things that are catching up with you in life, and it makes you feel so bad that you think life will be better without you in it, you're given a free pass. But no, Liz Emerson didn't earn her redemption. She is one of the most unlikeable characters I have come across. Her mistakes and shortcomings that make her hate herself didn't make me sympathise with her in the slightest - in fact, it made me hate her. What made this book a cruel read wasn't the downward spiral and internal battles that Liz is fighting, but the way that she treated people. She literally destroyed people's lives. She was a bully who abused her position of "power" in high school to put people in their place and it was, quite honestly, horrible to read. There was no excuse for her behaviour, and each time she acknowledged that her actions were outright awful, she'd go ahead and do the next outright awful thing anyway until one day she just decided that she wasn't worthy of life because of aforementioned awful things so she'd just drive her Mercedes off the road. It just didn't sit well with me; I shouldn't be forced to feel sorry for a girl who tried to commit suicide simply because she couldn't try to be a better person and instead chose the easy way out. It was so frustrating to read. I couldn't buy into this story of mental illness because honestly, I think it did it a whole lot of injustice.
That being said, it was a compelling read. It's written pretty damn well; from the past-to-present snapshot structure, to the mysterious choice of narrator, to the word choice, Falling into Place is a well-built, solid read that I feel is important for reasons other than the suicide angle. While I couldn't be okay with the suicide element itself, the pivotal message of how our actions impact others, how bullying and unkind words can tear apart a person's life, how our insignificant selves can literally have power over another, hit a nerve. And I guess that was the point of the book. The domino effect that we can set in motion at any moment in time with a small word or action, that could save or take a person's life. It may be not be a likeable read with a likeable protagonist, but it sure as hell is an important one.
Badger
- by C. M. McKenna
5.0/5.0 stars
~
"Badger"...the story of a recovering pill addict whose compulsive fascination with a Boston antihero spirals out of control
"Badger" is undoubtedly going to make my list of 2017 favourite reads and, dare I say it, a book that I will always revere for twisted, messed up reasons that I couldn't even begin to explain. It tells the story of Boston's infamous secret bicyclist vigilante known only as the Badger who devotes his days and nights to punishing people; fighting violence with violence, he relishes any opportunity to dish out his own form of revenge on people who, in his not-so-humble opinion, deserve it. He is Boston's own Batman - except that his heroism doesn't stem from a deep sense of humanity, but is instead driven by his selfish needs, a warped thirst for pain and an outlet for pent-up rage that would otherwise burn him up from the inside out.
Adrian Birch is a recovering pill addict; twelve months sober from her Vicodin addiction, she is on the path to rebuild her life and redeem herself from the mistakes that drag her down and consume her with guilt. Her self-esteem at rock bottom, she feels like a nobody. But then her life collides with the notorious Badger when she breaks her wrist in a hit-and-run accident that he avenges and she finds herself on an instant mission to learn of the secret identity of the mysterious vigilante who haunts the streets of Boston. Staging a suicide, she creates a stream of chance run-ins, wrought with an inexplicable need to strip this man of his secrets and before they know it, the two are wrapped up in a harsh game of push-and-pull; the love affair that follows, tainted by misplaced lust and a sick desire to fix what's so deeply broken on the inside, triggers a vicious cycle that neither of them can control and its not long before the spark that ignited in that very first "chance" encounter goes up in flames...
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| | “My name is Adrian Birch, and I used to be nobody. An apologist, a coward. Then I met a madman on a bicycle and I lost my mind, lost my way, got my heart broken and my head rewired, and woke from a nightmare of my own design, fear gone like an ex-lover I’d never spread my legs for again.” |
This. Book.
I can't.
It put my emotions through the wringer and left my heart to bleed dry. The evocative quality of C M McKenna's writing makes a twisted tale read like a beautiful piece of prose. Because it is, in every sense of the word, twisted. It is a dysfunctional, toxic romance that ensues between two highly dysfunctional people that leaves poison in the veins and blood between the teeth and yet. And yet there is...something. Because I shouldn't have wanted these two characters to get together but dammit I really wanted them to get together. They are damaged, so beyond broken by a world that has failed them and when they try to fit the jagged, splintered, cracked-glass pieces of their past, present and future together, they somehow fill the cracks that a cruel world and cruel people have imparted. But love, humanity, affection, the simple notion of emotion is foreign to at least one of the two in this complicated affair and so begins the tug of war as they try to fight this enigmatic pull that exists between them like a secret of its own. It is brutal and compelling and intense; I was thoroughly engrossed by their unbalanced, unconventional relationship that left my emotions in a tangled mess because man is this book dark. It's ugly and merciless - ugly, repulsive and horrifying to a degree that made it difficult to endure. It is physically painful to move past the gritty, disturbing nature of this book which make it such an achingly heart-breaking read. It is brutally raw and thoroughly unhinged and when I read its last line, I was gripped by an intense need to read it all over again because I just couldn't let it go. It deserves to stand alone on a bookshelf because never before have I read something so acutely different that steers clear of the tropes, cliches and cardboard-cut characters that exist in any other form of fiction.
This book gutted me. There's a certain power to it that I can't place and every instinct in me is telling me to not recommend it to anyone because it is not one for the faint-hearted, and it will make your blood run cold, but I'm gonna go ahead and recommend it anyway. Because it's just that good.
This book gutted me. There's a certain power to it that I can't place and every instinct in me is telling me to not recommend it to anyone because it is not one for the faint-hearted, and it will make your blood run cold, but I'm gonna go ahead and recommend it anyway. Because it's just that good.
Clam Jam
- by R. C. Boldt
1.0/5.0 stars
~
Clam Jam
Definition: the female equivalent of a cock block.
Example: You're chatting with a guy you're interested in and your friend comes along and lays claim to him.
Maggie
That's my life except it's worse. My friend who keeps jamming me is my gay roommate, and if that isn't a W.T.F. moment, I'm not sure what is.
Fact: He went home with three yes, three of the guys I had been so sure were into me.
Fact: He's really pissing me off. I mean, hello? I'm trying to get back in the saddle, but I'll never manage to get a boyfriend before the age of fifty if he keeps this up.
Fact: Secretly, I wonder what it would be like if he weren't gay. Why do all the hot, sweet, tender-hearted guys have to be gay?
Fact: My gay-dar needs a serious tune-up.
Ry
The day I interviewed for the room to rent, everything changed. I knew I had met the girl, except there was one small problem: she didn't want anything to do with men. I recognized a top-notch force field when I saw one. She'd been burned badly and didn't want to deal with a heterosexual guy as a roommate. I could've turned around and found another place to live, but I wanted to live there with her.
So I had to go undercover.
Fact: I'm in love with my roommate.
Fact: I'm a likely candidate for carpal tunnel surgery since all the action I've had for the past year has been my hand.
Fact: She's going to hate me if I come clean now.
Fact: I'm not giving up. Which means I'll just have to continue to run defense until I figure out a way to get Maggie to see the real me.
The me that loves her.
The me that would never do her wrong.
Until then, I'll keep running off every guy who shows any interest.
Until then, I'll continue to Clam Jam.
^ That synopsis right there. That synopsis is what sells a book - it promises something that isn't your standard, run-of-the-mill chick lit and it also promises an off-the-charts entertainment factor. This is going to be a quick review because it just so happens though that that synopsis is the only good thing about this damn book. It has to be the worst - if not the worst chick-lit that I have ever read. Ironically, it was dull as hell. The plot was headed nowhere and ended up being a love story - with a serious case of insta-love that was an instant DNF alarm bell ringing about 5% in to the story - that simply didn't hold up. An insight into how bland it was; it's 1% Maggie's roommate, Ryland, pretending to be gay and the remaining 99% is repetitive alternating internal monologues of how they each want to be spending every waking minute with the other. God it was awful. The narratives were bland and cringe-worthy; the characters read like they were angsty hormonal teenagers instead of mature 26-year old adults (not to mention that the hero is borderline creepy - he watches her from his workplace window through a pair of binoculars for God's sake and claims she's The One when he secretly watches her on her coffee dates with her fiance prior to their meeting - I mean....). If that doesn't tell you how bad this story is, I don't know what will. Bad plot execution, boring romance, thinly disguised stereotyping and a sickeningly sweet over-the-top hero (who, again, is borderline creepy but not creepy..?) that made the whole thing beyond cheesy, it was an effort to not roll my eyes in public with every page I turned.
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