Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe, by Preston Norton ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Bullying, Child Abuse, Contemporary Fiction, Drug Abuse, High School, Homophobia, Humor, Religious Fanaticism, Suicide, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 5th, 2018

400 Pages

Synopsis: Cliff Hubbard is a huge loser. Literally. His nickname at Happy Valley High School is Neanderthal because he’s so enormous—-6’6” and 250 pounds to be exact. He has no one at school and life at his trailer park home has gone from bad to worse since his older brother’s suicide.

There’s no one Cliff hates more than the nauseatingly cool quarterback, Aaron Zimmerman. Then Aaron returns to school after a near-death experience with a bizarre claim: while he was unconscious he saw God, who gave him a list of things to do to make Happy Valley High suck less. And God said there’s only one person who can help: Neanderthal.

To his own surprise, Cliff says he’s in. As he and Aaron make their way through the List, which involves a vindictive English teacher, a mysterious computer hacker, a decidedly unchristian cult of Jesus Teens, the local drug dealers, and the meanest bully at HVHS—-Cliff feels like he’s part of something for the first time since losing his brother. But fixing a broken school isn’t as simple as it seems, and just when Cliff thinks they’ve completed the List, he realizes their mission hits closer to home than he ever imagined.

Neanderthal Opens the Door To The Universe is one of those books that took me by surprise in regards to how much I liked it. While some of the dialogue is a little awkward and it’s intentionally filled with high school cliches, because of the well-rounded and relatable characters, interesting plot, and positive message, it has a certain charm to it that I think will appeal to a wide audience. The story tackles many social issues: suicide, drug abuse, religious fanaticism, homophobia, bullying, and child abuse. But it never devolves into an annoying after school special/soap opera. This is partly due to the dry humor that pervades the story, but also because the darker themes are balanced by the inspiring responses from the teenage characters.

In the end, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe is quite uplifting and it’s a story I won’t forget anytime soon. Because of the colorful language involved and dark topics, I wouldn’t recommend this for older teens. I think it’s a wonderful choice for high school classrooms, forthcoming summer reading lists, and book discussion groups.

Blackbird Season, by Kate Moretti ~ 3.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Autism, Bullying, Drug Abuse, Mystery, Poverty, Rape, Self-harm, Small Towns, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Release Date: September 26th, 2017

304 Pages

Synopsis:

Where did they come from? Why did they fall? The question would be asked a thousand times…

Until, of course, more important questions arose, at which time everyone promptly forgot that a thousand birds fell on the town of Mount Oanoke at all.

In a quiet Pennsylvania town, a thousand dead starlings fall onto a high school baseball field, unleashing a horrifying and unexpected chain of events that will rock the close-knit community.

Beloved baseball coach and teacher Nate Winters and his wife, Alecia, are well respected throughout town. That is, until one of the many reporters investigating the bizarre bird phenomenon catches Nate embracing a wayward student, Lucia Hamm, in front of a sleazy motel. Lucia soon buoys the scandal by claiming she and Nate are engaged in an affair, throwing the town into an uproar…and leaving Alecia to wonder if her husband has a second life.

And when Lucia suddenly disappears, the police only have one suspect: Nate.

Nate’s coworker and sole supporter, Bridget Harris, Lucia’s creative writing teacher, is determined to prove his innocence. She has Lucia’s class journal, and while some of the entries appear particularly damning to Nate’s case, others just don’t add up. Bridget knows the key to Nate’s exoneration and the truth of Lucia’s disappearance lie within the walls of the school and the pages of that journal.

The Blackbird Season has one of the creepiest openings I’ve ever come across, and while there were some slow periods and I thought the mystery was a bit predictable, it’s a great look at small town life and an interesting character study.

Please be warned there’s a lot of social issues examined that could be triggers for some readers including bullying, self-harm, drug abuse, poverty and rape. These are not gratuitously written in, but instead are layered in to the complicated tapestry that makes up this town.

Mount Oanoke, a small Pennsylvania mill town is your typical small town Americana, and depicts both the best and worst of living in rural areas. On the one hand, there’s less crime and people look out for one another. On the other, residents are gossipy, judgemental, and they’re losing their young people who flee to greener pastures as soon as they graduate. 

The story is told from the perspective of the four main characters: Nate, Alecia, Bridget and Lucia. Except for Bridget, none of these characters are one-hundred percent likable, although in the end I did wind up feeling sympathetic towards them, especially Lucia.

Nate is an ex-jock who at best shows some truly atrocious judgement and at worst is a neglectful father and husband. While I felt a modicum of sympathy for his predicament, his complete and utter cluelessness in regards to both his family and Lucia had me wanting to slap him more than once.

I initially disliked Nate’s wife, Alecia and frankly, found her to be kind of a witch. However, seeing her struggles trying to raise her five-year-old autistic son basically by herself, is heart wrenching and as the story unfolded I found myself appreciating what she was going through more.

Bridget is struggling herself having lost her husband to cancer the year before. She’s a loyal friend to both Nate and Alecia, and is one of the few adults who are truly concerned about Lucia.

And there’s eighteen-year-old Lucia. Just thinking of her even now, two days after I finished the book, brings me to tears. There’s no doubt she’s a prickly personality, and there are times that she certainly doesn’t do herself any favors, but she’s someone who from the beginning is never given a chance and watching what she goes through is heartbreaking.

The story itself is interesting and while I found the pace lagged at times, I still for the most part stayed engaged. While I wasn’t initially sure how the deaths of the blackbirds was related to the main plot, I liked the way the author managed to tie them in. I have mixed feelings regarding the ending though. While it answered the central mystery, there’s some side plots that I think could have been tied up a little more smoothly.

It probably sounds like I didn’t enjoy The Blackbird Season, But I actually did despite the issues I had with it. I would recommend this for not only fans of Kate Moretti’s previous books, but also readers who enjoy dark, multi-layered, slow-burning suspense.

Lost Girls ~ By Merrie Destefano – 4.5 Stars

Tags

Amnesia, Contemporary Fiction, Drug Abuse, Friendships, PTSD, Slavery, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Teen for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: January 3rd, 2017

360 Pages

Synopsis: Yesterday, Rachel went to sleep listening to Taylor Swift, curled up in her grammy’s quilt, worrying about geometry. Today, she woke up in a ditch, bloodied, bruised, and missing a year of her life. 

She doesn’t recognize the person she’s become: she’s popular. She wears nothing but black.

Black to cover the blood.

And she can fight.

Tell no one.

She’s not the only girl to go missing within the last year…but she’s the only girl to come back. She desperately wants to unravel what happened to her, to try and recover the rest of the Lost Girls.

But the more she discovers, the more her memories return. And as much as her new life scares her, it calls to her. Seductively. The good girl gone bad, sex, drugs, and raves, and something darker…something she still craves–the rush of the fight, the thrill of the win–something she can’t resist, that might still get her killed…

The only rule is: There are no rules.

Lost Girls is being hyped as a cross between Black Swan and Fight Club, and while such comparisons often irk me, in this case it’s entirely on the mark. Even more, the story is actually better than what the intriguing premise suggests. I started reading this around 7:00 last night and couldn’t put it down until I had reached the end in the wee hours of the morning! The story begins with a dirty, bloody, and battered Rachel pulling herself out of a roadside ditch and basically throwing herself in front of passing motorists to get them to stop. It’s the type of opening that immediately grabs you, and from there the pace never slows down. Rachel is one of the most intriguing characters I’ve read this year. She has a powerhouse of a personality and I became completely invested in finding out what happened to her. The romance between her and Dylan is not your typical one which made me like it even more. I also loved her interactions with her close knit family, especially her younger brother and her Navy Seal father. Which brings me to my only slight criticism. Rachel’s mom is a nurse, and her father a war hero who’s seen plenty of combat, yet once the mystery of what Rachel’s been doing the past year is fully revealed, I found it a little hard to accept that her loving parents didn’t know or at least suspect what was happening. But this is a very small complaint in what is otherwise an outstanding novel. The imagery is incredibly detailed from that first scene to the very last. More than once I felt as though I was in the story experiencing everything the characters were. There’s a lot of themes at play here: amnesia, PTSD, slavery, drug abuse, etc. but it’s all combined into the mesmerizing storyline in a completely believable way. Technically Lost Girls is a YA book, but honestly, it could easily pass as one for adults and it’s one I highly recommend!