Review: Stolen by Lucy Christopher

I had been hearing a lot of buzz about this book and was so excited to read it. I only knew a little bit about the book—that it is about a teenage girl who is kidnapped and that there is something unusual and interesting about her captor—but people were so excited about it, I knew I had to read it. It took FOREVER (or it seemed like it, perhaps I was overexcited and impatient) for it to come in for me at the library, and when I finally got it, I dove right in and didn't stop until I was done.

I've read a few books about kidnappings, but never one like this. The story is written as a letter from Gemma to Ty, which is really helpful in understanding Gemma and her complicated relationship to Ty. I never expected to end up with Gemma and Ty in the Australian outback, but like many other aspects of this novel, its location is probably one of the most vivid and memorable I have read.

Ty is one of the most interesting characters I think I have ever read. You hate him, but don't; he's crazy, but he's not; he's aggressive, but gentle. Like Gemma, my feelings for Ty were so complex that I didn't even feel like I completely understood them.

More than just a story about a kidnapping, Lucy Christopher's novel is a complete eye-opener. Through Gemma's story, she is able to take what we all know as the truth and flip it so we, as well as Gemma, are not sure what is actually right and what is wrong.

Definitely 5 stars for this book!

I still exist!

Hey everyone! Now that I've fallen off the planet for a while, I'm happy to say I'm back! The end of this summer has been so crazy at work (I also got away to Vermont for a family reunion!) that I haven't had a chance to really read, let alone post about reading!

I'm looking forward to the school year starting and things settling down a bit so I can get back to reading and blogging! :)

In My Mailbox 8/1

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren.
Can you believe it's August already? Where are you going summer? Anyway, here are all the books that fell onto my TBR pile this week:

For review (on my nook):

The Absolute Value of -1 by Steven Brezenoff (ARC)

Tyger Tyger by Kersten Hamilton

From my aunt (one of my best book suppliers)

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

From the library:

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

I think that's it! Can't wait to see what everyone else got this week :)

Book Trailer: The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff

So I've been talking quite a bit about this book lately, but here is the book trailer for The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff featuring Brezenoff's own drawings. My review of the book will be up on Monday!

Blog Hopping!

My favorite new-to-me author this year is John Green. I read both Looking for Alaska and Will Grayson Will Grayson this year and absolutely fell in love!

Fragment Friday 7/30

This week's fragment is from The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff.

Fragment Friday is a weekly meme hosted by James of Book Chic Club.

Review: Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

Wildthorn by Jane Eagland
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2010
352 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5

From Goodreads:

Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove longs to break free from her respectable life as a Victorian doctor's daughter. But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labeled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key...

I didn't really know what to expect from Wildthorn.  I don't usually read historical YA fiction, so it was a very different read for me. I also found the book to be incredibly refreshing because of this—a young character with all of the troubles we're used to seeing in teens (family problems, identity issues, the struggle to fit in, the discovery of love) but set in a world we've all read about in classics.

Most of the characters were extremely frustrating and one-sided, though that only brought me closer to Louisa. Though I normally would want a bit more out of the secondary characters, in this case I think I was able to relate more to Louisa because they were so impossible to like.

The story is exciting and fast-moving, for the most part. Once I got into it, I had a hard time putting it down. I do think sometimes the relationships between characters suffer because the book moves so quickly—I found the relationships developing almost out of nowhere as the story moved. Other than that, I really appreciated how exciting the story was.

Wildthorn is structured between the present story and flashbacks to Louisa's childhood and near past. At the beginning of the story before the action at Wildthorn really starts, these flashback chapters are frequent and serve to lead up to the present action. However, once Louisa is at Wildthorn, the flashback chapters sort of disappear. They return later, almost surprisingly, and I felt that I had been missing an important aspect of the book without them.

Overall, I really enjoyed Wildthorn. It was a very different read from what I'm used to and had a very exciting and often thrilling story.