{Review} Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Title: Boy Meets Boy

Author: David Levithan

Format: Library, paperback

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

Date Read: August 27th, 2013

Rating: ✭✭✭

This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance.

When Paul meets Noah, he thinks he’s found the one his heart is made for. Until he blows it. The school bookie says the odds are 12-to-1 against him getting Noah back, but Paul’s not giving up without playing his love really loud. His best friend Joni might be drifting away, his other best friend Tony might be dealing with ultra-religious parents, and his ex-boyfriend Kyle might not be going away anytime soon, but sometimes everything needs to fall apart before it can really fit together right.

This is a happy-meaningful romantic comedy about finding love, losing love, and doing what it takes to get love back in a crazy-wonderful world.

Maybe I read Boy Meets Boy with the wrong perspective, I dunno, but I definitely did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would have. I think I expected more realism, something that is definitely lacking in this book. While it's not a bad book per-say, but it's not a very unrealistic one. 

Boy Meets Boy takes place in a sort of LGBT paradise, where there is no hate and gay boys can be extremely popular and trans girls are on the football team and almost no one hates on them. I can tell you for a fact that that's not how the real world works, or at least the large majority of it. 

karen's review explains what I'm going to try and say in the next few paragraphs very well so I suggest you go check it out before attempting to slog through my much less eloquent take on it.

As a gay teen, I definitely appreciated the break from reading about LGBT teens go through horrible, horrible acts of physical violence and verbal abuse. Boy Meets Boy was a happy, fluffy, cute read that made me really happy. The world of Boy Meets Boy was everything I could ever hope for, you know. A world where I can have a girlfriend in high school without risk of being hurt and socially outed. I dream of a world where I can be me without being bullied about it. 

Yet, I couldn't help but see how much of an unachievable utopia it was and it was kind of depressing. I read about how the home-coming queen can be the quarterback on the football team. But I can't help think about all the trans teens that are killed because of who they are and it almost makes it worse.
I'm not saying that BmB doesn't talk about serious topics such as familial intolerance but these are concealed by the overwhelming happiness in the book. It was almost overpowering at times like people get a grip, this is not High School Musical. 

While I really love how Levithan tried to change the norm of LGBT books but it made me almost sadder than a normal LGBT would make me because I know, this could never be real. The sheer unbelievable-ness of the scenario made the book as a whole less enjoyable than it would have been if it wasn't so... perfect.

But don't get me wrong, Boy Meets Boy has plenty of redeeming qualities to it. It's a cute and funny love story that explores the ups and downs of high school and of romance. The characters were really sweet and lovable as a whole. 

The love interest Noah is just a huge cutie and I love him. Paul was also very likable but as the story progressed, he really got on my nerves. Mostly because he messed up a lot because he was an absolute idiot when it comes to relationships. *sigh* Paul, you stupid ass.

Boy Meets Boy is an endearing, charming story that is worth the read even if it's bit too happy. It's a good fluff read and I would recommend it to be read directly after a tear-jearker because, damn if this doesn't make you happy nothing will.

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

{Review} Pantomime by Laura Lam

Title: Pantomime
Author: Laura Lam
Format: NetGalley e-book ARC
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Release date: February 5, 2013
Date Read: February 5, 2013
Rating: ✭✭✭✭

R. H. Ragona’s Circus of Magic is the greatest circus of Ellada. Nestled among the glowing blue Penglass—remnants of a mysterious civilisation long gone—are wonders beyond the wildest imagination. It’s a place where anything seems possible, where if you close your eyes you can believe that the magic and knowledge of the vanished Chimaera is still there. It’s a place where anyone can hide.

Iphigenia Laurus, or Gene, the daughter of a noble family, is uncomfortable in corsets and crinoline, and prefers climbing trees to debutante balls. Micah Grey, a runaway living on the streets, joins the circus as an aerialist’s apprentice and soon becomes the circus’s rising star.


But Gene and Micah have balancing acts of their own to perform, and a secret in their blood that could unlock the mysteries of Ellada

WEIRD PREREVIEW THINGIE

This review will hold spoilers but none that you won't find in any of the other "spoiler" reviews for this book. If you do not want to know about what the big twist is (which is actually revealed around 25 - 30% in), I suggest you skip this review as the spoilers for that will not be marked. The spoilers begin in the next paragraph. 

Personally, I feel like this "twist" should have been stated in the actual description. I would have been 100x more excited for this book, if I knew about the twist. In the description, it says:

Iphigenia Laurus, or Gene, the daughter of a noble family, is uncomfortable in corsets and crinoline, and prefers climbing trees to debutante balls. Micah Grey, a runaway living on the streets, joins the circus as an aerialist’s apprentice and soon becomes the circus’s rising star.

When I, like many other reviewers, first read this, I saw one thing: Gene x Micah. But the truth is, even though there is romance, it is not between Gene and Micah since they're, um, the same person. The protagonist is intersex. I really think that if this was in the description, it would be more popular because I'm sure there are others out there who wanted to read a YA book with an intersex protagonist.

I honestly do not understand why this is a secret since anyone who is paying a little bit of attention to the book would be able to realize this. Gene has not only similar physical qualities but the two "POVs" are pretty much the same. 

For a more in-depth assessment on why this "twist" should have been in the description read Experiment BL626's insightful review on why he thinks the same. Though I do not agree with every point, I do agree with many of them!

---

ACTUAL REVIEW THINGIE

PANTOMIME is a book that I've wanted to read ever since I first saw it on Cuddlebuggery. I got an ARC a long time ago but for some reason I could never get into it. It didn't help that I got the ARC during a bad time where I didn't - couldn't - read anything. 

But, when I finally got into a few days ago and finished it in a few hours like I always do in these stories.

PANTOMIME isn't the best book I've ever read. Something was missing throughout but I still enjoyed it very much. The best part of the novel, personally, is Micah, the main character. His troubles with his sexuality and identity were definitely my favourite part of the book.

Characters

Micah Grey, or Gene I suppose, is the intersex protagonist. Micah Grey is strong, smart, and just all-around amazing. I absolutely love him. The main focus of the novel is around Micah and his struggles with who he is. 

At times, the book could go very deep and get very depressing for a YA fantasy read. The only deepness I've seen in most YA fantasy is well... nothing. YA seems to save all the deep reads for contemp. reads. I felt really connected to Micah in this book, something that doesn't happen often - in any genre.
The supporting characters, Drystan and Aenea, were Micah's best friends also doubling as LIs. Though the romance is not the main focus of the book, there is a lot since the book revolves around sexuality and love, to a lesser but still prominent extent. Personally, I didn't mind this love triangle because it was barely portrayed as a love triangle, and by that I mean, Micah was not internally debating who he loved. *cough* Team Drystan *cough*

My favorite character, excluding the obvious Micah, was probably this one little side character who only had a few lines and pages. It was the little shopkeeper or stall keeper who took Micah in after he had run away. I don't know why I liked him, I just did.

Plot and Writing 

Plot

PANTOMIME is a very character based book, as YA books are slowly starting to do. The plot isn't very big. Micah isn't some mystical person, no one has supernatural powers, and there isn't a war. It's kind of hard to imagine but it's true.

There are a few hints of some more prominent plot in the second book, probably going to be about this ancient extinct race of Chimaera, who have a great magical power and this Vestige thing. *weird geeky reference warning* They sort of reminded me of the Dwemer from the TES series - in a good way of course.

The setting sort of reminded me of NIGHT CIRCUS but it was much less magical. PANTOMIME didn't have that mystical, magical feeling to it where it felt like Les Cirque des Rêves could be right outside your door.

Writing

It wasn't the most lyrical writing ever but for the book, it fit. It was emotional and expressed Micah's thoughts very clearly and well. I don't really have much to say on the writing since it was fairly average but not bad. No, the writing was very nice just I'm sure there could be... more.

Likes and Dislikes

Likes:

- Micah

- Characterization

- LGBTQIA aspect

Dislikes:

- It was still missing that part

In conclusion

Beautifully created, PANTOMIME is a masterpiece, which I full heartedly adore. The only thing keeping me from giving it a nice shiny five star rating is that I felt PANTOMIME was missing something. I'm not exactly sure what it is but it sure wasn't there. Still, I recommend this book to everyone and anyone.

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

{Review} The S-Word by Chelsea Pitcher

Title: The S-Word
Author:  Chelsea Pitcher
Format: NetGalley e-book ARC
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release date: May 7th 2013
Date Read: February 4th 2013
Rating: ✭✭✭

First it was SLUT scribbled all over Lizzie Hart’s locker.

But one week after Lizzie kills herself, SUICIDE SLUT replaces it —in Lizzie's looping scrawl.

Lizzie’s reputation is destroyed when she's caught in bed with her best friend’s boyfriend on prom night. With the whole school turned against her, and Angie not speaking to her, Lizzie takes her own life. But someone isn’t letting her go quietly. As graffiti and photocopies of Lizzie’s diary plaster the school, Angie begins a relentless investigation into who, exactly, made Lizzie feel she didn’t deserve to keep living.

And while she claims she simply wants to punish Lizzie’s tormentors, Angie's own anguish over abandoning her best friend will drive her deep into the dark, twisted side of Verity High—and she might not be able to pull herself back out.

Even though my rating doesn't really show it, THE S-WORD is a book that I really enjoyed. It's not perfect, as my rating shows, but it's very enjoyable. I would love to give THE S-WORD a full 4 star rating or even a nice shiny five star rating but I can't because it's my job as a reviewer to look deeper into a book. I've given plenty of books an initial 5 star rating and then dropped it to 4 or 3 (once I dropped a rating from 5 to 1 star) after I thought about it. 

The beginning of the book was addicting and all around amazing. If I just counted that part of the book, this would be a 5 star read. No doubts about it, the beginning to around 50% is a sure 5 star read. After that 50% mark however, the book started slipping. I began to skim a bit here and there and forget important details. I still enjoyed the book but I felt that I sort of had to push myself just to get to the next chapter. 

It became a chore to finish the book I had loved so much before. 

This lasted till the last 20% but then I found a whole newproblem. One that didn't go away after a few pages. It was called "predictability". In the last 20% all the big surprises were unveiled but I guessed every single one of them. It was so disappointing and sort of ruined the ending for me, causing me to deduct another star.

Characters

Angie had a lot of similarities to other main characters in books such as Sam from the heartbreaking and wonderful Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver and Chelsea Knot from the beautiful Speechless by Hannah Harrington. She was the bad girl, that high school bitch who rules the school. She was despicable like these girls started off as.

However, she didn't have such an impact on me as Chelsea or Sam did. Angie was just not a character who really resonated within me like Sam did. I only really felt something at the end where I almost cried. It was just so utterly heart breaking. The only thing I could think after I finished was:

and then...

and finally...

If you don't know me, I'm not exactly an emotional person. I'm what people call "heartless" and "unfeeling" (mostly when I tell them I didn't cry while/after/before reading THE FAULT IN OUR STARS). I get really unexpected feels when reading some books though. This was one. 

The other characters were, for the most part, interesting. I did enjoy many of them but for some, I just found them less then satisfactory. I can't really name any but there are some characters that I just didn't feel anything for.

Plot and Writing

Plot

As I stated above, this isn't exactly the hardest book to guess the plot. In fact, someone who is really bad at guessing plots for most books was able to guess the plot of the entire book. The plot wasn't bad really but the best part was really the ending.

Not the part where all the surprises are revealed but the last 10%. That really just destroyed me. It was wonderfully done and I applaud Pitcher. Fantastic work there. It was honestly... beautiful. It reminded me of the ending of BEFORE I FALL. It wasn’t nearly as heartbreaking and utterly devastating but depressing all the same.

Writing

The writing wasn't exactly THE S-WORD's strong suit. As reviewer Emily May said in her review said quite well: 

Some of the similes didn't sit quite right with me, one example is this "'Give it a rest,' I say casually, like I'm asking which celebrity they're most itching to bang." I found this particular comparison odd, shouldn't you say something along the lines of "like I'm talking about the weather" when you're being all casual, banging celebrities isn't exactly what pops into my head when I'm thinking of casual things but maybe I'm just more boring than I realized. Another thing that felt so unnatural I almost laughed was "It wasn't nice of her to sleep with my boyfriend", I mean, who actually says things like that? Who here could walk in on their partner and best friend getting it on and think oh my, that's not very nice, is it? But look, I have a broken nail.

Another point that I didn't like about the writing was the sense of detachment. I didn't really care what was going on during the middle of the book. That detracted from the overall reading experience greatly even though I only felt detached for around 30%.

Likes and Dislikes

Likes:

- Characters

- Plot

- Ending

Dislikes:

- Plot Twists

- Middle of the Book

- Writing

In conclusion

I really wish I could have loved this as much as other reviewers and readers did but sadly, it didn't really live up to all my expectations. I still recommend it whole-heartedly but THE S-WORD is not a perfect book but it's still a very enjoyable one.

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

{Review} Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Title: Tilt
Author: Ellen Hopkins
Format: Library Hardcover
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderrly Books
Release date: September 11th 2012
Date Read: January 8th 2013
Rating: ✭✭

Three teens, three stories—all interconnected through their parents’ family relationships. As the adults pull away, caught up in their own dilemmas, the lives of the teens begin to tilt….

Mikayla, almost eighteen, is over-the-top in love with Dylan, who loves her back jealously. But what happens to that love when Mikayla gets pregnant the summer before their senior year—and decides to keep the baby?
Shane turns sixteen that same summer and falls hard in love with his first boyfriend, Alex, who happens to be HIV positive. Shane has lived for four years with his little sister’s impending death. Can he accept Alex’s love, knowing that his life, too, will be shortened?
Harley is fourteen—a good girl searching for new experiences, especially love from an older boy. She never expects to hurdle toward self-destructive extremes in order to define who she is and who she wants to be.
Love, in all its forms, has crucial consequences in this standalone novel.

I am quite addicted to free prose novels, especially those by Ellen Hopkins. The only one, out of her published free prose novels, I haven't read is TRIANGLES which is an adult novel. I realized a long long time ago that they were all the same.

The plot, the characters - Hopkins keeps reusing them. There's always this one gay stereotype, a teenage pregnancy stereotype, a young innocent girl stereotype, and a druggie stereotype. At least three of them are always in her books. 

Yet, I still read them. 

And reread them.

And love them. At least, if I don't think about them too much. 

But when I do, I start to realize that they aren't as good as I thought. The reason I have never written a review for any of her books is simple. I'm scared to. I'm extremely scared that if I think about these books, I'll start to hate them, which would ruin my whole reading memories of these books.
But, I'm going to brave my fears and attempt to review this book.

To understand why I love these books, you probably will have to read the book. The prose, at least personally, is addictive. I adore free prose and am thoroughly addicted to it. There is an almost 90% chance that I will give a free prose novel a four star rating. It can have horrible characters and a clichéd plot but I love the writing too much.

Examples?

IMPULSE, IDENTICAL, TRICKS, GLASS, FALLOUT and I could go on. I really could. It's pathetic honestly.


Talking about horrible characters...

Characters

Like almost every Ellen Hopkins books, there are more than one POV. Tilt has three (with a different POV at the end of each chapter). Mikayla is the teen pregnancy stereotype, Shane is the gay one, and Harley is the thirteen year old.

Mikayla isn't a bad character but her whole personality is a stereotype. Girl is in LURV with boy. Gets pregnant. Boyfriend dumps her. She decided to keep baby. The end. I really didn't like her POVs at all and tended to skim them.

Shane was actually my favorite character. His relationship with Alex was just so adorable. I couldn't help but love him. He's probably the least stereo-fyed of all the characters. Though the ending to his story was disappointing, the rest was great.

Harley's POV was just urgh. Disgusting. I really felt disgusted just reading it. [Harley is coerced into providing, um, services to a 17 year old boy. She does everything imaginable except for actually having sex with him.]

The stupidity of Harley is obvious, as "her boyfriend" really does nothing except try and get her to have sex. 

I'm sure that you were supposed to feel sorry for Harley but honestly, and I'm going to sound like a bitch, I did not feel any sadness for her. 

Sure, it's a bad situation but she got herself into it. Everyone was telling her "BITCH, BACK OFF" (even the person she said she really truly loved) but she kept going because she truly felt loved his body him. 

Plot and Writing

Plot

The plot was basically the same as it always is. Three plots that eventually meet up and the endings of each character change another one's. I'll have to discuss each plot they differ drastically.

Mikayla:
Her plot was so standard. I'm pretty sure her POV was only there as a plot device for Shane's plot. That's what it seems at least. Her baby is important to the ending of Shane's plot as they give Mikayla's son to Shane's mother and that pushes him off the deep end. 

Ending Comment: Plain and useless 

Shane:
As I said, I really liked his POV. It was mostly romance based, which I usually wouldn't like but this was just so fluffy and adorable (for the most part). Since it's a Hopkins' book, things went downhill and the story ended sadly. 

Ending Comment: Adorable, but not the best work. Not sure what it was trying to tell, "Don’t get a cat"?

Harley:
Blergh. No. I really hate the plot.

Ending Comment: See above. 

Writing

The writing was the same Hopkins as usual, though I found a distinct lack of double meanings and another ways to read it in the prose, which I found utterly disappointing. I love those. The writing was fine other wise. I know some don't like verse but I adore it so I have no complains there.

Likes and Dislikes

Liked:

- Writing
- Shane
- Alex


Disliked:
- Every character except for Shane and Alex
- Plots for every character except for Shane and Alex

In Conclusion

I still love these books even though it's obvious I shouldn't. I don't recommend this book unless you're like me and are addicted to the series/writing. 

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

{Review} Adaptation by Malinda Lo

Title: Adaptation
Author: Malinda Lo
Format: Library Hardcover
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release date: September 18th 2012
Date Read: January 2nd 2013
Rating: ✭✭✭

Reese can’t remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: She’s different now.

Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.
Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are—or how they’ve been miraculously healed.
Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction—and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.

ADAPTATION has to be one of the oddest books I've ever read, next to Andrew Smith's THE MARBURY LENS and its sequel PASSENGER which takes the cake for the weirdest, craziest books ever. 

Let's count the reasons why this book is freaking insane:

1.
 
Actually, it looks like there's only one. My bad. The reason is still valid as aliens = crazy in around 90% of the books I've read featuring them. ULTRAVIOLET was crazy as well though not as crazy as this one. 172 HOURS ON THE MOON was crazy as well. 

And by crazy I mean like Doctor Who crazy.

The book started off a bit different but still fairly normal. In fact, you'd never suspect that the beginning of the book and the end of the book were the same thing - if that makes any sense, which it probably doesn't. The middle of the book is 100% romance based with paranormal aspects. 

But the end! That's freaking wacko. It's like Doctor Who and Homestuck combined. I suppose that combination won't make any sense without any background of the two but take my word on it - that's so not a good combination.

Characters

Our main character, Reese, is a refreshing one after the last two books I had read (MYSTIC CITY and THE FORSAKEN) which both had horrible main characters. Reese was a good character throughout the book but the beginning was her best time really.

Strong, intelligent, not reliant on a boy. These are the three most amazing things about Reese. She knew what she was doing and wasn't about to let a boy push her around or do everything for her. Reese was original in not just her personality but another thing.

2. Reese is bi. 

And there's a love triangle (which normally isn't a good thing but I'll tell you why I don't care later) with a girl and a boy.

YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES

Do you know how many bi characters I've encountered in YA? None. In any book I've read. Yep, none. And here we have an awesome bi character. In a book with an awesome (if weird) plot. FUCK YES. COULD THIS GET ANY BETTER?

The answer: yes, it most definitely can. 

The female part of the love triangle is Amber Gray who is probably one of the awesomest people you can encounter in books. She's so... ASDFGHJKL; I love her. I love her so much it's crazy. 

What I like about Reese and Amber's relationship is that it starts off being purely physical. Reese is attracted to Amber and vica-versa. There is no love and neither tell the other they love her. Because they don't. The relationship is never portrayed as something more until much later. 

I think this sort of relationship, a purely physical relationship, is common in YA lit. What makes this book different than the rest is that the others make the relationship out to be a love based one when it's clearly not the case. 

Now onto why I personally think that this "love triangle" is not a love triangle. The books starts off with David and Reese. They aren't together but it is stated that Reese does have a crush on him. It's not overly done and there are very few directly romantic thoughts towards David which I loved.

Say you're in a life or death situation, what are the chances that you would be thinking about the way someone's hair flows or their beautiful eyes? Very little. You'd probably be focussed on staying alive. That was Reese's mindset in the beginning.

Now, after the first 75 - 100 pages, David goes away. He's not in the plot or even mentioned till the very end. Instead, they're focussing on Amber and Reese's relationship. It's almost as if there is no other love interest.

There you have it. My opinion on why this isn't a love triangle. David is only part of this supposed love triangle because it states in the book and summary that Reese has a crush on him and that's really all it is. There's nothing else.

David wasn't a bad character I guess but he has so little actual screen time (so to speak) that I can't really say anything other than I didn't hate him or like him. It's not even a bland feeling. It's a nonexistent feeling.

Plot and Writing

Plot:
The plot was crazy. It starts off as birds crashing into random shit like they're missiles and ends up being some crazy thing that I can't really explain because of spoilers. It's so weird and nonsensical. As you can tell, the only words I can use to describe the plot are weird, insane, and crazy. 

Because it is!

The whole government conspiracy; bird crashing into stuff plot has been used so many times but I haven't read one of those in YA lit so I guess this is original if you only count YA. It's not a bad plot just... different yet the same.

URGH WHERE DID MY WORDS GO? 

*ten minutes later*

I was looking for an awesome Hank Green gif I saw that would express what I'm trying to say but I can't find it so that was a waste of ten minutes... yeah... let's just move on.

Writing:
I don't think it was anything special. It was good I suppose but nothing else. The pacing was great though - tense when it called for it but slower when it didn't. The book never dragged on. The world building wasn't that necessary in the book. I always feel that contemporaries don't really need much world building.

Likes and Dislikes

Liked: 
- Characters
- Plot

Disliked:
- Umm... it was pretty weird at times.

Conclusion

I really love this book, even though my rating may not look it. The book was great but for some reason I don't think it deserves a full 5 stars or even four stars. I definitely recommend it.

Lisbeth is an America teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

{Review} Another 365 Days by K. E. Payne

Title: Another 365 Days
Author: K. E. Payne
Format: NetGalley e-book ARC

Publisher: Bold Strokes Books

Release Date: January 15th, 2013
Date Read: November 28th, 2012

Rating: ✭

Life’s sweet when you’re seventeen and in love, right? Clemmie Atkins certainly thinks so! She’s still madly in love with her girlfriend, the hot and super-confident EMO, Hannah Harrison, and her irritating sister, HRBH, will soon be leaving home to go to university.

But just when it seems that life is finally pretty darn cool, a new distraction at school threatens to upset everything, and the return of the enigmatic and sexy J with a startling confession confuses things further...

Clemmie has another 365 days to try to get her life back on track...but will it be enough?

For ANOTHER 365 DAYS

ANOTHER 365 DAYS was a book that for some mysterious reason I had very high expectations. I honestly don't know why but the moment I saw it, I knew that I had to read it. My expectations disappeared the moment I opened the Kindle book and I knew that I would detest this book instead of adore it.

ANOTHER 365 DAYS is a book that personally, I find it hard to imagine anyone would adore. Filled with grammatical errors, terribly unlikeable characters, idiotic situations, and slut shaming - it is atrocious.

Another aspect of the book that I truly hated was how K.E. Payne seems to think that all teens are freaking idiots. Constantly Clemmie, the main character, would say something that just made me think, "how did this girl pass 5th grade?"

She thinks that metrosexual means that an individual likes to have sex in (and or with) metros. When someone mentioned a picture of Madonna hanging in the hallway of a very religious family's home, Clemmie thought she meant this Madonna:



instead of:



-__-

Characters

Clemmie was a freaking moron, in addition to many other words that I will be calling here. In addition to her obvious idiocy, Clemmie is judgmental, bitchy, whiny, angsty, shallow, and finally vapid. As you can tell, I really like her. 

Clemmie wouldn't be as horrible if the book was not about romance. In the course of the book, there are three love interests. Usually, she was more than one at a time. Now, I don't have anything against polygamous relationships, but in those sorts of relationships, the various partners are aware of the other partner(s), unlike with Clemmie and love interest of the month.

Clemmie starts off with one girl, who she always describes as "sexy, adorable, beautiful, and EMO (with all caps)". Then around 30% in, something happens and they break up. Within two or three days, Clemmie hooks up with another girl. She then decides around 50% that she wants the other girl back. So they have sex together a few times. Eventually Clemmie breaks up with the second girl (after a week or two of sex with Girl 1). Around 80% Girl 3 comes in. Apparently she decides to go bisexual for Clemmie and starts flirting/molesting her. Eventually they hook up at a party. Then Clemmie decided to go back to Girl 1 and the end. Does that even make any sense?

Clemmie is probably up there with Zoey Redbird from MARKED in terms of how much I hate her - which is saying a lot because even back when I thought Twilight was the awesomest book ever (yes I went through that phase), I hated that book. 

Her EMO girlfriend (whose name I forgot and I'm too lazy to go and get my kindle) number one was very stereotypically emo. In fact, she wore chains and dog tags up to her armpits and only had black clothes. She started off as sort of emo, erm, EMO but then around 50% in the book, she goes off the deep end. Nauseating. 

Girlfriend 2 was just as bad. Nothing else to say. She wasn't EMO, but she wasn't anything special. 

Girlfriend 3 (J) was another stereotypical evil girl trying to ruin relationships. More of a side plot then an actual plot, like the summary makes it sound. In the end, she looses and there's another happy ending. Yay. 

Plot and Writing

Plot:
Plot? Whut's dat?

This book has no real plot, it's just some jumbled relationship drama coupled with a lacklustre coming out story - which doesn't really happen. The moral of the story seems to be that it's perfectly fine to cheat on all your girlfriends at some point because "you're confused".

Da fuq?

No seriously guys, this is basically what the book is about. As you can imagine, it was an angst filled ride that made me want to go scream into my pillow. What was K. E. Payne thinking when she wrote this book? It's not a good message, contrary to what she might think her book is saying. Just no. No no no no no no no. NO.

Writing:
Out of everything I have covered, the writing has to be one of the most atrocious things about this book. Hashtags are used in the book.

Hash. Tags. 





The thing is this book is a journal written by the MC. No, it's not a blog journal. It's a written journal (and Clemmie makes sure everyone knows it). If you write a journal, or ever have written one, did you ever write stuff like "#fuckmylife" and "#urrrrrrggggghh"? 

No. No you didn't. 

The book is terribly written, even if we forget about the text abbreviations and hashtags. Run on sentences, sentence fragments, badly formatted sentences - this book has everything. It just makes me so grrr. I'm going to stop now, to prevent this review from turning into an angry mess filled with gifs and cap lock abuse. 

Likes and Dislikes

Liked:
- Nothing

Disliked: 
- Everything

Conclusion

I hated this book. The end.

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.