Mini Reviews—January 2019

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Titles link to goodreads

This is one of those books that just takes you through every possible emotion: an immediate love for this prickly, precious, compassionate little girl coupled with a desperate desire for her to make better life choices. Then, the glorious heart soaring as she begins to change and the terrible pain crashing as the climax strikes and a lot of things hit the fan. Then, there’s the overarching theme of renewal and redemption and possibility and hope, and these come through so powerfully at the end. The writing style spoke 100% to this individual, loving, sore and sad little girl, who desperately needed to know there was more to life than crime and injustice and horrible happenings suspended only by luck. One of my favorite things about the story, besides Harry’s personality, was her overwhelming resilience, the fact that even when Harry herself tried to snuff love out of her heart, something in that girl always managed to hope.

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Content: mild language in some areas.

When My Heart Joins the Thousand by A. J. Steiger

Honestly, I spent a lot of this book not knowing what to think. I was interested in discovering how it would all turn out and they hadn’t yet given me a reason to leave, but I didn’t really feel anything. Just a kind of “meh” curiosity, as I followed Alvie (the main character) following Stanley (the love interest), tried to figure out the backstory on the both of them, and wondered how they were going to work themselves and the story out.

Granted, there comes a point about midway through the book where the story just swept me away. I had been nibbling at it, a few chapters on Monday here, another few on Thursday there; but once this certain sequence begins and things started go downhill, I sat riveted for I-don’t-even-know-how-long, page after page after page, however long it took to finish; I had to see what would happen next to these poor charrries.

Even with that exciting time though, by the time I reached the end, the best feeling I could muster up was, “Eh, it was okay.” I understand the deep and emotional sentiment the author was going for and I’m sure others felt it while reading—but I didn’t quite experience the full dose. I liked the idea, the premise of the story, but at the end of the day the execution of the idea, and the characters themselves, just weren’t my favorite.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Content: language, repeated sexual references (not strictly vulgar, but definitely blunt), and probably a sex scene (I skipped a few pages when it looked like it was going in that direction).

You Go First by Erin Entrada Kelley

This one, I read about a third of in little bits and pieces—and then devoured the rest in a single night. It... was.... magnificent. Deep and heartfelt, you feel SO HARD for these kids, watching them endure what was probably the hardest, most painful, most earthshattering week of their lives. They were both so brilliant, so adorable, so beautiful, so strong… and so much like kids, not knowing how to deal with something so big and not always taking the right path to get through getting through it. But, from the very first chapter, I wanted so badly for things to go well for them and, while I can’t give spoilers about how it all turns out, I will say that I loved it. It was beautiful, and the overall emotion at the end was just so dang encouraging. Middle school is HARD, and huge changes are even harder, but books like these, stories like these, friends like these, they can make it all the better.

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

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While that’s not everything I read in January, these three were among the most noteworthy ~~and the easiest to write short reviews on~~. What have you been reading recently? Stepped outside of your normal genre at all? (both You Go First and Harry Sue were more towards middle grade instead of my normal YA). Can’t wait to hear from you all, and I will see you in the comment section!