Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

 

Synopsis:

Reality, it turns out, is often not what you perceive it to be—sometimes, there really is someone out to get you. Made You Up tells the story of Alex, a high school senior unable to tell the difference between real life and delusion. This is a compelling and provoking literary debut that will appeal to fans of Wes Anderson, Silver Linings Playbook, and Liar.

Alex fights a daily battle to figure out the difference between reality and delusion. Armed with a take-no-prisoners attitude, her camera, a Magic 8-Ball, and her only ally (her little sister), Alex wages a war against her schizophrenia, determined to stay sane long enough to get into college. She’s pretty optimistic about her chances until classes begin, and she runs into Miles. Didn't she imagine him? Before she knows it, Alex is making friends, going to parties, falling in love, and experiencing all the usual rites of passage for teenagers. But Alex is used to being crazy. She’s not prepared for normal.

Funny, provoking, and ultimately moving, this debut novel featuring the quintessential unreliable narrator will have readers turning the pages and trying to figure out what is real and what is made up.

Review:

Ahhhhhhhhhsdfjlkaflldsljjdldkjflkajslfk

^ That pretty much sums up my thoughts on this book. It’s hands-down the most amazingestestestest book I’ve ever read in my entire life (sorry, Hate List, but it’s true). It was just . . . funny, and sad (occasionally COMPLETELY DEVASTATING) , and sweet, and JUSTSUPERSUPERSUPERAMAZING all at the same time. I don’t even know what else to say about it.

Where do I start?

The premise was really interesting. Schizophrenia is a condition that I’ve heard of, but I haven’t really gone out of my way to learn about it. The story’s about a girl who joins the “normal” world after years of experiencing things that are anything but normal--only to find that the life of an ordinary teenager isn’t always so ordinary. Some of the things that occur in this book are hard to believe, but I’m pretty sure that’s kind of the point. I had a hard time distinguishing what was real and what only existed in Alex’s head--I can’t imagine how hard it is for someone who’s more than just a spectator to it.

Zappia’s writing brings a humorous side to a somewhat dark topic. Her characters are complex and lovable (okay, not always, but even the less appealing characters had their reasons). The main character’s voice was both dark and light, both serious and hilarious, and totally and completely real. Mostly hilarious.

Example:

While Tucker stepped out back for his break, I commandeered his condiment armies. Gus’s cigarette smoke wafted toward the ceiling, pulled into the vent. The oscillating fan on the wall made the papers on the employee bulletin board flutter.

Halfway through my recreation of the Battle of the Bulge, I shook Finnegan’s Magic 8 Ball to find out if the German saltshaker would be successful in his offense.

Ask again later.

Useless thing. If the Allies had taken that advice, the Axis would have won the war.

I’m feeling like I really want to spoil something, but alas, I will abstain. I’m not even going to put a spoiler alert and then spoil it because if you’re like me, you may or may not ignore the spoiler alert and just read on (but that’s just me).

Anyway, I don’t know what else to say about this book. I guess I can say that . . . I loved it? I want to kiss it and hug it and marry it? Also the cover is super cool?

Yep, that should be about it. If you like books of any kind, or even if you don’t like books--READ THIS BOOK. The parameters for my recommendation: you have to be a living, breathing human (preferably with a heart, just so that this book can rip it out, stomp on it a few times, then put it back in and have a nice, long snuggle with it).

Rating: 9.5 out of 10.

Okay, that’s it, folks. Thanks for reading!

Till next time,

JC <3

Opening Lines in YA Fiction

 

Hello! So I decided to write a post about the best opening lines that I’ve read in YA books, though these aren’t necessarily my top ten favorite books. Don’t judge a book by its opening line, kids (I guess). I do really enjoy a majority of these books, though, and I hope this list helps you to find some well-written books to read! :)

 

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson -- “This is how it all begins.”

    Because what better way to begin  the story than to literally tell the audience that the story is beginning? (P.S. I’m in the midst of reading this right now, but so far it’s pretty good, albeit a little strange. Review coming soon.)

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green -- “Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.”

    Well, I can’t just not include TFiOS in a post about great lines, now can I? This book is one of the best-written books I’ve ever read (and John Green is awesome, sharpie-covered face and all).

Emmy and Oliver by Robin Benway -- “Oliver disappeared after school on a Friday afternoon, way back when we were in second grade, and small things seemed really important and important things seemed too small.”

    I think maybe I like this one because the author wastes no time getting to the chase. It’s intriguing because it brings to attention the fact that the main characters, Emmy and Oliver (obviously), went through a really tough time at a very young age.

Switched by Amanda Hocking -- “A couple things made that day stand out more than any other: it was my sixth birthday, and my mother was wielding a knife.”

    This one made the list because it’s an eye-catching line that exposes a moment in the main character’s past that deeply affected her, and this scene actually has a lot of significance in terms of the actual plot of the story.

Six Months Later by Natalie D. Richards -- “I’m sitting next to the fire alarm, and my best friend is going down in flames.”

    Um, that doesn’t sound very safe. Just pull the alarm, Chloe. (That’s my attempt at being funny.) I liked this one because although it doesn’t immediately jump into a super exciting scene, it does jump straight into the middle of a scene that shows the relationship between Chloe and her best friend. I also just think it’s a really nicely written line.

The Angel Experiment by James Patterson -- “The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective.”

    The whole “imminent death” thing immediately caught my attention, and the casual way that the main character, Max, talks about the concept kind of exposes something about her personality and experiences right from the start.
 

Faking Normal by Courtney C. Stevens -- “Black funeral dress. Black heels. Black headband in my hair. Death has a style all its own. I’m glad I don’t have to wear it very often.”

    So this one is a little sadder than the rest, which makes sense because this is kind of a sad book, to be honest. But, like this line (or these lines, since I kind of cheated on the whole first sentence thing I was trying to go for, not first sentences), the story, although kind of dark, has a noticeable hint of hope in it that, in my opinion, helps to make it even better.
 

Nightshade by Andrea Cremer -- “I’d always welcomed war, but in battle my passion rose unbidden.”

    Again, I liked this line because it shows something about the main character. Calla is strong and always battle-ready, two of my favorite things about her. I also liked the wording in this sentence--“welcomed,” “passion,” “unbidden.”
 

Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang-- “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.”

    I asked Kalee if I should put these lines in, and she asked me something like, “I don’t know. Does the book have a lot of science in it?” But no, Kalee, it doesn’t. It’s still a great book, though, and I really like Zhang’s writing. It’s poetic and flowing and I just think it’s really pretty (even though the subject matter of these lines and the book as a whole are not).
 

Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter -- “Had anyone told me that my entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, I would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please.”

    These sentences (I cheated yet again with this one, but I just couldn’t help myself) are really, really, really, really great, in my opinion. Although the subject matter is kind of heavy, a hint of the main character’s (and the author’s) humor shines through.

          Alright, that’s it! Feel free to leave a comment or email us--we’d love to hear your thoughts :) :) (Also I want to apologize for not posting in a really, really long time . . . sorry!)

Thanks for reading,

JC <3

Speechless by Hannah Harrington

 

Synopsis:

Everyone knows that Chelsea Knot can't keep a secret

Until now. Because the last secret she shared turned her into a social outcast—and nearly got someone killed.

Now Chelsea has taken a vow of silence—to learn to keep her mouth shut, and to stop hurting anyone else. And if she thinks keeping secrets is hard, not speaking up when she's ignored, ridiculed and even attacked is worse.

But there's strength in silence, and in the new friends who are, shockingly, coming her way—people she never noticed before; a boy she might even fall for. If only her new friends can forgive what she's done. If only she can forgive herself.

Review:

I read Hannah Harrington’s Saving June maybe a year or so ago, and I loved it. So of course I looked up the author and tried to find out if she’d written any other books. But when I looked at Speechless, I was . . . skeptical, to say the least. I can be really picky when it comes to books, and I didn’t think I’d like the main character in this one, so I decided to pass on it and move on.

But I’d been going through kind of a book drought (basically, I couldn’t find anything to read because I’m so picky), so I decided to give this one a try because I like Harrington’s writing style. Now I really wish I hadn’t passed on it when I first looked at it.

Writing about a so-called “mean girl” (not quite the “On Wednesdays we wear pink” mean girls, but still sort of mean), even a former one like Chelsea, is risky. Sometimes the reader won’t enjoy the story as much if they don’t like the main character.

As predicted, Chelsea isn’t entirely likeable. She makes bad decisions, sometimes with good intentions and sometimes with bad ones. It would be easy to hate her if Harrington hadn’t developed her so carefully and thoroughly. She’s definitely a round character, with many different sides to her. Even though she makes choices that I don’t agree with, Harrington makes sure that the reader at least understands Chelsea’s reasons.

The whole not-speaking thing isn’t an entirely new topic. There’s The Summer of Chasing Mermaids, Until Friday Night, and probably a plethora of other books that I haven’t read. But Harrington handled the concept a lot more nicely than Abbi Glines did in Until Friday Night (sorry, just my opinion). I understood a lot better why Chelsea makes the decision to stop speaking.

Another difference from Until Friday Night is that the whole book doesn’t revolve around the romance between the main character and the love interest. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good love story just as much as the next girl. But what I liked about this book was that it actually had a message other than “love conquers all” or . . . I don’t know, “your soulmate is out there” or something like that.

This story is, most obviously, about thinking before you speak. You have to be careful of what you say because there can be some very serious consequences. I’m not saying that every accidental diarrhea of the mouth will have an outcome as serious as the one in Speechless, but people could still get hurt, one way or another. And this book shows that the people getting hurt don’t have to just be the victim. Especially with an explosion like the one Chelsea inadvertently triggers, there can be a lot of collateral damage.

There’s a lot that one can learn from this book, whether it be about forgiveness or regret or, despite my insistence that this book doesn’t revolve around romance, even love. Overall, I think that this book has some very powerful messages, along with some very powerful characters, as well. Even the secondary characters left an impact.

I would definitely recommend this book. It was sad but hopeful at the same time, and I would give it a 9.2 out of 10.

Thanks for reading,

JC <3