Review: Falling Into Place

Spoiler alert: this book was written by a high schooler. A high schooler. One time in high school I didn't realize I wasn't wearing a bra until lunchtime one day, and here this girl is with a published novel.

Just shoot me.

Also, I'm reviewing an ARC, so if you're interested, you'll have to hold out until September 9! (That's also my birthday, just sayin'.)

Liz Emerson is a popular, pretty, bright girl. She and her friends Kennie and Julia pretty much run their small town high school, and they take no prisoners when it comes to getting what they want.

Why, then, did Liz decide to run her car off the freeway one day?

Yes, it was definitely on purpose. Liz tried to stage it so it looked accidental, but it's stated explicitly that Liz was trying to kill herself. She'd considered doing it another way, but she thought if it looked accidental, it would at least give her loved ones some peace of mind. She's tired of being the cause of everyone's problems.

Thanks to an unconventional narrator, we learn that Liz has shouldered the blame for a lot of problems since she was a kid, and she's internalized some values that aren't really aiding her development. The parts of the novel that happen before she tries to commit suicide and falls into a coma are all told through either this mysterious narrator or Liz herself.

The parts that come after the event are from a myriad of sources. Mrs. Emerson, Kennie, Julia, and Liam (a boy who's got more of an outside perspective on Liz) all react differently to the news, and their narration is very introspective as they consider their own lives and how Liz affected them.

The ending of Falling Into Place is emotional and somewhat unexpected. It also leaves the reader with a little hope that things might get better for these people as their lives continue.

I enjoyed reading this novel, but I can't in good conscience give it a great review. First, the good parts: I liked figuring out who the narrator might be. I had a couple guesses, and as the story went on, I was able to refine them more until I was pretty close to right by the time it was revealed. It was a clever idea, and it fit well with the story as a whole without distracting from the main plotline.

I also liked how the characters were written (with one exception, but I'll get to that). Everyone was flawed, but no one was irredeemable. A lot of the mistakes and motivations were realistically teenage, due partly to the author's own age, I'm sure. Kennie's inner conflict was particularly moving, in my opinion, and I've never had the experiences she's had. That's a sign of compelling writing to me.

However, I really, really did not like the implied potential love story between Liz and Liam. It gave me some incredibly skeevy vibes, and I shudder to think about it playing out with real teenagers. Liz played some cruel pranks on Liam a couple years ago, yet he still harbors a crush on her because somehow he got one glimpse of her "yearn[ing] for beautiful things" a few months later and forgave her. While I appreciate Liam not being petty and vindictive, I would have preferred them having an actual conversation about the pranks, especially since they never actually talk to each other in this book. Instead, Liam hangs out at the hospital the whole time Liz is in a coma, even going into her room in the ICU at one point to visit her. Mrs. Emerson thinks he's Liz's boyfriend, for Pete's sake, and he doesn't bother to correct her. Seriously, this is not okay behavior, and I don't want it encouraging teenagers to creep on their crushes in a similar manner.

On a more personal preference-based note, I also didn't really get hooked by this story. I liked it, sure, and I kept reading to see if I was right about the narrator, but it was still only a mild interest. I think I'm just getting tired of Profound Books about Serious Teenage Issues, so I might be skewed, but I don't know if Falling Into Place is going to set the world on fire. It wasn't a waste of my time by any means, but I'm not eagerly awaiting a movie annoucement, either.

Overall, Falling Into Place is well-written and focuses on a lot of issues modern teenagers are dealing with. Liz, Kennie, and Julia all have their own struggles, and each of them were interesting to read about and had their relatable moments. However, the implied love interest thing isn't healthy, and I never managed to get totally ensnared by the story. Three and half stars for personal preference, four if I'm being a little more objective. 

Review: Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer

Honestly, if the title alone isn't enough to hook you on this book, I really don't know what to say. I mean, an iconic queen of France going around offing people? What more do you need out of a novel?

Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer isn't set in revolutionary-era France, if you were wondering. Instead, it opens in present-day France, with the mysterious murder of an up-and-coming supermodel. The manner in which she was killed? Beheading.

She's not our protagonist, though. No, that would be Colette Iselin, a high schooler from Ohio who's about to embark on a class trip to France with her two best friends, Hannah and Pilar. Colette's hoping this trip will be a nice distraction from her less-than-perfect home life - she, her mother, and her brother share a tiny apartment now that her dad has left them, and they can barely afford her fancy private school's tuition, not that she'd tell her rich-girl friends. As she's packing, Colette finds an old medallion with an interesting engraving in with some family heirlooms and decides to take it along for the trip, thinking it'll be a nice touch for an outfit she's planning.

They arrive in France to some good news and some bad. Good news: their tour guide, Jules, is smokin' hot, if a little nerdy for Hannah's snobby taste. Bad news: there have been two unsolved murders this week, and it's getting everyone a little on edge.

On the day trip to Versailles, Colette feels drawn to some off-limits places in the palace, where she notices the same symbol as the one on her medallion incorporated into the wallpaper. One of her classmates also notices the symbol on an old building back in the city proper. Colette starts doing some digging, and learns that her family belonged to an organization called the Order of the Key back in Marie Antoinette's time, and that her ancestor was actually Marie's best friend. Armand, another descendant of the Order, tells Colette that she should help him and his family on their quest to reinherit their old titles, which is an intriguing prospect to her.

Less intriguing? The fact that all the people who have been murdered are also descendants of the Order, and the most likely murderer is actually Marie Antoinette's vengeful ghost. Marie has it out particularly for Colette, too, since her ancestor's betrayal hurt Marie the worst. Will Colette be able to stop Marie before she hurts one of Colette's friends? More importantly, will Colette ever be able to stand up for herself?

As formulaic as part of this novel is, it's still an enjoyable read. Colette's storyline with her friends is predictable - girl is friends with snooty rich girls, girl realizes she has no true friends, girl dumps popular friends for real ones - but even then, she's still likeable. Since Colette's desire to remain friends with Hannah and Pilar comes more from genuine naiveity than underhanded schemes, it's hard to hate her for just trying to fit in. Once she realizes that being yourself is the real way to find friends who will care about her, I couldn't help but feel happy for her, even though it's not a revolutionary idea.

The serial killing ghost plot is much more fun than the friends plot, even if it's a little bit gappy - why is Marie's ghost picking now to get her revenge? Regardless, watching Colette and her slowly-growing, ragtag band of true friends put together the pieces and rush to Versailles so she can hopefully save the day is the real meat of the story, and it makes for a great read. Sure, it's not historically accurate, but this isn't a history book. (If it gets people to research more about the French Revolution, though, I wouldn't be disappointed.)

I also appreciate how the love story is actually the C plot of this novel. First and foremost, there's Marie's ghost; second is Colette's self-discovery; and third is her budding romance with Jules. While it does tie into the other two plots, it's not the be-all, end-all of the story, which is pretty uncommon in female-centric YA novels, at least in my experience. While I do love a good romance, as anyone who read my Stephanie Perkins reviews knows, I also love that a romance wasn't just shoved into this book in order to sell more copies. Colette didn't really have the time to worry about a boyfriend, for Pete's sake - she could have gotten murdered at any moment!

Overall, this book is a fun, fluffy read that's thrilling without being terrifying. It's not a set-the-world-on-fire kind of novel, but I could see it making a great sleepover flick. Three and a half stars.

Review: Tease

So along with Memory of Water, my mom also grabbed an ARC of Tease by Amanda Maciel the other day - and then promptly snatched it before I could get a chance to read it first.

Typical Mom.

She told me she teared up a bit while reading it and thought I'd probably enjoy it, so I plowed through it yesterday when I had some free time, and then we discussed it for like ten minutes after she got home from work. It's like mother-daughter book club all the time in our house, man.

Tease (which has already been released) is the story of Sara Wharton, a pretty, popular Nebraska high schooler who is part of a group of friends accused of causing the suicide of Emma Putnam. (It's based off a true story, too - I think I know which one, if I remember the news story right.) Sara is staunchly clinging to the story that she's not guilty and that it's Emma's own fault she's dead; after all, suicide is self-perpetrated. The idea that Emma should have just bucked up and figured out another plan is ever-present in Sara's mind.

The novel uses an interesting format that reminds me of Looking for Alaska: the book begins with a chapter set months after Emma's death, then the following chapter occurs months before. This alternation occurs until the timelines "meet," so to speak, with the last "before" chapter centering on the day of Emma's suicide and the last "after" chapter focusing on the plea bargains of all the accused tormenters. We see everything from Sara's point of view, which makes for an interesting read as other characters drop hints that maybe Sara's not the most unbiased of narrators.

Sara definitely has her own issues, as we learn throughout the novel. Her dad's a jerk who's not around any more, she has to balance having a social life with helping her family, and her best friend Brielle is an even crueler Regina George type. She's also worried that the new girl, Emma, is going to steal her boyfriend, Dylan. Brielle latches onto this worry of Sara's and they begin a two-woman campaign of terror against Emma that we already know ends badly. 

In the end, Sara begins to realize that maybe she wasn't as blameless as she believed she was, and there are implications that she's going to try to do better. It's not a complete 180, but it's a believable, mostly satisfying start.

The "mostly," however, is what kept me from fully enjoying this novel. I was expecting something a little more akin to Thirteen Reasons Why or, again, Looking for Alaska when I started this novel, so I was surprised when this didn't hit me as deeply as I expected it to. I think I just wanted more out of this novel, because there was so much more to explore.

What do I mean by that? Well, I can name at least three characters off the top of my head who I would have liked to understand better: Carmichael, Tommy, and Brielle, all of whom have moments of deeper backgrounds that get brushed aside like they don't matter. I also would have liked to know more about Emma herself, since the picture of her we get from Sara is so obviously skewed.

And yes, I realize that that's probably the point: Sara was so self-absorbed that she didn't pry about these things, so we remain just as blind as her. I can't help but wonder, though, what this novel would have been like from a multi-character perspective - would it have been harder-hitting, getting to see Emma's POV just to have it go dark? I think so.

(Sara and Brielle's constant slut-shaming and name-calling also bothers me, but that's more of a personal preference - do kids these days really call their best friends "bitch" and "skank" all the time? My friends and I sure don't, but we're also in our early twenties, so maybe we're just not hip anymore.)

Overall, this novel was easy to read and interestingly crafted, but left me wanting so much more. 3.5/5 stars.