Weekly Book Review: The Hunger Games

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Released: September 14, 2008
Genre: Sci-Fi / Young Adult

Summary:

The nation of Panem, formed from a post-apocalyptic North America, is a country that consists of a wealthy Capitol region surrounded by 12 poorer districts. Early in its history, a rebellion led by a 13th district against the Capitol resulted in its destruction and the creation of an annual televised event known as the Hunger Games. In punishment, and as a reminder of the power and grace of the Capitol, each district must yield one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 through a lottery system to participate in the games. The 'tributes' are chosen during the annual Reaping and are forced to fight to the death, leaving only one survivor to claim victory.

When 16-year-old Katniss's young sister, Prim, is selected as District 12's female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, are pitted against bigger, stronger representatives, some of whom have trained for this their whole lives. , she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.

Review:

It's easy to see why The Hunger Games became such a phenomenon. Mixing an interesting idea with decent world-building and a whole lot of tension, The Hunger Games is a gripping read that pulls its audience in with a disturbing premise and keeps them hooked through swiftly escalating action. Its prose serves more to propel the reader through the plot than compel further reading through its own merits. The Hunger Games is a thing of short, clipped sentences and light description, favoring action over moments of thought or observation. Whether that's good or bad is up to your tastes. For me, the prose wasn't bothersome, but it certainly wouldn't have been enough of a draw to keep me reading without Collins' tight plotting.

The Hunger Games sets itself apart from many YA dystopias in that it presents a somewhat believable setting. We have a clear catalyst for the division of the districts and a historical explanation for the Hunger Games themselves. There are a few details that don't quite gel with reality, but I'd wager only the most demanding readers will find fault with novel's presentation of the world until after they've blown through it.

My biggest quibble with The Hunger Games and all of its sequels (especially its sequels) is that it falls into the common YA trap of saddling its heroine with a love triangle made up of two dudes who are both unappealing in their own special ways. Gale doesn't quite breach jerk territory until the next book, but he's also such a non-character in The Hunger Games that it's likely his inner jerkitude was simply biding its time. Peeta, on the other hand, is omnipresent. He somehow manages to be both the unwelcomely (and unnecessarily) protective boyfriend (despite Katniss' disinterest in the relationship except as it relates to their survival) and the damsel in distress at the same time. His presence is annoying, often dragging the excitement down as Katniss must break away from the action and her own developing plans to babysit him. His meagre personality isn't a good match for Katniss', and his strange obsession with her borders on creepy more often than it should.

The romance is, however, responsible for some of the best tactical moments in The Hunger Games, and for that, it can be partially excused. I can only wish Katniss were attached to a more interesting boy.

Like Tom Hiddleston.

Among dystopian YA, The Hunger Games is one of the best. There's a reason it let loose such a trend. Fans of dystopian YA, as well as YA in general, should give it a read, if only to see what all the fuss is about.

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Divergent

Weekly Book Review: The Fault in Our Stars

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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Released: January 10, 2012
Genre: Young Adult / Romance

Summary:

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.

[From John Green's official website.]

Review:

If you've read anything about The Fault in Our Stars, you probably know that it's an emotional read. I'm here to confirm this. This book made me cry in full view of every patron of a bustling Wendy's. I tried to stop it, but the floodgates, once opened, would not be closed. To be fair, I knew what I was getting into when I picked up the book. It's a cancer book. Stories about cancer, for a variety of personal reasons, make me cry. I should've taken measures not to be caught reading the sad parts of the book in a public place, but I didn't. So there I was, oversalting my french fries with tears.

This is a novel rife with moments of beauty and genuine emotion. Amid that emotion, however, are a few dissonant notes that disrupt the experience, however slightly. Though its fans may clamor otherwise, The Fault in Our Stars is not a perfect book.

Hazel and Augustus are a charming pair, full of Whedonesque quips and adorable quirks. For this very reason, they ring a little false. Teenagers in general don't speak in platitudes and clever, quotable witticisms. I've been a teenager. It wasn't all that long ago. I'd have liked to converse like Hazel and Augustus do. I'd still like to. Unfortunately, coming up with that kind of material in time to keep up with a conversation isn't as easy as our star-crossed duo make it seem. It can be fun to read, but it risks disturbing the reader's immersion.

Luckily, Hazel's narration doesn't suffer the same problems as her spoken dialogue. Writing, unlike speech, can afford both time and thought. The writer can pause over a single sentence for hours without disturbing the flow of the work as a whole. If it sounds premeditated, that's fine, because it is.

This is another one of those books where the parents aren't absent, dead, or uncaring, so it gets extra points just for that. Though none of the parents impact the plot in any significant way, their quietly supportive presence adds an extra dose of pathos to the teens' afflictions.

The Fault in Our Stars has been heralded as one of the best YA novels of the past few years, and it very well may be. It does not, however, rank amongst my personal favorites. I read it quickly, I enjoyed it, and I can see why it's inspired such fervor amongst the YA crowd, but perfect it is not. Still, it is a strong novel from a writer whose popularity is largely deserved. YA fans should definitely check it out.

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Looking for Alaska

Weekly Book Review: The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Released: September 18, 2012
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy

Summary:

Blue Sargent, the daughter of the town psychic in Henrietta, Virginia, has been told for as long as she can remember that if she ever kisses her true love, he will die. But she is too practical to believe in things like true love. Her policy is to stay away from the rich boys at the prestigious Aglionby Academy. The boys there – known as Raven Boys – can only mean trouble.

[From Maggie Stiefvater's official website.]

Review:

As you can see in the summary above, The Raven Boys professes to be about a teenage girl named Blue and the prediction that's been strangling her dating life since it was made. In reality, the book centers on a group of four boys from Ravenclaw—I mean, Aglionby Academy—on a quest to find and revive a lost Welsh noble.

The rich man's Ravenclaw.

Don't get me wrong. The reality of the novel is engaging. Each of the boys has his own set of goals, a backstory colored in varying shades of mysterious, and a slew of problems both mental and emotional. The group as a whole is a little cliché, consisting as it does of the Good Boy, the Bad Boy, the Quiet Boy, and the Angsty Boy, but they are compelling. Their quest is a little odd, as the book takes place in the fictional American town of Henrietta, Virginia and not, as might be expected given its ties to Welsh mythology, the United Kingdom, but it pulls its weight as the source from which the rest of The Raven Boys' plot emerges. Stiefvater crafts a fascinating and quite original hidden world throughout the book, enough to ignite my curiosity and ensure that I will likely read the second book in the series, despite a few misgivings.

One of these misgivings is, unfortunately, our so-called heroine, Blue Sargent. Born from the same shapeless mold as many female YA protagonists, Blue possesses no particularly interesting character quirks or emotional hang-ups. Despite her eccentric family of psychics and her super special psychic amplification power, Blue is reduced to the popular YA trope of the everygirl readers can easily project themselves onto. Her relative lack of personality isn't a huge problem, as the majority of the book is told from the perspective of other characters, but the trend she represents bothers me quite a bit.

Blue wasn't enough to stop me from tearing through the book. The Raven Boys was easy to pick up and hard to put down. Stiefvater's prose is quite good, and the plot is doled out at a quick but comfortable pace.

The novel ends on a shoddy sequel hook that is more likely to enrage than pique. Tonally dissonant and completely out of the blue (ha ha ha), a single sentence almost ruined what was otherwise a satisfying conclusion.

Fans of YA romance might be disappointed that the promised kiss-of-death plot plays second fiddle, but if you're willing to forget the synopsis, you'll find a fun modern-day quest narrative riddled with original mythological concepts.

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Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Weekly Book Review: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Released: February 21, 2012
Genre: Young Adult

Summary:

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

[From Goodreads.]

Review:

I'm starting to appreciate all these YA books that keep parents in the picture. I was weened on fairy tales, fantasy, and sci-fi, genres which tend to dispose of parents, sometimes with great fanfare, sometimes by dumping them into the ocean roughly fifteen minutes into the movie.

You were just too inconvenient, parents.

Reasons for this vary, but the most ubiquitous is probably that parents tend to get in the way of a teen hero/ine's dangerous exploits.

How dare they love and care about their children.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe takes it a step further by letting the camera linger on both boys' parents every once in a while, cementing them as real people with real feelings rather than human-shaped obstacles to be overcome. While the emotional rollercoaster that is Aristotle and Dante is the novel's thesis, their relationships with their parents—Aristotle's, especially—are major plot points.

The novel is told in a short, clipped style, heavy in dialogue and first person introspection. Thoughts and discussion take heavy precedence over any sort of action, and while I like the steady, quiet tone this lends the novel, others might lack the patience for it.

The middle section of the novel dragged a little, as it kept revisiting the same problems—Dante's malaise, his longing for some contact, even indirect contact, with his estranged, imprisoned elder brother—without offering much in the way of resolution or forward momentum. It's still compelling, largely because those problems are compelling, but at times I wished Aristotle could move on a little quicker.

Overall, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe is a sweet, quiet book about love. It acknowledges that love comes in many different flavors, all of them somehow both delectable and hard to swallow. Those tired of quirky white teens will find Dante and Aristotle a nice change of pace, as will those interested in LGBT relationships.

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Personal Effects

Weekly Book Review: Eleanor & Park

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Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell 
Released: February 26, 2013
Genre: Young Adult

Summary:

"Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try."

[from Goodreads.]

Review:

Oscillating between cute and heartbreaking, sometimes within the same page, Eleanor & Park is a romance, but it isn't just a romance. It's the story of two teens from different sides of the track, with problems of varying intensity intruding on their comic book and mixtape built relationship. Eleanor faces an actively abusive stepfather and a mother too beat down to do anything about it. Park's problems are lighter by comparison—his father disapproves of his less-than-manly hobbies and appearance, while his mother disapproves of Eleanor—but enough to make his life less comfortable than it should be. Eleanor & Park doesn't shame Park for having an easier life than Eleanor, nor does it insinuate that his problems are insignificant just because they aren't as bad as hers. This is an unbiased look at two very different, intersecting lives.

Eleanor & Park tackles some heavy stuff, and it doesn't pull any punches. This book is in no way concerned with preserving its readers' feelings. It'll hit you hard, and it'll hit you often, with surprising intensity. The adorable cover fooled me into thinking I was getting something light and comfortable. This is not the case.

This is a slow book to start. It takes its time in setting up the characters and establishing their relationships. It's a pace that works well, however, as Eleanor and Park are similarly slow in warming up to each other. The two take small steps in reaching their destination, and it's satisfying to see them finally come together.

Of the books I've read since starting at the library, this is probably my favorite. Recommended for everyone but the most romance-allergic.

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Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Weekly Book Review: Noggin

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Noggin by John Corey Whaley
Released: April 8th, 2014
Genre: Young Adult / Light Science Fiction

Summary: 

"Listen — Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn’t.

Now he’s alive again.

Simple as that.

The in between part is still a little fuzzy, but he can tell you that, at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, it was reattached to some other guy’s body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he’s still 16 and everything and everyone around him has changed. That includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend. Or maybe she’s not his girlfriend anymore? That’s a bit fuzzy too.

Looks like if the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way to exist together, then there are going to be a few more scars.

Oh well, you only live twice."

[from John Corey Whaley's official website.]

Review:

I teared up no less than twenty times over the course of this book. Converted into normal person figures, that equals out to about 2 cpb (cries per book). The focus of this book is not on the event of Travis's Frankensteinian resurrection, but the emotional consequences of that event. For Travis, that means facing the long and painful process of dying only to come back to a world that's moved on without him. For his family and his friends, it means saying goodbye to Travis, dealing with his absence, and suddenly finding him back in their lives. The book posits that, like most anything that marks big changes in a life, resurrection would not be a wholly joyous experience. 

Travis is happy to be alive, of course, but he wants to live the life he left behind when he let those doctors cut off his head. His old life is just far enough outside his grasp to assure his failure, but close enough to get his hopes up. It stops him from moving on, and in his desperation to have everything back to the way it was, he tries to reverse what moving on his friends and family have done.

It's easy to sympathize with Travis, and just as easy to sympathize with his loved ones. I will admit to getting annoyed with his panicked attempts to win back his girlfriend's heart, but my reaction to them makes them no less understandable. At the same time, Cate's pained reactions to these are even more so. 

Don't get me wrong: the tears might flow, but this isn't a depressing novel. Just as the book examines the ugly side of living again, it pauses every once in a while to show that there are beautiful moments even in the midst of dying. Not to mention the many pluses of living again. 

Like, you know . . . living again.

The science fiction elements might be closer to fantasy than true science fiction. It's never quite explained how the doctors were able to graft Travis's head onto his body donor's neck. The book simply asks you to accept its conceit, and the rest of the book is so engrossing that I had no trouble doing exactly that. 

Read if you're even slightly interested in Young Adult fiction and you don't mind getting the pages a little wet.

You should also read:

The Fault in Our Stars

Weekly Book Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go

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The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Released: May 5, 2008
Genre: Young Adult / Science Fiction

Summary: 

"Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown.

But Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in a constant, overwhelming, never-ending Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets.

Or are there?

Just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd unexpectedly stumbles upon a spot of complete silence.

Which is impossible.

Prentisstown has been lying to him.

And now he's going to have to run..."

[from Patrick Ness's official website.]

Review:

This is another book that came highly recommended by random strangers on the internet, and so far, their recommendations are 2 for 2. Thank you, dear random strangers, for your surprisingly good taste.

Even so, I wasn't sure I'd like The Knife of Never Letting Go. I could see from my random strangers' summaries that the novel made use of a trope that I particularly dislike, which can be summed up as "X is the last of his/her sex in a world dominated by the other." This trope strikes me as exploitable in all the wrong ways, and, as a result, I tend to steer away from it. Thankfully, Ness's handling of the trope is both respectful and surprising. The novel's plot defied my expectations on almost every level. What I'd mistaken as predictable turned out to be misdirection, and I fell for it without a second thought.

The effect Noise has on men's lives and their interactions with other people is one of the more fascinating elements of the book. The novel is narrated in first person from Todd's perspective, and his thoughts mixed with the Noise he projects makes for an interesting study. It's interesting to see the normal way of thinking--to yourself, without blaring your thoughts out for all to hear--through the perspective of someone who has never known normalcy.

The latter half of the novel moves along at a breakneck pace. Todd and Viola are given barely a second's rest between the middle of the novel and its conclusion, and the pace is as straining on the reader as it is on them. By the end, the sheer amount of near-misses and close calls had me exhausted, and after so many, it was hard to be surprised when new ones cropped up. As for other negatives, well, there was one scene in the not-quite-middle of the novel involving a giant bird and Manchee, Todd's talking dog, that seemed a little too familiar (see: Pixar's Up), but it's a small bother in the long run.

Those who like their novels fast-paced and thrilling, with a dash of forced introspection, should enjoy The Knife of Never Letting Go.

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The Maze Runner

Weekly Book Review: Daughter of Smoke & Bone

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Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
Released: September 27, 2011
Genre: Young Adult

Summary:

"Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.  

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

 And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.  

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?"

[from Laini Taylor's official blog.]

Review:

This book came to me highly recommended by some random strangers on the internet. They lauded its beautiful prose and imaginative mythology, so much so that I went into the book primed for disappointment. Fortunately, Taylor's novel matched those strangers' praises even better than I could have hoped.

There were a few snags at the beginning. I rolled my eyes through initial descriptions of our two main characters and their alien perfections, ready to declare them both Mary Sues. After a weak first impression, however, the star-crossed duo grew on me, and though I was not particularly engaged in their will-they-won't-they love story, I was so enraptured by the rest of the novel that it didn't matter.

Aside from a few genre cliches in regards to certain characters (Akiva especially), the mythology Taylor has built is refreshingly original. The main objects of my fascination were the mysteries surrounding Karou's very strange life experiences. Why had this seemingly normal human girl been raised by monsters like the ram-faced Brimstone and the snake-entwined Issa? What were the eye tattoos on her hands, and why were they there? What lay beyond the door that Brimstone forbade her from opening? Why did Brimstone need the teeth he sent Karou to collect? These questions propel the book along at a steady pace, and the answers doled out are satisfying.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone excels in description, painting both earthly and otherworldly scenes with equal mysticism. In Taylor's capable hands, the streets of Marrakesh are only slightly less interesting than Brimstone's workshop. My only complaint in regards to description--and it's a slim one--is that it can be hard to remember which of a chimaera's body parts are animal and which are human, though considering later revelations in regards to Karou's bestial foster family, this confusion may be completely appropriate.

If you like your world-building intricate and original, and your prose smooth, sweet, and delectable, Daughter of Smoke & Bone and its successors should suit your tastes.

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Seraphina

Weekly Book Review: Unwind

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Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Released: November 6, 2007

Genre: Young Adult

Summary:

"In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them. Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed -- but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away."

[from Neal Shusterman's official website.]

Review:

Neal Shusterman’s novel was an emotional rollercoaster more winding than any I’ve ridden in quite a long time. Throughout its 335 pages, I alternated between hopeful and horrified, fascinated and repulsed, sometimes over the course of a single page. One feeling that never passed through my roiling brain was boredom. The novel sprints through each of its plot elements, sometimes to its own detriment, but more often the speed works in its favor by preserving and even emphasizing the tension of its leading characters’ dilemmas. 

Perhaps the greatest strength of the novel is its ability to make an unbelievable situation seem believable. The core conceit of the story is an America in which a terrible compromise, originally proposed as a morbid joke, has been reached between the pro-life and pro-choice sides of the abortion debate. This compromise is called unwinding. Until the age of 12, every American citizen has the right to life. Unwanted children are storked, left on another person’s doorstep to be adopted or discarded as that person sees fit. Discarded children are then inducted into the country’s extensive state home system, to be kept alive until the age of 12, when the imperfect, unadopted children will be unwound. Other children up for unwinding are the troubled and the tithed. Troubled children are sent away for unwinding by exasperated parents who no longer want to deal with the challenges of raising them. Tithed children are given up by their families in the name of religious servitude. 

Unwinding itself is the act of breaking a person down into each and every one of their individual parts: limbs, organs, bones, brain sections, blood. 99.4% of the parts (proponents of unwinding often round this up to 100% for better press) are then transplanted into people in need of a donor. It’s believed, at least by the act’s supporters, that because all useful parts of a child are used in this process, the child can be considered “alive” even after unwinding. Unsurprisingly, the unwinds themselves have their doubts. Through clever exposition and some creative use of point-of-view, Shusterman made me believe in a world that might accept this terrible act as normal, whether I wanted to or not.

All three subtypes of the unwind feature in the main cast: Carter the troubled, Risa the state home refugee, and Lev the tithed. Each of their stories begins differently, and though they converge, their varied upbringings result in similarly varied character arcs. Carter and Risa, who have always seen unwinding as a dreaded thing, adjust to the runaway life without significant change in their personalities. Instead, life on the run seems to strengthen their better qualities, namely Carter’s natural leadership abilities and Risa’s innate desire to help others. Lev, on the other hand, is completely dismantled as his passive acceptance of unwinding burns into a smoldering rage. Though these arcs diverge, I was invested in all of them. Often, when reading a book with multiple points-of-view, I pick my favorites and sigh my way through those that haven’t made that list. Not the case with Unwind. It was never disappointing to see Carter, Lev, or Risa’s name above a new chapter. If you were to ask me to rank the three in order of preference, I’m not sure I’d be able to.

Recommended for anyone who doesn’t mind a bit of YA in their speculative sci-fi as well as those who like to be pleasantly horrified.

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This one’s going to seem a slightly odd suggestion, but there are a surprising number of similarities between Unwind and The Golden Compass. Both feature resourceful kids on the run, and though I don’t want to give away too much of Pullman’s trilogy-starter, there is an act in the latter half of the book that’s strikingly similar to unwinding.

The Golden Compass

Weekly Book Review: Fangirl

Click to find this book in our catalogue.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Released: September 10, 2013
Genre: Young Adult

Summary:
 
"Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .

But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?"

[from Rainbow Rowell's official website.]

Review:

As soon as I saw the cover, I knew I had to read this book. That picture could be fanart of my life. Young, plainly dressed girl reading kissy wizard fanfics while someone tries (in vain) to get her attention in the background? That is Surrealities reduced to her cartoon essence.

What I didn't know was just how painfully accurate Rainbow Rowell's depiction of the not-so-social life of the "fangirl" would be. The strange loneliness inherent in surrounding yourself with people you may never meet in person, the dissociation of one's internet and personal lives, and sometimes of one's internet persona and "real life" persona. Cath could be unpersonable, unreasonable, and a little naive, but she was always true-to-life.

Other characters, like Wren and Cath's roomie-slash-bestie Reagen, are a little more thinly drawn, and Levi wavered between ideal and unbelievable. Luckily, I was so caught up in Cath that I didn't really notice until the book was over. This is Cath's show, and she's strong enough to carry the brunt of it herself.

This is a character-driven book, so many of the plot elements serve mostly to highlight some aspect of Cath and the insular world she's just starting to step away from. There is plot, of course: romances, betrayals, tension, hard decisions, all that good stuff, but it plays second fiddle to Cath. This isn't a criticism. In fact, I think it's Rowell's decision to focus on character rather than event that makes the book work so well.

The snippets of Simon Snow fanfiction that usher in each chapter were some of my favorite parts of the novel. Tonally, they match many of the best fanfics I've ever read. Lyrical and steamy, broaching subjects their parent stories would never dare, transforming characters in ways that leave them recognizable but plainly different, these snippets exemplify the traits that draw readers and writers both to the world of fanfiction. Just like the best stories give birth to fanfic by leaving their readers wanting more, these fanfic snippets left me wanting more Simon Snow, though I only knew him as little more than a fictional Harry Potter analogue.

Is a fictional analogue of a fictional character fictional squared?

Anyways.

Present and former fangirls alike should find something to love in this novel, as will any readers who love their romances sweet, with just a hint of sap. It may be a bit uncomfortable for those who fit into the former category, but not to worry: that just means it's working.

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Eleanor & Park