REVIEW: Autoboyography di Christina Lauren

A simple style and a poignant story 

TITLE: Autoboyography

AUTHOR: Christina Lauren
PAGES: 416

PLOT:
Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.
But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar, where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester, Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.
It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.



REVIEW

The last semester of high school is going to start and Tanner has to complete his schedule. Autumn, his best friend, teases him to join The Seminar, not just a writing course, but THE writing course: students have to write a complete book in four months. Tanner decides to take the challenge. He doesn't know how much four months can change his world.
While at lesson he meets Sebastian, an ex-student and now teacher's assistant. And his smiles ruins him.

Tanner falls desperately in love with him, although he knows Sebastian is off-limits. Every guy in town is off-limits. Two years before the beninning of this story Tanner's family moved from California to Provo, Utah, a small town where almost everyone is Mormon. Back home he was out, his family and friends knew about his sexual identity and nobody had problems with it: he was Tanner and he was bisexual. It was almost like saying he had dark hair, just a matter of fact.
On the contrary, here, in Provo, it's a secret. And of course Sebastian, who is the bishop's son, is out of reach.

REVIEW: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Complex and delicate

TITLE: The Hate U Give
AUTHOR: Angie Thomas
PAGES: 448

PLOT:
Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl's struggle for justice.


 

REVIEW

The Hate U Give is a very complex book to review, since it is not just a novel... here the author becomes the spokeperson of an entire community and deals with such a delicate topic as racism is.

Starr, the protagonist, is a 16-year-old black girl living a double life: she's "Big Mav's daughter" in her neighborhood (Garden Height, the ghetto zone of the town) and a very cool "whitish" girl in the school she attends, the Williamson (a very white place).
At the beginning of the book she witnesses the murder of her childhood friend Khalil, killed by a white cop without apparent reason.
This event completely changes her life: she has to testify, she has to tell the truth, to show the world the injustice they (black people) have always suffered... an injustice that caused her innocent friend's death. Step by step she becomes aware of the power of her words, of how every life matters and of how injustice have to be fought with tenacity.
I'd like to stress that Starr should be an example for everyone, not just those victims of racism, but for all the victims and all the witnesses: your voice is your weapon, our voices are our weapons and we have to stand up for ourselves and for everyone who needs us. Because brave is not the person without fears, but brave is the person who, despite his/her fears, does the right thing.

As a character Starr was quite easy to understand and to emphatize with (the story is told by her point of view), whereas unfortunately other characters weren't so clear and so involving. Even though I loved her family, I would have like to know more about her brothers and her momma. The member of the family that I got the most was her dad: stubborn, strong, determined to love and protect his "lil' girl" at all costs. I really understood him and I adored the way he decided to improve himself for his family's sake.

REVIEW: Iron to Iron by Ryan Graudin

 In order to understand Luka Lowe.

TITLE: Iron to Iron
AUTHOR: Ryan Graudin

PLOT:
Sixteen-year-old Luka Löwe has one goal in mind: Win the 1955 Axis Tour and become the first Double Cross victor. If he can accomplish that, maybe his father will finally see him as a worthy son. He's completed the grueling trek from Germania to Tokyo before, but this time is different. Luka never expected to meet Adele Wolfe, another racer posing as her twin brother and with a singular dream--to live life on her own terms.
When Luka and Adele form an alliance, an unlikely bond forms, and even possibly love. But only one person can win the Axis Tour....Can everything Luka and Adele built together survive the race?

REVIEW:

I loved Wolf By Wolf very much, so when I heard there would be a Luka Löwe ebook I was very excited.
Iron to Iron is short but also amazing, it helps us to understand the figure of Luka and his relationship with Adele Wolfe. 

Luka is fascinating, handsome and charming, he can get anything he wants, but the only thing he really desires is to win the 1955 Axis Tour, so as to become the first Double Cross Victor and show his worth to his father.
Every girl is in love with him, but he isn't really interested in anyone... at least until he meets Adele Wolfe. She's different from the other girls, she's strong, stubborn and determined. Since she loves racing with motorbikes she pretends to be her twin brother Felix to enter the Axis Tour. When Luka discovers her secret, they decide to form an alliance. Soon their alliance turns into something more: love. Luka falls in love with Adele, he's completely into her. They understand each other, they want to live life on their own terms, they don't like following rules, they break them. Luka tells Adele his secrets, he reveals his weakness to her and for the first time in his life he gives his heart to someone. 

REVIEW: The sun is also a star by Nicola Yoon

Wonderful.

TITLE: The sun is also a star
AUTHOR: Nicola Yoon
PAGES: 384

PLOT:
Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.

Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store―for both of us.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?




REVIEW

I first started reading this book in January: I read a few pages and then I had to stop to read other books. Now that I’ve finished it, I regret postponing this reading, I regret it a lot. 

The sun is also a star is wonderful, I actually think that there’s no other word to describe it and I’m not even sure that “wonderful” makes it justice. This novel is really like the sun: it’s bright, clear, powerful and… essential. 

Last summer I read Everything everything by Nicola Yoon, so I already knew the author: last summer I liked her first novel, but now I'm sincerely in love with her and her second book.

The story is (mainly) told by Natasha and Daniel, the two main characters.
She’s a black girl from Jamaica and she went to US a decade before the beginning of the book. She has a father who wants to be an actor,  a mother who works double shifts and a little shy brother. They’re all undocumented immigrants and, since they’ve been discovered (her father’s fault), they’ll be deported back to Jamaica.

Daniel is the second son of a Korean couple. His parents own a beauty care shop and they want him and his elder brother Charlie to become doctors, so that they will never experience poverty.

REVIEW: A tragic kind of wonderful

Intense. Really intense.

When choosing books by chance makes you discover a little miracle.

COMUNICAZIONE:
Ho deciso che dei libri che leggo in lingua pubblicherò sia una recensione nella lingua in cui ho letto il libro che una recensione in italiano. Ecco qui la recensione in inglese, domani troverete quella in italiano.

TITLE: A tragic kind of wonderful

AUTHOR: Eric Lindstrom

PUBLISHER: Poppy

LANGUAGE: English

PAGES: 281

PLOT:

For sixteen-year-old Mel Hannigan, bipolar disorder makes life unpredictable. Her latest struggle is balancing her growing feelings in a new relationship with her instinct to keep everyone at arm's length. And when a former friend confronts Mel with the truth about the way their relationship ended, deeply buried secrets threaten to come out and upend her shaky equilibrium.
As the walls of Mel's compartmentalized world crumble, she fears the worst--that her friends will abandon her if they learn the truth about what she's been hiding. Can Mel bring herself to risk everything to find out?

In A Tragic Kind of Wonderful, Eric Lindstrom, author of the critically acclaimed Not If I See You First, examines the fear that keeps us from exposing our true selves, and the courage it takes to be loved for who we really are.

REVIEW:

I started reading A tragic kind of wonderful by chance: I loved the title and I bought it. Actually I felt in love with both the title and the cover, which looks like a piece of modern art: some spots of colors on a white canvas. 

You know, I’ve always been attracted by “chaos”… and in this book I found my perfect world.
Confusion here is everywhere in Mel’s mind.

Mel Hannigan is 16 years old and she suffers from bipolar disorder, which makes her life unpredictable.  She can’t tell anyone about her disease, she doesn’t want her friends to treat her differently, like she’s ill.

“Sometimes I wish I knew what I was going to say in time to decide not to.”

Mel is a strong girl and her main feature is her kindness: she’s always ready to help everyone around her, no matter what. Even when she’s sad or angry.  And due to her bipolar disorder, her feeling any type of emotion could become a problem: when she’s not under meds or when she lives a particular event (like a fight or a date), all her moods are magnified. Her sadness becomes depression, her happiness turns into excitement and her anger makes her a fury.
At first I found it difficult to really understand her, but after some pages I was able to empathize with her: it was wonderful, intense and quite unsettling at the same time… I got how she thought and felt, nevertheless I could see what her family was living because of her. I felt sorry for them all. 

“You're not bipolar, Mel. You have a bipolar disorder. You also have vibrant blue eyes, a wonderful personality, a tendency to undervalue yourself, and many, many other things. None of those things are you."
"What am I, then?"
"A person who changes and grows all the time.”