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You are here: Home / Archives for contemporary

contemporary

Top Ten Books On My TBR For Summer 2015

16th June 2015 By Julianne 6 Comments

As I said in the above video, I am a seasonal reader. In summer, I crave contemporaries like they’re going out of fashion. Which they might be – it certainly seems that way, especially when you look at the YALC lineup. Discuss.

Anyway, regardless of current publishing trends or fan furore, in my mind, contemporary settings in books and summer belong together. It’s not compulsory for the books be set during a summer, but I do find myself drawn to summery books because summer is my favourite season, as I rambled in another video, last year, and I want to make the most of it!

So most of the books on today’s Top Ten Tuesday are contemporary, or contemporary with supernatural elements.. I might not get to them all, because I’m moving, and have to spend a lot of time going round furniture shops (Zzzzzzz…). Or I might devour all of them, because I don’t have internet for weeks. Who knows!

Yeah, as if I have the space for a dedicated table for my TBR, a pair of sunglasses and a wrist cuff.

 

Top Ten Books On My TBR For Summer 2015

1. Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian, by Eoin Colfer – I am FINALLY going to finish #FinishItFeb. In June.

2. This Is Not A Love Story, by Keren David – everyone seems really thrilled about this, so I can’t wait to give it a go.

3. The Lost and Found, by Cat Clarke – this is an upcoming Bookish Brits Book Club selection. Lots of people I know absolutely rave about Cat Clarke but I’ve never read any of her books before so I’m excited to give it a go.

4. Subway Love, by Nora Raleigh Baskin – because I’m probably not going to go on holiday abroad this year, I figured I might as well go on a journey in my head to NYC. Also this is quite a short book, so it can be a little self-esteem booster in-between longer reads.

5. How To Be Bad, by E Lockhart, Lauren Myracle, and Sarah Mlynowski – because this is the only E Lockhart book I haven’t read yet, and I just got this copy. I’m hoping to start it as soon as I finish my current read (The Girl on the Train).

6. Second Chance Summer, by Morgan Matson – another book that everyone seems to love, plus, it’s set during a summer.

7. Rules of Summer, by Joanna Philbin – I got sent this unsolicited review copy a year or two ago, and I hadn’t heard anything about it, so it languished on my TBR until Stacey at prettybooks recommended it.

8. Have a Little Faith, by Candy Harper, and

9. Dare You To, by Katie McGarry, because I should really start working on my List of Shame. We’re more than halfway through the year, after all.

10. Under My Skin, by James Dawson, because the hot pink on the cover and the edges of the colour is such a summery colour. I mean, I’m looking forward to the story as well, but maintaining a summer aesthetic is important business…

Just the UKYA, chilling on my bed.

I hope you enjoyed this post! Let me know in the comments if you have read any of these and if you have any recommendations, and if you’ve done your own version of this list please share the link. Top Ten Tuesday was created and is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

 

Filed Under: Recommendation Lists Tagged With: #finishitfeb, book chat, contemporary, list, summer, teenage fiction, Top Ten Tuesday, YA, young adult

Book Review: Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson

6th October 2013 By Julianne 1 Comment

Speak is a difficult book to review. So many other blogs and articles have featured it before that I am afraid that I will have nothing more to add to the conversation; however, it is a book that should be talked about often, and I will try to explain why!

Melinda, the narrator, is just beginning her first year at high school. She has no friends because of an end-of-summer party that went wrong when Melinda was raped by a older, more popular boy. She called the police but left the party before they arrived, and has never explained her actions. The other teenagers blame her for ruining the party and getting them into trouble, while Melinda’s parents don’t know what’s wrong and get annoyed at her for being withdrawn. Speak is about how Melinda retreats into silence before finally finding her voice.

What I liked most about Speak is that it’s not a harrowing read. Obviously, due to the subject matter, it can be uncomfortable at times, but Melinda is a witty narrator, which lifts the tone enough to stop it being relentlessly depressing. Her silence is largely due to fear and shame, rather than actual bullying. Her isolation is at least partly self-imposed. She thinks that nobody will understand what happened to her, and for a long time she tries not to think about it. She can’t explain it to anyone else because she can’t explain it to herself. Once she thinks about what has happened, and accepts it, she starts to be able to find the strength she needs to tell other people.

I also really liked the characters at school that Melinda interacts with. Her art teacher is a fantastic character, dealing with his own anger at the school board through his work. I also thought that Melinda’s former friends were well-developed, interesting and believable characters.

It’s not a book that I will read again – this isn’t a criticism, because I don’t think it’s that sort of book. It’s very much an ‘issue’ book, honest and realistic, but there are no exciting plot twists or enthralling love stories to entice me to re-read it. I think that the message it sends out is important and am appalled by the controversy – this is just the type of book that school libraries should stock.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: book review, contemporary, Laurie Halse Anderson, review, teenage fiction, young adult

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Hi! I'm Julianne and this is my book blog. Click my picture to read more about me.

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