Review: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Release date: 27th March 2014

Publisher: Walker Books

Reason for reading: Received a proof & it sounded intriguing 

Add it on Goodreads

Buy: Waterstones | Hive

Goodreads synopsis:

Foolish love appears to be a Roux family birthright. And for Ava Lavender, a girl born with the wings of a bird, it is an ominous thing to inherit. In her quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to join her peers, sixteen-year-old Ava ventures into the wider world. But it is a dangerous world for a naive girl...

My thoughts:

I knew immediately that The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender was a very special book. The prose is haunting, whimsical and lyrical, and it just draws you in and before you know it, you’ve read half the book and your bathwater has gone cold (in my case, anyway). The story charts the history of Ava’s family, beginning with her great grandmother and the birth of her maternal grandmother, Emilienne. The narrative dips and weaves and dances about in a mesmeric way, leaving you completely captivated. We’re introduced to many different characters, but the strength and uniqueness of their descriptions makes it easy to keep them distinct.

The whole cast of characters (bar a couple of notable and decidedly dastardly ones) are wonderfully described with the same painstakingly brilliant attention to detail and whimsical twist as the rest of the book. I do have a rather large soft spot for Ava's brother Henry, but it was her grandmother and mother Emilienne and Viviane, that I liked the best. Both have experienced tragedy and both have dealt with it in their own ways. This story is as much about them and their lives and loves as it is about Ava. 

Ava Lavender is full of the sort of magical realism that follows no logic, yet is totally believable. People turn into canaries, into ghosts that haunt the living, and yet at no point does the story seem unrealistic. Instead the magical realism aspect is threaded seamlessly through the narrative, only adding to the quirky and surreal feel of the novel, enhancing it further.

There’s an important message in Ava Lavender and that is that yes, love might make us fools, but that’s something that can be survived. There’s a fair few women in the story that are spurned, damaged and broken by love, yet they endure. They are strong and they fight and they carry on. No matter the choices made by them or by others, choices that affect them adversely, they make the best of what they have and that is a wonderful thing.

TL:DR; The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender is mindblowingly good. Full of on-point whimsy, heart-wrenching tragedy and enough sweet moments to offer some hope, it’s a bittersweet tale of love and loss, but it’s also so much more than that. You want to read this book. 

Review: Trouble by Non Pratt

Trouble by Non Pratt

Release date: 06/03/14

Publisher: Walker Books

Reason for reading: received a proof, UK author, intriguing premise, loved the cover

Add it on Goodreads

Buy it: Waterstones | Hive

Goodreads synopsis:

Hannah’s smart and funny ... she’s also fifteen and pregnant. Aaron is new at school and doesn’t want to attract attention. So why does he offer to be the pretend dad to Hannah’s unborn baby? 

Growing up can be trouble but that’s how you find out what really matters.

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The first thing that struck me about Trouble was how genuine the teenage voices felt. Immediately I could imagine that these characters were real people somewhere, and this was their story. Trouble touches on a lot of things that affect teenagers: sex, unplanned pregnancy, alcohol, reputation, bullying, yet it managed to avoid being an ‘issues’ book. At the heart of it, Trouble is a story about a 15 year old girl that falls pregnant, but for me the shining star of this book was the dynamic between Hannah and Aaron, which unfolds in the most brilliant and organic manner.

Hannah isn’t quite the girl everyone thinks she is, but when she falls pregnant, people aren’t that surprised. She is known for ‘sleeping around’ after all. Aaron is the new boy at school and a bit of an enigma and, for some reason, he offers to pretend to be the father to Hannah’s baby. The amount of personal growth in this novel is pretty outstanding. Both Hannah and Aaron experience a lot over the course of the story, but beyond the things that happen to them is the amount they learn from those things and how they’re changed. By the end of the novel they’re both stronger, better people and that’s accomplished in a way that is painful for everyone involved, but is also incredibly moving, heartfelt and genuine.

The whole cast of secondary characters is wonderfully detailed, from Hannah’s darling little sister to the people that become her true friends to Aaron’s unlikely companion Neville. While Trouble has a lot of seriousness to it, there’s also a lot of humour and completely touching moments, and a lot of those come courtesy of these secondary characters. This might be Hannah and Aaron’s story, but it wouldn’t  be the same without everyone that’s a part of their lives along the way.

Trouble manages to be totally unflinching, yet avoids being cringey. It has one of the most realistic sex scenes I’ve ever read in a book and yet it was not at all uncomfortable to read. Everything about the plot was pitch perfect, from the various reactions to the pregnancy from the people in both Hannah and Aaron’s lives, to the events that unfolded and the twists and turns along the way. There wasn’t a moment that lead me to think “that’s ridiculous” or “she would never say that”.  

TL;DR: Trouble is like a UK combo of a Hannah Harrington novel mixed with a Kody Keplinger one. Full of wit and authenticity, Trouble is a book that really touches on what it means to be a teenager. It’s full of messiness, sadness and anger, but also humour, warmth and charm and it is absolutely wonderful. 

Review: Fearsome Dreamer by Laure Eve

Fearsome Dreamer by Laure Eve

Release date: 03/10/13

Publisher: Hot Key Books

Reason for reading: It sounded freaking awesome and I love the cover and it sounded freaking awesome

Goodreads
Buy: Waterstones | Hive | Hot Key Books

Goodreads synopsis:

There is a world where gods you’ve never heard of have wound themselves into hearts, and choice has led its history down a different path.

This is a world where France made a small, downtrodden island called England part of its vast and bloated empire.

There are people here who can cross a thousand miles with their minds. There are rarer people still who can move between continents in the blink of an eye.

These people are dangerous.

And wanted. Desperately wanted.

Apprentice hedgewitch Vela Rue knows that she is destined for more. She knows being whisked off from a dull country life to a city full of mystery and intrigue is meant to be. She knows she has something her government wants, a talent so rare and precious and new that they will do anything to train her in it.

But she doesn’t know that she is being lied to. She doesn’t know that the man teaching her about her talent is becoming obsessed by her, and considered by some to be the most dangerous man alive ...

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My thoughts:

Fearsome Dreamer is the sort of book that desires to seduce you slowly. There’s no quick pay off, no one night stand, the story reels you in, gently, gently, until you’re completely enraptured, immersed in the world Laure Eve has created. It’s clear that Laure Eve has been inspired by a great many things; paying them homage whilst still crafting a novel that is entirely unique and entirely her own.

You may feel that fantasy, alternate history, sci-fi, a slight dystopian slant and hints of horror would not a fantastic book make. You would be wrong. Laure Eve seamlessly weaves together snippets from multiple genres to create a story that almost defies categorisation and makes it one of the most unique and interesting books I have ever read. The World and world Laure Eve has created is both intriguing and developed. An interesting mix of future technological globalisation and old-England-come-fantasy-setting, information about the state of our planet and its inhabitants is drip-fed, avoiding a confusion-inducing info-dump and succeeding in holding the interest of the reader; curious to learn more.

The characters are real, with personality traits that are not always desirable but in no way affect the likability of those possessing them. Rue is fanciful and almost silly; with that innocent narcissistic touch that many teenagers exhibit, making her easy to relate to. She believes she is destined for great things, in that self-involved way many of us view ourselves in our teen years, and, in her case, she is right. Transported from her home in the countryside of Angle Tar, to one of the majestic cities, she meets White. The young and severely introverted instructor is quickly irritated by Rue’s thoughtless, unfiltered way of speaking; leading to a strained relationship, until an episode reminiscent of one of my favourite moments in Buffy the Vampire Slayer forces them to re-evaluate how they feel about each other. This new tension, this awareness, is heightened during my favourite scene of the book, which is clearly inspired by one of the great scenes of literature and is absolute perfection. White’s almost desperate attempts to forge the sort of connection he wants but struggles to make are endearingly heartbreaking, as is the almost complete social shutdown he forces upon himself, and the flashes of what happened to him before Rue came along are even more so. 

White and Rue are both ‘headhunted’ by Frith; a complex and complicated character that I found myself both respecting and fearing. It is through Frith that we discover the end game of the story:  the mysterious Castle; the horrors it contains; the need for the Talented, and the tense relationship between Angle Tar and World: a relationship that fuels some of the most important elements of this book.

Fearsome Dreamer is very literary in the sense that there’s a certain emphasis placed on the language and the characters; specifically their interactions and relationships with each other. The book reminds me of The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater in this aspect, and its ending certainly packs a similar emotional punch to the climax of that novel.

TL;DR: Fiercely compelling, Fearsome Dreamer is an accomplished, captivating and thoughtful debut novel. There are some fantastic female writers really making waves in the fantasy genre lately; Leigh Bardugo, Samantha Shannon, Sarah J. Maas, and Laure Eve should count herself among them. 

Review: Heart-shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne

Heart-shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne
Release date: September 2012 (paperback)
Publisher: Headline
Source: Purchased
Reason for reading: Love the premise, seen really good reviews

Goodreads description:

They say I'm evil. The police. The newspapers. The girls from school who shake their heads on the six o’clock news and say they always knew there was something not quite right about me. And everyone believes it. Including you. But you don't know. You don't know who I used to be. 

Who I could have been.

Awaiting trial at Archway Young Offenders Institution, Emily Koll is going to tell her side of the story for the first time. 

Heart-Shaped Bruise is a compulsive and moving novel about infamy, identity and how far a person might go to seek revenge.

My thoughts:

I really didn't know what to expect from this book when I started to read it. I'd seen the really good reviews and the award nominations but I wasn't sure how I would feel about it. I also felt kinda bad because I read Heart-shaped Bruise after reading Shadow and Bone which I LOVED and I felt like HSB wouldn't be able to match up.

But it did. It was so wonderful. You know when you start a book and you just know that you're going to love it? That is exactly how I felt reading Heart-shaped Bruise. Emily Koll was so captivating. Her voice just leapt out of the page. I loved how the fact she was writing in a notebook, never sure if someone would actually read it, made it feel so much more personal. Like you were the only person to read her story.  Emily was so full of life, of vitality, even though she judged herself so harshly. I felt like, because she was so hard on herself, I didn't have to be. I didn't have to hate her, or be shocked by her or resent her, because she did all that herself. It was so easy to empathise with her, to like her, which isn't really something I expected. I actually really liked Emily, loved her even, despite what she'd done. I totally got why she felt she had to ruin Juliet's life, like, she had to hate someone and she couldn't hate her dad because she loved him, so she hated Juliet. She needed someone else to experience that moment of  realisation that a person you trusted and loved wasn't who you thought they were. It was kinda tragic because all the way through her retelling of her story you can see how it COULD'VE gone; how her life could've been if she didn't have such a need for revenge.

I've read a couple of books where the main character has done something horrible and they skirt around it, hinting at it without actually telling you what happened, and I can find the whole thing quite frustrating and not particularly enjoyable. I find myself reading the book simply to find out what happened rather than because I actually want to. This didn't happen with Heart-shaped Bruise. I enjoyed every minute of reading it, every snippet of information Emily gave me, every snarky comment and beautifully-constructed sentence. I didn't feel like she was keeping secrets from me because she wanted me to read the whole of her story, but because she didn't want to think about them long enough to write them down until she really had to, but that the secrets were always there, at the back of her mind, permeating every thought. 

Heart-shaped Bruise is so fantastically written which is something I love in a book. The prose was beautiful and evocative and Emily felt so vibrant and real. There was a level of dark humour to the story that I didn't anticipate being there, but it really worked with and added to the story. I was initially disappointed by the ending, but once I thought about it I knew that ending it any other way would do the story, and Emily, and injustice. 

TL;DR: Heart-shaped Bruise is a darkly funny, intimate tale of a bit of an anti-hero dealing with the consequences of her actions.