Something Worth Saving by Sandi Ward, 2019

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A boy and his cat. It's an unconventional friendship, perhaps, but for Charlie and Lily, it works beautifully. It was Charlie who chose Lily from among all the cats in the shelter. He didn't frown, the way other humans did, when he saw her injured back leg, the legacy of a cruel previous owner. Instead, Charlie insisted on rescuing her. Now Lily wants to do the same for Charlie.

She's the only one who's seen the bruises on Charlie's body. If she knew who was hurting him, she'd scratch their eyes out. But she can't fix this by herself. Lily needs to get the rest of the family to focus on Charlie--not easy when they're wrapped up in their own problems. Charlie's mother kicked his father out weeks ago and has a new boyfriend who seems charming, but is still a stranger. Oldest son Kevin misses his father desperately. Victoria, Charlie's sister, also has someone new in her life, and Lily is decidedly suspicious. Even Charlie's father, who Lily loves dearly, is behaving strangely.

Lily knows what it's like to feel helpless. But she also knows that you don't always have to be the biggest or the strongest to fight fiercely for the ones you love . . .

(309 pages)

I hate to quit a book before I've finished it, but once in a while I just can't make myself get through a book. This is one of those times.

I like the premise: the story of a dysfunctional, separated family is told through the eyes of the family cat. Unfortunately, right out the gate I took a disliking to the narration. It's cute, the idea of having a cat tell the story, but Lily is the most un-cat-like cat I've ever read about. She acts more like a dog than the family dog does, honestly, and it's really disorienting.

I was willing to brush that aside, though, so I kept reading. I actually made it about 2/3 through the book. I pushed past the growing implication that Charlie was gay and the bad language, interested in the nuanced portrayals of Charlie's father (a hero and a cop who was injured and developed a crippling addiction to alcohol) and Victoria's boyfriend (a bad boy who is a real, flawed, hurt person who sometimes enjoys hurting others).

Then Charlie's mother slept with someone, and Lily was observing the whole thing. And describing their dialogue and everything. And that was it.

So I put the book down, and I'm not planning on picking it back up. I'd hardly recommend anyone else reads it either, which is a shame because there actually was a very strong core story about the different stories of all the people in the house as it was being torn apart. It's a nuanced tale, just such an explicit one, and it could have been so much greater.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Child of the River by Irma Joubert, 2016 (DNF Review)

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Persomi’s dreams are much bigger than the world of poverty and deprivation that surround her in the Bushveld of the 1940s and 1950s in South Africa.

Persomi is young, white and poor, born the middle child of illiterate sharecroppers on the prosperous Fourie farm. Persomi’s world is extraordinarily small. She has never been to the local village and spends her days absorbed in the rhythms of the natural world around her. Her older brother, Gerbrand, is her lifeline and her connection to the outside world. When he leaves the farm to seek work in Johannesburg, Persomi’s isolated world is blown wide open. But as her very small world falls apart, bigger dreams become open to her—dreams of an education, a profession, and of love. As Persomi navigates the changing world around her—the tragedies of WWII and the devastating racial strife of her homeland—she finally discovers who she truly is and where she belongs.

A compelling coming of age story with an unlikely and utterly memorable heroine, Persomi’s English language publication solidifies Irma Joubert’s important place in the canon of inspirational historical fiction.

(400 pages)

Okay, yeah, this isn't going to be a really long review. It's not much of a review at all, because I quit about fifty pages in. Why, you ask? Because that's when a rather convoluted, subtle description of Pérsomi's father's trial confirmed once and for all that he'd repetitively raped and actually impregnated his own daughter (her sister).

Ew. Ew, ew, ew. I don't know whether this is a good book or not (and I actually suspect it might turn out to be a great book, in a hard-hitting literary sort of way along the lines of Cry, the Beloved Country) but it is so not what I want to be reading about during my limited relaxation time. I can handle a certain amount of oppression and horror, which is why I picked up this book about a South African girl during WWII in the first place, but I have to draw the line somewhere and I think a sexual abuse from parents is as good a place to draw it as I'm going to find.

So don't take my word for whether Child of the River is a good book. It very well might be, I honestly don't know. But the truth is that I don't really care because I am just not up for reading past such a depressing/disturbing start to a novel. If you want to read this with me as part of an English class, go ahead–in an academic setting, I relish tackling complex moral dilemmas and the throes of human misery. In my own time, though? Nope. I'm not going there. So unless someone comments below and tells me the rest of the book is mild enough for a twelve-year-old to read, I think I am done with Child of the River for a long, long while.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers program in exchange for an honest review.

Lots of Guilt (or, ARCs I'm Not Going to Read)

I know, I know, I'm a terrible person. I get free books in the mail - before they even come out in the store - and then I choose not to even read them? Even I am ashamed of myself. But sometimes you request a book because the teaser sounds amazing, only to find out once you crack it open that they're not nearly as good as you'd hoped. That's what happened with these two books: I got them both - one by request, the other unsolicited - and, before I started them, handed them over to my wonderful mother who sacrifices some of her valuable time to help me pare down my TBR list to the books I'll actually enjoy reading. Neither of these novels were so horrible she absolutely refused to let me read them (which she does do sometimes), but they were bad enough that she talked me out of wanting to. I'm putting the teasers and covers down below, though, so I can give at least some publicity to the books in return for the gorgeous ARCs that the publishers spent the time and money to send me. I'm also putting the reasons I'm not reading them, which you might find interesting. Just be warned, I haven't read the books myself - take all the negative things I write about them with a grain of salt!

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Noah is just trying to make it through seventh grade. The girls are confusing, the homework is boring, and even his friends are starting to bug him. Not to mention that his older sister, Emma, has been acting pretty strange, even though Noah thought she’d been doing better ever since the Thing They Don’t Talk About. The only place he really feels at peace is in art class, with a block of clay in his hands. As it becomes clear through Emma’s ever-stricter food rules and regulations that she’s not really doing better at all, the normal seventh-grade year Noah was hoping for begins to seem pretty unattainable. In an affecting and realistic novel with bright spots of humor, Jo Knowles captures the complexities of navigating middle school while feeling helpless in the face of a family crisis.
(Release Date August 2, 2016)

I feel terrible that I'm not even going to read this, after the folks over at Candlewick Press were awesome enough to send me an ARC when I asked them for one. I still think it looks really interesting - I haven't read many books about people with eating disorders, let alone about the siblings of people with them! - but my mother said that the book is split about halfway between focusing on Noah's sister's eating problems (which she said was really interesting to read about) and focusing on his school life (i.e. his girl-crazy best friends and unsupportive teachers, which she didn't like at all).

It sounds like my mom did really like the eating disorder storyline, but thought the book was ruined by the middle-school romance angle; if you're intrigued by the scenario and not turned off by middle-school romance, then you could still like Still a Work in Progress.

Disclaimer: ARC received from Candlewick Press
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Nadia lives in the city of Canaan, where life is safe and structured, hemmed in by white stone walls and no memory of what came before. But every twelve years the city descends into the bloody chaos of the Forgetting, a day of no remorse, when each person's memories – of parents, children, love, life, and self – are lost. Unless they have been written.
In Canaan, your book is your truth and your identity, and Nadia knows exactly who hasn't written the truth. Because Nadia is the only person in Canaan who has never forgotten.
But when Nadia begins to use her memories to solve the mysteries of Canaan, she discovers truths about herself and Gray, the handsome glassblower, that will change her world forever. As the anarchy of the Forgetting approaches, Nadia and Gray must stop an unseen enemy that threatens both their city and their own existence – before the people can forget the truth. And before Gray can forget her.

(Release Date September 13)

I didn't actually request The Forgetting, it just showed up in a beautiful package from Scholastic one afternoon, so while I was thrilled (just look at that gorgeous cover, and read that amazing teaser!) I was also a little nervous from the teaser's mention of "Gray, the handsome glassblower" that the main characters would spend the whole time lusting after each other the way the characters did in Evangeline Denmark's Curio (my review), a book that I was originally so excited for that I reached out to the publisher for a review copy. This time I specifically asked my mom to skim through The Forgetting ahead of time and let me know whether it would be good, because I didn't really want to read another Curio. Unfortunately she told me that (and I quote) "the main characters spend the whole time panting after each other." Panting. Yeah, I wasn't exactly heartbroken when she said she didn't want me to read it. I am a little sad, though, that the author took such a fascinating plot and messed it up by adding romance. Why can't the main character ever just focus on saving the world with her best friend, instead of on saving the world while falling in love with her main ally?

Disclaimer: ARC received from Scholastic
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What do you think, am I right for passing these books by or just evil for wasting perfectly good ARCs? Let me know in the comments section below!

The Drosten's Curse by A.L. Kennedy, 2015

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From award-winning author A.L. Kennedy, an original Doctor Who novel featuring the beloved Fourth Doctor, as played by Tom Baker.
“I shall make you the jewel at the heart of the universe.”Something distinctly odd is going on in Arbroath. It could be to do with golfers being dragged down into the bunkers at the Fetch Brothers’ Golf Spa Hotel, never to be seen again. It might be related to the strange twin grandchildren of the equally strange Mrs Fetch--owner of the hotel and fascinated with octopuses. It could be the fact that people in the surrounding area suddenly know what others are thinking, without anyone saying a word.
(368 pages)

This is the first book I've DNF'd in a very long time, and I'm heartbroken to do so. I came into The Drosten's Curse with an open mind, ready and willing to fall in love with this new medium of Doctor Who (having previously only watched the actual TV show). Unfortunately, I just couldn't do it. I stopped reading at page 150, and then skipped to the end to read the last few chapters - the writing style careened between "fan-fiction" and "Agatha-Christie-wannabe," and just became so painful I couldn't continue.

A lot of that had to do with the characters. Bryony is supposed to be this great, clever, strong heroine like the ones on the show (Rose, Martha, Donna, etc.), but she feels incredibly two-dimensional. Her pluckiness is really the only thing even slightly appealing about her - and it feels just a little too forced. I was excited at the beginning when she was introduced as a European History major (because, hey! I love European History!), but Kennedy completely avoids using this to actually give Bryony a personality, besides a few perfunctory references to Richelieu that really don't add anything to the story besides giving a tiny bit of credibility to Bryony's claim of having majored in history.

Putta was my favorite character. If all the other characters had been done as well as he was, the book would have been okay enough for me to actually read to the end. He was very endearing (though, if I'm being extra nit-picky, there was a rather over-the-top "this is a character you're supposed to find endearing" feel to him), and I did wish him a happy ending.

But what about the Doctor? Yikes. Just, yikes. I haven't watched much of Tom Baker-era Doctor Who, but I've seen enough to get the flavor and this just wasn't it. I mean sure, there were the perfunctory Jelly Babies scattered throughout the book, and a few references to his big scarf and wild hair, but being inside his head just didn't work at all. You're never inside the Doctor's head in the TV episodes, so I can't say this for sure, but I'm 99.99% positive that the Doctor's thought process wouldn't be anything like the way it's depicted in The Drosten's Curse. Kennedy would have been better off just staying out of his head altogether, because the scenes told from his POV are just - well, they're painful. Very painful. And I decided to DNF the book during one of those scenes.

So yeah, I definitely don't recommend this book to anyone. Who would recommend a book they couldn't even bring themselves to finish, anyway? If you've never seen Doctor Who but are curious about it, then please, I beg of you, go watch the actual TV show instead!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book through the Blogging for Books program in exchange for an honest review.