Back on the Map by Lisa Ann Scott, 2017

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With their mother long dead and their father unknown, eleven-year-old Penny Porter and her twin brother Parker have been bouncing around foster homes for as long as they can remember. Inspired by the historical figures in her favorite book, Penny likes to imagine who she could be related to. Sacagawea? Her genes would be good ones to have. Or maybe Ghandi, or Harriet Tubman. There are endless possibilities!

But while Penny embraces the question marks in her family tree, she and Porter are both ready for a real home. Living with their aging, ornery Grauntie isn’t easy, but it’s better than other places they’ve been, and they don’t want to get moved again—or worse, split up. Penny believes the key to keeping them from being bounced to another new home is getting their town of New Hope, North Carolina back on the state map. And what better way to do that than to spruce up and sell New Hope’s Finest—an old orphanage that was supposed to reopen years ago as the best attraction ever, but never did.

She’s got the creativity and the gumption to do it. And maybe knowing who you are doesn’t matter so much as knowing what you can do. But will that be enough to finally keep her and Parker in one place for good?

(306 pages)

There are a lot of books on the market out there about kids living in quirky small towns, learning some valuable lesson about life while trying to overcome a challenge. They often have quite a Southern twang to them. I've liked a few of them, but they often ring rather hollow/cliche for me.

If that category of books is a circle, then Back to the Map is lying on the edge of that circle with part of its body in the circle and part of it outside it. I think it actually gains a lot for keeping the quirkiness a little more contained than some of the other books do. Penny's passion for trading items around town and fixing junk up into art is very fun to read about, and the interesting side characters add fun distractions to the story. The central project of fixing up New Hope's Finest (a decrepit, abandoned orphanage) is very interesting to read about. I never quite could follow Penny's logic that tied selling New Hope's Finest and getting the town back on the map to gaining a forever home there, but I suppose 11-year-olds aren't known for having the soundest reasoning skills.

I think the bits I mainly didn't care for revolved around characters' quirky semi-magic "gifts" that popped up here and there, just because I don't really care for that particular trope. Others might like it more than I did, though. I also didn't really like the depiction of Porter, which offered a rather stereotypical "behaves like he has autism and has special powers" character, but I don't know enough about the issue to know whether it's actually offensive or not.

There was also a plotline about Penny's search for information about her father, whom she and her twin brother Porter have never met because their mother gave birth out of wedlock without him. All they know is that he must have been some dark ethnicity because their mother was white and they look Black. Racism is lightly touched on (Penny thinks her mother's family is extra ashamed that she and her brother were born out of wedlock and dark, and she remembers times when strangers called her a mutt), with a subtlety that I think works well in a book which is really focused on other issues. There are a lot of snippets of information about historical figures who Penny likes to "try on" as potential ancestors on her father's side, which is sweet and sad and educational all at the same time.

Basically, Back on the Map is a sweet, fun read that I enjoyed. It's probably not going on my top twenty favorites list, but that's not really saying much about its quality since I've literally read hundreds (if not thousands) of books. If you're interested in it, then go ahead and read it. You won't be disappointed.

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

Under Their Skin by Margaret Peterson Haddix, 2016

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From New York Times bestselling author Margaret Peterson Haddix comes the first book in a brand-new thrilling series about twins who are on a quest to discover the secrets being kept by their new family.
Nick and Eryn's mom is getting remarried, and the twelve-year-old twins are skeptical when she tells them their lives won't change much. Well, yes, they will have to move. And they will have a new stepfather, stepbrother, and stepsister. But Mom tells them not to worry. They won't ever have to meet their stepsiblings.
This news puzzles Nick and Eryn, so the twins set out on a mission to find out who these kids are - and why they're being kept hidden.

(320 pages)

Wow. Just, wow. I can see Under Their Skin becoming so popular in the future. Haddix is at her best when it comes to her series (The Shadow Children and The Missing both make my top five favorites, easy), and she pulls no punches this time around. I absolutely love the premise of the entire series, and I can't wait to see what she does with it in the future! There's one fundamental trouble I have with it, though: it's just about murder to review without spoilers.

How do you review a book that is so much better when the reader doesn't know anything about it? Very, very carefully. Let's see, how to do this . . . Well, parts of Under Their Skin remind me of Haddix's other sci-fi books (most especially a touch of The Always War, a little bit of the Missing series, and a dab of Double Identity), all of which I absolutely adore. Unfortunately, they're all horrible books to review, too, which is why I've avoided reviewing them (except for Double Identity, which I reviewed years ago and posted to my blog here). The very things that make Under Their Skin similar to Haddix's other books (the fascinating topics, the huge reveals, the intriguing ethical dilemmas) are what make it almost impossible to discuss Under Their Skin without taking away some of the magic of that first read-through.

Because seriously, I was mulling over the central conflict for days - how would I feel in Eryn's and Nick's place? What would I do, how could I make the decisions they will have to face? I still have no idea, but I'm letting myself be neutral for now - because after all, the twins are just as confused and conflicted as I am right now. I'm sure that the next book will expand both the conundrum and its nuances, laying things out as they must come to grips with their discoveries, and I'm waiting until then to decide what I think as well.

If I'm being completely honest, though, I did have some serious believability issues with the central concept of the story. I felt like it was a rather large leap of the imagination to believe that - argh, back to the no-spoilers barrier! Well, anyway, it was a bit unrealistic. But you know what? I'm totally suspending judgement until I've read at least one or two more books in the series - because I've been reading Haddix's writing for long enough that I know she can get me to believe anything. Heck, I read an eight-book series about time travel and popped out the other side full of jargon like "tracer," "time ripple," and "elucidator." If anyone can parse something down into the nitty-gritty and make me believe in it, it's Margaret Peterson Haddix.

At the end of the day, Under Their Skin is a captivating read full of breathtaking twists, heart-stopping dilemmas, and a fascinating scenario that can only become more exciting as the series continues. My only real complaint is that the sequel isn't here already - because seriously, I need to know what happens next!

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Teaser Tuesdays: A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen, 2015 (August 18)

Okay, so for those of you who are new to this meme, here's how it works:

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My current read is A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen.

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer A. Nielsen comes a stunning thriller about a girl who must escape to freedom after the Berlin Wall divides her family between east and west.
With the rise of the Berlin Wall, twelve-year-old Gerta finds her family divided overnight. She, her mother, and her brother Fritz live on the eastern side, controlled by the Soviets. Her father and middle brother, who had gone west in search of work, cannot return home. Gerta knows it is dangerous to watch the wall, to think forbidden thoughts of freedom, yet she can't help herself. She sees the East German soldiers with their guns trained on their own citizens; she, her family, her neighbors and friends are prisoners in their own city.
But one day, while on her way to school, Gerta spots her father on a viewing platform on the western side, pantomiming a peculiar dance. Then, when she receives a mysterious drawing, Gerta puts two and two together and concludes that her father wants Gerta and Fritz to tunnel beneath the wall, out of East Berlin. However, if they are caught, the consequences will be deadly. No one can be trusted. Will Gerta and her family find their way to freedom?

(384 pages)

Here's this week's teaser, from page 1:

It was Sunday, August 13, 1961, a day I would remember for the rest of my life. When a prison had been built around us as we slept.

Let me know what you think of the book, and check back on Friday for my ARC review!

Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur, 2009

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A tragic accident has turned eleven-year-old Aubrey’s world upside down. Starting a new life all alone, Aubrey has everything she thinks she needs: SpaghettiOs and Sammy, her new pet fish. She cannot talk about what happened to her. Writing letters is the only thing that feels right to Aubrey, even if no one ever reads them.
With the aid of her loving grandmother and new friends, Aubrey learns that she is not alone, and gradually, she finds the words to express feelings that once seemed impossible to describe. The healing powers of friendship, love, and memory help Aubrey take her first steps toward the future.
Readers will care for Aubrey from page one and will watch her grow until the very end, when she has to make one of the biggest decisions of her life.
Love, Aubrey is devastating, brave, honest, funny, and hopeful, and it introduces a remarkable new writer, Suzanne LaFleur. No matter how old you are, this book is not to be missed. 
(262 pages)


Gosh, I love this book so much. And oh, how it makes me cry! I have read many sad fictional books, from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (honestly, so many people die in that book!) to books about the Titanic and the last Romanovs, but most of them can't bring me to tears. They can make me really, really sad, it's true, but they can't make me actually cry. This book, though, gets the waterworks flowing in the first three chapters and never lets them stop. And this may sound miserable, but it's actually wonderful.

You see, this is a story of pain and grief and abandonment, but it's also the story of love and friendship and strength at the worst of times. It is the story of Aubrey, whose father and sister died in a car accident. Her mother was so incredibly consumed with grief she ran away from home a few months after the funeral, leaving Aubrey behind to take care of herself. The story is told in first person past tense, which worked well for the story by providing a compelling contrasts with the first person present flashback scenes in which Aubrey remembers life before the car accident. Instead of an info-dump at the beginning of the story we gradually find out the events of Aubrey's past as she is forced to remember them, which (you guessed it!) provides haunting snapshots throughout the story of how much Aubrey has lost.

The saddest parts of the narrative, however, are probably the letters Aubrey writes. At the beginning of the book she writes letters to her sister's imaginary friend Jilly as a way to sort of indirectly talk to a piece of her sister. As she begins to come to grips with everything that has happened to her, she starts to write more directly to her mother, father, and sister, telling them what she wishes she could say to them in person. She signs each letter "Love, Aubrey," which is the source of the title.

This is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite books. It's heart-wrenching, but it's also realistic and  heartwarming. Aubrey has had the unthinkable happen to her family, and she responds the way any real person would - through denial, through tears, and through shutting down at any reminder of what has happened. But as the story goes along, she learns to cope and to forgive and to live her new life with her grandmother and best friend/neighbor Bridget.

This is an amazing book, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. But please, know what you are getting into. This is not a light or easy read, and if you don't want to read a book that will make you cry, then don't pick this one up. But know that it does not just toy with the emotions: it is sad because terrible, tragic things happen in life, and sometimes you have to cry about them.

Note: I have also read the author's other books, and they were really good as well. She is a master at portraying difficult emotions and reactions to traumatic situations. While I liked the other ones, though, this is still my favorite of her books.

Teaser Tuesdays: Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur (Feb 17)

Okay, so for those of you who are new to this meme, here's how it works:

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My current (re)read is Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur.

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Click to view
on Goodreads

A tragic accident has turned eleven-year-old Aubrey’s world upside down. Starting a new life all alone, Aubrey has everything she thinks she needs: SpaghettiOs and Sammy, her new pet fish. She cannot talk about what happened to her. Writing letters is the only thing that feels right to Aubrey, even if no one ever reads them.
With the aid of her loving grandmother and new friends, Aubrey learns that she is not alone, and gradually, she finds the words to express feelings that once seemed impossible to describe. The healing powers of friendship, love, and memory help Aubrey take her first steps toward the future.Readers will care for Aubrey from page one and will watch her grow until the very end, when she has to make one of the biggest decisions of her life. Love, Aubrey is devastating, brave, honest, funny, and hopeful, and it introduces a remarkable new writer, Suzanne LaFleur. No matter how old you are, this book is not to be missed.

Here´s my quote, taken from page 12:

"Gram, read to me?"
 "Okay, darling, like when you were little? You always loved a story . . . " Gram doesn't finish her thought, but I hear it finish in my head. She used to say it a lot, and the same words always came next: "Savannah, she wouldn't ever sit for a story . . . "

Does this sound interesting to you? Check back on Friday for my review.

A Million Ways Home by Dianna Dorisi Winget, 2014

A moving middle-grade story about love, loss, and the unlikely places we find home.
Poppy's life has been turned upside down after her grandma (and guardian) had a stroke and ended up in the hospital. But Poppy is working on a plan to help Grandma Beth so their life together can go back to normal. But when she witnesses an armed robbery, "back to normal" slips even further out of her reach. To keep Poppy safe, the budget-strapped police devise an unusual "witness protection program," wherein Poppy will stay with Detective Brannigan's mother. Soon Poppy is feeling almost at home, even making sort-of friends with a girl named Lizzie and definitely friending Gunner, a beautiful dog with an uncertain fate. But it's still not home. So while she and Lizzie navigate a rocky friendship and plot to save Gunner's life, Poppy also tries to figure out a new plan to save Grandma Beth and their home, all while avoiding a dangerous robber who might be searching for her. But what if Grandma Beth can never come home and the robber is put behind bars? What will happen to Poppy then?
(272 pages)

What a good book! I went into it expecting a book with nothing special to offer, that thought it was offering the world. Instead I found a sweet, poignant tale of family, loss, and love (familial love, not romantic love - I was worried about that when I read the synopsis!), and all the different types of "home." I enjoyed myself greatly while reading the entire book, and then after finishing it read back through to watch the development of a certain relationship throughout the book. Which one, you ask? It doesn't really matter; they're all great. The particular one I wanted to retrace was between Poppy and Trey, but it could have just as easily been between Poppy and pretty much any other main character, or even just between two other main characters with no Poppy involved.

You  see, this is a book about relationships. Not even just Poppy's relationships, though those often take center stage, but all sorts relationships. The relationships between Poppy and Lizzie, Lizzie and her unseen dad (Lizzie's parents recently got divorced), Trey and Poppy, Poppy and Grandma Beth - honestly, it goes on and on. And it's beautiful.

Now, Poppy was a great if sometimes infuriating character. She wandered away way too often for someone under a modified version of witness protection. To be fair, though, she had a ton on her plate so I think she just kind of didn't have room in her head to worry about the robber coming after her. When your grandmother/legal guardian is in the hospital because she keeps having strokes and you're only out of the Children's Center because you are a witness from a murder case . . . well, either you're going to crack with stress or you're going to kind of ignore one of the stressing factors. So while I don't love her to pieces, I do love her just a little bit. Because she went through so much, and was so brave, and - well, I don't know. I guess that kind of sums it up.

The story is both sad and sweet, and its tale of loss is offset by a thread of love and friendships. It's the kind of book that makes you give a happy sigh as you put it down, and makes you reread it every few years if you spot it on a library shelf. I don't know if I'd want to own it, because it's not quite that good, but I'll definitely reread it down the road.

The 13th Gift by Joanne Huist Smith, 2014

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on Goodreads

After the unexpected death of her husband, Joanne Huist Smith had no idea how she would keep herself together and be strong for her three children--especially with the holiday season approaching. But 12 days before Christmas, presents begin appearing on her doorstep with notes from their "True Friends." As the Smiths came together to solve the mystery of who the gifts were from, they began to thaw out from their grief and come together again as a family. This true story about the power of random acts of kindness will warm the heart, a beautiful reminder of the miracles of Christmas and the gift of family during the holiday season.
(224 pages)

I am so jealous of the Smiths.

No, wait, that came out wrong. The Smiths had a horrible, terrible thing happen to them when Mr. Smith died. Joanne is heartbroken and limp, unsure if she is even capable of continuing on without her husband. I don't envy that! But what I do envy is the joyous mystery of the Twelve Days of Christmas gifts. How exciting it would be to have a different kind gift show up on your doorstep the twelve days before Christmas! What a wonderful way to get into the holiday spirit!

And, of course, that's what the gifts were for. They were given because the Smiths were in mourning, and they needed some holiday cheer. And while Joanne may have begun the twelve days of Christmas covering her ears at the hint of a Christmas carol, she certainly ended them in much better shape.

This book reads like fiction, and well-written fiction at that. Joanne is a reporter and you can definitely tell that she's got a way with words. She wrote this book almost fifteen years after the events it describes took place, so she had time to step back and analyze her own condition and the conditions of her three kids at the time, and portray them brutally honestly.

That brings me to the children. I feel so bad for those kids! The youngest girl, Megan, was only ten when her father died. How horrible. She is actually the one who deals with it the best, though, as she gets wrapped up in the excitement of Christmas and acts as peacemaker between her mother and her oldest brother Ben. Ben was seventeen when his father died, and you can see how hard it was for him to lose his male authority figure at such a difficult time. He struggles to deal with his emotions, and (especially early in the book) winds up hurting his mother with his rebellious behavior more than he means to. Nick, the middle child, was so cute! He spent most of the book rotating between being a kid who just lost his father, and a kid who wants a new computer, a new bed, a new room, and a new video game console for Christmas. All three kids are drawn realistically with the eye for detail only a mother can furnish.

A word of warning to those who want to read it for the heartwarming Christmas book that it is: there are, like, three instances of bad language in the book, all toward the beginning. I think there are two or so uses of the word "damn" and in one instance someone in the parking lot yells "a-hole" at a rude driver. I really wish she hadn't put these words in, because the book could have flowed just as well without them, and it makes me leery to wholeheartedly recommend the book to many people who would otherwise love it.

Besides that, though, it's a beautiful story and a heartwarming read that I am very glad I was able to spend a few hours enjoying. If you don't mind the minor amount of language, then you should find nothing at all wrong with this story of love, loss, family, and Christmas.

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