Sunday 16 February 2014

Every Day


Book Title: Every Day
Author: David Levithan
Date Started: February 9th 2014
Date Completed: February 16th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Fantasy
Rating: Three stars
Review:

To be honest, I'd rate Every Day at 2.5 stars, because I don't think it's worth three stars, but it'd be too harsh to give it two. For me, Every Day was dominated by themes and story lines I didn't care about, while concepts I would've been really interested in where sidelined and forgotten. I think this book had such potential, but just didn't get there for me.

A wakes up in a different body every single day. He doesn't know where he comes from, if there is anyone else out there like him, or why he leaps from person to person daily. So he takes every day as it comes, keeping to rules to not interfere; living as a different person for one day. But then one day he wakes up as Justin. And he meets Rhiannon. And he can't keep to his rules anymore.

I didn't see anything remarkable about the writing, however it was perfectly fine. It's quite easy reading, so you can focus on the story a lot more. Also, there's a lot of inner monologue, as A has to work out everything about his host's life each morning in order to live as them for 24 hours.
I think the best thing about the whole book is the way everyday issues were dealt with. As A changes bodies every day, it gives the opportunity to present loads of different characters. This worked really well, since the target audience for this book is teenagers. The inclusion of issues such as gay/lesbian relationships, transgender individuals and depression was one of the things that made me appreciate this book a little bit more. They were dealt with honestly and openly, presenting a realistic flare to the story.

When I first heard about this book, I thought it sounded intriguing and had the potential to have a contemporary love story, as well as a more dangerous undertone. Unfortunately, the latter was pretty much crushed by the relationships.
Firstly, I didn't care that much about the love side of the story, as both the main characters got on my nerves a little. To have this destroy a part of the story I enjoyed reading was the final straw for me.
I was really interested when one of A's previous hosts remembered something and started spreading it around, because it presented problems for A. Although limitations on how A's ability worked were mentioned, they were never really demonstrated (e.g. he could only jump into the body of someone in the same state?). We were told the potential dangers, but A never seemed to have trouble avoiding them. (Also, nothing is ever really explained to us as to why this is all happening or how it does.)
Consequently, what did happen in the story became really repetitive. I understand that A has to wake up to a new body every morning and work out everything etc etc, but surely there could have been some way to make it a little different every time we read it?
The end of the story was too unexplained for me. There's so many things left unsolved. This does kind of annoy me, since there's clearly another book planned to carry on from this, but I don't have a desire to read it, yet there's still so many answers I want to have.
Overall, I just feel like the wrong things were focused on throughout the whole book.

This is a very character-based story. I feel like each body A moved to was different and interesting, but as the reader we didn't really learn that much about them because A was always so hung up on Rhiannon and how far away he was from her etc.
A is supposedly a good person. And his monologues support this. His actions, however, don't always. Pretty much as soon as you start the book, you start it with a version of A that already loves Rhiannon, and wants to go out of his way to see her. It's a little hard to believe he's so careful when we only see him being reckless and messing up other people's lives. I understand he has to think or himself, as well as his host, but it just didn't fit with what he was always saying. In that respect, although he seemed nice enough, he acted stupid, but still made good decisions in his head. I just had a hard time working out how that would work in real life.
Rhiannon started off nice, but eventually started to get on my nerves halfway through the book. I think she was being unfair to A, and A was being unfair to her, and they talked like they knew that, but acted like they didn't. It just didn't seem to work. (Slight spoiler) Also, the hints that she was slightly homophobic and judgmental were never resolved or brought up other than when they happened.
I loved Nathan from when A inhabited him. And although he did become a threat after that, I still liked his character because it added a bit of suspense to the story. But he just faded into the background because the love story was considered more important.

Even for a contemporary book, I found the pace of this novel slow. The repetition of what happened at the beginning of every chapter didn't really help either. (I don't care how many hours away you are from Rhiannon, what about this person's life and what you should do to not mess it up?)
But then, near the end, everything started getting very fast, and little details were lost. It all seemed rushed, and then the conclusion jumps up out of blue. It was quite strange in my opinion, but to be fair I had given up on the book by that time, so I'm probably being a little harsh.

I would recommend this book to people that like reading love stories. I'm not a huge fan of books that only include romance, but I'm aware some people do like that. If that's the case, I think you'd really like Every Day. I was just expecting something different and was disappointed when I didn't get it.

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Saturday 8 February 2014

The Virgin Suicides


Book Title: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Date Started: January 31st 2014
Date Completed: February 8th 2014
Genres: Contemporary
Rating: Four stars
Review:

I was recommended The Virgin Suicides, and wasn't entirely aware of what it was going to be like when I opened it to the first page. Although this book was quite strange, it was actually startlingly realistic and very easy to immerse myself in. I did enjoy, but I think it made me think more than anything else.

The Lisbon girls have always been admired by the local neighbourhood of boys, but when the youngest sister slits her wrists seemingly unpredictably, it sets off a chain reaction that slowly transforms her family, and the entire community beyond anything 'normal people' would have imagined.

I've never read any of Eugenides' works before, but I found I really enjoyed his writing style. It's not exactly easy reading, but there is a simplicity that makes his story shine out. I also thought his choice of narrative was very clever: the story is told from an anonymous male member of the neighbourhood, as he (or they?) remember the Lisbon girls while they were alive. This gives an almost glamourised feel to the story - something that isn't uncommon in real life - and demonstrates how distorted real events can become over time and with various influences.
Eugenides' writing is extremely tense the entire way through the book. This puzzled me at first, since not a lot happens straight away, it started to grow more and more through the book and actually emphasised the fact that these girls were both incredibly secure and unstable in their lives. I'm not sure if that was the desired affect, but it worked amazingly nevertheless.

This novel has no clear storyline, because it's about the gradual affects of the youngest Lisbon sister's suicide on her family and the general community. It reminded me a lot of tThe Lovely Bones as I reading. I think this is very cleverly done because it keeps the Lisbon girls as a mystery throughout the whole book.
I think to fully appreciate this book, you really need to have quite a vast understanding of the topic before you go in. There are a lot of subtle details throughout the book that seem worthless, but actually hint to later events and to what really was happening to the Lisbon family.
In addition, the quick moves of focus in the story - from one of the sisters, to a boy in the local neighbourhood, to someone else entirely - demonstrated quite effectively that, even without meaning to, people naturally avoid the topic of suicide because it makes them uncomfortable and they don't really know how to deal with it. I think that's such a key thing in this book.

There aren't any specifically focused characters in this book. It's more about the widespread effects of certain actions.
Of course, the Lisbon sisters have a big part to play, but they're mostly involved through a curtain; we only know about them what the boys in the neighbourhood now - and a lot of the time, it seems they're in the dark. I do think this was very effective, as I've never come across a story that deals with these issues from the outside.
On top of that, there is the anonymous narrator who tells the story as if reciting details at a scene of a crime. Again, I liked the shadowed effect this had on the story, and I was constantly wondering who this person was to have their own distorted view of the situation. It becomes apparent that you don't need to know - and that in actual fact is almost the point of the book: situations like these can be manipulated into a whole manner of things from an unnamed persona's view, and once it's out and not fully understood, it can't be stopped.

I did have a little trouble with the pace in The Virgin Suicides. It is quite slow, and there are long periods of time that don't immediately seem to have any significance to the story. This did make it a little harder to keep reading, especially since the book only has five very long chapters. (It is a short book, but the writing does make you think, and therefore slows you down a little.)
Furthermore, the story is jumbled, to show how the events seemed to people outside their immediate area. Again, this did benefit the story, but just made it a little slower on the level of understanding.

I recommend The Virgin Suicides to older readers who are interested in this sort of topic. You definitely have to already understand quite a lot to be able to really get into the book, and you also have to be attentive and pick up little details as you go along to build up a bigger picture. It's definitely a book where you have to do a lot of the work and think as well, but it's worth it if you're willing to put in the extra effort.

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