Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King

This book was suggested by a blog for those who are looking for novels that are similar to John Green's.

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Please Ignore Vera Dietz is a story about a girl who is coping with the death of her downtrodden alcoholic best friend.

Living her teenage life with a parsimonious father who pushed her to work at Pagoda Pizza instead of Zimmerman's Pet Store (where her heart really was), growing up the way she wants to becomes the hardest task of all.

What did really happen between Vera and her best-friend-in-the-whole-world Charlie Kahn? What were the events before his death? And is it possibly connected to the burning down of Zimmerman's Pet Store?

Don't ignore Vera Dietz and read Please Ignore Vera Dietz!

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KUDOS to this book for being interactively charming.  The narration is witty and the experience is superb. 

I felt the push and pull between the friendship of Vera and Charlie. It was very realistic and full of human emotions. It was sad how the two of them needed saving. They could have saved each other. I have made up several versions in my head. Of course, the outcome's always happy. But it wasn't how the book really ended and I keep coming back and every time I do, it's just regret and something else I feel.

I'm not so contented with the ending. I want people to get their pay. I am vengeful. I accept that about me. I am full of human emotions too. I want a short continuation. Or an alternative.

Maybe I've grown way too attached with this book. Maybe i'm such a hopeless romantic. Maybe that's why I keep going back. Maybe it's not regret and something else I feel but obsessive-compulsive-for-happy-endings. Maybe I want redemption for love lost. Maybe that was my 'something else'. For broken people to find self-redemption in finding love.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Remarkable. My time wasn't wasted. In fact, it was time well-spent.

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From the timeline of World War 2, an account of two teenage girls' battle with the aftermath of their unfortunate fate is laid in narration.

Best friends Kittyhawk (Margaret "Maddie" Brodatt, a pilot) and Verity (Lady Julia Lindsay MacKenzie Wallace Beaufort-Stuart a.k.a Eva Seiler, a spy) is a sensational team of two brave young ladies.

When Maddie dropped Julia in Ormaie (fictional place in France where she is sent as an undercover), neither of them thought how hapless both of them would soon become.

Julia was caught and held captive at Chateau de Bordeaux (an old hotel turned into a prison cell). She is tortured by Engel, Thibaut and their boss, von Linden to extract confidential information. She does it by writing endlessly the tale of how she and Maddie met, their heartwarming adventures leading to the present state.

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I have to admit, the first half of the book is quite boring. All those tiny little details about airplanes, places in England and abbreviations rammed up in your brain is quite disconcerting at times. Though it's the kind of disconcerting your brain needs. As it may be helpful facts in the future, you never know.

But the other half of the book, it's just totally captivating. Like the calm before the storm. Like the slow and deliberate brewing of a good coffee. It's just something I didn't expect it would be. This is a thoroughly researched novel. I wonder how long Elizabeth Wein took to finish this incredible masterpiece.

(The following may be a giveaway but I can't help myself for they are my favorite lines from the book.)

And this, even more wonderful and mysterious, is also true: when I read it, when I read what Julie's written, she is instantly alive again, whole and undamaged. With her words in my mind while I'm reading, she is as real as I am. Gloriously daft, drop-dead charming, full of bookish nonsense and foul language, brave and generous. She's right here. Afraid and exhausted, alone, but fighting. Flying in silver moonlight in a plane that can't be landed, stuck in the climb - alive, alive, ALIVE.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The novel has intrigued me ever since I saw its movie trailer 3 years ago. It still intrigues me to this day, after I've read the whole book!

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Set in the UK, Hailsham is a place where batches of human clones are nurtured by guardians and released into the world upon adulthood to fulfill their birth purpose.

A memoir of Kathy's journey from her early years in Hailsham up to the present.

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I am a good book-review blogger so i'm leaving it like that. I will not take away the experience from you. Also, do not read further. What lies ahead is my personal opinion of the book and it will indeed be lengthy and it will spoil you.

My goodness. Where do I begin?

For starters, I cannot further emphasize how much a controversy this book is. Kazuo is truly, a gutsy novelist (pun intended)! It raped my mind, it questioned my values and morals. It got the philosopher in me to ponder about the book's atmosphere, its reasons of existence. Wow. How dramatically deep of me, right?

Relationship of Kathy and her friends:

We all have a Ruth in our lives or have encountered one. It amazes me how subtle Kazuo is. You wouldn't really brand Ruth the villain in the beginning, not even Kathy did, but her actions we're gradual and deliberate. It's astonishing how much her huge insecurity towards Kathy bounces off the page and how much you develop a massive dislike towards her. Another thing, i'm very certain the author never wrote that Kathy was ever in love with Tommy (in the movie version, it was implied that she was) but how great it is that no implications were needed here? I felt it. It was only natural to be in love with the boy who's been your best friend since the beginning. She never said it but she never really had to. What a shame. I still hate you, Ruth.

Sometimes, it is brave to give up.

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

This is my second Marchetta. She never disappoints!

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When Francesca Spinelli's go-getter fight-for-the-right borderline overbearing mother (Mia Spinelli, a communications lecturer at the University of Technology-Sydney) suddenly switches off, she is left with the burden to go on with life without the person who although constantly nags on her is the one running their household.

Having been just transferred to St. Sebastian's (an all boys school that recently just opened their place to Year Eleven girls), Francesca tries her hardest to cope up with the new school environment.

With a few classmates from her old school (St. Stella's) who also enrolled at St. Sebastian's, the story of learning to get along with the opposite sex, rekindled friendships, understanding your family and a little bit of romance unravels.

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I made the review short because I have quite a few things to say.

First off, Melina has an amazing talent to create character after character that all varies but works very well with each other. She already proved that in Jellicoe Road and proved it yet again here in Saving Francesca. It's impressive actually because they all are very complex, they all have stories and reasons why they are the way they are. I'd like to acquire the same talent too.

Although Jellicoe Road was sad and beautiful and intense, this one is lighter and easy to read. I like it very much, it didn't lack substance regardless the nature. This is the only book I've ever come across with, in my five years of reading YA novels, that the heroine's love interest is described as "not attractive". It is certainly a breath of fresh air because this seems to be a book that is being true to the readers. We all know that, in the long-run, it is the personal qualities of a person we are attracted to and not the too-impossible standards of beauty.

Let's all see if Francesca was ever saved in Saving Francesca!

2012 Reviewed Books (book titles)

Last February, I did a showcase of books I've reviewed in 2012 with their respective covers. This time, as a possible future reference, I guess it would be nifty if I gather them all here with their respective links instead.

1. Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott
2. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
3. Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
4. Looking for Alaska by John Green
5. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
6. North of Everything by Craig-Crist Evans
7. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
8. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan
9. The Amanda Project by Amanda Valentino and Melissa Kantor 
10. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
11. Paper Towns by John Green
12. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
13. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
14. Three Men in A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
15. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
16. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
17. The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend by Kody Keplinger
18. The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott
19. Salingkit by Cyan Abad-Jugo
20. Man in the Dark by Paul Auster
21. All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin
22. Let it Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle
23. Journal: The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason
      by Kristine & Joyce Atkinson
24. Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine
25. Claiming Georgia Tate by Gigi Amateau
26. Once was Lost by Sara Zarr
27. The Giver by Lois Lowry
28. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
29. Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James
30. Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James
31. Diana v. Charles by James Whitaker
32. Killing Britney by Sean Olin
33. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
34. It's Not that Complicated: Bakit hindi pa sasakupin ng mga 
      Alien and daigdig sa 2012 by Eros S. Atalia
35. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
36. Bared to You by Sylvia Day
37. Suck it Up by Brian Meehl
38. Party by Tom Leveen
39. Ligo na U, Lapit na Me by Eros S. Atalia
40. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
41. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
42. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
43. Dare to Love by Jaci Burton
44. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
45. Wifey by Judy Blume
46. Stolen by Lucy Christopher
47. The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando

The Elite by Kiera Cass

And so the sequel to Kiera Cass' The Selection is finally gracing my blog.

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For the next installment of America Singer's battle with dreams, love, lust and palace life... our indecisive protagonist further discovers the past of Ilea. While doing so, she accidentally puts her spot in being the next queen in danger.

Also, her best friend Kriss (a co-candidate in the Selection) exits the competition in a rather unfashionable and barbaric way.

What would happen next? What would be title of the next book? Release date? Would it deliver? Will readers be satisfied?

We must find out!

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I hate America Singer. I hate her but I can't put the story down. I hate her because Cass is building her character up in a not-so-subtle manner and it's annoying. It's borderline trying hard and hypocritical. On the other hand, I can't put the story down because i'm in love with the idea of it; the idea of competition and murky pasts then put a frustrated handsome prince on top of that? I would read it through the end.

America is endlessly being described as the fearless compassionate hero. How would a sane human being believe that when she's being dumb kissing two guys at the same time and still gets to successfully play the innocent card? Oh my goodness, this is Twilight or The Vampire Diaries all over again.

Authors should stop copying the story-line blueprint of vampire novels.