Review: THAT NIGHT by Cecily Wolfe

 

That Night by Cecily Wolfe
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Drug overdoses don't happen to girls with good grades and athletic talent, with longtime friends and a devoted boyfriend. Or do they?

When high school seniors Cassidy and Sarah, along with Kayla's boyfriend Paul, discover their best friend Kayla unconscious at a party, the idea that they have lost her to a heroin overdose is unbelievable. She didn't use drugs, except the pain medicine prescribed for a soccer injury, and she had no reason to accept any from a stranger. The month that follows her death is filled with anxiety, sadness, frustration, and questions. Answers won't bring Kayla back, however, so as Cass and Sarah struggle with the insensitive but predictable behavior of parents, classmates, and teachers, Paul falls into a depression that leads him down a dangerous path. With Kayla's younger sister Mia in mind, the three of them work towards forging ahead without the girl who has held them together since elementary school.

--

This is an important story to tell--about how it's not just drug addicts who end up dying due to overdoses--but for me, it just didn't engage me in the way that I'd hoped. It ended up being a DNF about listening to about half of the audiobook. Although the writing was good at times, I found it a bit flat, a little repetitive, and it just didn't really hold my attention. I think this is just a personal preference kind of thing though as I was expecting a more engaging story.

However, I did find the alternating points of view a little disorientating as we seemed to flit from one POV character to the next, often in the same paragraph, and I kept getting a bit lost and never quite knowing who the POV character in any given scene was because of this headhopping.

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Review: FRIEND REQUEST by Laura Marshall

 

Friend Request by Laura Marshall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

1989. When Louise first notices the new girl who has mysteriously transferred late into their senior year, Maria seems to be everything the girls Louise hangs out with aren't. Authentic. Funny. Brash. Within just a few days, Maria and Louise are on their way to becoming fast friends.

2016. Louise receives a heart-stopping email: Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook. Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface: those first days of their budding friendship; cruel decisions made and dark secrets kept; the night that would change all their lives forever.

Louise has always known that if the truth ever came out, she could stand to lose everything. Her job. Her son. Her freedom. Maria's sudden reappearance threatens it all, and forces Louise to reconnect with everyone she'd severed ties with to escape the past. But as she tries to piece together exactly what happened that night, Louise discovers there's more to the story than she ever knew. To keep her secret, Louise must first uncover the whole truth, before what's known to Maria--or whoever's pretending to be her--is known to all.

--

Oh, this book! So, when I first started reading it, I found the opening a bit slow. It was a take-it-or-leave-it book for me for a while, but then the pacing suddenly picked up and I couldn't read it quickly enough.

Louise has a secret. She was involved in the murder of her former friend Maria, at high school. Now she's an adult and a mother, and suddenly she's receiving messages from someone who's supposedly Maria. Louise panics and goes to see Sophie, the ring-leader of the bullies at school (the one who made Louise bully Maria). As an adult, Sophie is calmer and seems less mean and insecure--she was a classic bully at school--and Sophie has also been receiving messages from 'Maria'. And when they both go to a high school reunion, things get out of hand.

The story alternates between the present day and the characters' school years. The teenage girls in this are written so very well--the bullying seems so real and authentic, and the author really captures just how mean teen girls can be.

There are twists throughout this book, and barring the beginning, the pacing is good. This was one of those books where I could not work out who the real murderer was... every time I thought I knew, I was thrown off a little. And when we had the reveal at the end, I just couldn't read fast enough.

The identity of the person behind 'Maria' was a little bit of a let-down if I'm honest as that character didn't really have much page-time earlier in the book. But the reveal of the murderer was so good. Really gripping writing. 

Trigger warning for rape.  

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Review: THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED by Kody Keplinger

 

That's Not What Happened by Kody Keplinger
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

It's been three years since the Virgil County High School Massacre. Three years since my best friend, Sarah, was killed in a bathroom stall during the mass shooting. Everyone knows Sarah's story--that she died proclaiming her faith.

But it's not true.

I know because I was with her when she died. I didn't say anything then, and people got hurt because of it. Now Sarah's parents are publishing a book about her, so this might be my last chance to set the record straight . . . but I'm not the only survivor with a story to tell about what did--and didn't--happen that day.

Except Sarah's martyrdom is important to a lot of people, people who don't take kindly to what I'm trying to do. And the more I learn, the less certain I am about what's right. I don't know what will be worse: the guilt of staying silent or the consequences of speaking up . . .

--
3.5 stars.

I listened to the audiobook of this, and for a long time it was one of those books that could've ended up being a DNF. The writing was great, and the characterisation was great, but for me it was the story itself--the plot--that I had trouble with. The pacing felt a little flat, and I think I went into this with the wrong expectations. I thought this was going to be a YA thriller, but it's more of an exploration of lies and secrets. There are some very small twists, but I think I was just expecting more. More of a building of the tension and pacing toward a climax--but the whole thing was very much level in terms of tension.

It's about Lee, the survivor of a school shooting, and how she wants to correct the misconceptions around the shooting and those who died in it, namely her best friend Sarah. Lee decides to encourage the other survivors to write letters explaining their truth, and this book is a collection of those letters and essays.

In terms of diversity, it ticks that box. We've got Denny who's a main character and he's Deaf and Black. We've also got Lee who is questioning if she's asexual. Now, as soon as I heard that she was possibly ace, I was so excited. I'm ace myself, and we need much more rep--but I didn't really like how this representation was done in the end. Lee seems convinced for much of the book that there's no point in her pursuing a relationship because she's ace and when she gets together with the guy she likes, it's presented almost as if she's just really lucky that he's willing to try and make things worse. There seemed to be this underlying assumption in the story that ace people don't really have relationships and that really grated on me. I'd have loved for this view to be corrected by Lee meeting other ace people and learning that relationships are possible. Plus, the book also seemed to suggest that all ace people never have sex--which is not true!

Denny was my favourite character though, and the narration was really good--especially for him.

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Review: PUNCHING THE AIR by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam

 

Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.

The story that I thought

was my life

didn’t start on the day

I was born

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

The story that I think

will be my life

starts today

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?

With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.

--

Wow, this book. I am SO glad I heard the authors talking about it at an online con, and so glad I decided to order a copy of it, and so glad that I then ordered a second copy of it when the first copy got soaked and was unreadable, and just so so so glad I've read it.

It's amazing.

It's a novel-in-verse about a Black teenage boy called Amal who gets into a fight with his friends against some others and punches a white boy. The white boy's now in a coma, and although Amal didn't throw the last punch--the one that put the boy into a coma--he finds himself locked up in a juvenile detention facility. This book exposes the injustices and racism within the system (both the justice system and the prison system), and it examines racial profiling. One of the authors, Yusef Salaam is also one of The Exonerated Five and has personal experience of this happening to him. Although this isn't his story (as an author's note tells us), some of Yusef's own poetry is infused into Amal's story. And, wow, it's just SO powerful.

The language and rhythm in this poetry is phenomenal.

This book should be required reading in all schools.

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Review: SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson

 

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first ten lies they tell you in high school.

"Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say."

From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication.

In Laurie Halse Anderson's powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.

Speak was a 1999 National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature.

----

As I've come to expect from Laurie Halse Anderson's work, this is a powerful novel. It's about a girl who was raped and how she's been silenced because of it. It's about the people who won't listen to her or give her a chance. It's about how we assume things about other people.

Melinda is a great character. She feels real and authentic. Her narrative voice is so, so strong and I couldn't stop reading this book. It's very much a character-driven story, with less emphasis on plot, but that really works for this story--if there was more of a plot, the important messages would be lost a little.

I found quite a few passages hard to read, precisely because it's so well written that it was just evoking memories in me of bad experiences. I really felt like I was being haunted when I read this book. But the language is just masterful--some of the imagery is just outstanding.

This is a powerful novel that I recommend everyone reads. Trigger-warning for rape. 

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Review: NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED by Hannah Moskowitz

 

Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown.

Everywhere she turns, someone feels she's too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta’s salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself?

The latest powerful, original novel from Hannah Moskowitz is the story about living in and outside communities and stereotypes, and defining your own identity. 

---
So, I'm a bit conflicted in how to review this book. From a craft point of view, it's amazing. The narrative voice is so strong and characterisation is especially good. The writing is addictive and flows well. I read it in two days, and I couldn't stop thinking about this book.

Yet, for me, it also had some pretty big issues. As other reviewers have noted, lesbians don't come off in this book particularly well. They're presented as a cult and called 'the Dykes'. They're also the violent bullies in this book. I feel if we'd just had one lesbian character who wasn't like this, then that would've solved a lot of the problems. But this representation made me uneasy.

And then there's the eating disorder stuff. I'm studying eating disorders in YA fiction for part of my postgrad work. The representation of the actual eating disorder is well-done. It's not romanticised, and it feels real. It's also great having a character who's already in recovery, who's gained weight, and is doing well in the general lay-of-the-land type of thing, but who we also see still struggling. Because those thoughts don't just go away. I could relate to this a lot.

But I had an issue with race representation in this book. As part of my postgrad work, I've been looking specifically at BIPOC representation in eating disorder YA fiction. Traditionally, EDs have always been seen as a white woman's illness, so BIPOC rep is important--especially when in the medical field many doctors still expect Black women to be bigger and more comfortable with being curvier than white women and therefore getting diagnosed with an eating disorder as a Black person is arguable harder, according to interviews/research. There are many memoirs from BIPOC authors about how race doesn't determine whether you get an eating disorder, or how disciplined you are in the eating disorder, but that race does prejudice some doctors against you if you're BIPOC, making it harder for you to seek help. And unfortunately, for me, this novel sort of conformed to some of the stereotypes. Etta is constantly described as 'chubby' and someone who doesn't look like she has an eating disorder--which is fine and true for many people with EDs, but this novel only has Etta, the Black character with an ED, presented in this way. All other characters with EDs in this are white and are presented as much thinner, as they have the discipline to starve themselves in a more superior way.

This novel is own-voices for eating disorders and bisexuality, but the author is white (she describes herself as a white Jewish girl), and I couldn't help but think that some of the bias and constructs around race and biological determinism have influenced her as she wrote about a Black ballerina with an ED who's 'chubbier' than the white girls with EDs. Given that there are so few books out there about BIPOC girls with eating disorders, (and there really should be more!), I worry that this one could reinforce stereotypes in some readers who just won't question it and believe that race does determine how you'll experience an ED.

But this is a great novel.

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