Here's part two of my mini review series featuring titles I didn't get to review for a long time. Todays's post is dedicated to contemporary titles that deal with personal and familiar conflicts that affect our protagonists in IF I STAY, RETURN TO PARADISE and RICH AND MAD.
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
In IF I
STAY Gayle Forman confronts us with a precarious and more than difficult decision
that has to be made. Leave this world forever or stay and try to rebuild the
ruins of your life?
After the
horrible car accident that led to the death of her family, Mia is in a coma. She
is the girl in between. Told from her perspective, Mia’s constantly reflecting
on the sequences that have defined her life so far and compares them to her current
situation. There are moments with her family, simply eating breakfast, or her falling
in love with her boyfriend Adam.
I had high
hopes in the relationship between Mia and Adam. I imagined it to be romantic
and epic, but I felt just slightly entertained by Mia’s retelling of some of
their relationship highlights. Tough Adam was the person I liked most in IF I
STAY. He is sweet, has inner strength and is
willing to fight for Mia no matter what.
But unfortunately I just didn’t click with the other characters. Mia’s parents felt
too alternative for my taste. Nonetheless I find it helpful and necessary that Gayle
Forman includes moments of their lives and retells the most important stations
to offer the reader a glimpse of what could be forever lost to our torn protagonist
Mia.
And torn is
exactly how I felt about Mia, too. On the one hand I totally got how she felt
about this whole messed up situation. On the other hand I couldn’t really
identify with her character. Her life- as her parents’ lives- is highly
dominated by music. She’s so passionate about her violin and I admire her for
that. People who are interested in music the same way Mia is should like this
read a lot.
I might not
have cared about the characters as much as I’d wanted to, but the overall
discourse definitely affected me and made me think a lot about what I would have done if I had been in Mia's situation.
3,5/5 ***/*
IF I STAY- A philosophical discourse about the safety of life and
the security a family offers. Gayle Forman tells the story of Mia with the right amount of sensibility and beautiful piano notes contributing a soundtrack to the sad story.
Publisher: Random House UK
Publishing Date: May 13th 2010
Length: 232 pages
Keywords: YA, contemporary romance, car accident, coma, loss, music, love, friendship
Source: Bought
Return To Paradise by Simone Elkeles
The sequel
to LEAVING PARADISE circles around Maggie, Caleb and the accident…again. There might
still be the need to talk about Maggie and Caleb’s feelings and the events of
the past, but sometimes their conversations just felt like a revision of the
LEAVING PARADISE talk.
Now Maggie
and Caleb are forced to spend a four week trip together to
talk about their experiences with drunk driving. Time to sort out their
differences one could think, but to me it felt like Maggie and Caleb seem to be
stuck in their old dialogues and actions. It’s not like in LEAVING PARADISE
where they made progress by approaching the other. In RETURN TO PARADISE they
are caught in a silly loop and unnecessary frictions, pushing the other away
and letting him get close again.
New about
this part of their story is that they join four other teens on their trip. They are Matt, Erin, Trish and Lenny. These teens have stories of their own, that
are definitely worth hearing. Thanks to them and their refreshing personalities
RETURN TO PARADISE doesn’t feel like a total dragging read. My favourite character
in this novel might be Lenny with his ridiculously funny actions and jokes.
I didn’t
really need a sequel after LEAVING PARADISE, but I’d already got it and so I
made myself read it. There are some things that could have been solved faster. In
the end I was content that the story came to a decent end.
3/5 *** RETURN TO PARADISE - A
decent but unnecessary sequel. RETURN TO PARADISE promises more talk about the
accident and its consequences, luckily with a few funny and fresh character
cast additions.
Publisher: Flux
Publishing Date: September 1st 2010
Length: 312 pages
Keywords: YA, contemporary romance, love, drunk driving, friendship
Source: Bought
Rich and Mad by William Nicholson
Two teenagers falling in love for the very first time. Doesn’t that sound like a romantic and potentially overwhelming story? I imagined Mad- Maddy- to be independent and strong and
Rich-Richard- to be that reckless and sexy young man. They both were nothing
like that though. Maddy is so gullible and somehow doesn’t get what’s really
happening around her. And then Richard is compulsively insecure and clumsy with all things
concerning girls.
Rich and Mad’s families as their friends and crushes
play a big role in the story aswell. How many illusional feelings and miserable thoughts can a
young person bear and what does it take to take them away and replace them with
self-confidence and happiness? That’s what RICH AND MAD is all about. I also
liked that he involved the topic of sex and that he made clear that it can be a very
dominant part of a teenager’s life.
But their love story simply wasn’t what I'd expected. I had been really looking forward
to read RICH AND MAD, in the end it just wasn’t for me. There were too many
issues and no clear line to follow. And I cannot believe the low self-esteem
many characters showed so my connection to the characters was rather distant. Rich and Mad's romance didn’t convince me either since it
felt forced and meagre most of the time.
Note that
RICH AND MAD contains explicit content such as physical and psychical violence
and sexual interactions. William Nichols provides the reader with vivid
details. Those scenes would have felt a lot more meaningful though if
the romance between them had been a part of the story from the beginning on and not
just some kind of rational decision.
2/5 ** RICH
AND MAD- Hormonal teenagers and a ton of personal, familial and
social issues. That’s what William Nicholson’s RICH AND MAD has to offer.
Unfortunately the story lacks the emotional depth I had wished for.
Publisher: Egmont UK Limited
Publishing Date: April 5th 2009
Length: 314 pages
Keywords: YA, contemporary romance, love, sex, family
Source: Book Fair
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