Review: Love-Shy by Lili Wilkinson

Love-Shy by Lili Wilkinson
Reviewed by Maggie: April 9, 2012
Published April 1, 2012 by Allen & Unwin
Goodreads • Buy at Fishpond • Book Depository



Reading an author, who all your friends have already read, for the first time is like going on a blind date. You already kind of go in with an impression because you've heard how funny or charming so-and-so is, and "I swear, you'll love him!" There's also some trepidation because what if you don't like this person all your friends love? Maybe it really is you.*

Lili Wilkinson is an author whose name I've heard from many people, mostly due to her book Pink. I always meant to read that book, but it ended up getting lost amongst all my other meant-to-reads. When I saw the premise (and cover) of Love-Shy, I was finally ready for my date with Ms. Wilkinson.

Love-Shy is about Penny Drummond, girl reporter. She's the school superstar and looking for her next challenge, which she will naturally crush of course. In particular, she wants to write a standout article that will set her on her future path to the Pulitzer. She finds her story on a library computer -- namely, on a forum that the previous user hadn't logged out of. The forum is love-shy.com and according to the actual website, it's about,

DATELESSNESS! Romantic inexperience! Extreme difficulty forming romantic relationships!

Penny sets out to discover and conquer -- discover the hapless love-shy and conquer his love-shyness. Hijinks ensue. Vomit is, well, vomited. Pocky sticks are given. iPhones prove once and for all to be a stalker's best friend.

What initially struck me were the names of the students at East Glendale Secondary College. Rory Singh, Con Stingas, Perry Chau, Youssef Saad, Rin Tamaki. Of course, those names are interspersed with names like Amy Butler, Olivia Fischer, and Sarah Parsons, but that's how it should be! It shouldn't be Smith, Jones, Miller and then ASIAN STUDENT Perry Chau. I hate that. Why should the default assumption be white? Why should there only be one minority? If this were a real blind date, this is the point where I'd take things from just drinks to dinner.

Penny. When I first saw Mandee's status update comparing Penny to Bindy Mackenzie, I immediately started convulsing in my chair. Then I remembered Bindy and I made peace after our two week standoff. When I read Penny, instead of my new BFF Bindy, I pictured Paris Geller, namely Season 3 Paris. If your Gilmore Girls memory isn't up to date, a) FOR SHAME! and b) this is the Paris that begins the season rooming with Rory in DC and ends with her giving a very memorable speech about sex and Harvard. What I like about both Penny and Paris is that they are goal-oriented, driven students. They are smart and they know it, so they're pretty cocky, but so what! As Muhammad Ali once said, It ain't bragging if you can back it up! Of course, there's another adage about pride coming before the fall, and does it ever. However, it's about getting up and getting better. I love characters like this, who work hard and have to work harder for your affection because it doesn't come naturally. At this point in the date, I'm ordering dessert.

The boys. This is where Lili Wilkinson really shines. She takes the handsome, brooding, quiet guy, the guy every girl is in love with, and gives him not a genius IQ but SEVERE EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS. Take that, trope! This is such a needed reality check -- for me too! I always project hidden depths onto the brooding loners when more often than not, there are reasons for them being alone. I like how Wilkinson glides between serious and light when addressing these issues.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and the quirky characters.

Verdict: 4/5 stars, and I'm so ready for my second date!


I'd like to give a special thanks to Mandee of VeganYANerds for sharing this book with me. She's not only introduced me to a ton of new Australian YA authors (check out her reviews for the Australian Women Writers Challenge), she's also taught me some slang. You can read her review of Love-Shy here. 

---
*I was once set up with a guy because "He's Asian! And he likes sports! You're Asian! And you like sports!" I later found out his nickname was "Man Boobs" and my woman boobs didn't hold a candle to his. It isn't you.

Bookmark Binge: April 8, 2012

Haven't gotten enough of...


Wanderlove?
Check out the Wanderlove tumblr and submit the place that sticks in your heart.
Give a listen to Kirsten Hubbard's official Wanderlove playlist.
Sloppy Firsts?
Don't miss Forever Young Adults interview with Megan McCafferty.
Take in the cinematic excellence of this YouTube 10th anniversary tribute. (spoilers!)

Oh look at these links just lying around...
ICYMI: The US paperback cover for The Piper Son was revealed. Preorder for $5.99!
If you can overcome your jealousy of Jo, listen to her Marchetta-produced Mackee mix CD!
The Rejectionist officially introduces herself (and her  upcoming book!)
Ever wonder how your favorite YA heroine would handle the every day crap you do?
New Aussie YA author (!) blurbed by Melina Marchetta (!!) and reviewed by VeganYANerds.
In a book club? Jessi Kirby is doing a Book Club In A Bag giveaway for In Honor.

Upcoming reviews on YAA:

Noelle:


Maggie:

Basically...every book at the library.

Adventures in the Bargain Book Bin: April 6, 2012

By Noelle

I admit it: I spend at least a couple hours a month in the Amazon Bargain Book section.  I generally look for hardcovers under $8,  paperbacks under $5 and e-books under $4.  Just in case clicking through 100 pages of book links isn't your thing, here is what caught my eye this time around.

Warning: Some of these have extremely limited available quantities.

Kindle:

Stray (Touchstone #1) by Andrea K. Höst • Goodreads

E-book: FREE 
(Thanks for the heads up, Wendy!)

Hardcover:

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce • Goodreads

Hardcover - $6.80

Miles From Ordinary by Carol Lynch Williams • Goodreads

Hardcover - $6.80 $1.22 (thanks Flannery!)

The Sweetness of Salt by Cecilia Galante • Goodreads

Hardcover - $2.36

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell • Goodreads

Hardcover - $6.80

More bargain priced hard covers and paperbacks after the jump!

Dance Party: Jennifer Echols

This week, we're ditching the duel and focusing on the dance party.  That's right, no competition--just your sweet dance moves.  The theme this week is Jennifer Echols books with the fun, the swoon and the disco chicken:

There are plenty to choose from, from her earlier rom-coms to Going Too Far and The One That I Want.  We'll get you started with two of our picks and then you guys can fill out the form with your submissions.  Let's bust a move.

Noelle: When I think of Jennifer Echols, I think of summer and boys.  Sure, many of her books take place during the school year but details, details. There's just something about the feel of her books that says sunshine and hormones to me.  Hence:

I'm playing The Ataris with their Boys of Summer cover.  If I had to choose a specific Echols book for this song it'd be The Boys Next Door.

Maggie: I love how energetic and vibrant Echols' characters are. If they're not wakeboarding, they're snowboarding or drum majoring. Her books always feature colorful side characters as well so I'm going with:

Don't Go Breaking My Heart by the cast of, ahem, Ella Enchanted! I'm picking this song for Adam and Lori in Endless Summer. See, it's okay if we both picked Adam and Lori because Echols had the foresight to write two books with them!

Your turn!

Review: Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
Reviewed by Maggie: April 4, 2012
Published August 28, 2001 by Crown Publishing Group
Goodreads • Buy at Amazon • Kindle



Megan McCafferty, you can't fool me. Sloppy Firsts isn't a work of fiction. It's McCafferty traveling back in time and stealing pages from my high school diary -- not the proper one I left behind for my mother and, okay, posterity because I had a heightened sense of self, but the real one I kept locked in my head, full of doubts, fears, hopes, wants, desires, and prejudices. And yes, those desires were sexual even if I was not at the time.

This is a book that I absolutely loved reading now and would've loved reading then. From the time Jessica Darling thinks "Manda thinks that reading feminist manifestos makes up for her borderline ho-bag behavior" and refers to her as "The Headmaster" on page ten, I knew I was in book love. MASH and Saved by the Bell references cemented it. I don't know if I said the exact things Jessica says, but I could have said them. McCafferty just nails Jessica's voice.

So what's it about? ME!!

Kidding. Although that was one of my reactions while reading.

It's about 16-year-old Jessica Darling, the brunette sheep of the family. She's always felt left out of her blonde sister and mother's golden circle of Stepford perfection. Her father though has always supported her, or rather, he's always supported her running track. Like most girls her age, her real source of support is her best friend, Hope. Unfortunately, Hope's family has just moved back to Tennessee. This leaves Jessica socially adrift but not totally outcast during her vital sophomore year. Every year was vital according to my mother, but I digress. Jess is in love with Paul Parlipiano, who obviously doesn't know she exists, but that's a minor concern. A bigger problem is that she hasn't gotten her period in months.

This is one of the areas in which this book would've been such a comfort to the teen me. I skipped my period all the time, but during 11th grade (or Year 11 -- hi, Aussie friends!), I didn't get my period from September to December and January to June. Same for 12th grade. I realized it after the fact, but I was so stressed during the school year that it basically stopped my cycle. It came back with a vengeance in the summer though. Of course I didn't tell my parents about it even though I was convinced my ovaries were dying and it was stressing me out even more. My best friends were who I went to, for this and everything.

Jessica no longer has her best friend close by and is limited to one 60 minute phone call a week and daily emails. This is where the generation divide shows because there are certain things, like her cycle, that Jessica doesn't discuss with Hope over email. Nowadays, email and text are the standard methods of communication, even for friends who aren't separated by distance, and I'd venture to say that there are less off-limit topics.

In her perpetual state of PMS, Jessica's sarcasm catches the eye of class dreg Marcus Flutie, or as I refer to him, Marcus fucking Flutie. I won't even talk about his appearance. (Noelle, you think a ponytail is bad? Try RED DREADS.) Marcus fucking Flutie is THAT guy -- the one who thinks he is too cool for school, but also God's gift. Think an unattractive Jordan Catalano. Sorry, I can't get over the dreads. Now instead of being illiterate, imagine if Jordan Catalano was secretly a genius.

Jordan Catalano - his attractiveness + a genius IQ

Do you know what that equals? Jess Mariano, or as I refer to him, Jess fucking Mariano. I couldn't stand him. He's the guy who not only thinks he's cooler and smarter than everybody else, but also wholeheartedly believes it to be true. Everything is about him, unless he decides that a girl is temporarily worthy. Even the girl in question is a reflection of his ego because it's about getting her.

Before reading Sloppy Firsts, I remember seeing Marcus Flutie's name on lists for Top YA Guys -- alongside the likes of Jonah Griggs, Tom Mackee, and Adam Wilde. AS IF! The girl in my book club who was gushing about Marcus Flutie when the book club pick was announced was suspiciously absent the night we discussed this book. I love my book club because we have differing opinions (ex: I hated Miss Peregrine, some loved it, some were indifferent), but 8 out of 8 girls had the same reaction to him: Marcus FUCKING Flutie! However, what I loved about Marcus was how Jessica reacted to him, and how that changed in the beginning, middle, and end of the book. Like the rest of the book, it felt honest.

Sloppy Firsts is a book that effortlessly takes you back to high school. Luckily, Jessica will make you laugh much more this time around.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

Review: Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

Reviewed by Noelle: April 2, 2012

Published March 13, 2012 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Goodreads • Buy on Amazon • Kindle • Buy on Fishpond

I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into Wanderlove.  My brain interpreted the cover and synopsis as a fun, sun-baked coming of age story and I foresaw exotic locales and a frothy romance.  And while Wanderlove certainly delivered on those expectations, it packaged them with much more emotional depth than I anticipated.

Bria, the heroine has just gotten out of a less than supportive relationship and her self-esteem is at an all time low.  She's lost her passion for art and without it she feels as if she has no identity.  She is focused on becoming a version of herself that has never successfully existed before and her first few attempts at it are awkward to behold.  She's envying strangers of things they might not even possess, comparing herself to everyone around her and bitterly disappointed at what she sees.   Bria has all of these ideals in her head of what she needs to be to be happy and really living but has no idea how to get from her point A to that point B.

Although Bria makes the huge step of deciding to go on a tour of Guatemala even after her friends drop out of the trip, she soon becomes dissatisfied with her tour group's inability to match up to her preconceived notions of world travelers.  Even in paradise Bria is moping about her ex-boyfriend, being unkind to the fellow members of her tour group for having the nerve to be middle-aged, and feeling the need to exaggerate or outright lie about her traveling bona fides to feel better about herself.  It doesn't work. It never does.

The first few chapters I wondered if I had stumbled into Backpackers: Mean Girls Minus the Hygiene. (That's why their hair is so big, it's full of secrets.)  Bria has a chance encounter with a backpacker sibling duo Starling and Rowan and immediately senses two things: 1) These are the authentic world travelers she aches to be and 2) That she feels painfully inadequate compared to them.  When the opportunity presents itself to break away from her generic tour group for a chance at unpredictable adventure with Starling and Rowan, Bria decides that here is her chance for real transformation, to truly try to become that real person instead of bristling under the potential for the rest of her life.

That is why I liked Bria from the start.  Even at the beginning when she's outwardly being a fraud, she is always painfully honest in the inside.  It is so easy to acknowledge that yeah, you shouldn't let other people's opinion of you dictate your happiness or self-worth but it's so much harder to actually put it into practice.  Her transformation over the course of the novel is subtle and believable.  I loved how being in an unfamiliar environment helped her along.  Bria's matter of fact sense of humor was also a real bright spot for me. 

The evolution of Bria's relationship with Rowan, a guy who is trying to make a difficult transformation of his own, is beautifully handled.  They are both learning to let go of their respective fears and past and learn to trust in themselves, trust in each other and trust in the world around them. A lot of books claim their love interests are "just what each other needs" but this is the rare book that delivers on that promise.  

I also really enjoyed the art aspect as well and Bria's rediscovery of her passion for it.  I particularly appreciated the depictions of how much practice it takes to maintain such a passion, the intense privacy of it and the paranoia involved with others seeing your art outside of a controlled environment.  Hubbard's illustrations add a lot to the story.

Besides being absolutely lovely, Hubbard's writing has a kind, good-humored quality to it directed at both her characters and the reader, from Bria's false bravado at the beginning of the novel, to my horror at Rowan's hair.  (My ultimate ponytail amnesia test: the french braid.)  It's like the story is being told to you by a good friend. Hubbard's descriptions of the locations Bria and Rowan visited are delightful to read.  As someone who has traveled to many of the places depicted (I'm no backpacker but I have been on a broken down bus in Belize) it was a pleasure to revisit them through Hubbard's prose.

They say the unexpected adventures can be the most satisfying and that theory definitely holds true with this book.  Rating: 4/5 stars

PS. For this review, one of Rowan's leg bracelets just has to be this.
PPS. To all the lovelies who participated in the ponytail referendum over on Goodreads,  I gave Rowan a hair cut just for you.

Bookmark Binge: April 1, 2012

The Bookmark Binge: like a link cornucopia, without the genetically altered wolf mutations.  


Haven't gotten enough of Shyness yet?
Don't miss Leanne Hall's marvelous guest post on Shirley Marr's blog.
Give a listen to Leanne Hall's official Queen of the Night and This is Shyness playlists.
Check out Jo's review complete with an impressive Wolfboy lineup.

Oh look at these links just lying around...
Get a sneak peak at the first chapter of Night Beach exclusively at Between the Lines.
Scope out some new book boyfriends at The Readventurer.
A very cool look into the cover design process of the eagerly anticipated Preloved.
Don't miss Noelle/Gingerhaze's (not YAA Noelle to be clear) amazing Hunger Games comics.
An illustrated review of The Perks of Being a Wallflower from The Curious Files of Valerie.

Preview of upcoming reviews on YAA:
Maggie: 

Noelle: