#74 of 2012: Rape Girl by Alina Klein
I was blown away by the bluntness of this title and thought to give it a chance because why the heck not!… after all, Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, an acclaimed YA novel that tackles rape as well, is one of my all-time favorite reads. I wasn’t wrong about that - I mean, that part where this book obvs uses rape as the main issue. Where I was wrong was about thinking it could climb up to the pedestal where I put Speak. HOLD ON, THOUGH! It is not because it was badly-written. I just didn’t think Alina Klein picked the best way to tell the story of a girl’s rape aftermath. (Plus, did Klein just outline this story from Speak and jumbled the parts to make it ~fresher and more ~hers??? *appalled face*)But here are golden moments:
Yay!s
-Rape is a sensitive issue and not all writers rave about writing about it, such as its aftermaths, so I commend Klein for choosing and writing about it.
-Sometimes I honestly can’t tell whether a certain novel is being thoroughly fictitious or not, because at the rate this world is going, every little thing in fiction might just as well be rooted from reality. That was my thought while reading Rape Girl. Does all this happen in real life? All this pain, shame and regret?? And then I answer myself, YES, and I guess that’s when I decided that this book reaches out ~realistically and those who have undergone the same situation could very well relate.
-I like how Valerie’s mom is involved in her life, especially in the rape matter. Parental units are usually the last to know in cases like this.
Boo!s
-I couldn’t connect with Valerie, even before she got raped or after she did. She appealed to me as someone who tries so hard to be cool at first, and then she became shriveled up and no-personality by the latter part.
-As I said, I don’t think using the flashback-per-chapter technique was the best way to go in telling a story like this. (Or maybe I’m just biased with how Speak was written. Can’t argue with myself because that thing was genius.)
#72 of 2012: Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick
Tears in mah eyes… A bit. This was quite the surprise, the good surprise. Which I didn’t expect at all, given the premise. I thought it was going to be the usual griev-y novels where a daughter messes up her life because one of her parents died. (I know, how cruel and judgmental of me.) And so you ask, WHY’D YOU PICK IT UP THEN? Well, I liked the cover. And the I’m-using-you-for-schmex thing. (Oh God, is this a side effect of the 50 Shits of Crap?? NO.) But as I said, while the story started off a bit slow - as in makes you want to give up the whole thing altogether, there was something so haunting about Holly, the protag, that made me want to keep going. Unlike what I predicted her to be, she turned out to be a difficult character to read. She pulled you into the depths of her feelings; at the same time, trying to save you from the waves of her being fucked up. Yeaaaah, that’s profound right there but there you go. It felt so much like reading Sara Zarr’s Story of A Girl and you get all these sadness and regret THEN hope and a bit of pride for the protag, for her to able to find a way to simply move on and be happy.
Yay!s
-I like Holly’s imperfections. Like, for instance, she has sex with Paul and knows it’s wrong once she finds out he has a girlfriend who becomes her friend later on, and then she tries to make up for her mistakes with some more mistakes.
-There’s a BFF-falling-in-love-with-each-other thing going on in here, just like in the last book I read, but this time, it was a bit painful. Somehow like Charlie and Vera’s in AS King’s Please Ignore Vera Dietz. If you LOVED that (which I did/DO), then what are you waiting for? Nils and Holly also had a kind of Charlie and Vera’s tree house, only it’s called The Shack.
-No overplay in terms of descriptions or image-building for the characters. For example, Paul wasn’t detailed as this hunk or some big jock or winner guy that could get whoever he wanted to sleep with. He was just this guy who couldn’t choose between two girls that seem to have been messing with his mind and… down-there. Or even with Nils, who was Holly’s best friend who was in love with her. Lauren Strasnick used their emotions instead to give color to their characters.
Boo!s
-The ending felt abrupt, like I thought Strasnick owed me something and she shouldn’t be allowed to do that to her readers, leaving them one-liners as endings that DO NOT MEAN A FREAKING THING. Maybe I just wanted more.
-I must have missed the memo where it points me to the path of understanding why the title is such.
#71 of 2012: What A Boy Wants by Nyrae Dawn
Ohh, this book was fine. Not the best YA male POV I’ve read, but definitely the most fun, playful and engaging by far. Nyrae Dawn seemed to know what she was doing, that it was clear to her that this was a story about a guy who plays Hook-Up Doctor anonymously and finds himself caught up in a luuuv situation he so didn’t expect to be in, let alone like, and that she did not need any outrageous plots or annoying dilemmas to insert in making the story come alive, unlike some too-contrived YA novels I’ve been reading lately.
Yay!s
-BFFs falling in lalalalove with each other!
-Strong mom-son and friendship ties!
-May I just give props to Dawn for Sebastian Assholic-But-Hot Hawkins, because he was totally digging into both the dynamics of a girl and boy’s mind in terms of relationships. Some insights and situations were cliche, yes, but you know, it’s always fun to watch (read?) guys messing up in front of the ones they love, girls stepping it up to get their guys, etc.
-The supporting characters were so deliciously interesting, too, so when I found out that they - Jaden (Bastian’s guy best friend) and Pris (Aspen’s girl best friend; Aspen is Bastian’s love interest, btw!) - had their own novel, I thought “Atta girl, Nyrae!” Lol
Boo!s
-You might be turned off by the number of cliches strewn all over the novel, but WHO CARES ABOUT THAT, REALLY! Once you plunge into it, there’s no turning back from joy, giddy, fun, fun, giddy, joy!
-I wasn’t too impressed with Aspen. I thought she was a real bore, though I’d have to give it to her for being smart in the way she played Bastian!
