Genre: Realistic Fiction

Review: This Is Where It Ends – Marieke Nijkamp

Review: This Is Where It Ends – Marieke Nijkamp

This Is Where It Ends is an intimate account of what happens in a high school in Opportunity when a former student comes back and locks all his friends and teachers in the auditorium before he opens fire. In the news, school shootings are far too common, and it becomes like a media circus, both while it is happening, and in the aftermath. This Is Where It Ends manages to tell the story of a school shooting from four different students’ point of view, three of them on the inside of the school, and one just outside, training for track instead of being at the assembly. The fact that the story is told in these different perspectives, each in first […]

Posted 12 January, 2016 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 28 Comments
Divider

Review: The Last Time We Say Goodbye – Cynthia Hand

Review: The Last Time We Say Goodbye – Cynthia Hand

Tissues! The Last Time We Say Goodbye is one of those books… and I just can’t stop crying right now. My The Last Time We Say Goodbye review: This is a pretty tough read, dealing with a difficult and heartbreaking subject. And it definitely should come with a trigger warning! At the very beginning of The Last Time We Say Goodbye, we learn that Lex’s brother Ty committed suicide, and Lex is seeing a therapist who first suggests that she be medicated, then when she vetoes that, he tells her she should write. The first and the last. Especially the last time she saw Ty happy. And Lex is numb. She goes through the motions, sharing flash-backs that seem so […]

Divider

Review: The Truth About Alice – Jennifer Mathieu

Review: The Truth About Alice – Jennifer Mathieu

The Truth About Alice really shows all the different points of views to how freezing someone out of a group of friends might happen. It’s sad and realistic, and I can’t help but feel happy Alice was so strong! Rumour : ru-mour / noun: a piece of information, or a story, that people talk about, but that may not be true. My The Truth About Alice review: Somehow, The Truth About Alice managed to take a lot of the young adult tropes and kind of turn them around, analysing the why behind the labelling of people in high school, why is one girl called the slut, why is another girl popular, and how come lies can be so much easier […]

Divider

Review: None of the Above – I. W. Gregorio

Review: None of the Above – I. W. Gregorio

None of the Above is a tender and strong story about Krissy, and all the things that happened to her once she (and everyone else) found out that she was intersex… My None of the Above review: I can’t even imagine all the things Kristen went through in the span of None of the Above, from being elected prom queen, going out with her boyfriend and finally having sex with him for the first time – only to have it hurt so bad they couldn’t actually finish. A few days later, she went to see an ob-gyn to figure out why she was still bleeding, and the news she got then were both devastating and shocking. Because her mom had […]

Divider

Review: Tease – Amanda Maciel

Review: Tease – Amanda Maciel

*I received a free ARC of Tease from Hachette Children’s Books via Netgalley in exchange of an honest and unbiased review* My Tease Review Tease is a hard story to read, for several reasons, one being that it is about bullying taken so far the victim takes her own life. The other thing that made it hard to read is that the whole story in Tease is from the point of view of one of the young girls who bullied Emma until she could no longer take it. And while I think it’s both interesting and courageous to write a book about bullying from that point of view, I think it also made it harder to actually connect with the […]

Divider

Review: Under the Wide and Starry Night – Nancy Horan

Review: Under the Wide and Starry Night – Nancy Horan

*I received a free ARC of Under the Wide and Starry Night from Random House Publishing – Ballantine via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review* Under the Wide and Starry Night is a beautiful love story, quite unconventional in many ways since Fanny is twelve years older than Louis, and when they meet in France, she is married but estranged from her husband. Both Louis and Fanny have lived pretty tough lives so far, and they both really need some peace and quiet, and someone to love them unconditionally. From the opening, the reader is traveling along-side Fanny and her three children, first to Antwerp, then to Paris, and after a tragedy strikes she, Belle and Sammy go to […]

Posted 13 February, 2014 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 18 Comments
Divider