Review: BEFORE I FALL by Lauren Oliver

TITLE: Before I Fall
AUTHOR: Lauren Oliver
GENRE: Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy
FANTASY ELEMENT: Life after death
PUBLISHED: HarperCollins  (March 2, 2010)
SOURCE: Borrowed from Library
RATING: 1 - Poor

SYNOPSIS:

What if you had only one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life? Samantha Kingston has it all: the world's most crush-worthy boyfriend, three amazing best friends, and first pick of everything at Thomas Jefferson High—from the best table in the cafeteria to the choicest parking spot. Friday, February 12, should be just another day in her charmed life.
Instead, it turns out to be her last. Then she gets a second chance. Seven chances, in fact. Reliving her last day during one miraculous week, she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death—and discover the true value of everything she is in danger of losing.

REVIEW:

After reading Lauren Oliver’s DELIRIUM and loving it, I looked up what else she’s written and found this one. It is a strange tale of a popular/mean-girl in high school that can say or do anything to anyone. She dies in a car accident and then keeps reliving that same day over and over.

Complaint #1: Sadly, the story itself is rather predictable. The repeating of days and turn of events got rather boring, even though the love story got steamier and steamier. That was about the only good thing about the story, was how the romance played out.

Complaint #2: Too much sex, alcohol and drugs. What the heck? It had mild language and all she thought about was sex, drank freely and even smoked some pot. Classy story. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

Complaint #3: The main character is less than desirable. I hope no one can relate with this person. Sam is mean and conniving. Then she selfishly tries to be good to change her own death. I’m glad she at least changed and grew into a halfway likeable person by the end and sacrificed her own desires. But that leads me to my next complaint.

***SEMI-SPOILER ALERT***

Complaint #4: There is no ENDING! At least there was a decent escalating conflict, but how does it end? I read stories so I can see it to its finality. There was no resolution, nothing. Arrrgg… Yes I’m growling! So maybe the author is leaving it up to our imaginations? Well my imagination is saying, give me a satisfying ending! At least a clue, is she dead, alive, in a coma, sleeping, did it all reeeeeally happen and then she keeps living after the last page? At least the movie “Ground Hog Day” had an ending for us to have endured that stupid movie.

RATING:

I have to rate this as a 1: Poor. A waste of time. It has an interesting romance but that can’t even redeem this story for me. Kent makes Sam better and is the only likable thing about this story. Other than that it was repetitive and ended rather disappointingly.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

This is not recommended for early teens or any  teen at all. (I won’t be letting my kids read it.) Mild language. Too much sex, drug and alcohol use and references. Also there are inappropriate interactions between a student and teacher. I kind of wish that was not even included in this book. Read at your own risk, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Twilight and Christianity

Being a Christian, raised as a pastor’s kid, and now operating in deliverance ministry for the past 10+ years I’ve been asked plenty of times why I think it is okay to follow the Twilight Saga. This is in response to those queries. 

WHERE I STAND ON THE SAGA

Like a good Christian girl, I had poo-pooed the books back when they were coming out. “Boo, Vampires are bad.” The first movie had been released by that time. And a friend of mine told me I should check out this love story. She handed me Twilight. (I am rather open-minded. I had read the first Harry Potter book and found out that it was no big deal, but it also wasn’t my cup of tea, so I didn’t read any more.) 

So I borrowed that black book with an apple on the cover and ended up falling in love with a vampire story. I think the major issue Christians have with Twilight is the vampire thing. They equate it to a demonic character. To the majority of Christians, demons are this mysterious and scary thing that no one understands. Oddly enough, I have been educated in the supernatural. No I’m not arrogant enough to say that I know everything about demons. I just know enough from my years in deliverance ministry of how they operate. So in my mind vampire does NOT equal demon. Vampires = fiction. Demons = real. No association, for me. 

Christians fear even the idea of demons, so when they equate vampires to demons, it is kinda ridiculous to me because I’ve never seen any demons suck blood. I think Christians fear what they don’t understand and when one Christian after the other says “Twilight-bad” it’s just ignorantly passed down the sheep-line. Yeah, we’re sheep, but God gave us a will and freedom of an opinion. 

My opinion is that the story is fascinating. I love falling in love over and over again through fiction. (I can’t handle more than a PG13 romance book, so Twilight fit my standards.) I read book after book and was hooked. 

The enemy wants to place any sort of wedge between people. A silly book came out about vampires and werewolves, now Christians have something to complain about. Yay. The enemy wins because he got us to judge others for unimportant things. Then the Christians that actually like Twilight feel shame about it and some of them hide it. Now they have what they think is a “secret sin” in their hearts. That is SAD. Might as well high-five the devil at this point. He is winning. (Not to mention, Twilight is just a story… not even worth the time I put into this article to explain.)

To mention a select group of twilight fans… the OVER-obsessed. It is common sense that elevating something as silly as a fictional story to being the most important thing in their life is down right idiotic… this group of people were messed up waaaaay before Twilight came around. (I don’t condone what the obsessed fans do!) Moderation people!

SO WHAT’S THE DRAW?

After interviewing a bunch of people sitting outside of the movie theater in line to see the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn (The 4th Twilight book) and asking them what their draw is to the Twilight Saga I’ve have a better understanding of what the big deal is about Twilight. The majority of the people mention the romance. The old fashioned romance between Edward and Bella is dreamy. Girls want to be unconditionally loved like that.

Yeah, some people go overboard and are in love with Edward or Jacob and some act as though it is “girl-porn” but I think they fall in to the “over-obsessed” category and should be slapped!

A friend of mine recently said, “The thing is, Twilight isn't like True Blood or Sookie Stackhouse where it's all about sex and sucking blood. This story is purely about relationships...the characters just happen to be fictional/fantastical beings.”

The biggest factor for me is the redemption of someone who is perceived as “evil.” Edward is a vampire. A damned soul. There is no such thing as vampires, so in my mind, we’re just dealing with the idea of a person who is damned or evil. Not a demon. Edward feels unredeemable, which is why he is so broody. But LOVE has redeemed him. I can think of several love stories where the “monster” is redeemed through love: Beauty and the Beast, and Shrek. 

He is a fictional monster/bad boy that Stephenie Meyers uses to redeem and show that even the worst of us are worthy of redemption and love. 

So is Twilight okay for Christians? It’s all in the way you look at it, I suppose. Decide for yourself. If reading Twilight causes you to sin... cut it off!

Vampire/Werewolf Books VS Angel/Demon Books

What’s the deal with the paranormal craze?! Well, it’s totally awesome of course. There are just some of us who are super-curious about the supernatural and weird occurrences than others. We want the impossible to happen. We want to read stories about that evil vampire having a good side and falling in love with a meek human. We want that werewolf to come out of hiding, we’re curious about him. It’s all good fun because it’s paranormal and it’s total fiction.

The market has been flooded with vampire and werewolf books to satisfy our curiosity. We don’t care, we want good, interesting stories that defy imagination.

As a Christian, I am not bothered by the hype around vampire and werewolf books. I won’t read smutty novels to begin with, so if there is a skanky vampire story, I skip it anyway. Are vampires bad? Only in some stories. Are werewolves, bad… I don’t know, they are imaginary.

So now there have been a bunch of books coming out about angels and demons. Demon hunters, angel heroes, and half human/half angel stories. There is just something that bothers me about these. I have wondered why vampires and werewolves don’t bother me one a bit, but stories about demons and angels do.

ISSUE #1: Vampires and werewolves are NOT REAL. Totally made up, fiction. Like unicorns and fairies.

ISSUE #2: Angels and demons are REAL. God is real, angels are real, the devil is real, and demons are real. There has always been a battle between good and evil since the fall of Lucifer. Whether anyone believes it or not, truth is truth. DEMONS exist.

ISSUE #3: Writers make up their own rules:

1.      Concerning vampires, they make up their own rules about if they can be in the sun, or if they sleep in coffins, or whether they bite humans or animals. That’s okay, because they are totally make-believe creatures anyway! There are not definite rules about what they are and what they can be.

2.      Concerning angels and demons, the writer seems to think that it’s okay to make up their own rules about how they work. For me, this is the most annoying part. It’s like breaking the rule of gravity on earth. That’s idiotic because if they don’t want to follow the rules of gravity, then don’t write a book that takes place on earth… create a NEW planet for the setting.
If you don’t know anything about angels, don’t write a movie, or a book about them.

For me there was nothing more annoying than that movie “Michael” starring John Travolta. It breaks every rule about angels. Don’t people know that if he’s a fallen angel, he’s a demon. Duh!

“Fallen” by Lauren Kate. Ridiculous. You can’t fall in love with an angel. Angels know their place. They won’t be talking to you unless they have a message from the Almighty. Yeah, maybe angels appear in human form to help us out. I believe it’s only because it is God-approved. If they do, they are DEMONS. Are demons good? NO.

I just believe that if you don’t know the rules about something that is real like gravity, angels or demons, you best not be breaking those rules. They are not imaginary. It’s just plain annoying.

Which brings me to my last point. There are quite a few books about angels and demons that are nothing like the real thing that cause people to believe the wrong thing about them. For example, if we are presented with stories about lawyers and they do bad things in every story ever written, we would all assume that all lawyers are bad. But I’m sure not every lawyer on the face of the earth is BAD. Which in turn, makes fiction turn into nonfiction. It’s just ridiculous.

Why can’t someone actually write a story about angels and/or demons that is biblically correct? Wow us, people. It can be done.

Review: ENTWINED by Heather Dixon

TITLE: Entwined
AUTHOR: Heather Dixon
GENRE: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
FANTASY ELEMENT: Magic
PUBLISHED: Greenwillow Books (March 29, 2011)
FORMAT: Hardcover
SOURCE: Borrowed from Library

SYNOPSIS:

Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her . . . beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing . . . it's taken away. All of it.

The Keeper understands. He's trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation.  Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest. But there is a cost. The Keeper likes to keep things. Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late.

REVIEW:

This is retelling of the fairytale of the “Twelve Dancing Princesses.” The story begins when the girls lose their mother and must endure a full year of mourning. The beginning of this book really seemed kind of flat, but as I read on it became more interesting. I wasn’t sure if I could endure reading a year of mourning. But as the mystery unfolded, I couldn’t put it down. (And the pretty cover, kept me picking it back up.)

The overall story is good. I like when there is something to figure out, then when it comes to light and I’m right, I feel rewarded. I like how positive and delightful the narrator’s voice is throughout. It has a notable affect on the entirety of the story. Azalea is dainty and powerful, an enigma. She is commanding yet agreeable. I love her positively trusting nature yet her distrust in her father and their growth in the end.

The old timey language was charming and made it feel like we were back in the middle ages (even though I’ve never been there.) But I was nervous about all the talk of dancing (not being a dancer myself.) I have to say that it was enchanting to hear of their passion for dance. The dances added to the tone of each scene and represented where they were in the current situation.

RATING:

I’d rate this book at a 3: Good. It was a good read. After clearing the flat beginning, this book proved worth the time to read. I loved the classic nature of the love story, oh the brown eyes. {Sigh}

RECOMMENDATIONS:

I’d definitely recommend this book to teens and as early as preteens. It is appropriate for all audiences. Thankfully rated PG, if it were a movie. I am grateful for clean books! Yay! (This one goes on my 10 year old’s “To Read” list.)

Review: FOREVER by Maggie Stiefvater

TITLE: Forever
AUTHOR: Maggie Stiefvater – Web, Blog
GENRE: Young Adult, paranormal
PARANORMAL ELEMENT: Werewolves
PUBLISHED: Scholastic (July 12, 2011)
FORMAT: Hardcover
SOURCE: Borrowed from Library (Will be owning this soon!)

SYNOPSIS: (via Goodreads)

The thrilling conclusion to #1 bestselling Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy from Maggie Stiefvater.  In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. In Linger, they fought to be together. Now, in Forever, the stakes are even higher than before. Wolves are being hunted. Lives are being threatened. And love is harder and harder to hold on to as death comes closing in.

REVIEW:

I have to say that this was a satisfying end to this series. I loved each book for different reasons. This one was just as fun. Even though there were no new characters, the way this book expanded on them and put more depth into this series was fantastic.

I love Sam. I am like Sam. I am very internal. I love how he grows up a bit in this one and takes life by the horns. He makes decisions! He has a confrontation… not telling with whom! He is by far my most favorite character of the series. Love, love, love.

Grace is still good-old-reliable-thinker-Grace. Thank God for her or this book would flounder. I wanted to slap some people but she shifts back to human and actually has ideas and makes a plan of what to do about the impending doom. (No Spoilers!)

Cole is like that guy who doesn’t deserve to be liked, but you just can’t help it. He’s so cold, and harsh. But he brings value to the story and is totally unlike Sam and Grace. I love how Isabel and Cole both envy Sam and Graces’ relationship and think they are too broken to ever be like them.

RATING:

The book is a great story, beginning to end. The writing is YET AGAIN fantastic! She is officially on my “favorite authors” list. I must read more by Maggie Stiefvater!! I rate the book at a 5: Excellent… Well worth the time to read, I wish it were longer, I just wanted more!

As for the series…. It is easily added to my favorites. I hope they come out with the movie. No stupid love triangle!  I rate the series as a 5: Get it, Read it, Love it!

RECOMMENDATIONS:

I had qualms about the first book with the “sneaking” around behind Graces parents backs. But I get it. It is actually a story element that has resolution in this book. Go Grace! If you liked Twilight, read this series. If you liked Hunger Games, read this series. If you like young adult novels, just read this series!

SERIES REVIEWS:

Book 1: Shiver

Book 2: Linger

Book 3: Forever

Other Books by Maggie Stiefvater:

Books of Faerie:
Lament
Ballad

The Scorpio Races