Hiding Books

This post is a bit of a weird one. I had a panic attack today. I haven't had one in years.

It scared me.

So because I'm thinking about this today and there's no way to avoid it, I thought I'd finally put together some thoughts on All the Bright Places. This is going to be spoilery, starting right after the blurb below. And by spoilery I mean nothing's off limits. I usually never do this but I think this book needs to be looked at in its entirety. The book deserves it, and I think it's important.

So... Beware spoilers from this point forward!

In case you haven't read it or need a reminder:

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

Summary from GoodReads.

This is what I wrote on GoodReads upon finishing AtBP:

"I don't know if I'll ever be able to review this, but I loved it. I'm really upset and I feel like I'll never stop crying, but I loved it. P.S. Everyone who told me to have tissues at the ready: Thank you for taking care of me."

Obviously I liked it, right? But I also think there are some things kind of wrong with it, and there are some really important points to discuss here.

The Depression is (too) Real

All the Bright Places was triggering, in a way. I could identify with so many things - with both characters, really. Violet's depression (at least that's what it seemed like to me) was so real. But she's grieving, it's complicated, there's no diagnosis. People give her time but I think the support she needs isn't there.

And poor, poor Felix. I hurt. Reading about Felix hurt. It's obvious from the start that things are not okay, and people in his life should be able to see that. Felix holds on to what he can to keep him alive, and that something very quickly becomes Violet. But as with a lot of mental illnesses people tend to keep them on the inside, hide them behind a facade. And because of that, he dies. And it hurts because it's preventable. I don't know if you've ever thought about suicide other than to go "it's a horrible thing, and it's unfair," in fact I hope you haven't thought about it more than that. The thing is, for someone who commits suicide, it's just that being alive is actually worse than facing the fear of death that all of us have. That's a frightening, upsetting, horrible thought. Is it realistic? Yes, of course it is. This happens. And with this book, I knew it was coming, I'm sure we all did. And yet no one in his life could recognise Felix needed help.

This doesn't give me a lot of hope. All the Bright Places took it away. It's almost like Felix is just there to help Violet, to 'heal' her from the depression that comes from losing her sister. Of course with Felix it turns out she now has another reason to feel guilty: he dies. After she tells him to get help. I don't like it. It seems like a bad thing that she wanted him to get help. It's not a bad thing.

Therapy, Medication, Family??

The thing is that the adults in this book suck. The counsellor - whatever his name is - kind of recognises Felix might have bipolar disorder. I mean - he knows something's wrong, right? He talks to Finch all the time. And bipolar disorder.. Depression can be a major part of it. Depression can make people do things they can't undo. Usually professionals are very good at identifying behaviours that are dangerous to the person - and they're sent to a doctor, a psychiatrist, medication comes into play... That's how it should go. So it upset me, that no one seemed to recognise how bad things were.

I remember the scene where Felix goes to the support group meeting - and it's kind of clear he doesn't believe medication helps. I understand that a person can believe that, of course. But when no one clarifies on it, and no one else talks about medication in the book, it's... upsetting. So, I'm offering a point of criticism: medication is important, and I think it's dangerous not to include it, to talk about it, to discuss its' merits. I completely understand that this is one book, and it shouldn't matter so much, but I really think it does. There's a stigma to medication and it's hard to take meds anyway. It's scary. There are side effects. It means accepting you're sick. It's unbelievably frightening. It's a problem - some people just don't take their meds, or stop taking them before they can take effect.

A lot of young adults struggle with mental health, and I feel like if they read this book, it may affect their opinions. That's why I think medication does need to be discussed in a positive light - because it can save lives.

This is getting too long but I have a lot of feels. Overall, I still loved this book - it's rare to find characters whose depression feels real. It's a really hard thing to portray successfully, and mostly that worked so well in AtBP. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm getting a kind of a pessimistic message back from it.

Have you read Bright Places? What did you think? I'm genuinely curious - and I promise I won't snap at you if your opinion differs from mine ♥

Hello my lovely little narwhal friends! I'm bringing you a lengthy Bookish Confessions post today. I had to wait over the weekend to do this because I was a bit annoyed and couldn't really talk about this topic objectively!

Too old for YA? Okay so I'm not.

I'm not too old. I'm 24 (for a little longer). In fact, no one's too old. The wonderful thing about this bookish community is that we don't judge, right? I've talked about YA before, but as you know - I freaking love YA - so I'm taking this chance to go for it again and look at it from a slightly different angle.

I don't know if you were on the Guardian's website last week or saw angry comments on twitter, but Cait @ Paper Fury wrote a wonderful response to this article in their 'books blog' which talked about why 'most YA fiction is grown-up fiction in disguise.' It made me feel judged though I'm sure that wasn't what they set out to do (but really it did make me feel like I was doing something wrong by liking YA as someone 'too old').

A lot of people obviously pointed out that some things in the article were just silly and not true (no, nothing's necessarily terribly wrong with marketing if 80% of YA titles are bought by adults over 25 - the publishers weekly article from which that statistic is plucked is actually quite nice and informative). But even the guardian article could serve as a conversation starter for us in a few things. So is it a bad thing that it was published? No, of course not.

Reactions

{Here's a few thoughts I had while reading the article - and thinking about specific 'problems' mentioned it.}

1. YA is not marketed at adults. It is marketed towards teenagers. It's why it's in the Teens, Children's, or Young Adult section. Funny how that works.

2. the fact that YA portrays sometimes more mature characters doesn't mean actual young adults can't read them! I'm sorry but that's stupid.

3. YA is actually kind of stigmatised. (Any kinds of books kind of seem to be, for teenagers.)

4. There are books that are marketed as YA sometimes that actually grapple with themes a bit darker or that have a pace and theme more geared toward adults - that may be kind of a mistake on the publishers' part but doesn't mean YA isn't for teenagers. (although YA does sometimes include really dark themes - but it's still done a bit differently in YA versus fiction aimed at adults.)

5. We should never, ever, ever dumb things down for teens. That is so not what YA fiction is about. YA grapples with such important issues for teens. And being a teen is difficult. They need their literature to reflect that, in my humble opinion as someone who used to be a teenager, not so very long ago.

There was a story I wanted to tell you about my reading habits when I was a young adult, or at least within the brackets of the intended audience for YA (oh so long ago).

I read through the kids' section (which included YA - though not a whole lot of it) at my library by the time I was about ten or eleven. After that I ventured out into the adults' section which was massive and had everything. I started with Margaret Atwood because... she was the first author I came across who had a dozen of her books in a row on a shelf. (I started alphabetically going through the shelves, of course.)

ANYWAY. So that's where I stayed for the next decade. Reading adults' books as a kid. I understood them, I got things out of them, and I learned a lot. But I never felt like I could tell anyone I read - especially as a teenager, I didn't even talk about it to my friends. I wasn't a popular kid by any means, and because I was quiet and got high grades I was already labelled a geek, a nerd, a teacher's pet. So of course I wasn't about to tell anyone that I read books for fun. It just wasn't cool.

To sum up: As a young adult I didn't read young adult.

...This is turning out to be a much longer post than I thought so I might make this into a series of posts in the following few weeks.

But for now: instead of some of the things pointed out in that article, I'd like to bring up a few other topics that we can discuss in the comments or in later posts.

Why is so much of YA marketed towards girls and young women? (or do you think it's in fact marketed equally towards both sexes/genders?)
Why is it that it's not cool to read books?
If you're a teenager or you read a lot of YA as a teenager - do you feel like YA caters more to adults and not to teens?
Why can't peer pressure be about positive things? (little Annika wants to go into social commentary...)

So... what do you think - about the article or about any of my points here? I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments or in a post of your own if you feel like you'd like to do your own discussion post - because I do feel there's a lot to say on the topic of YA.

Synopsis
Maire is a baker with an extraordinary gift: she can infuse her treats with emotions and abilities, which are then passed on to those who eat them. She doesn’t know why she can do this and remembers nothing of who she is or where she came from.

When marauders raid her town, Maire is captured and sold to the eccentric Allemas, who enslaves her and demands that she produce sinister confections, including a witch’s gingerbread cottage, a living cookie boy, and size-altering cakes.

During her captivity, Maire is visited by Fyel, a ghostly being who is reluctant to reveal his connection to her. The more often they meet, the more her memories return, and she begins to piece together who and what she really is—as well as past mistakes that yield cosmic consequences.

From the author of The Paper Magician series comes a haunting and otherworldly tale of folly and consequence, forgiveness and redemption.

Synopsis from Goodreads.

Details

✱ Author: Charlie N. Holmberg

✱ Publication date: 28 June 2016

✱ Pages: 306 (ebook)

✱ Provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

✱ Amazon UK | Amazon US

First Impressions

Would you look at that gorgeous cover?! Also I enjoyed Holmberg's Paper Magician trilogy so I had high hopes.

My Review

Imagination abounding

I mean, really. She is such an imaginative author, I'm always surprised by her writing - magic in baking for example is such a cool idea. There are so many interesting elements in this one that I felt had a lot of potential, but at the same time it felt a bit aimless. I really enjoyed the beginning but it sort of lost its way. In the synopsis some themes are mentioned, like 'folly and consequence,' which I think is quite apt, but it does take quite a while to see the wider effects and the real meaning of these themes.

The protagonist, Maire

Maire has lost her memory so we're in her head, trying to figure out what's happening right alongside her. She faces some pretty difficult situations and usually keeps a cool head which makes her likeable to me, but I also found I couldn't really identify with her despite that. Maybe that's because it's hard to define the personality of someone who doesn't have their memories? The person Maire is and has been since losing her memory might be someone completely different from who she was before, and I think that has to show in her personality too.

Despite how much I adore imaginative stories...

This one fell a bit flat for me. In a way there's a mystery to it which means you keep waiting and waiting to find out what's really going on. It just didn't really work for me, in the end. If you like your books a bit different from everything else, and you like not knowing where the story is headed you might enjoy this. For me the ending just didn't deliver enough, and something about the execution of the story just diminished the magic overall.

Quick Recap and Rating

I wish I could give Magic Bitter a higher rating, but I didn't love it like I wanted to. The good thing is this one's going to be free for kindle unlimited - so if you have that you can give it a go without spending any extra money.

Have you read the Paper Magician? Are you planning on reading Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet? Have you read books where you had high hopes and it felt promising but fell short? Let me know!

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme for sharing our news, and plans for the next week, hosted by the wonderful Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

Hello my lovelies!

I've had an interesting week, kind of. My health is... whatever it is, so that sucks, but my godson and his sister (ages 9 and 6) visited me for three days in the middle of the week. It was so nice to do stuff together and be busy but... every time I forget how much energy children have. I got about five hours of sleep every night they were here and when they left I went to bed at seven and slept twelve hours. I guess it's kind of good though because my sleeping habits are rubbish? I really did have a lot of fun! But when they're both teenagers and want to sleep in until noon I am so going to wake them up at 7am complaining that the day's wasting away. ;)

Cool Stuff in the Blogosphere

✦ Trisha Jenn's writing prompt for this week was a really good one! I'm super inspired to write - you should check out her writing prompts too!

✦ The Make Me Read It Readathon by Ely @ Tea and Titles and Val @ the Innocent Smiley will take place in July. This is the perfect time to sign up! Or at least you can go around their blogs to vote on their TBRs ;)

On the Blog Recently

✦ Bookish Confessions: I Can't DNF (teach me your ways)!
Feel free to share your magical DNF abilities (..or inabilities) with us
✦ Make Me Read It Readathon Sign-ups!

If you have a moment I would love it if you could give me a hand and vote for a few books you think I should read!
✦ If you'd like to, you can still join us on last week's Conversations topic about how you juggle real life duties and blogging. The sign-up is here on my blog instead of Geraldine's just this once.

Reviews

Up Next Week

✦ A review of Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet by Charlie N. Holmberg

✦ A Bookish Confessions post
✦ The Blog Squad Tag! ;)

How are you? What's new in your life? Let me know!
Also - if you're going to take part in the Make Me Read It readathon please let me know so I'll be on the lookout for your TBR post!

This is going to be a really cool readathon taking place from the 9th to the 16th of July. Ely @ Tea & Titles and Val @ the Innocent Smiley (who are both so lovely!) are putting on this readathon for the second time. You can check the details and sign up for the event over here.

The idea is that you pick books and make a list so everyone else can vote for books they want you to read. I've put together a list of ten books that I've been meaning to read so now you get the chance to decide which ones I read during the week of the readathon, and which order I read them in.

So... please help me decide! You can vote for as many books as you'd like. I'll probably aim to read about six of them during that week, we'll see if it works out since it will also be a time of Camp NaNo craziness ;)

survey solution

Any books you've read up on my list? Are you going to do the readathon? I'd love to see your TBR!

Not Finishing a Book. How Do You Do It?

Sometimes I see people post DNF reviews. It's pretty cool because it let's you see what people don't like in books they read as opposed to what you usually get. But it always just makes me think, what? how? How do you just stop reading a book?

Getting pulled in even if a book isn't that good.

{Yep. I've read some really bad books.}

Once I start a story I usually read the first twenty pages or so without realising it. And so, even if the story isn't that gripping or I have some issues with it, I still can't stop. Not when I've started.

The fear of missing out.

{What if on page 89 it gets *really* good all of a sudden?!}

Or what if the author's being tricky and is actually giving you the wrong impression of their characters on purpose? Or, or, or, what if it's just a slow start?

One book I actually DNF'd (kind of) about seven years ago was the Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. I started it again a month or two later and devoured it. It's basically my favourite book now.

So much jealousy.

{Why do I torture myself?}

It would be so amazing to be able to stop reading books that you don't immediately love. I envy those who can DNF books. You need to tell me how. How do you do it? Teach me, please!

So... Do you DNF books? How often? Is it a struggle?

Synopsis

Julia has the unusual ability to be . . . unseen. Not invisible, exactly. Just beyond most people's senses. It's a dangerous trait in a city that has banned all forms of magic and drowns witches in public Cleansings. But it's a useful trait for a thief and a spy. And Julia has learned--crime pays. Her latest job is paying very well indeed. Julia is posing as a housemaid in the grand house of Mrs. Och, where an odd assortment of characters live and work: A disgraced professor who sends her to fetch parcels containing bullets, spiders, and poison. An aristocratic houseguest who is locked in the basement each night. And a mysterious young woman who is clearly in hiding--though from what or whom?

Worse, Julia suspects that there's a connection between these people and the killer leaving a trail of bodies across the frozen city. The more she learns, the more she wants to be done with this unnatural job. To go back to the safety of her friends and fellow thieves. But Julia is entangled in a struggle between forces more powerful than she'd ever imagined. Escape will come at a terrible price.

Summary from Goodreads.