Slice of Contemporary: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Anna and the French Kiss

Something different this time. Two books, two much shorter, as-less-spoilers-as-possible reviews. Can I do it? I think so...

These are both contemporary YA novels (well, one actually is more of a recent historical, but close enough). I stopped reading contemporary for a long time, but I'm starting to think I might have more luck with them in YA because they may lead to less romances that annoy me. Well, possibly...

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

This really wasn't high on my TBR list, but the library had it out and I picked it up when stocking up on books for vacation. And I am so glad I did.

A big movement circling around the Internet (and elsewhere) is a push for more diversity in YA and books in general. Aristotle and Dante is about two Mexican-American (although middle-class) teenage boys--which I didn't know about before reading the book--and there are also gay themes, which I did know before reading the book. I'm a white heterosexual female and could I relate to this? Oh yeah. And it's not like the diversity "doesn't make a difference," either, because I really enjoyed reading about these kids and their neighborhood and culture. It was different, and I loved that. Furthermore, it looks like it might be a bit autobiographical; Sáenz is Mexican-American and gay and while he may have grown up a decade or so before Ari and Dante, there is still something about this novel that seems really personal, and that is a joy.


I sort of enjoyed this so much that I forgot to take notes, honestly, and I don't want to give too much away. I loved the involvement of both sets of parents and I loved Ari and Dante's struggles of self-discovery and life in general. A very teenagery thing. They made bad choices sometimes, but that is expected and by the end they learn from it. The writing style was very quiet and succinct, but I did not feel distanced. There was kind of a subtle beauty to it all.

This one is definitely on my buy-in-the-future-to-reread list (along with The Giver).

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Something else that was not high on my TBR, although this time it wasn't because I didn't really know what the book was about, but because I didn't feel comfortable buying it or checking it out from the library...I've never been into romance or so-called "chick-lit" and never wanted to be associated with typical "girly" things since I was little. But when I discovered my library's ebook and audiobook lending database, this was what I went for to check it out. I didn't have much of a choice, really; I'd heard so much about it and Eleanor & Park was my first choice, but it was already checked out. Besides, this seemed like a quick read that could benefit from the ebook lending.

Supposedly, this was a light and "adorable" story and a go-to book if you're ever feeling down. This...is not really how I'd describe it. I did really enjoy the first half; Anna's situation was relatable; it's set in France and I study French so that was fun; and even though it was obvious St. Clair was the love interest from the start, he was his own person, shorter than Anna (although not ridden of cliches), and because he had a girlfriend, Anna was concerned with just being his friend. I am a personal fan of love interests becoming friends first and gradually getting closer that it develops into something more, so I enjoyed that aspect, as well as Anna knowing she couldn't have him and not trying, even if she felt jealous at times.

But unfortunately, for much of the second half, there was a lot of drama and it seemed to drag on too long, and they were constantly put in contrived awkward situations which isn't really my thing. Not to mention a sort of thing that "just happens" and fulfills all the [huh I never finished this sentence; I think it was talking about her kiss with the other boy?]. The drama I do not particularly enjoy reading, but I'm conflicted of course, because of course it happened and the emotions are valid and this stuff does happen in real life. And the characters learned from it by the end. And I did like how, really, a lot of the mess happened because they were awkward teenagers and had trouble communicating. So...I think I like it better on paper, but it wasn't feel-good and an "adorable" exploration of romance for me. I just didn't feel it by the time I got to the end. I'm not sure if I'll read Lola and the Boy Next Door and/or Isla and the Happily Ever After...

So, one stellar book and one that was not offensive but didn't deliver what I expected or wanted when actually reading it. Not too bad of a selection. Romance is always going to be a tricky thing for me, and I have my reasons, most of them personal, but I promise I will try. I think I'm just being harder because I have to write actual reviews and really I've never cared about romances in books and now I have to point that out and compare it to my own experiences, which are...atypical. (I love Oz/Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though, does that count? Though Tara is equally awesome, don't get me wrong.)

Next up: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Delirium by Lauren Oliver: Let's talk about love

Yes, it's another YA book with a love story, but I read this on recommendation from my friend and I actually quite enjoyed it. This one is a dystopia where love is a disease and illegal and is cured when you are 18, but main character Lena falls in love with only a few months to go before her cure. So, let's break this down accordingly, because I don't have too much to say otherwise.

A future where love is a disease: This was the reason it took me a while to get into this book, despite Lauren Oliver's lovely writing. I just never got a good grasp of the world, and it doesn't help that the first two chapters are essentially infodumps. I never got that creep factor from the cured people like I got from the characters in The Giver and Fahrenheit 451, and it was hard to see how different they were supposed to act for a while (there is quite a bit of telling rather than showing in this book). I had a very hard time wrapping my head around how the United States in the future would close off its borders and outlaw love, rewrite the Bible, and somehow everyone believed that love really did kill you and was the root of all evil...I mean, I get the whole increasing divorce rate and alcoholism, but aren't those just as accurately results of a lack or love? And would the governing body and the majority of the country be willing to give up loving their spouses, children, parents, friends, interests, and whatever else? Eventually, there were enough hints about a conspiracy and a large amount of "sympathizers," but it would have been much better if this was set more than 60-some years after love had been outlawed (40-something after the cure was perfected). It does not allow much time for this brainwashing to set in if that's really the case, and if it's not, I still have no idea how we got here. (I know it's a trilogy, but it harmed my enjoyment of this novel because I couldn't get the premise in my head.)

There were some parts that I did like, though, such as oil being rationed and the "intranet," mostly just because of its renamed title, but still I was glad it finally answered what happened to the technology.


Overall I think this might have worked much better if it was not set so much in the real world: if it was an alternate universe or something else mysterious, I think I would have been able to have immersed myself in the story more. Plus there is the issue of uncured babies becoming attached to mothers who cannot love them back, which is a very real issue, but is never explored in the book (and Lena is one of the few who. Others have discussed that, though.

Lena falls in love: This is what Delirium is for the most part about, falling in love. But not necessarily falling in love with someone else. Allow me to explain.

Oliver does a great job of describing what it feels like to be in love: getting distracted, feeling beautiful, seeing the world in a whole new light, being paranoid that everyone will see it written across your forehead, etc. However, I never really felt that she was greatly improved by Alex specifically, and it didn't help that he was a very generic YA boyfriend: sweet, already in love with her, attractive in the thin and muscular sense, older, an outsider (though human)...he was nice and inoffensive enough (though at first he was a bit creepy, having remembered and seen her before), and I liked how it was played out, but I never really got a great grasp on him as a character who Lena fell in love with. But this book is mostly focused on the actual falling in love, not the relationship, so it gets a bit of a pass.

The frustrating part was that the story really could not have been any other way with Lena. Hana would be the one to rebel, choose to fall in love, and escape...but Lena's backstory won't allow that. As such she is kind of, forgive me, manipulated by Alex's character to get into the situation she needs to be for the story to take place, which accounts for him already loving her, kissing her first without even asking if it's okay...that sort of thing. It is only after all this that that Lena can break free and gain more agency. I still don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, it would have been a completely different story and character; on the other, it would avoid some cliches and uncomfortable moments

But hey, I did really enjoy Delirium once I got past the first half where everything was set up. I have been told that the rest of the series shouldn't be my top priority and frankly I'm not too interested--though Lauren Oliver shows no sides of slowing down writing and I'm sure I'll pick up another of her books sometime. Meanwhile, my next review looks to be a 3-in-1 affair.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancy: Review

 Well, this was a bit disappointing.

It isn't bad, but I just felt like it was more average than I expected and I was let down for a bit. Good but not great. Sure, it's exciting and the pages kept turning, but I just didn't feel like it did anything for me. It was missing something to make it really special and stick with me. I admit I'm so tough on books these days because I realized how some reads could mean so much personally or at the very least expand my imagination, and I turned away from new releases and series because they stopped doing that for me. "Entertaining but I forgot about it afterward" just didn't cut it, even if I didn't have any quibbles with the actual books when I read them. However, I do have more issues with The 5th Wave, so this might be a step below that level.

The beginning was tough to read simply because, for me at least, the descriptions of mass destruction were really disturbing. I didn't want to imagine and live in a world where there was a likely chance everyone I loved and myself had died. But after Cassie's first section of the novel it all got a bit ordinary. I can't say I'm the biggest science fiction fan, but I have seen my share of alien invasions with The X-Files and Doctor Who. Nothing in this book really surprised me. In fact, it seemed to cram as many alien tropes in as possible, and as a result caused some problems. I still don't know what the aliens are doing and why they are doing it. If they haven't had a form for years and were "downloaded" into humans, then how and why is there a mother ship? What if some of those hybrid alien-humans were by the sea, would they have been wiped out by the 2nd wave? How were these kids not suspicious when these adults had all this tech when this book takes place in 2013-14 (evidenced by the prequel being set in 1995)? [Yes I realized "the aliens left it" but still, they seem too advanced to let that slip.] What do the aliens want, anyway? Please tell me if I missed something.

Now, of course an argument can be made that the actual plot is just window dressing for character development, or for examining how the characters respond to their situation (aka The Buffy Method). Viewed this way, I would say the book preformed mildly well, although I personally did not feel too invested in the characters (Except Sammy. Don't you dare kill Sammy.) and I was so confused to what was going on in the background that I wasn't sure how to root for the characters overcoming their situations. Also, for a section of the book the romance seems to stray away from Cassie's drive, but I'll get to that later. Still, I did like the promises to save Sammy and I really enjoyed the climax where all the storylines came together.

Let's talk about structure, because this book has an interesting one. It took me a bit to get used to, but once it turned into alternating sections of Zombie and Cassie, it was fine. At first, though, it was a bit odd, because we aren't told that this is someone else and we have to figure it out. What I mostly found strange was that the Silencer and Sammy, who each narrate once, were written in third person instead of first like the rest. I could understand the Silencer because he was an alien, but Sammy? Yancy did a good job writing a five-year-old's point of view, he might as well have made it first person to be consistent and not appear that you just can't get inside a five-year-old's head (because isn't every other account of a five-year-old in third person?).

The book is written in present tense, which I'm not a huge fan of because it always sounds funny to me at first, but I get used to it. It was a bit strange in places in this novel, though, because it was hard to figure when everything took place. For example, when we switch to Sammy's POV, we're reading something that happened before Cassie's narration began the book. I was honestly not sure if what Zombie was experiencing happened at the same time as what Cassie was narrating. (Not to mention how confused I was about the crazy technology.) Also, in the first section Cassie uses past tense to tell about the first four waves, which is fine except when it said "Now I was watching him through the kitchen window," which is some sort of past present and doesn't quite work. In Zombie's narration the same thing happened: "'We're going to be the first squad to graduate.' And I'm right." But he can't have any knowledge of the future!

I also found Zombie's side of the story more interesting than Cassie's when he got to the crazy training camp. Although, still, Reznik and Ringer were little more than one-dimensional. Meanwhile, Cassie gets bogged down with a romance subplot that sort of comes out of nowhere. She is constantly describing him from the moment she sees him. He kisses her and doesn't know why and she doesn't question it or talk about their relationship at all for quite a while or even feel awkward about it (like, really, Cassie's never been kissed before, what does she think about it and what are her worries?). Not to mention the narrative hasn't been kind to its tough heroine by physically hurting her and having her nursed to health by an attractive guy who then easily ends up in a relationship with her. How many times have we seen this? Worse, when she begins to question how he is dangerous (which she guessed from his soft hands of all things), we get your typical paranormal romance conversation about how he makes her feel human and he won't hurt her. Yes, I know it's science fiction, but Evan is still a deadly being and it's the same story once again.

I know I can come down hard on YA romance and it's not because I hate the genre, although I did avoid romance when I was younger because it was perceived as "girly" and I didn't want myself to be belittled as a result. But I'm critical now because I've experienced being in a teenage relationship, and I knew several other couples, and we all had more complex dynamics and our fair share of awkwardness and insecurities and discussions. Yet this book is hardly about romance, and it just feels thrown in to check a box and adds nothing insightful. Worse, the way it changes Cassie's character for the middle of the novel is almost insulting, and it almost is just padding until she's strong enough to find Sammy. It slows down the forward momentum that was there in the first section of the book.

So I'm debating whether I'll read the second book after it comes out...I was frustrated at times while reading it, but I'm still intrigued now that the smoke has cleared a bit after I read it. Perhaps more will be explained and I can properly get my head around it. And you know what? It's already going to be a movie...

American Gods TV adaptation is going to be a thing...on Starz

Neil Gaiman's most famous and breakthrough work, American Gods, has been in development for a TV adaption, and it was picked up yesterday by premium channel Starz.

I'm a bit disappointed because I was hoping to watch it live and I'm not going to pay extra for it, but I suppose that is fitting with the nature of the book. (And besides, the book is currently in my "reread in the future and then judge" list, because I ended up rushing it at times.) It needs a big budget (I am personally looking forward to the man being swallowed up by a vagina, and characters from I Love Lucy and Cheers speaking to Shadow), and an adaptation on network or cable would allow it to be severely censored.

I suppose I'll get it on DVD after I finish reading the book for the second time.

My Goodreads review of American Gods.