The Surface Breaks

The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill

I need to warn you that there are intense themes of female oppression and abuse. If that makes you uncomfortable, I would recommend not reading this book and skipping this book review.

So, this book won't be published until July 30, 2019, I think. The amazon page is a little screwy and keeps displaying a different cover, sometimes, and claims the book has already been published. However, I got my hands on uncorrected proof version of this book, which will undoubtedly have differences between the published edition. Whatever that may be.

An amazon summary (which the link, if you click to the different versions of the book, will send you down an odd path), "A dark and beautiful reimagining of The Little Mermaid.

Deep beneath the sea, off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of freedom from her controlling father. On her first swim to the surface, she is drawn towards a human boy. She longs to join his carefree world, but how much will she have to sacrifice? What will it take for the little mermaid to find her voice? Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans in the UK. A book with the darkest of undercurrents, full of rage and rallying cries: storytelling at its most spellbinding." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Muirgen, whose true name is Gaia, but everyone calls her Muirgen at the insistence of the sea king, is the youngest of her six sisters. They're mermaids who live in a kingdom underwater and are greatly oppressed by the king and really all the men, day in and day out. They are given many stipulations about how to live their life from the way they speak, act, and present themselves in general. In the beginning chapters, they literally sew pearls into their tails (FLESH) to appease their father.

There is a rule within the kingdom that no one can approach the surface before their fifteenth birthday. Muirgan, being the youngest, has had to watch her sisters go to the surface or go off to see lightning storms without her. This is also an incredibly big deal because their mother went to the surface and was captured by humans and killed on Muirgan's first birthday.

Muirgan is also the prettiest amongst her sisters, and has been betrothed to a foul man of her father's choosing (for it is a mermaids duties to appease their father I guess).

There's also a peace between the merfolk and the Sea Witch that the Sea King established with Muirgen's mother years ago. The merfolk and the Salka (drowned vengeful women the Sea Witch watches over) were at war for a long time I guess (they didn't get too far into it in the book because it was already over, peace and all that jazz).................

Muirgen is desperate to escape from her life. She's always been unhappy and finds herself looking to the surface to try to understand why her mother left all those years ago (she's 14 in the book).

That's enough summary.

This book is supposed to be a feminist anthem of sorts I guess. I find it very problematic though.

Normally, I try not to give away the major plot points of a story, especially if it hasn't been published yet. But, I'm going to give some very generic plot point accomplishments to effectively talk about why the feminist themes presented are problematic to me.

Muirgen meets the Sea Witch who gives a speech about why everything the Sea King forbades them from doing actually isn't bad. Muirgen is liked shocked, but doesn't care as all she wants to do is go to the surface to see the human boy she rescued in a storm. Muirgen gives her a potion to turn her human, but every day her feet will feel like they're falling apart and be incredibly painful. Muirgen is like, don't care, want man. Sea Witch is like, oh btw, there's a time limit and the boy has to love you or else you die. Muirgen, doesn't care, sacrifices voice for potion, goes to surface, drinks potion, becomes human.

Muirgen meets boy, boy makes sure she's taken care of, Muirgen meets boy's family, understands family positions, sympathy for mom, dislikes boys friends, realizes boy isn't actually all that great, constantly bloody feet, awful times with bloody feet, on last day of being human/before death day, sisters arrive to offer her life by using a knife to kill boy. Muirgen is like kay, can't do it, Sea Witch shows up, is like LOL mermaids gots powers yo, how do you think your mother transformed into a human (which is a drastic thing to introduce so way late in the book, why), Muirgen is like I cannot kill boy, Sea Witch is like LOL I know just become a Salka instead, Muirgen is like uhhhhhh, Sea King arrives to berate and abuse sisters while also realizing Muirgen is still alive, Muirgen AS A HUMAN, taps into her mermaid powers to make the Sea King leave her sisters alone, and decides to become a Salka afterall.

.......so like, the feminist themes in here are problematic because, the Sea Witch, back when she gave the potion to Muirgen, removed her tongue as part of the potion making process. She didn't tell her about her mother or mermaids having powers or anything, she just kind of like, wellllllll if that's what you wantttttttttttttt, and makes it happen. So she's not really looking out for Muirgen's best interest at all, she's also partly a villain in this story.

For two, Muirgen basically goes all murdery at the end of the book anyways, but towards the mermen in the kingdom. Like, she figured out her power and decided she was going to use that to make sure the men felt all the same horrors and atrocities that they did. This is extremely problematic because it doesn't solve any of the problems of mistreatment, it would only make them worse overall. An eye for an eye and the entire world ends up blind. If this was a truly feminist book, I would have liked to see Muirgen try to find a way to be a man's equal rather than their oppressors.

How the last chapter of the book plays out is also utterly ridiculous. Like Muirgen realizes why it was a terrible idea to pine after the boy in the first place, realizes she knew nothing about him in the first place, and then just kind of shrugs that whole episode off. That's not actually growth. That's like a super delayed epiphany.

I really just think that one of the big selling for this book was being feminist, and re-imagining the little mermaid. I think it would have been better overall, if instead of getting the potion from the Sea Witch, she joined forces with the Sea Witch to create a better underwater kingdom for everyone overall. Like, the middle of the story, she could have just been like, halp make mah life and everyone else's better plz, and the Sea Witch, if she actually believed what she was saying, would have been like WHOOP WHOOP LET'S DO DIS THANG....and a much better story could have progressed. Like the Sea Witch actually telling her about her powers then and there and opened up a whole new world for Muirgen. She could have started correcting the imbalances within the kingdom and like gone up to the surface to see the boy whenever she wanted because whatever, lady powers that don't require potion which puts me in constant torture. 

So, you may also be wondering why I even bothered to finish reading this book. The language of the writing was so crazy good that I just kept going. I don't know what happened, like maybe I was just in a trance, but seriously, the book contents were kind of whack.

Bottom line: In a feminist book, the goal should be equality amongst everyone.

Happy reading!

The Things She's Seen

The Things She's Seen by Ambelin and Ezekial Kwaymullina

This book will be published on May 14, 2019. I read an advance reader's copy; there will undoubtedly be differences between the version I read, and the published edition.

...do you ever read one of those really engrossing books and then it ends and you're just left with your mouth kind of slightly ajar and not sure what happened at the end but the bits leading up to the end were pretty good so it's not really clear why the end bits don't make a lot of sense or connect?

...an amazon summary, "This brilliantly written thriller explores the lives--and deaths--of two girls, and what they will do to win justice. Sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year!

Nothing's been the same for Beth Teller since the day she died.
Her dad is drowning in grief. He's also the only one who has been able to see and hear her since the accident. But now she's got a mystery to solve, a mystery that will hopefully remind her detective father that he needs to reconnect with the living.
The case takes them to a remote Australian town, where there's been a suspicious fire. All that remains are an unidentifiable body and an unreliable witness found wandering nearby. This witness speaks in riddles. Isobel Catching has a story to tell, and it's a tale to haunt your dreams--but does it even connect to the case at hand?
As Beth and her father unravel the mystery, they find a shocking and heartbreaking story lurking beneath the surface of a small town." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Beth Teller is a ghost. She died in a car accident and her dad has been the only one who can see her, and is also grieving her a lot. He's trying to resume his life as a detective, and Beth follows him around to make sure he's okay and kind of looking out for him constantly. During his new case, he is investigating a fire. A children's home, basically like a giant foster care home, burned down and a body was found inside. There was one witness, but he's been told she was on a drugs and went to the hospital for her injuries but also to sober up.

The detective goes to talk to the witness, and she starts telling him kind of her life story, but the beginnings so he can understand the present day. It all seems to be kind of a metaphor though with bits of reality sprinkled in.

The detective also starts to learn about the town, and a local cop brings up a cold case from 20 years ago when they're friend went missing. Beth witnesses her father trying to maintain his life and follows him around.

That's enough summary.

It was really important to read the author's note on this book. They explain that a lot of this is based on aboriginal stories, which I'm not familiar with at all (sadly), and explain some aspects of the story that were a bit murky to me.

However, I really liked all of the storytelling that was directly related to solving the crime. All of it felt authentic, and I really liked her father as a person. Which, isn't necessary for the story, but it always nice.

I'm also going to say that the amazon summary may be a little misleading, but I don't think that's a bad thing. It's just true in a way I didn't expect.

I also really liked the storytelling that the witness gave, where it was metaphorical, gave the history of her family, but, I also really struggled with how it all tied together in the end. How she told her story made sense as the detective connected it to the case, but, but but but, everything after that and how it connects to Beth, was a little....under and over whelming to me because I couldn't make sense of it. Perhaps I didn't read it carefully enough? Or missed some clues along the way? But, how things resolved with Beth didn't feel like an authentic resolution. I was looking for more of something to tie into her father, especially because it was mentioned she was haunting him at one point. So, I kind of wish there had been some way to tie the familial aspect in better.

All in all, I did like reading the book, I'm just left with a sense of mild confusion.

Happy reading!

The Birds, the Bees, and You and Me

The Birds, the Bees, and You and Me by Olivia Hinebaugh

This book does contain themes of sex and sex education, but it doesn't really get into any graphic sex scenes, just a very kind of clinical approach to the situation. Or if a sex scene kind of comes up, they show like, we're kissing, and then the scene kind of fades out to a time lapse. Eh? Just a heads up.

Do you remember the days of high school (or are you entering the day so high school) and remember it to be kind of confusing in general (or you should expect it to be confusing in general)? What are these social expectations? How am I going to survive this class? What am I going to do with my life AFTER high school? Does that person actually love me?

High School.

An amazon summary, "A teen who's never even been kissed becomes her school's unofficial sex expert in Olivia Hinebaugh's fun, voice-y contemporary YA romance debut. 

Seventeen-year-old Lacey Burke feels like the last person on the planet who should be doling out sex advice. For starters, she’s never even kissed anyone, and she hates breaking the rules. Up until now, she's been a straight-A music geek that no one even notices. All she cares about is jamming out with her best friends, Theo and Evita.

But then everything changes.

When Lacey sees first-hand how much damage the abstinence-only sex-ed curriculum of her school can do, she decides to take a stand and starts doling out wisdom and contraception to anyone who seeks her out in the girls' restroom. Meanwhile, things with Theo have become complicated, and soon Lacey is not just keeping everyone else’s secrets, but her own as well." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Lacey has grown up for most of her life as the single child of a teenage mother. In the last few years, a stepfather and baby half brother has entered her life. Her mom works at the hospital where Lacey worked over the summer, and her two best friends once dated but are no longer dating. Lacey is kind of clueless in the romantic love department, but she is NOT clueless when it comes to sex.

Thanks to her mother, not thanks to her public education... even though Lacey has never been kissed.

Lacey is also very passionate about music, she plays the viola, dabbles on keyboard where her bff Theo plays cello, and her other bff Evita plays console (which, being an old person and not in touch with the music world as much, I assumed was some sort of DJ-mixer-type-of-doo-dad). Together, the three of them rock out and are in a band. They're working towards getting gigs. They're ultimate plan is to attend school in Boston, get an apartment together, and live life out loud. Theo's girlfriend, Lily Ann, is pretty much disliked by Evita, and Lacey is pretty neutral. 

Circling back, Lacey's life slowly starts to change after a horrific demonstration in her health class about the dangers of STDs while not talking about condoms at all. Lacey, gives a rather abrupt demonstration on how condoms would be effective within the demonstration, and she gets scolded in so many words. But Lacey isn't backing down, she starts teaching her classmates things about sex on the down low. She also ends up as a doula intern once she meets a classmate of hers who decided to be home schooled when she got pregnant and who would have benefited from a better sex education course.

That's enough summary. There are a lot of intermingled storylines within this book and they definitely mesh well together without making anything except Lacey the focal point while managing to showcase the different aspects of her life.

I REALLY liked this book. There was so much to cheer for, so much to kind of like "wtf public school" kind of moments, and a few kind of chaotic romantic moments as well.

Lacey was a pretty great main character, and most of the time I was cheering as I was reading this book, there was a lot to like.

However, this book was also too... tidy? Everything wound up for the better, or had a good solution, and the one thing that did get messed up, well that side character basically fixed it for Lacey. There was too much of a chummy good ending all around to every situation. There was like too much of an effort to make it all work.

This is slightly spoiler-land, but let's take Theo. Theo winds up breaking up with Lily Ann, he had previously dated Evita, but then he winds up with Lacey. Theo also tries to be at anyone else's house but his own because his Dad is a garbage person.... BUT there isn't any diving into Theo or his life issues, it's just kind of accepted as fact, and Theo is a happy go lucky person nine times out of ten. Like, the dude claims to have struggles, but there isn't really evidence of struggles.

Also, when a struggle cropped, all the main characters really reacted to it like emotionally stable adults, rather than hormonal teenagers. On the one hand, sweet, legitimate conflict resolution. On the other hand, not very realistic...like at all.

I did enjoy reading this book, but it also required a hefty dose of being able to suspend disbelief.

Happy reading!

The Next Great Paulie Fink

The Next Great Paulie Fink by Ali Benjamin

This book will be published on April 16, 2019. I read the advance reading copy and undoubtedly there will be differences between the version I read, and the published edition.

That being said, an amazon summary, "When Caitlyn Breen enters the tiny Mitchell School in rural Mitchell, Vermont, she is a complete outsider: the seventh grade has just ten other kids, and they've known each other since kindergarten. Her classmates are in for a shock of their own: Paulie Fink--the class clown, oddball, troublemaker, and evil genius--is gone this year. 

As stories of Paulie's hijinks unfold, his legend builds, until they realize there's only one way to fill the Paulie-sized hole in their class. They'll find their next great Paulie Fink through a reality-show style competition, to be judged by the only objective person around: Caitlyn, who never even met Paulie Fink. Who was this kid, anyway--prankster, performance artist, philosopher, or fool? Caitlyn's quest to understand Paulie is about to teach her more about herself than she ever imagined.
Told via multiple voices, interviews, and other documents, The Next Great Paulie Fink is a lighthearted yet surprisingly touching exploration of how we build up and tear down our own myths...about others, our communities, and ourselves." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

First, this story is told through a mix of interviews (and a few other documents) and Caitlyn's perspective. I found the blend to be very interesting and refreshing, especially as the kids compete to become the next great Paulie Fink.

Alright, so Caitlyn's mom got a new job and uproots Caitlyn from a city in New York (not NYC) to go live in Mitchell, Vermont. To say the least, Caitlyn is NOT happy about the move. She's already got a notion of how people are divided into social groups in schools, and is determined to be on top. What she encounters in school is a lot, lot different. The small town of Mitchell has one school that's run out of old mansion. Her class size is 11...for her whole grade. While the school is small, it's got it's own set of quirks, like the seventh graders all sit with a mini (kindergartner) for lunch. Caitlyn starts out at a bit of a loss, as her first day of entering the classroom, her classmates were cheering for Paulie, only to get Caitlyn instead.

Paulie Fink is a notorious class clown and troublemaker, but his jokes/pranks never hurt anyone or are mean in any way. Caitlyn begins to hear loads of stories about the legendary Paulie Fink, until her classmates decide that they need a new Paulie Fink, and set her up as the judge/contest planner since she's never known Paulie Fink and cannot be biased about the decision making process.

There's also a big soccer game with a rival school that they want to play on their field... however, the field is overrun and the science teacher has decided to use goats to clear the field... which the seventh graders help take care of.

There's also a hilarious zucchini day moment, which was probably one of my most favorite moments in a book in a long time. Definitely was grinning from ear to ear reading through the scene.

That's enough summary.

This book was very, very heartfelt. It deals with the serious issues of loss, but not the sense of loss with death. It's the grieving process for the old life, the familiarity, and the comforts of knowing what to expect. Kind of like a very good story about coming out of your shell. However, if you think that only applies to Caitlyn, you as mistaken, as you also get to see the other seventh graders come to terms with Paulie Fink being gone without explanation.

I loved this book. I would have loved to attend this school and be able to learn in their ways. I really loved the perceived social rules that Caitlyn knew from her old school slowly be deconstructed by her new school and classmates. I also loved the honesty of Caitlyn's voice, and how she ultimately did not shy away from her previous behavior.

I think this would be a very good book for anyone going through a period in their life where they kind of need to let go of something and embrace change. It goes through why it's scary, but it also is very insightful at pointing out all of the new and good stuff brought about by change, and the not so good stuff too.

When I looked at the amazon summary, it mentioned another book by this author, and I'll probably be reading that sometime this summer. It's always nice to fall in love with a new to me author's works.

Happy reading!

Charlie Hernandez & The League of Shadows

Charlie Hernandez & The League of Shadows by Ryan Calejo

This is going to SCREAM similar to Rick Riordan books to anyone who has ever read a Rick Riordan book, but hang on one moment. Let me just say that Rick Riordan made a genre of retelling myths and plunking modern day people in the middle of them wildly popular, but he wasn't the first one to do so. He won't be the last, and he may not be the best. BUT, a huge thank you to Rick Riordan for paving the way a little better for books like this.

If you haven't figured it out by my little rant, this book will have myths in it with modern day characters figuring it out. ...yeah.

An amazon summary, "Charlie Hernández has always been proud of his Latin American heritage. He loves the culture, the art, and especially the myths. Thanks to his abuela’s stories, Charlie possesses an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the monsters and ghouls who have spent the last five hundred years haunting the imaginations of children all across the Iberian Peninsula, as well as Central and South America. And even though his grandmother sometimes hinted that the tales might be more than mere myth, Charlie’s always been a pragmatist. Even barely out of diapers, he knew the stories were just make-believe—nothing more than intricately woven fables meant to keep little kids from misbehaving.

But when Charlie begins to experience freaky bodily manifestations—ones all too similar to those described by his grandma in his favorite legend—he is suddenly swept up in a world where the mythical beings he’s spent his entire life hearing about seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Hispanic folklore and into his life. And even stranger, they seem to know more about him than he knows about himself.
Soon, Charlie finds himself in the middle of an ancient battle between La Liga, a secret society of legendary mythological beings sworn to protect the Land of the Living, and La Mano Negra (a.k.a. the Black Hand), a cabal of evil spirits determined to rule mankind. With only the help of his lifelong crush, Violet Rey, and his grandmother’s stories to guide him, Charlie must navigate a world where monsters and brujas rule and things he couldn’t possibly imagine go bump in the night. That is, if he has any hope of discovering what’s happening to him and saving his missing parents (oh, and maybe even the world).
No pressure, muchacho." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

A few major things happen to Charlie all at once; his house burns down while he's away, his parents are missing (their bodies were NOT found in the house), and now he lives in a foster home. ...he also manages to manifest horns on the same night that he hides under his hoodie until they go away.

He's really worried about his parents, and in the midst of being a middle schooler, he also has grown feathers all over his body randomly. In a desperate attempt to cover them up, he ventures to the lost and found and finds the ugliest giant sweater, but wears it to hide the feathers. A few school bullies find him and start, well, bullying him, but enter Violet; a plucky young woman with dreams of being a journalist comes to his aid. She helps him out, asks about the locket he's wearing (which was given to him in the duration of the whole house burned down ordeal), which has a series of complicated locks on it. Violet manages to open them to find a map hidden inside the locket, and soon Charlie and Violet are off on an adventure to figure out where the map leads and why is he covered in feathers.

During their adventure, their lives only get stranger as Charlie realizes that the myths his grandmother (abuela) raised him on may actually be more true than fiction. Charlie is swept up into a war between the land of the living and the land of the dead, and Violet is adamantly along for the ride.

That's enough summary.

I really loved both the characters of Charlie and Violet. They felt wonderfully realistic as they're swept into all of these instances of finding mythical creatures in their own back yard (so to speak). This is definitely the start of a series, and I would be curious to read more, except...

A lot of the war between the land of the living and the dead seems too far from home. Yes, Charlie and Violet came across a few creatures they had to outsmart to get away safely, but it doesn't really feel like there's an actual war going on. It feels more like a lot of isolated incidences rather than one big battle, and they kind of explain it, like why that is, but I don't really like the explanation. I think there could have been more discussions about the differences between the land of the living (our world) and the land of the dead. I know we're probably going to see more about this as the book series progresses, but I think it would have gone a long way to set up more in book 1.

A lot of the environment and world building were sufficient, but there was nothing that really wowed me even as Charlie or Violet were wowed while walking into certain places.There were a few too many details that were glossed over, and again, because this is book 1, we'll probably get a better idea for it in book 2.

I think there were also a few too many mythical creatures introduced in this book, especially if you're unfamiliar with the myths. There were a handful that had really good impressions and stood out, but when you haphazardly introduce many of them all in one go, it can get a little confusing as to what mythical creature looks like what and why they're either scary/important/powerful. I think the book could have given some more cushioning details around the myths every time they appeared.

I did like the book a lot overall, but I needed more concrete details at this stage to continue to book 2. Even the ending of the book felt a bit forced rather than something that could more easily transition into book 2. It also kind of read like a popcorn book; a book that you rush through the pages a little too fast as you're shoveling popcorn into your mouth because the action really pushes you through the plot. There were a few breather scenes between the action, but it wasn't enough.

...I really did like this book, but I don't think I'll continue on to book 2.

Happy reading!