The Belgrave Daughter by Zara Hoffman

The Belgrave Daughter's about this sorceress, Fawn, who falls in love with a dark angel, Caleb when he's sent to attract her to the dark side.

This is the cover for TBG, surprisingly enough.

Although I don't like paranormal romances since what I know of that market's still swamped with Twilight knockoffs, I did enjoy this book. It was a light and easy read. All of the characters were well-developed, which I enjoyed. Caleb felt like a real guy, and Ivy, her best friend, seemed pretty realistic too. I also really liked how Fawn didn't act totally head-over-heels about Caleb, and focused on things other than her relationship during the story.


To me, the plot was bland, and I could basically predict the sequence of events. It seemed to me that Ms. Hoffman occasionally described the mundane parts of Fawn's life, especially in the exposition, but it picked up after that. However, TBG seemed like an original idea, which I liked. (I mean, who doesn't?) The writing was fast-paced, and it was a quick read. I'd recommend this to anyone who doesn't mind paranormal and who wants an engrossing, older-YA-geared fantasy story about a teenage girl turned sorceress and her relationship with a "dark angel."  

I got an e-ARC from Zara in exchange for an honest review and book buzz.

If you want to connect with Zara, her website is here. She's a seventeen-year-old writer who, obviously, likes writing. She also likes singing, reading, hanging out with her friends and family, and playing with her dog.

Something Like Hope

                17-year-old Shavonne has been in juvenile detention since the seventh grade. Mr Delpopolo is the first counselor to treat her as an equal, and he helps her get to the bottom of her self-destructive behavior, her guilt about past actions, and her fears about leaving the Center when she turns 18. Shavonne tells him the truth about her crack-addicted mother, the child she had (and gave up to foster care) at fifteen, and the secret shame she feels about what she did to her younger brother after her mother abandoned them.

Meanwhile, Shavonne’s mentally unstable roommate Cinda makes a rash move, and Shavonne’s quick thinking saves her life—and gives her the opportunity to get out of the Center if she behaves well. But Shavonne’s faith is tested when her new roommate, mentally retarded and pregnant Mary, is targeted by a guard as a means to get revenge on Shavonne. As freedom begins to look more and more likely, Shavonne begins to believe that maybe she, like the goslings recently hatched on the Center’s property, could have a future somewhere else—and she begins to feel something like hope.

                I don’t normally read books like this. That is the understatement of the year. After all, who mostly reads about messed-up teenage girls in juvenile detention facilities? Anyway, I digress. The characters were amazing. Even though I have no personal experience with this, Shavonne’s voice captivated me. She was a really strong protagonist, and the side-characters were good as well. I empathized greatly with several of the characters; when you’re in there, everything can, and probably does, seem hopeless. The plot wasn’t predictable, and it was a page-turner. Also, for a middle-aged white guy, he writes black teenage girls really well. The voice was completely accurate. (I assume his background as a school psychologist helped.)

                This isn’t an easy book to read. There’s a lot of swearing, and they all had pretty rough pasts. The characters were so real.  This is a book that makes you think. If you like contemporary or books about detention centers (or even if you don’t), I’d highly recommend it. SOMETHING LIKE HOPE gives an amazing glimpse into the struggles that people nationwide face every day.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The Fault in Our Stars follows the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster, a sixteen-year-old teenage girl who quotes philosophers, watches America’s Next Top Model, and has a ton of cancer in her lungs.

Due to the latter, she undergoes a bunch of treatment, doesn’t really have friends, and has to go to a weekly Support Group, where the kids with cancer congregate in a depressing church basement to talk about how their lives are awful. At one such meeting, she meets Augustus Waters, a handsome teenage guy who’s in remission. And then they fall in love.

                I loved this book. A lot of contemporary YA romances all sound the same; the fake characters, bad dialogue, plots even I could predict. But TFIOS is different, at least to me. It felt real.  I loved the characters. The adults were actually realistic, for once. Hazel and Gus were witty, profound, and honest.  They were a bit cliché at times, with their dramatic speeches, but I can’t really fault them for that. I don’t open teen romances looking for realism. Besides, this is more than a love story, at least in my opinion.  

The setting was awesome; I loved the descriptions. Her life seemed real. From her mom celebrating every possible holiday (“It’s your thirty-third half-birthday, Hazel!”) to Patrick, the support group leader going on and on about how they were in the Literal Heart of Jesus.

Most of all, I loved Hazel’s voice. From the moment I opened the book, I was entranced. She is sarcastic, honest, and genuine. She sounds like me, or like I would if I had cancer. She’s relatable and engaging, with a super-dry sense of humor. As Hazel says, “cancer books suck.” And I’m happy to report that for me, this wasn’t one of them.

TFIOS doesn’t have a perfect ending. It’s pretty awful, actually. But since their lives are basically about trying to survive cancer, isn’t that to be expected? For me, that made it better. John Green doesn’t sugarcoat cancer.

Maybe in a few years I’ll look back and realize that it was all manufactured and contrived and not worth my time like a hundred other YA books are. For now, though, it's one of my favorite books ever. If you haven't read it for some reason, I'd (very) highly recommend it.

Okay? Okay.

Flightless Bird by Paulina Ulrich

Olivia (better known as Livy) Eckels is just your average teenage girl; she's entering senior year, she's quiet and studious, she has an outgoing best friend named Gracie. Her parents are getting divorced, she doesn't really like school, and she's not good at anything. Oh, and she's a major klutz. When she falls riding her bike around her neighborhood, her new neighbors, Gregory, a good-looking guy about her age, and Cecelia, his older sister, help her.

As she struggles to figure out what's going on around her, she becomes friends with Gregory. As they become better friends, Gregory's perfect yet slightly suspicious facade begins to dissolve, and she finds out that he has some secrets -and struggles- of his own.

I don't read romance, generally. Teen romance, especially paranormal romance, bores me. I don't need more of the teenage-girl-going-crazy-over-attractive-guy stuff--I see at least five examples of that every day. In the beginning, Livy was bland. I mean, she had no friends, and she met her soulmate by falling off of her bike? Add to that the fact that her boyfriend showed up every time she wanted him, at the exact moment? I don't care if the zombies are sparkly; in my book, they have to be realistic. (Spoiler alert: zombies don't exist in this book. Sorry!) Livy got better, though. She turned into (drumroll) an Actual Human Being, which is always nice to see.

However, Flightless Bird got better as it went on. It was a bit long for my taste, with some needless descriptions, but it was a very enjoyable light read. The characters developed into having actual personalities (yes, I know. Such a thing exists) and seeming real, and the plot progressed nicely. The romance was nice, and they were friends at first, which I liked. It was refreshing to see Gregory as a guy who isn't a vampire or werewolf. Towards the end, it's a page-turner. Overall, I'd give it a four out of five stars, especially as a beach read.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

*Note: I will be writing book reviews every other Sunday. I would've posted this last night, but my Internet was down. Enjoy!*

Persepolis is a "graphic memoir," or memoir in the format of a graphic novel. (I have no idea why my school likes making ninth-graders read memoirs so much, but they do.) It's about Marjane, or Marji, as she prefers to be called, and how she grows up during the Iranian revolution. As she grows older, the government becomes stricter. Laws restrict personal freedoms in the name of "being good Muslims" and "avoiding lavishness," and thousands of people are killed. As she becomes more rebellious, she has to strike a balance between defining herself and her personal safety.

Author: Marjane Satrapi
Title: Persepolis
Genre: Memoir (in a graphic-novel format)

In the preface, Marjane writes about how she "wants Persepolis to show that not all Muslims are terrorists" and that most of them are normal. She fulfills this throughout the book. I enjoyed learning more about Iran, and its people, as I'd only really known about it through the news. I found the story to be interesting as a whole, and the drawings were vivid. The attempts the population made as a whole to overthrow their government was astounding, and I really enjoyed reading about that. Marji's portrayals of her family and friends show that Iranians aren't that different than us, and if we were put in the same situation, we might very well do the same thing. I was really struck by Marji's devotion to her family, especially to her uncle.

Some parts of the story, however, were bland. The memoir seemed to go on a bit too long, and for every several chapters that were fascinating, there was one that seemed to drag on. There are also some derogatory terms used towards women, but other than that, there isn't much that's controversial about Persepolis. During the first few chapters, the overabundance of Iranian history was really confusing, and with so many passages depicted with a black-and-white drawing and a caption, it was sometimes hard to keep it all straight. I also felt that sometimes the graphic-novel format made passages unclear, but to be fair, it also brought many to life.

I'd give it three out of five stars. Overall, though I enjoyed Persepolis, its glut of Iranian history and length made it hard for me to highly recommend. While I enjoyed learning about Iran as more than a war-torn place, I won't be reading the sequel. Although rather unsatisfying, if you're looking to learn about Iran's true history (not just what's in the media) and the impact it has on its people, this is for you.