Great: Sara Benincasa

Great by Sara Benincasa

Publisher: Harper Teen

Publication Date: April 8, 2014
Target audience: Young adult

Pages: 272

This book...OMG! (by the way, I find "OMG" kind of annoying, but there is no other suitable acronym so...there we go)

I read F. Scott Fitzgerald's (Fitzy's) The Great Gatsby for my IGCSE's last year and I LOVED IT. No one else in my class got it or read it as quickly as I did (I read it twice) but I loved it. The story is just that...a story, yet it is so real. It's this crazy story about a man who loves a woman so much that he lies to and deceives everyone that loves him just so that he has a chance with her. Of course, the woman's extremely selfish and spineless and would rather stay in the "safety" of a financially and socially secure marriage. Here is a woman so caught up in her own wants that she doesn't notice or rather, doesn't care that there are people that love her a lot more than the man she is with.

Sigh...Daisy is a disappointment to feminists everywhere.

Anyway, on to Great the modern-day retelling of The Great Gatsby.

On to The Basic Book Facts:

-Sara B. represented most, if not everything right, right down to the disembodied eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, instead using and actual disembodied body...complicated? I think not. Just read both books.

-You might like Jeff Byron at first, but he's a douche. Trust me.

-There's a lot of originality in this book, so don't be put off by the whole retelling issue.

-It is awesome.

This book is great (pun intended). It is so...good. It has this chaotic, anticipatory feel to it because it starts off with a crying girl. You WANT to know what happens, even if you've never watched the movie or read Fitzy's book you'll get it. It's all about unrequited love and searching for true love and not really finding it. It's about the struggle to fit in to a society that may or may not want us, depending on our circumstances, which may or may not suck. Depending.

I love this book and I recommend you go read it right now, whoever's reading this. I really do. You will definitely not regret it.

The songs I think fit this book perfectly are Radical Face's We're On Our Way and Rixton's Me and My Broken Heart. Watch both here:

We're On Our Way- Radical Face

Me and My Broken Heart- Rixton

Okay?,

Tammy.

Credit for images/info goes to: Google and Goodreads.

Guy In Real Life by Steve Brezenoff

Guy In Real Life (G.I.R.L) by Steve Brezenoff

Title: Guy in Real Life

Author: Steve Brezenoff
Pages: 400
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062266853

My Rating: B+

I love this book. I really love this book. I also love the music (oh, the music...)

Okay, so the Basic Facts about G.I.R.L:

-There's a metalhead boy with called Lesh Tungsten (his metalhead friends call him Tung. I seriously love the name Lesh though) and the artsy gamer girl called Svetlana.

-Lesh is G.I.R.L which means Gamer In Real Life and he pretends to be Svetlana in an MMORPG game that he becomes addicted to.

-The pretending obviously gets out of hand in an embarrassing situation that Lesh totally does not deserve.

-There's some metalhead chick in this book that is very annoying. Read it and find out who.

Again, I love this book. I really love this book. I, however do not appreciate the ending. It was incredibly abrupt and when I turned the page...I mean COME ON Steve B.! I get that it was a literal choice and it was all in all supposed to be a "make your own ending" kind of ending but still...

Aside from that though, I have no real qualms with the book. It was fun, and the evolution from crush to girlfriend/boyfriend status was too sweet. I also love that the age gap did not affect their relationship in anyway. No one in this book seemed to have a problem with the fact that she was older than him and I just love that (even though I highly doubt I will ever date a younger man).

It is disturbingly relatable. It is so possible that it gives me an ache inside. It's basically about loving someone but not really knowing how to go about telling them. 

It's fast-paced in places and slow in others but my favorite scene has to be the one in Svetlana's bedroom. Definitely that one. I think it's a pretty decent read and it focuses on an average, everyday, extremely livable life. There's nothing pretentious about it which is probably the best part about it.

I can recommend it to a boy, which I like because I have this friend who likes books but refuses to read the really mushy stuff. I warn about the ending though. It can be a little annoying for some people, I know. The book is also not very action-y, but we all need a little regular in our lives don't we?

The song(s) that would be perfect for this book was already mentioned (and in fact elaborated on) in the book and it is:

Marche Au Supplice by Hector Berlioz from the Symphonie Fantastique and you will FALL IN LOVE. It embodies the whole rise and fall feeling that you get reading about Svetlana and Lesh. It's beautiful.

And then, we've got the 8-bit version of Paramore's  Ain't It Fun from YouTube. Super cute and the lyrics resonate. Also, it's fun to dance to- you know, take a break from a 400 page book like I didn't (I'm going to blow out my back one of these days).

Okay?,

Tammy.

You can buy G.I.R.L here.

Credit for image and info: Google and Goodreads

The Here and Now: Ann Brashares (Review)

The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780307976154
• Publisher: Random House Children's Books
• Publication date: 4/8/2014
• Sold by: Random House
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 192
• Sales rank: 17,764
• Age range: 12 - 17 Years

My Rating: B

Where do I start? 

The Here and Now is lightning-paced (took me three hours to read but then again, I'm a really fast reader) and the plot is pretty intense. It's quite simple in language and not very hard to follow.

Here are Basic Facts on the book:

-There's a girl called Prenna and a boy called Ethan.

-Prenna's from the future and Ethan can "see" people who came from the future.

-Mosquitoes are deadlier than AIDS.

-It shows that our world and timeline can get  pretty dystopian (as shown by the various Ms. and Mr.'s and Mrs.'s who are very annoying and evil) even in small doses.

The book has gotten what you would call "mixed reviews". Some people think it doesn't measure up to the other work that Ann B. has done (The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants series if you were wondering), but I think it's pretty good. It's a fantastic read for travels and sitting for those insanely lengthy periods of time in the airport that aren't really all that long.

I mean, it could have been better and there was something kinda missing from it, like there was a hole that wasn't filled by the end (maybe that's just the love thing), but I liked it. Ann B.'s definitely got the whole "for the greater good" thing down pat. I recommend it as a summer read mostly. 

If you want to get a sneak peek, go here.

If you want to buy it (good on ya mate) go here to compare prices and whatnot and here if you just want to go straight to the buying.

The song of this post is Why Don't We Go There by One Direction. I think it pretty much sums up the book in fact. Yes, I'm a One Direction fan. Got a problem?

Okay?,

Tammy.

Credit for images and info goes to (in that order): Google and Goodreads (good for everything bookish to be honest)