Early Reaction to BEA Title #2... This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales

"'I see you as Elise, DJ extraordinaire," she said, settling a big pair of sunglasses on her nose. "So buy the rhinestone pumps."

This Song Will Save Your Life was one of those cases where I had no idea what to expect (DJing + suicide? *scratches head*) but was completely—and I do mean completely, utterly—taken by surprise, in the best way possible of course. I was on author lines during BEA with my head bent over, shoulders hunched in an unmistakable picture of anti-social behavior, my body language screaming “I don’t wish to be disturbed!” because I was unreservedly, deeply engrossed. It’s the way Leila Sales pulls you in, so honest and unpretentious, nudging you into the trap of Elise’s bleak, hopeless state, until you’re caught firmly and her feelings of loneliness and despair consume you until you can’t see or feel anything but her, and her deep desire for someone to matter, to have friends, to be accepted, to feel right in the world when everyone’s made her feel wrong, out of place.

You think it's so easy to change yourself.
You think it's so easy, but it's not.
What do you think it takes to reinvent yourself as an all-new person, a person who makes sense, who belongs? Do you change your clothes, your hair, your face? Go on, then. Do it. Pierce your ears, trim your bangs, buy a new purse. They will see past that, see you, the girl who is still too scared, still too smart for her own good, still a beat behind, still--always, wrong. Change all you want; you can't change that.
Because I tried.

God, I get completely worked up emotionally. I feel tears pushing just thinking about her at the beginning of this book. That feeling of being left out, never having anyone, constantly being overlooked is no stranger to me, and while I do feel like this book resonates deeper, stronger if you’ve ever been in her shoes (some of her thoughts were like echoes from my high school self, which isn't that distant), I don’t think that’s the only way to feel this story. Something about Elise’s heartbreaking disappointment over the life she’s leading, and the people she doesn’t have in it, speaks more to me than many of the other tragic emotional plights I’ve read.

Elise has always been around music, but she’s never experienced it the way she does whilst on her nighttime ventures to an out-of-the-way dance club, called by its mystery and its promise. It’s a whole other world, surreal and vibrant, and getting caught up with the music, getting to know the DJ behind the booth and experiencing firsthand what it takes to create an exclusive world built upon layers of music brings something to life in her. Her first attempt puts you in a place where you’re looking down at all those bodies moving ecstatically to the beats working through what Elise has made for them and you’re happy, proud even. It gives her purpose, motivation, friends, everything she’s ever wanted and that’s the most beautiful thing about this book overall. Because it’s in that moment when the essence of the title becomes stunningly clear, washes over you, until you’re completely swamped with emotion on Elise’s behalf.

I remember when I went up to get this one signed, at Mandee’s urging (thank you!), the publicist, after I’d explained I’d never read anything from Leila but was enamored with her after her part in the panels at Teen Author Carnival, said it’s like Leila Sales in a book. And the woman is hilarious but I remember thinking ‘who is she really?’ After This Song, I get it. With Elise’s wry, self-deprecating narration, and her story that chronicles her heart-breaking, restorative journey to a self that's never been more true, a life she can lead that she can finally accept, I understand her publicist entirely.

This Song Will Save Your Life is an unassuming gem that I’m terrified people will overlook, a contemporary book with an odd synopsis that leaves you with only the tiniest hint of what is really undertaken in this book. It’s real and powerful, filled with characters I adore, and a resounding note of faith, hope, and love experienced most deeply by the end. This is a story I never want to let go of.

Hardcover / 288 pgs / Sept 17th 2013 / FSG Macmillan / Goodreads / $17.99

I picked this one up at Leila's signing during Book Expo America.

ARC Review: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Title: Lies Beneath
Story Arc: Series, Book #1
Publication: June 12, 2012 by Delacorte/Random House
Hardcover: 303 pages
Genre: Mermaids, Paranormal, Mythology, Urban Fantasy
Age Group: Teen/Young Adult
Content: Killing
Source: Random House via NetGalley | Quote(s): Yes

I hadn't killed anyone all winter, and I have to say I felt pretty good about that.

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge.

They blame Hancock for their mother's death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family's homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock's daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistable good looks and charm on ususpecting girls.

Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there's more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him.

The cover isn’t the only thing not working for me

Have you guys SEEN that cover? I get that the girl must be one of Calder White’s three mermaid sisters, BUT wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to have—gee, I don’t know—Calder himself on the cover? I WANT TO SEE A HUNKY MERMAN, darnit. But, I digress. The cover of Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown isn’t the only thing that puts me off to this book now that I’ve completed it. I DESPISE that this book has such intriguing, fascinating mermaid lore integrated in the story, AND YET Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown falls prey to the SO OVERDONE romance factor in paranormal books. Guy meets girl with malicious intent, guy sees how amazing girl is, and suddenly they want to go off and make out on the hammock in the forest. Lily herself is so annoyingly impervious to his history, his makeup, his purpose in her life, HIS APPETITE FOR BOB'S SAKE, that I wanted to bash some SENSE into the girl.

But why does Calder White have to do the falling? Why CAN’T, for once, the guy go in there with an I’m Going to Kill You purpose in my mind and actually follow through with it. WOULDN’T THAT MAKE FOR A MORE INTERESTING STORY LINE? I can guarantee no one would see that coming. Or maybe he takes pity and has mercy on the girl for an entirely different reason, so long as that reason doesn't have to do with him suddenly, SWIFTLY developing unexplainable feelings for the girl in question. I realize this is starting to sound like a rant, but GOSH DARN who made off with all the originality while our backs were turned?

In the beginning

Man, I was really getting into Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown initially. Calder is at the Bahamas pondering his kill-free winter and his remarkable self-control to maintain his current record. He’s starting to get a tad twitchy about his expanding appetite, which he’s been stubbornly taming for an unclearly defined reason that still puzzles him. Just as he's ready to say to hell with dieting, he gets a call from his heartless people-eating mermaid sister. So, yeah, Calder is a merman. And he’s supposed to migrate back home to Lake Superior with his family, which consists of three sisters—Maris, Tallulah, and Pavati. Of course, he’s expecting this call, predicting the conversation to be about his no-show all winter and how the weeks are counting down until he can't resist the pull to migrate anymore.

Fortunately, THIS call is actually different than what he expected. Turns out, the object of their revenge has FINALLY found his way back to Calder’s home. Now the debt left unfulfilled by Jason Hancock’s father will at long last be satisfied. RIVETING, right? I know I was (riveted, that is). Throw in Calder’s seizure-like transformations from merperson to human, and all the deets in between about their species and I had to swipe at some stray bits of foam dotting the corners of my mouth. WHO is Tom and Jason Hancock and WHY are the EVIL MERMAIDS so ticked off at them both? What does this alleged contract have to do with Calder’s mother’s death? And why must Jason pay the penalty resulting in a horrible death?

Then there’s all the questions that surface about how mermaids are able to shift forms, procreate, and so on that I don’t see how anyone could be bored at this point.

When things get fraked up

Part of this wicked mer family’s plan is to lure Jason into the water. To do that they need a reasonable and logical stand-in to use as bait. Jason might’ve heard the stories of creatures slithering through the ocean from his father, might’ve taken them to heart SO someone very vital to his life will have to draw him into the danger-infested waters of Lake Superior. OF COURSE, that makes the target one of Jason’s two daughters. The mission? Get close, REAL close and earn trust. Blah blah blah, you know how it goes in all the BEST espionage movies and paranormal books. What I didn’t understand? These are, may I remind you, EVIL mermaids with superpowers, including the one to shift into human form. Why is it inconceivable to snatch him from his bed and drown the shizz out of him? Why go about making and attempting to execute this REALLY convoluted plan when things could be so much more simple?

After that decision’s made is when things lean toward the sticky and eye-rollably TYPICAL. Calder White is enchanted by Lily Hancock’s astounding self-control and instincts toward his true nature, he is crushing on her flair for the dramatic, her wannabe modernized Victorian poet wardrobe, and her love of poetry. After so little time I had to shake my head. And Lily, of course, is all feigned resistance and snooty attitude toward his self-assured conversation tactics and so on. PLEASE, I am so OVER this set-up.

Where are the smart girls who don’t believe in sunshine and flowery images of sweet little mermaids reminiscent of Ariel? Where are the SANE girls who COMPREHEND when Calder is saying, Look, I’m a killer, right to their faces and ACTUALLY RUN AWAY? I’m sorry, but if I find out my beau is the feeding-on-humans type (unless we're talking Edward Cullen here, because then I'm sunk) with the fins and everything, I’m more than likely going to be out the nearest Exit sign quicker than Speedy Gonzales.

Eventually, I got tired and BORED

I liked having a guy’s POV to turn to. I enjoyed reading from Calder’s perspective, learning about his foggy history and how he came to be part of his family, came to be a merman. His push and pull toward humans, their emotions, etc. He’s relatable in a way that’s unexpected, not so much because he’s, you know, A CREATURE OF THE SEA, but because he seems empty at first. A husk of a person. And then you just start to see how lonely, miserable, and uncertain he is. A person with questions, and needs, in which I could resonate. There’s this repulsion of his kind, of him and how he and his sisters teem humans to survive, and yet it’s easy to feel strangely close to him. I still wouldn't date him, though.

Even so, at some point a little more than halfway through I got tired of trudging through a rather predictable plot, no matter how many twists were incorporated to make the trimmings a little more unique. I kept persevering despite the boredom that eventually caught on, however, because I also realized that I was actually interested in the outcome. Never mind that I’d already invested SO MUCH TIME into Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown by that point.

Ultimately, I enjoyed a decent chunk of the novel, excluding the latter half, and although I wasn’t altogether pleased with the cliché ending—apart from one nicely done, unexpected twist—I feel relieved that I finished Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown instead of the alternative. Now it’s not looming in the back of my mind. Unfortunately, Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown is a story I can see myself forgetting in the near future, and so I won’t be overrun with urgency for Deep Betrayal, the sequel.

"But how do you do it, Lily? What are the mechanics?"

WAIT. It's not what it sounds like.

"Forgiveness? I don't have a choice. Or at least, no other good choices."
"I'm not sure I can forgive them for what they tried to do last night..."
"Forgiveness isn't just for them, Calder. It's for you. Forgiveness is freedom. It's something you do for yourself—to keep who you are intact. Now that I think about it—in some ways, it's kind of a selfish act." (86%)

Rating: Guilty Pleasure

While Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown drifts away from the bubbly, lighthearted, and frivolous mermaid books that are better at giving you warm and fuzzies than all sorts of chills, I wasn’t utterly impressed. The mermaids are vicious, yes. The lore intriguing, certainly. However, after the first half of the novel, the plot started leaning toward predictable, the romance crossing into the been there, read that region to the point where I was more turned off than I expected. Powering through that last half took a lot of patience, and, once I was finished, the conclusion didn’t quite fulfill my needs. Although I won’t be returning, or, more reasonable to assume, eager, for the sequel, Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown definitely deviates from the quintessential carefree, happy mermaid tales and goes somewhere delightfully dark and practical.

OTHER REVIEWS: Maji Bookshelf The Midnight Garden

SIMILAR TITLES: Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama The Vicious Deep by Zoraida Córdova

Got something specific in mind? Dare I believe I might NOT have covered something you wish to know? If so, let me know down in the comments section. Don't be shy!

ARC Review: This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Title: This Is Not a Test
Story Arc: Standalone
Publication: June 19, 2012 by St. Martin's Griffin
Paperback: 322 pages
Genre: Apocalyptic, Paranormal, Thriller, Sci-Fi, Contemporary, Horror, Zombies
Age Group: Young Adult
Content: Profanity, Sexual Scenes, Blood, Gruesome Deaths
Source: St. Martin's Griffin via NetGalley | Quote(s): Yes

Lily, I woke up and the last piece of my heart disappeared. I opened my eyes and I felt it let go.

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self.

To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live.

But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside.

When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

This shizz is FOR SERIOUS

Courtney Summers is honest and up-front about her shizz. Her writing is brutal and poetic and cutting, but never once do you feel as if she’s beating around the bush. She writes ON THE REAL. This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers is all about REAL characterizations, actions, feelings, and issues. Every word is like a brass-knuckled punch to the heart. It exposes you, it wounds you. Each word knocks those pretty rose-colored glasses right off your face and now you’re seeing the world for what it really is—a place gone cold, hellish where only the tiniest glimmers of hope survive to tantalize those struggling to reach for it. I’ve never encountered a writer quite like Summers, a shaper of words so beautiful and impactful that tell the story of a disturbing girl ready to let the world go at the same time it falls apart, crumbles beneath the feet of five other teenagers oblivious to the true meaning of pain, of inescapable imprisonment.

Summers’s prose is telling, insightful, and gorgeously dark, uncovering a world in which fate has dealt some a cruel hand. The zombieness? That’s only the HALF of it. They’re thudding and moaning outside the school, sending chills and things down all of our spines, but there aren’t as many close-ups as you might think. AND THAT’S OKAY. If The Breakfast Club had been about kids stuck at school because of ZOMBIES as opposed to detention, it would’ve escalated so fraking much on the coolness scale. Which I had, before This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers, thought utterly impossible. These characters Summers shoves us into meeting come face-to-face with dizzying suffering and critical, harsh loss in a way no one should. They’re without parents, without hope, without freedom. They are entombed in the school, in their rage, in their agony, in their fear, and are forced to endure the suffocating, maddening reality of it.

At the end of the day, each of them want to survive what seems to be the end of all days.

May I remind you

Grace, Trace, Harrison, Cary, Sloane, and Rhys? They’re just KIDS, for crying out loud. One character later says something about teenage ingenuity, and that’s EXACTLY it. These six kids manage to escape the zombie population devastating their small town and fortify their hiding place all on their own. The fact that they even came up with the high school on their own? Serious braniac points. God knows I would’ve been slaughtered sometime around page zero on account of my lack of BRAINS, or rather my ability to use them, because the fact that I HAVE THEM and THEY WORK RIGHT is what would drive the zombies bananas for my body.

If it wasn’t bad enough that we’re talking about six teenagers stranded at their local high school as they await rescue, there’s all this crazy interpersonal stuff between them. Starting with the fact that the group started as eight. And in between that and the tail end of it is drowning guilt, mourning, suicidal tendencies, and unbelievable loss. Each of these six people have so many emotions locked up inside of them, all these secrets and horrific thoughts, that it’s no wonder there’s so much DRAMA. Although I’m not talking about angsty teen television show drama but HOLY FRAK THERE ARE ZOMBIES OUTSIDE AND PEEPS ARE DEAD, DYING, OR UNDYING EVERYWHERE drama. The sort of bulletin you pay attention to, the sort that keeps you engrossed and appalled and tense all the way through.

Death, and how the HELL romance?

Ya’ll, some goose-bumpy TERRIFYING things go down in This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers. And not all of those things are about the zombies gnawing at metal and throwing themselves bodily at all the exits to get inside the building. There’s a lot of bad blood mingling into the group, carrying over more toward the testosterone end of said group. Poor Sloane, who has suffered immense and unimaginable physical and verbal abuse all of her life, is stuck amongst a bunch of loud criers and even louder yellers. The arguments, the punching, the GUN WAVING, all of it, makes for a very tense, be-on-your-guard sort of atmosphere, because every shaky second you have to wonder who’s willing to pull the metaphorical and literal trigger. Who’s crazy and is slowly going crazy, who’s being eaten alive by guilt and by sheer terror. Which is what makes This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers so thrilling and eerie. Because on the human scope, some of these characters are more vicious than the zombies.

BUT LET’S NOT FORGET ABOUT THE ZOMBIES. Because you will get eaten and ripped apart. And DIE. There are SO many close calls that the shakes take over, the shock, and the panic. It’s not that you’re so close to the characters you feel all this, but Courtney Summers manages to bring you astonishingly strong, perfect images of everything that happens. Then, you’re there, you’re witnessing AND experiencing, which lends the book that much more POWER and DEPTH. I felt closer to the situation than the actual characters some of the time because the imagery was so overpowering.

With all this death and decay permeating the plot, you might be wondering, however, how the hell a romance can spark at all? Half of the time, this group seems more insane and twitchy than anything else. The truth is, though, that there’s a lot of emotional depth as well. Sloane and crew have seen and done unspeakably horrible things, which is the reason for all those shadows on the mind and unsaid secrets in the air. Everyone’s once lily-white hands are stained with deep crimson in some haunting way. There’s no going back for the awful things they had, or felt they had, to do. And this is what ties some of the characters closer, knitting them together with blood and devastation and endless remorse. Rhys sure the heck KNOWS something is very wrong with Sloane, whom they stumbled across and enfolded in thinking she was trying to get up as opposed to trying to let go. With a couple suicide attempts under her belt, Rhys is wary and suspicious and angry with this girl he’s always been aware of. What he doesn’t know is that her sister’s escape plan had actually consisted of perfection for ONE and not two, that her father from the time she can remember has beat every ounce of hope and security right out of her.

And when he does know these things? There’s softness, gentleness, tenderness, and all those lovely feelings that couple with his protection of her and loyalty to her that make him so subtly swoonworthy. He's hard and serious and guilty of so much, but he’s compassionate and thoughtful too. Sloane may have to wake up on her own, but Rhys is certainly tempting her out of her unnervingly cold and lonely sleep.

Why you no special shelf?

This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers is damn near complete and stunning perfection. It’s emotional, tangible, genuine, and beautiful. Each chapter was a shock to the system, constantly keeping me on my toes and taking me by surprise. The story BORDERS on special shelf. But, if there’s one thing I irrevocably dislike, it’s VAGUE ENDINGS.

When a book like This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers is so tormenting and stunning and intense, I feel slightly cheated when I’m not given anything conclusive to hold onto. There’s no clearly defined path, no concrete answer to the big WILL THEY MAKE IT? Will they want to? What now? Granted, this ending is by far one of the better ones in the vague setting, and there IS a hint of closure in what’s written by Sloane on a very important piece of paper she’s carried with her throughout the story that stretches after the last word. I wanted a bit more.

He keeps his eyes off me until I tell him, "I wouldn't have let you die out there. I know you think I would have, but I wouldn't have."
"But you went out there to die."
"I wouldn't have let you die. When I saw them coming for you, I ran to you, to save you," I say. "I wouldn't have left you like that. Not like she did to me." I swallow hard. "She always said I'd die without her and she left anyway."
"But you didn't die," he says.
"I did," I say. "I'm just waiting for the rest of me to catch up." (72%)

Rating: Perfect Bed Partner

With all the expected trappings of a zombie survival novel, Courtney Summers manages to take a concept so familiar to us and twist it so that it’s not the zombies we’re most fearful of but of fellow human beings capable of so much more atrociousness, viciousness than the walking undead who constantly fascinate us. This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers is more focused on the emotional upheaval caused by and before the zombie epidemic, and the extremes that come with all that packed-in turmoil. Summers invades the mind with horrific scenes and disturbing imagery, all the while maintaining this dark, eerie beauty in the words that make This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers a story to be experienced and absorbed rather than to be merely read and witnessed.

OTHER REVIEWS: The Book Smugglers Makeshift Bookmark Good Books and Good Wine

SIMILAR TITLES: Forest of Hands & Teeth by Carrie Ryan Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne Ten by Gretchen McNeil Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Got something specific in mind? Dare I believe I might NOT have covered something you wish to know? If so, let me know down in the comments section. Don't be shy!