Burn for Burn Trilogy by Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian - Review

Title: Burn For Burn Trilogy
Author: Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian
Genre: YA Contemporary/Paranormal
Published by: Simon & Schuster Books
Published in: 16th September 2014
Content warning: Bullying, suicide, deaths, drug use
Format: E-book
Source: Bought 
My Overall Rating: ★★★

Postcard-perfect Jar Island is the kind of place where nobody locks their doors at night, where parents can sleep easy, knowing their daughters are tucked away safe and sound in their beds.

But bad things can happen, even to good girls, and sometimes the only way to make things right is do something wrong.

Lillia used to trust boys, but not anymore. Not after what happened this summer. And she'll be damned if she lets the same thing happen to her little sister.

Kat is through with being called a freak. She's over the rumors, the insults, the cruel jokes made at her expense. It all goes back to one person - her ex-best friend - and Kat's ready to make her pay.

Four years ago, Mary left Jar Island because of a boy. But she's not the same girl anymore. Now that she's back, he's gonna be in trouble . . . 'cause she's coming for him.

Three very different girls who want the same thing: sweet revenge. And they won't stop until they've each had a taste. 

     I've never done a series review before, so this one will be the first! I'm not really into multiple POVs in a book. I would get confused of at which point of the plot was I at upon the POV switching. Also, I might get biased, only wanting to read about certain characters. Which is why I wiped the sweat off my forehead when starting the first book, because I did not get the irk I was expecting to get because of its three different POVs, so yes, PHEW. I marathoned these three and finished them within two days (bad, I know, but it was during the weekend!) and felt like I've been stuffed into one of those human bubble balls and pushed down a hill. A slow descending hill of DOOM.

My howl for this trilogy:

IT WAS LIKE GOING INTO THIS ENCHANTED FOREST, BEING ALLOWED TO BECOME MESMERISED AND ALL, THEN SOMEONE TELLS YOU IT'S ALL MADE OF FOAM AND BURNS IT BEFORE KICKING YOU OUT.

Burn For Burn (Burn For Burn #1)
     Burn For Burn is a typical high school revenge story. The three POVs belongs to three girls: Mary, Kat and Lillia, who are completely different and are facing different issues. Somehow the causes for their issues all come from the same group of friends, whom are all high up on the status quo. By fate, the three of them meet and become the unstoppable trio plotting the demise of their high school foes.

     This book was so good. All three characters had a strong introduction and very distinct voices. They had their own strengths and weaknesses, burned with the desire to break free of social chains that bind them, and tie it on the people who antagonised and hurt them. The side characters were also wonderfully written and each of them had a unique dish to bring to the table. The authors did a great job of shaping the revenge targets in a way that made me think they deserve whatever that was going to be done to them, even though revenge is never a good thing. There was definitely foreshadowing of their actions coming back to bite them in their butts as they go deeper and more cruel into their schemes, and like a smack in the face it did. One aspect that was a smack in MY face was a paranormal one that came out of nowhere. It peeked out a couple of times in the book but it went berserk during the ending. Do expect a cliffhanger you'd never dare expect in this book.

Fire With Fire (Burn For Burn #2)
     Honestly, with the atrocity that is the third book, whatever impression I had on Fire With Fire became unimportant and just melted away. Fire With Fire started off right after the events in book one, so I wasn't left hanging too badly as I just dove into it right away. Even though it stuck to its revenge theme, I was left mildly disappointed with the slower pacing and the increased dosage of romance. You would think that this (seemingly) contemporary would contain sugary sweet romance but all I tasted was sour cliche. I just KNEW from book one that one of our main girls would have her lovey-dovey moment with one of their targets and I was hoping I would be hooked from its forbidden feel but NEAH. The couple did not sit right with me and the whole thing was built up solely from uncontrollable teen hormones really.

     I was also distracted by the paranormal element that seems to be a thing now in the book. It kind of helped to stir the suspense a little and I slowly started to empathise more with one of our main protagonists that was tied to this premise but it just did not fit with the theme of the story due to the lack of explanation and background. However, the book did end with a boom with its explosive cliffhanger so hats off to the authors for keeping me interested.

Ashes To Ashes (Burn For Burn #3)
     BIG. UGH. Whatever potential this series had and whatever love I had stopped with this book. (see also: above gif).  Ashes To Ashes took a devastatingly different turn, by unbelievably changing into a paranormal and horror/thriller. The paranormal aspect was mediocre at best and the attempts at putting the plot into gear 5 by a plot twist failed miserably. I really wished the plot twist was not included at all. It ruined everything, making the rest of the book really weird and awkward.

     In the previous two books, Mary, Kat and Lillia shared equal amounts of screentime. The individual situations they were placed in were realistic and their actions while morally ambiguous, were very relatable. Ashes To Ashes turned completely biased on me instead by revolving mostly around Lillia. The favourites-playing the authors did was SO obvious in that she got to keep everything and did not need to suffer through most of the consequences of her actions. On the other hand, our two other main leads were cast away, with Kat being reduced to a plot device and Mary turning batshit crazy. I find myself skipping many of its 500+ pages because EVERYTHING JUST DID NOT MAKE SENSE!!! The book spent about 95% building up to its climax that ended up being absolutely disappointing and offered no closure to so many of the events that happened in the book. The epilogue after that did not redeem the horrible cut-off ANTICLIMAX and instead only provided us with surprise surprise, superstar Lillia's POV again for the upteenth time that tried to teach the readers about some "eye-opening" lesson which proves that her character did not experience any meaningful development at all. UGHH.

I give the Burn For Burn Trilogy 3/5 stars. I mourn for the potential lost and for the first two books that had to be paired with its horrible sequel. Even though the first book is great, I really would not recommend the whole series to anyone. (Don't let the pretty covers fool you people!!)

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick (Review)

Title: The Silver Linings Playbook
Author: Matthew Quick
Genre: Family, Romance
Content Warning: Mental illness, language, spoilers of   
                            several classic novels
Published by: Picador (in 2012)
Format: Paperback
Source: Bought
My Rating: ★★★★

Pat Peoples knows that life doesn't always go according to plan, but he's determined to get his back on track. After a stint in a psychiatric hospital, Pat is staying with his parents and trying to live according to his new philosophy: get fit, be nice and always look for the silver lining. Most importantly, Pat is determined to be reconciled with his wife Nikki.
Pat's parents just want to protect him so he can get back on his feet, but when Pat befriends the mysterious Tiffany, the secrets they've been keeping from him threaten to come out . . .

          Hurrah to my second post! And for finishing this never-before-read book that's been growing mushrooms in my shelf for months. *not proud* It was a short read, and relatively easy to breeze through, and I was pleased to find myself enjoying it as I'm not really into books that are centered around everyday life and it's challenges ("nichijou", as the Japanese would say) as opposed to books that throw you into an emotional rollercoaster ride with it's fast-paced writing and plot twists and side-splittingness and life or death situations and so on. Not to say that absolutely nothing happened in the book, but it is completely down to earth. So before I go on writing my review (that I was really excited to do), my statement to make is:

THE FEEL IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THE FILM IT WAS BASED ON. 

AND IMO, THE BOOK WAS BETTER.

The Plot
         This novel is told from the POV a 34-ish mentally ill man named Pat, who has just been released from the psychiatric hospital, and is obssessed with bettering himself as a man in order to reconcile with his estranged wife which he believes is his silver lining and ultimate goal of his life. When I say mentally ill, I do not mean that he is psychotic or "crazy", as how people usually associate mental illness with, but that Pat's mind has fallen ill, due to stress from the things he has been through and THESE THINGS HAPPEN IN LIFE. Despite being ill, coming out of the psychiatric hospital symbolises a second chance to redeem and improve himself to be a good man (but mainly for his ex-wife Nikki). He tells us about living with his parents, in the basement of their house, about meeting his new therapist and their sessions, how hanging out with his brother, best friends and their own family is like, being an Eagles fan, and eccentric and slightly mysterious Tiffany whom he feels deeply connected to. AND NIKKI NIKKI NIKKI NIKKI NIKKI. It's definitely different from the film, where the 2nd-half of the film heads to a more romantic direction, where Tiffany has a bigger part in, while the book has more familial elements as its main theme.
 
Parts I liked
          Pat Peoples was my absolute favorite. I really root for people who know that they are far from perfect, but always strive to be better in spite of that. He is so emotionally vulnerable (he cries a lot in the book), and it's rare for men to be written like that, so it was refreshing to watch him struggle with his illness and his erratic emotions LIKE A NORMAL GUY. The way Matthew Quick wrote Pat's POV allowed my reactions to connect and sync with what Pat was feeling at different moments of SLP. When Pat is happy, I find myself smiling, and when Pat is in pain, I find my eyebrows closing on each other. The great thing about this fact though, is that it never completely sends me to both ends of the mood scale. I did not whoop around in my room with estatic joy, or bawl buckets of tears reading this and I appreciate that. His POV is straightfoward enough, but not so simple that I feel like I'm reading a 9 year old teenager's diary.
          Pat's mom (Mrs Peoples) is a complete saint of a wife, mother and WOMAN. She is filled with so much love and all this love she just gives and gives to her husband (who 80% of the time really does not deserve it) and her two sons. And when you give your love to people, you are bound to get hurt, and she cries as many times as Pat does in the book, if not more. While it's obvious that Pat's occasional violent outbursts and unstable behaviour bothered her alot, she tries so hard to shower him with tlc and not blame him for his actions because she knows Pat doesn't really have anyone who would take care of him like she does. I won't write about her anymore because if I do it will span 10,000 words but what I would end with is that she is one of the pivotal characters that kept Pat on the path of recovery, (she was the one who got Pat out of the hospital and kickstarted this whole novel's plot in the place!) and she does this without complaint in the background (AND TAKES NO CRAP FROM HER HUSBAND)
          Therapists can make or break you, and Dr Cliff Patel, who is Pat's therapist, is from the "make" category. Like Pat's mom, he is non-judgemental, and a hillariously cool character. I mean come one, how else can you describe an Indian, who is a serious Eagles fan, and goes to season football games (I hope I said it right. Malaysians know zilch about American football) with his fifty other Indian Eagles fan friends in their bus called "The Asian Invasion"?

Parts I Did Not Like
          Basically I liked every character in the book, but I wasn't into how some characters were written. The first character is Tiffany. Tiffany is unbullshitable (yea it's totally a word), bluntly honest and a generally awesome character, but she has such little screentime in the book. I wanted to read about her so much more but most of her interactions with Pat were outside of the plot, so it was hard for me to believe their relationship development. Don't get me wrong, the author tied any loose ends there were with Tiffany but I thought that her and Pat should have more moments together to justify how important her character is to Pat and make it believable. Instead, what I read were a huge dump of confessions, daily runs without any conversation, and a dance, which wasn't as emotional as I hoped it would be.
          Pat's dad, Patrick Peoples, was another character that I hoped had more screentime, but only at the end, because I felt that he was pretty much non-existant there. He is a complete football fanatic and his obsession with football bleeds over onto his family members. His whole mood depends on whether the Eagles win the game or not and if they don't, he launches into this crazy sulky fit and bullies his wife and ignores his children. He is like that in almost the whole book and I was hoping maybe there would be a character development moment or epiphany to change (BECAUSE HE NEEDS IT) but in the end he just kind of melts into nothingness and I assume, remains the same. Definitely no loose ends tied there.

My Rating
       I give The Silver Linings Playbook 4/5 stars, because the characters were really well written, and I applaud the ability of Matthew Quick to express so much with really simple, layman words. I also think that people who aren't well-informed on mental illness will receive a perspective that is accurate and allows them to easily understand the general idea of how being mentally ill is like for an adult.

 

Love Lessons by Jacqueline Wilson - Review (First post woohoo!)

Title: Love Lessons
Author: Jacqueline Wilson 
Illustrated by: Nick Sharatt
Genre: Teen Romance
Published by: Doubleday (in 2005)
Format: Hardback
Source:Bought
My Rating: ★★★★

Fourteen-year-old Prue and her sister Grace have been educated at home by their controlling, super-strict father all their lives. Forced to wear Mum's odd hand-made garments and forbidden from reading teenage magazines, they know they're very different to 'normal' girls - but when Dad has a stroke and ends up in hospital, unable to move or speak, Prue suddenly discovers what it's like to have a little freedom. Sent to a real school for the first time, Prue struggles to fit in. The only person she can talk to is her kindly, young - and handsome - art teacher, Rax. They quickly bond, and Prue feels more and more drawn to him. As her feelings grow stronger, she begins to realise that he might feel the same way about her. But nothing could ever happen between them - could it?

I read this book way back in 2008 when I first bought it. I was in the mood for books that have really girly, high school crush settings and the cover instantly caught my eye. I re-read this not long ago and have a review I'd like to write down.

Love Lessons is basically about a girl in her early teens named Prue being thrown into the "normal" school system after being homeschooled the whole of her life after her slightly (more like totally by my standards) dysfunctional dad experieces a severe stroke. But before I move on I would like to say this:

IT'S NOT A TYPICAL NEW GIRL TRYING TO FIT IN A NEW SCHOOL MEETS THE POPULAR GUY ROMANCE STORY.

Her family first of all, is definitely not average at all. They live these stagnant lives that rejects technology, buying clothes from actual stores, and sending your kids to school. The reason for this way of living is heavily influenced by Prue's father (which is a pretty interesting character himself), while her mother plays a very passive role, allowing her father's dysfunctional influence. Prue, being a teenager at the cusp of rebellion regularly questions her father's ridiculour rules, and together with her younger sister,Grace, fantasize and yearn about how it would be like to have privileges that other normal girls have.

And sometimes fantasies do become reality and her dad was sent to the hospital due to stroke after a hillarious falling out  [Highlight for spoilers: with Prue started by a sexy underwear purchased by Prue with tuition money] and the three remaining female members of the family are left to face and figure out the "Real World", even more so when it became mandatory for Prue and Grace to attend school. And the whole school experience is definitely an adventure. [Highlight for spoilers: Prue wears said sexy underwear to school and being discovered by everyone, gets arranged into a class of underdog misfits and gets bullied, caught the attention of the "popular guy", meets a handsome art teacher, falls for art teacher and fantasizes about him, ART TEACHER RECIPROCATES and so much more.] So, if you are into the controversial romance thing, there's something of sort in this book for you, but because this books seems to target a rather young audience, you would need to look back and think about WHY IT'S CONTROVERSIAL and read on with caution if you are around Prue's age or younger. And if you are looking for a light-hearted, exaggeratedly unconventional story that involves family, finding an unexpected friend in trouble times and includes [Highlight for spoilers: AN OPEN HAPPY ENDING], you might like this as well.

I give it 4/5 stars, because despite the weird plot, it was really fun to read because you just can't take the book seriously and sort of relatable, if you're a homeschooled kid with no access to the internet or brand new clothes.