Kate DiCamillo is a talented writer. I have at least four of her books, and always manage to find myself sucked into her stories; all of them except for this one. I debated writing this review for a few reasons. One was that as a 20 year-old adult I do not feel that I should have much input on children's novels. They aren't geared towards me, and any book that encourages a child to read is a good book. However, here I am, weighing in on this book and a few of the troupes I found within.

The story itself was a little disappointing. Not only was it unbelievable, but I also had little sympathy for DiCamillo's characters. The cast was static to me, hardly any character development in sight. I was particularly disappointed in the characters of Sistine and Willie May, for similar reasons.

Sistine read as a stock manic pixie dream girl, which is defined as "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." Sistine's whole existence seemed to revolve around coaxing Rob out of the shell he had built for himself and teach him to chase after a better life. She is there to help him find his happiness, not develop as a character herself.

Willie May acts as in a similar way. I would classify Willie as the magical negro, which is the black stock character that exists solely to provide spiritual or mystical help to the white savior protagonist. This stereotype is upheld by Sistine consistently calling Willie a "prophetess" and even scolding her for breaking from this role at one point. There is an expectation that Willie will be the one to provide life lessons and act as their personal sage.

I picked out these two characters because of these stereotypes that they fill. It's lazy writing, and I expected more from DiCamillo. An interesting premise was ruined by shoddy characters who fit more molds than they break, making what could have been a heartbreaking story common. Also, by having stereotypes such as this it damages images built up by other writers and individuals. Child readers deserve more than this, and DiCamillo has delivered better. Despite my poor opinion of this novel, I still believe in her ability as a storyteller, because I have seen it before, and I am always excited for another one of her novels to appear.

This had all the potential to be a poignant showcase of teenage existence and development (if there is such a thing), but fell flat upon impact. That being said, the fact that this is a 216-ish page book written by a 16 year old is impressive. Young voices are always wonderful to see, as it gives readers a chance to watch their craft grow and strengthen as they produce more and more work.

However, I'm a picky reader and a writing tutor, so I'm going to get a little technical. Shaikh has an interesting cast; Troye, Zaidan, Adelaide, Arabella are all unique from one another with defined voices and personalities. However, they felt entirely unrealistic. None of their speech sounded real. For example there were lines of dialogue like ""Greetings!" the girl says, almost maniacally.", "Or Arabella if you wish, bit I don't prefer it. It's quite lengthy.", and "Is silence our adversary?" I was constantly raising an eyebrow at the speech between the characters. It sounded like some kind of highly scripted Disney channel movie.

Another issue I found was in the writing itself. Shaikh tells more than she shows, overusing adverbs and simple sentences. The characters would say something ironically, then ask tentatively, or mutter sarcastically. All of the emotion shown by the characters is told to the reader, leaving no room for growth between them and the characters. This telling and not showing also resulted in me feeling as if nothing were really happening. There was very little suspense in this novel, and there seemed to be no action and yet several things occurring all at once, leaving me confused at times. Among the things that happened Shaikh touched on some very important issues such as self-harm, abusive parents, and to some degree mental illness. These are all important issues to be bringing up in YA. I will say that I am impressed at the author's handling of these issues, particularly self harm and Arabella's struggle with cutting as well as her mother.

Another aspect I found this story lacking was a sense of time and setting. Not much is described, leaving a reader blank for the much of the book. There is some attentive description, such as in Adelaide's home or Troye's white room. However, the great majority of this book is a blank canvas that was never filled. This did nothing to aide with the passing of time. At several points there would be odd paragraph breaks that would state that a few weeks had passed, or that a new event was occurring, which would be all the warning received that the setting and time was changing. I honestly cannot tell you the amount of time covered in this book; my rough estimate would be anywhere from 6 months to a year, possibly two, but your guess would be as good as mine.

As interested as I am in seeing young voices like Sheikh's in YA I feel that her novel is deeply flawed. However, that does not mean that she will not deliver something far more powerful in the future. Time is certainly on her side.

This was a very cute story, and unexpectedly informative. Pepper is taught about a variety of patterns and textiles, which would be handy knowledge for anyone. The illustrations are cute and pleasing to look at, with each pattern mentioned in the book being incorporated in some way. As far as children's books go I did not find this to be very impressive (I've read some that are), but it would be a nice book to sit down and read with a child.

I’m familiar with Anderson’s comics from spending copious amounts of time on the internet. This Facebook meme queen has w cute drawing style, with the most relatable situations I’ve seen. This book was cute, featuring a lot of comics I’ve already seen, but still find myself identifying with.

This collection was everything I expected it to be; heart-warming, funny, strangely poignant with the right amount of sarcasm. The only technicality I found was the random 10 or so pages towards the middle of the book that had Anderson’s own commentary. While I enjoyed her narrative I found it odd that it hadn’t been in the first 60-ish pages, and that the book didn’t end with her commentary. That all in itself was odd.

To summarize, this is the type of book you read to get out of a reading slump, or the one that you curl into a chair with while it’s raining. It isn’t challenging, and it could be a nice change from a heavier type of reading. Really, it seems to exist just for the sheer pleasure of it, and sometimes that’s all you need.

Maybe it's because I'm not a poet, but I wasn't impressed. Biddy's (Reyna Mays on Goodreads) prose had no distinguishable rhythm or style, leaving it to fall flat on the page. I also took exception to the choice of having paragraphs worth of text serving as poems. To me they were cumbersome and hard to focus on, and I'll admit it, I'm guilty of speed reading a few.

The subject matter of Biddy's work was also disappointing. I was hoping for something along the lines of the princess saves herself in this one, but instead got something that seemed more like something I would hear at my local coffee shop and leave during. There was only one line in this entire book that brought me emotion: "women, by nature, are healers/heal yourself queen so you can help heal the world." (71) The emotion I felt rom this was not any kind of positive one.

It was irrational anger.

I came to this collection looking for a focus on self love, which I suppose it is because self love is different for everyone. It was with this line however that I realized that the author and I have different conceptions of self love. I do not see women as natural healers, and I consider it a stifling title. I think it holds women back. It is not our job to heal the world, the idea that it is removes men (and those in between) from the equation entirely. Anyone can be a healer, not all of these people are women. Romanticizing women as healers, mothers, and caretakers removes the diversity of women.

Not every woman is going to heal you. Many are going to break you and not feel sorry. Some will completely destroy you, and that is so important to recognize. Some women are rainstorms, helping and healing. Others are going to be hurricanes, and that's their honest self.

In short I found myself angry with and put off by Biddle's work, and found myself grateful I received this is a free PDF in exchange for a review.

This had every possibility of being very entertaining and original. However I found that this graphic narrative fell short. The first warning bell to me was the description of “Twilight meets the legend of Atlantis”, as I was never a Twilight fan to begin with. I was wooed in however by the beautiful graphics.

I will say that aesthetically Mer is beautiful. Boeh has a captivating art style that I find to be wholly original. The concept behind this story is also unique, as mermaids/men are an untapped resource in the YA fairy tale retelling market. Despite all this promise Sellner did not deliver plot wise.

Mer seemed to skip around, leaving out connecting scenes that would help the reader make sense of how the characters got from point a to point b. I was also disappointed in how quickly the protagonists Aryn and Adrian (there were several A names in this novel, which get’s confusing when you aren’t invested in the characters) began to develop feelings for one another. Now I know there is a certain degree of speed to the plot when graphic novels are concerned, but I’ve read good graphic novels with believable developments. This was not one of them. The love story progressed too fast for me. Also, once Aryn discovered that Adrian was mer there was no reaction from her, which I found to be unbelievable.

In short I did not form any kind of attachment to the characters in this story, so when *spoiler alert* one is possibly mortally wounded I did not find myself overly concerned. Sellner’s pacing was well done action-wise, but lackluster in all other aspects. The cliffhanger ending also left me uninterested, probably because I have no investment in these character’s relationships. However, despite my misgivings I will look for another installment, as Boeh’s artistic ventures will most likely continue to be stunning.

I don't really know how to begin with this book. It's one that I'm not solidly on a rating for, as it kinda swigs two different ways for me. First off, the concept was intriguing to me. Gladiatorial fighting, indentured servitude, and a drive to free yourself is fantastic, it's why Gladiator did so well. I loved the male on male love, Dag and Myka are lovable characters. However, that's where my love ended.

Bain-Vrba seemed to be packing much more than she had room for into 59 measly pages. I'm assuming that it was originally published as a short story, however I feel that so much more could have been expanded on it order to make it into a stronger novel. This book fell short in more ways than one for me. The relationship between Dag and Myka remains mostly unexplored, which is disappointing. The action is choppy, and the arena battles are woefully under utilized. I also found the flashbacks to be confusing, as they never seemed to seamlessly fit with the rest of the story.

A lot of my displeasure with this book came from the lack of description and reasoning. There didn't seem to be a driving force for a lot of the actions and reactions, and I was left without a clear image of what was occurring. Also, you can use other identifiers besides the character's name repeatedly for sentence after sentence my friend. Just saying.

All in all, the concept behind this book deserved a better execution, and more development. This read to me like an extended outline for a more in-depth story. Also, I could have done without the sex, girls tend to not write accurate male on male sex. Sorry babe.