Love Song - Sophia Bennett

The Blurb

Seventeen-year-old Nina doesn't get why everyone's obsessed with The Point - but when she averts a backstage disaster and is offered a job on tour, she can hardly turn it down. She quickly learns that being with the hottest band on the planet isn't as easy as it looks: behind the scenes, the boys are on the verge of splitting up. Tasked with keeping an eye on four gorgeous but spoiled rock stars, Nina's determined to stick it out - and not fall for any of them ...

The Review

There are some book reviews that I dread writing.  This is one of them.  I just know that it'll be impossible to convey everything I loved about this book in a few short paragraphs, because as young adult fiction goes, Love Song is pretty darn perfect.

Nina is an ordinary seventeen year old - well, sort of.  All around her people are going crazy for hot band The Point, but she doesn't see the attraction.  In fact, she only goes to their gig to keep her sister, who's a big fan, company.  However, when by a twist of fate she's offered an opportunity to join them on tour she sees a different side to each of the boys and they're no longer celebrities staring out of a magazine but real people with real problems...

It's gently humorous and touching and I adored Nina - she's such a relatable character.  Although she's in an extraordinary situation she comes across as a normal, grounded young woman discovering who she is and what she wants from life, which sets this book apart from some of the other reads out there with a celebrity backdrop.  It was well written and engaging, and I genuinely couldn't stop reading it.  I actually fell asleep with it in my hand - that's how unwilling I was to put it down.

However, what I loved most about this book was the way it unflinchingly examined what it means to be a fan to the point of what some people might class as 'obsession'.  As a self-confessed fangirl I absolutely related to the hoards of fans who bonded over a shared love the band.  Sophia Bennett captured the essence of what it is to love a band, and more importantly be part of a fandom, perfectly.  I actually shared certain passages from this book on social media to try and explain that "Yes!  This is how it feels to be a fan!" to all those who have mocked and accused and been dismissive of what it means to be a part of a community of people who love the same thing.  Part of me hoped they'd see it and understand.  But there's a selfish part of me that didn't want them to, because it really feels that Love Song is for us die-hards, for those who've pressed F5 until their fingertips have gone numb on ticket release day, or those who've queued for eight hours for the doors to a gig to open. 

I hope all the other fangirls I know read this book and love it as much as I did.  Love Song is a book I know I'll reread again and again and again.

Love Song is out now, published by Chicken House books.

Just One Day - Gayle Forman

The Blurb

Allyson Healey's life is exactly like her suitcase—packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything she’s not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform Allyson’s life.

A book about love, heartbreak, travel, identity, and the “accidents” of fate, Just One Day shows us how sometimes in order to get found, you first have to get lost. . . and how often the people we are seeking are much closer than we know.

The first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon!

The Review

I bought this book from the incredible Books of Wonder in New York City on the recommendation of my friend Anne.  Anne's a librarian who loves YA, so being let lose in a children's bookshop with her was a dangerous but amazing experience.  It was like having my own personal shopper.

What sold the book to me was the contemporary romance element - in my opinion there's just not enough modern YA out there that focuses primarily on the connection between two people.  But the connection between American Allyson, who's on an organised tour of Europe before heading off to study medicine at university and Dutch Willem, who's part of an unconventional group of Shakespearean actors, literally sizzles from the start.  As the pair head off on an impromptu twenty-four hour visit to Paris, the ultimate city of love, Allyson discovers that maybe no one is ever just one person...including herself.

There's more to Just One Day than love or lust, although that element of the novel was written in a way that evokes so much emotion that it wouldn't have mattered to me if it was 300+ pages of purely love-riddled angst.  There's travel, the absolute beauty of exploring new places for the first time with both fear and wonder.  There's self-discovery, and the realisation that as humans it's in our very nature to change and develop and grow.  There's friendship, both old and new, and how those relationships can either blossom into something special or wither away. 

I suppose, in its more simple terms, Just One Day is a coming of age novel.  But with some of the most beautiful cities in the world as a backdrop, Forman's beautiful storytelling and a love story that had me in bits, for me that sells it short.

I'm sure that come December this will be in my reads of the year and can barely wait to get my hands on Willem's story in the second book in the series, Just One Year.

Just One Day is out now, published in the UK by Definitions.

The 2015 Catch Up - Part Three!

Phew, I'm finally getting there with catching up with reviews!  Today I'm sharing my thoughts on two YA novels, Kissing in America by Margo Rabb and Louise O'Neill's Asking For It.

Kissing in America - Margo Rabb

I wanted to love this as the protagonist Eva is a) grieving b) a fan of romance books c) always trying to please other people - basically, she's quite like me or at least, me as a teen. 

However, whilst I thought Kissing in America dealt well with grief and the guises it takes, the road trip element of the story (where Eva and her friend Annie head to LA to take part in a national TV contest) felt too condensed - I'd have liked more about the physical journey as well as the emotional one.

A good read.            

Asking For It - Louise O' Neill

 

     

This is an incredibly hard book to review. I don't know where to begin!

Asking For It is the story of Emma. 

Emma is flirty. 

She drinks. 

She experiments with drugs. 

She enjoys sex. 

But when Emma wakes up in pain on her front porch with no idea how she got there or why everything hurts, the partygirl front she portrays no longer seems so appealing.  As events unfold over social media and photographs emerge of a completely out of it Emma with a group of boys, Asking For It becomes more and more difficult to read.

O' Neill faces 'consent' head on, and as more and more cases of rape and sexual assault are hitting the headlines it is a sadly necessary topic in YA fiction.  Hopefully Asking For It will also challenge readers to think about how they judge others on appearance and behaviour - something we all do. Emma is not an easy character to like, it's true.  But there was a painful twisting in my stomach as I read about the awful events both on the night of the party and after.  She wasn't asking to be raped.  By very definition, no one asks to be raped.

It is a difficult, difficult read and I won't be coming back to it.  That said, it's a brutally believable and incredibly powerful story.

Louise O' Neill is quickly making a name for herself as the author who'll tackle the taboos head on.  And YA, and indeed fiction as a whole, needs writers brave enough to do that.