Four Not-too-Romantic Reads for Valentine's Weekend

Not really big news here, but I'm not a fan of Romances.  

In my more formative years I got hooked on the squeaky clean teen romance series Sweet Dreams.  I owned so many of these books it was ridiculous!  And I loved them.  P.S. I Love You by Barbara Conklin was the first one I ever read. Here's the link to it on Goodreads.  This was in the sixth grade or so.  I continued reading NOTHING BUT TEEN ROMANCES until I was in high school where I branched out a little bit.  Even in college I still loved a good romance with cheesy characters and a love story that melted the heart.

Somewhere along the line I became cynical and it all just makes me roll my eyes and groan out loud and bang my head on my desk.  But it's Valentine's day this weekend.  So what if you want something with a little romance?  Because a little romance is perfect, but I prefer the story to be something more than just romance.  For me, it needs to have something else there to the story.  Something else to help ground it in reality.

So here is a list of "love stories" for the non-romantic person to delve into this weekend.

1) These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

Really this is mystery.  Jo Montfort is prepared to marry the most eligible bachelor and begin her life as a wife and mother, but what she wants is to be a journalist like Nellie Bly.  When her father is found dead in his office from an apparent accidental gun shot, Jo doesn't buy it.  So she gets Eddie--a young journalist at her father's paper--to help her find out the truth.  The story revolves around Jo's search for the truth, but there is something between her and Eddie, despite Jo knowing that soon she will be expected to get married and start a proper life for herself.  The romance is not what keeps this story going, but it is important and not eye-roll-inducing.

For more info, check out my review here.



2) The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Not so much the love story you're thinking of--unless you're somewhat familiar with the A Thousand and One Tales. Shahrzad's best friend was chosen as a bride for the Caliph, and just like all the others she was killed the next morning.  So Shahrzad offers herself up as the next bride, with the intent of ending the nightly deaths by killing the Caliph.  Each night she tells him stories, keeping him intrigued until she can find an opportunity when his guard is down.  But he's not at all who she thought he would be and she finds herself just as intrigued by him, making her job even more difficult.  I don't know, maybe you would label this a romance, but it doesn't feel that way at all.  Plus it's fabulous and the second one (The Rose and the Dagger) comes out in May, so you should probably read it soon anyway -- if you haven't already.

Want to find out more about this book?  My review can be found here.


3) Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

So this one is a romance.  It's the story of two high schoolers who meet on the bus and become a couple.  Only it's much more than that, too.  Eleanor has just moved back in with her mom and her stepdad is awful, awful, awful.  She and her four or five (I can't remember) siblings all sleep in the same room.  She has only a few items of clothings and they're falling apart.  And she has to go to highschool and get through the day there.  Park lives with his over protective mom and dad, his grandparents next door, and his younger brother who is exactly the type of son his father wants--not at all like Park.  I never once rolled my eyes during this book.  Instead, I was truly drawn into their lives and needed to know that they would both be okay.  Check it out.

Need more?  You can find my review right here.

4) Legend series by Marie Lu

June and Day.  Although this is not really about them, it is.  You have to read the entire series before you can truly appreciate their relationship.  The books are set in a future society of The Republic in which Day is a wanted criminal who is just a kid, but has managed to evade capture for years already.  June is at the top of her class in the military academy.  The Republic needs June to figure out who the criminal is that they're looking for and capture him.  It's a matter of national security.  Meanwhile there is a plague affecting citizens that is deadly and when families contract the disease, there is little hope for survival.  Read the entire series and get to know both June and Day a bit better.  If you're planning on reading this for Valentine's Day weekend, you might want to start immediately!!

I don't have a review of this one written, but here's the Goodreads page.

What are your romance suggestions for readers who aren't really into the whole romance thing?

Final Six Favorite Literary Characters

When I originally started making a list of my favorite characters in literature, I just wrote any that I could think of, with the intention of narrowing it down.  Well after I had my list, I couldn't bring myself to take any of them off the list.  So instead I categorized.  Two weeks ago I presented you with six of my Favorite Literary Characters from My Childhood and last week I presented Six More Favorite Literary Characters, which focused on children's and middle grade books read in my adulthood.

This week I have six more favorite literary characters from YA and adult books.  There weren't as many from adult books as I would have thought--and then remembered that I don't read a lot of adult books.  So yeah... :)

Be warned, there is quite a mix of characters here.

Kirsten from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 
It's been months, but I still sometimes stop and think about Kirsten.  I wonder if I could have been like her in a world that suddenly died--I'm not quite sure I would have made it.  Who knows.  Maybe I would step up?
Review: Station Eleven

Cress and Thorne from the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
So Cress I love because she came into the Lunar Chronicles with a bit more innocence than the other characters.  I feel like I should have been annoyed by her and her naivete, but I'm not.  And Thorne.  I liked him almost from the moment I first met him.  Okay so not at all in the prison during Cinder, but after that, I pretty much liked him.  And I fell in love with him during Cress.  He reminds me of Malcom Reynolds from Firefly.  In my mind, I picture Nathan Fillion, in his Malcom gear when Thorne walks onto the page.
Review: Winter
Review: Cinder
Review: Fairest

R from Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
I like reading zombie stuff okay.  I love the TV show The Walking Dead (never read the graphic novels).  I was so taken with the idea that a zombie could have a consciousness and could be rehabilitated.

Ava from AVA by Carole Maso
In college we read AVA and I fell in love with a book in a way that I never fell in love with a book before and probably never will again.  The way Maso wove those images together of a woman dying and the heaviness and lightness of it.  The beauty of it.  It moved me to dance, to create, and I found myself spending two years on this book, studying it, choreographing, performing, re-choreographing it until it all came together to me.  Never again will I love a book like this.  Gingko trees, hands, rolling over, "end the story here."  All ideas I will remember and this fictional image of a woman during her last days alive.

Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
I am pretending to only know the Atticus Finch I met in TKAM.  I cannot speak anymore about the Atticus I met in Go Set A Watchman.  If you'd like to hear what I thought about that, check out my "not-really-a-review" review.  The Atticus from TKAM embodied the spirit of parenting that I wanted to be..for the most part.  He inspired me as a teacher, because that's how I saw him in TKAM.
Review: To Kill a Mockingbird
Thoughts On Go Set a Watchman

Jo Montfort from These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly
This is a newer read from just this past fall, but I loved Jo!  Raised in one of the most well-known and prestigious families of New York, Jo is expected to marry the most eliglbe bachelor.  Then she will have babies and host parties and maybe even get to write an advice column under a pen name is her husband will allow it.  But Jo is a fan of Nellie Bly and wants to be a journalist--a real journalist.  She has accepted that this will never happen, but when her father unexpectedly dies from an apparent accident, Jo isn't so sure and the only person who will listen to her is a young up and coming reporter looking for a story.  I love how although Jo is terrified of both the physical dangers and the social dangers of what she is doing, she still does it.  She makes that choice.  Jo also knows that soon this life will have to end and she'll go back to being the perfect girl and future-wife they all want her to be.
Review: These Shallow Graves
Character Spotlight: Jo Montfort

Do you like any of these characters?  Do you have others you want to add?  

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Character Spotlight: Jo Montfort from These Shallow Graves

In honor of publication day for These Shallow Graves, I am doing a Character Spotlight on the main character Jo Montfort. I absolutely loved this book and if you'd like to read my review, check it out here.



Josephine "Jo" Montfort

These Shallow Graves

Jennifer Donnelly

Josephine Montfort lives in New York in the late 1800s, a member of the elite upper class.  Her life has been planned out for her--a life of ease, married to the most eligible bachelor, and having babies.  When Jo's father dies unexpectedly in an accident, she isn't able to accept that it was a freak accident and decides to challenge what she's been told.  With the help of Eddie, a young reporter who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, Jo begins to peel away the layers of her perfect life and discover the truth behind her father's death.

Jo is torn throughout most of the novel.  She's independent, interested in journalism, and wants to change the world.  When we first meet her she has written an article exposing the life of the girls who work in a factory close to her school and is planning a way to publish it in her school paper.  She has read Nellie Bly's expose of the treatment of the mentally ill and Jo has taken this to heart.  Despite Jo’s upbringing in an elitist society that focuses on where a person’s money comes from and who their ancestors are, Jo understands that there are injustices in her world that people should know about.  She knows that everyone has a story and she wants to tell the stories of girls working in factories, orphans who are dependent on a life of crime, and girls who are sold to madames to work in brothels. This is what she wants to do, but it's also something that is impossible for her to do.

Ladies of her station do not write for papers, and she is meant to marry into one of the richest and most prestigious families, a mirror of her own.  It's what's expected and despite what Jo wants, she wants her family to be happy as well. Because Jo cares deeply for her family.  We see this struggle throughout the story.  Right away, when Jo's father is dead, she knows it wasn't an accident.  There is no way her father would have accidently shot himself while cleaning his gun, however she can't voice this opinion because she should not have an opinion.  She has to look for the truth in secret and with the help of Eddie, a reporter for the paper her family owns. With her father dead, Jo can’t bring any more hardship on her mother.  She’s concerned about her uncle who was so close to her father and must figure out the best way to reveal to him what she’s learned.  

As Jo embarks on her journey, her world and the part of New York she is not supposed to know are set up against one another.  She sneaks out at night to visit Eddie.  They go to houses of ill repute, break into buildings, sneak around the wharf in the dead of night, befriend criminals.  When she comes home, she attends teas and church and other events that are befitting of a young girl in mourning while her mother plans out how they will ensure Bram Aldrich asks for her hand in marriage. Jo longs for the excitement of Eddie's world, and even more the freedom to make her own choices and make a real difference.  To do that means breaking her family's hearts, and she's not sure if she has that in her.

Jo is clueless at times and this is what makes her so annoying.  She has good intentions, but she’s still very focuses on herself and how all of this will affect her--not others who aren’t a part of her inner circle.  Eddie is often snapping at her for saying something rude and demeaning before Jo realizes how awful it is that she said it.  She tries to give advice to a girl her age who is about to be sold to a madame, but she has no idea what kind of life this girl lives.  This is where I found myself rolling my eyes at her and screaming, “You idiot!” Jo is in no way perfect, but she’s trying.  She just has to make a choice between finding out the truth and keeping herself and her family out of the spotlight.

Image Source: Goodreads

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Book Review: These Shallow Graves

These Shallow Graves

Jennifer Donnelly

Random House Delacorte, 2015

Source: ARC through Netgalley
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

*I'd like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Josephine Montfort lives in New York in the late 1800s, a member of the elite upper class.  Her life has been planned out for her--a life of ease, married to the most eligible bachelor, and having babies.  When Jo's father dies unexpectedly in an accident, she isn't able to accept that it was a freak accident and decides to challenge what she's been told.  With the help of Eddie, a young reporter who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, Jo begins to peel away the layers of her perfect life and discover the truth behind her father's death.

Jo is torn throughout most of the novel.  She's independent, interested in journalism, and wants to change the world.  She has read Nellie Bly's expose of the treatment of the mentally ill and Jo has taken this to heart.  This is what she wants to do, but it's also something that is impossible for her to do. Ladies of her station do not write for papers, and marrying Abraham Aldrich means she is marrying into one of the richest and most prestigious families, a mirror of her own.  It's what's expected and despite what Jo wants, she wants her family to be happy as well.

We see this struggle throughout the story.  Right away, when Jo's father is dead, she knows it wasn't an accident.  There is no way her father would have accidently shot himself while cleaning his gun, however she can't voice this opinion because she should not have an opinion.  She has to look for the truth in secret and with the help of Eddie, a reporter for the paper her family owns.

Eddie is set up as the opposite to Bram.  He's brash, outspoken, and unknown.  He is annoyed by Jo's helplessness at times (which only spurns her on to make more decisions that may not be in her best interest).  I like Eddie, but he still angered me, and sometimes more than Bram.  Maybe it's because I was able to get to know Eddie more than Bram, but it's also because even though he's supposed to represent some form of freedom for Jo, Eddie still treats her like she can't do anything.  He tells her again and again and again that she can't come along with him on any investigative trips because they're too dangerous for her.  He won't let her.  It's true that it's dangerous, but mostly because she's so clueless that she'll get herself in trouble by saying the wrong thing.

These Shallow Graves is a little slow at the beginning. Jo sneaks out with Eddie, they learn something new, Jo is shocked and contemplates what this means for her family and her life and it starts over again.  But don’t let that stop you. Suddenly you're realizing what Jo hasn't yet and you must find out immediately how it all turns out and what other information will be revealed.  I figured some things out pretty quickly--I don't think it was too difficult t--but this mystery is more intricate than what you expect at first and as more and more is revealed you'll be tweaking your assumptions until you find out the truth.

I really enjoyed These Shallow Graves.  Books that are written in the Victorian age and explore women's roles and the repression of women--no matter what their class--are interesting to me.  I thought that Jennifer Donnelly's exploration of this was well done as she attempted to balance it between not only girls in Jo's social world, but those of criminals, and poor working girls.  There is a definite connection being made between the social classes.  At times it highlights the similarities and at other times how utterly different their worlds could be.  I also appreciated how clueless Jo was, and even more so her friends and family were, about the realities of the opposite side of life.

These Shallow Graves is available on October 27th.  Preorder it today and you can get all cozy with a great mystery this Halloween weekend!

Check back on the 27th for a more detailed look at Jo in my Character Spotlight!

Image Source: Goodreads 

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These Shallow Graves--Book Rave

These Shallow Graves
Jennifer Donnelly
Random House Delacorte, 2015
Source: Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I just finished reading These Shallow Graves and my heart is still beating wildly.  Despite the fact that it's 11:30 and I have to be by 6:00am tomorrow, I cannot calm myself and go to bed.  In an attempt to do so, I must immediately share some thoughts/feelings about my experience.

I could not believe the last 100 pages.  So much! So much building, so much happening, so much revealed.  Jennifer Donnelly has built a mystery that explores the ideas of women and girls being trapped by the expectations Victorian society built for them.  It's a mystery that forces characters to look outside of their world into another, very different world, to discover the truth.  I feared for the women in this book--and not just the main character, Jo, but all of them.

I feel as if I'm blabbering.  I am.  A real review, with complete sentences that are thought out and hopefully make more sense than this will follow within the coming week.

I'm still concentrating on breathing slowly.

Image Source: Goodreads.com

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Sunday Status: These Shallow Graves and Our Endless Numbered Days

Sunday Status is a weekly (ish) post where I let you know what I'm reading and what I'm thinking about it as I go along.

These Shallow Graves
Jennifer Donnelly
Random House Delacorte, October 27th, 2015
Source: ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

"For the first time that night, Jo was not just nervous or anxious, but genuinely afraid (178)."

Josephine Monfort's privileged life among the New York aristocrats is shaken up when her father died from an accidental gunshot wound.  Jo knows things don't add up, but for a young girl to ask questions isn't becoming.  She's supposed to mourn her father for six months, accept the proposal from New York's finest bachelor, marry, and settle into a life of having babies and following rules.  Jo has other ideas, instead.  Inspired by Nellie Bly, she is determined to discover the truth behind her father's death--even if it means learning things she might not have wanted to know.

I'm enjoying this look at 1890s young girls and their desires to be more than is expected form them--or more than is accepted from them.  Jo has big ideas, but she also understands how her world works and what she loses just because of her station in life.  She comments on the injustice of it and how her mere presence in certain places leads men to believe she must be a prostitute.  She sighs about how she is expected to become a wife and mother as quickly as possible.  Despite this, when she finds herself in precarious situations where she could be discovered, Jo is frantic to protect her reputation so she doesn't ruin her chances for marriage.  Although I understand why she is so concerned about this--a woman at that time (no matter what her station) had to protect her name and reputation if she wanted to survive.  I still hope to see her break through this and stand up to her family and friend's expectations.


Our Endless Numbered Days
Claire Fuller
Tin House Books, 2015
Source: Purchased

I only just started this at school yesterday.  I haven't too much to say except that it already has a somewhat.... sinister (?) feel to it.  Maybe it's just a wariness because I know the premise and therefore I'm waiting for something to happen.  I don't know.  I'm only about 25 pages in.

So here's the description from Goodreads:
Peggy Hillcoat is eight years old when her survivalist father, James, takes her from their home in London to a remote hut in the woods and tells her that the rest of the world has been destroyed. Deep in the wilderness, Peggy and James make a life for themselves. They repair the hut, bathe in water from the river, hunt and gather food in the summers and almost starve in the harsh winters. They mark their days only by the sun and the seasons.

When Peggy finds a pair of boots in the forest and begins a search for their owner, she unwittingly begins to unravel the series of events that brought her to the woods and, in doing so, discovers the strength she needs to go back to the home and mother she thought she’d lost.

After Peggy's return to civilization, her mother learns the truth of her escape, of what happened to James on the last night out in the woods, and of the secret that Peggy has carried with her ever since.

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