The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold
Fiction- Supernatural or Realistic, I’m not quite sure. It certainly doesn’t fit most genres.
RavenFeatheredQuill
Ages 14 or 15+ (This story is quite gruesome at the beginning, and contains a good bit of mature content)

Summary: The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold: "My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name, Susie. It was December 6, 1973 when I died."
That’s what the book starts with. That is also what is on back cover. Pretty powerful intro, is it not?
Susie Salmon, fourteen years old, is walking home from school when she is assaulted by a neighbor, Mr. Harvey (sorry about the passive voice). The first few chapters are not for the fainthearted or weak of mind, believe me. The book starts in unimaginable horror, and is completely sad throughout, but is beautiful.
Back to the story. Mr. Harvey is, apparently, a skilled murderer and gets rid of Susie’s body, all the while Susie is watching in her Heaven. Nothing related to Susie is found, save for… Well, I’ll let you find out. Susie watches the police try to find the murderer, starting with her possible boyfriend. Slowly, her father starts to feel that Mr. Harvey knows something, and despite the police thinking he is ridiculous, tries to prove Mr. Harvey’s guilt, an endeavor eventually shared with Susie’s sister as well. Susie just continues watching her family. Her sister grows up, as does her brother. She also watches her friends- her would-be boyfriend, who was the first suspect of the case, and a girl that mistakenly became her friend. For years, over ten years, she watches her family as it struggles and changes, meets and learns more about Mr. Harvey’s other victims.

Critique: Before reading this book, I had become hooked onto from the movie preview, swearing to myself (once I found out it was a book first) I would read it. Yes, well, it took a while. I didn’t see the movie, but now I want to. This book is absolutely amazing, but save a weekend for it so you can cry or yell or make faces at it without being awkwardly in school or public. Some parts are a little horror-filled or TMI, but it sort of all cancels out. This is definitely a crying book- not much can be said for me, I don’t cry at books save for one or two, but come close during some. This is a close one.
The beginning starts in horror; it’s really easy to gasp or react to a book. I may not cry easily at books, but I do make faces at them. This book has all the moments- the “why?” sad, disgusted, and confused moments, the “awww” moments, the “TMI” moments… Everything.

Excerpt: “My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer. My murderer believed in old-fashioned things like eggshells and coffee grounds, which he said his own mother had used. My father came home smiling, making jokes about how the man’s garden might be beautiful but it would stink to high heaven once a heat wave hit.”

Susie is a young teenager, barely a teenager, and still in middle school, technically. There aren’t many “fun little excerpts” in this book, so I may as well show you how it’s written- anecdotes are thrown in casually, the story told out of order in some places.

I cannot rate books. Truthfully, I cannot rate anything. If you’re reading a review by me, and it’s good, well then count that as a good rating. If I’m making fun of it, it’s a bad rating. Let’s see. I will give this book a 9. A 9.25. A book like this one only gets a 10 if it makes me cry. It's truly a book that will mess with your mind, so it gained points for that. And the beauty of the language and themes and whatever else are great.

Now that The Lovely Bones has been read and thoroughly reviewed, it has been deemed suitable to be inducted into The Best of YA: For Fiction Fanatics.


This has been a summareview by yours truly, RavenFeatheredQuill.  "Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn’t you? They were just lurking out of sight, that’s all. You heard them." (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks 
E. Lockhart
Fiction (A combination of romance, action adventure, and realistic fiction)
Reviewed by: Chameleon333

For ages 14+ (as far as I can remember nothing too controversial but the vocabulary is advanced) 

Frankie Landau-Banks, also referred to as Bunny Rabbit by family, is treated like a stupid little girl who can’t take care of herself (even though she’s 15). Little do they know that Frankie is extremely intelligent and all this suppression is about to make her burst.

When Frankie attends her sophomore year at the elite preparatory school Alabaster (her father’s alma mater) Matthew Livingston, senior boy, grammar Nazi, and Frankie’s crush, finally notices her and the trouble begins. See Frankie knows something’s going on. That something is the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, a secret society of some of the most popular and influential boys at Alabaster. The problem is they’re not so secret to Frankie (her father was one, of course) and she wants IN.

That should be good enough to get you interested because I don’t want to give too much away. This was a great read. My favorite aspect was the narration and language use. It was really unique and made me wanted to keep reading even when I couldn’t. I read this book in like 24 hours (split over 2 days because one day I was in NYC and couldn't read) if that tells you how much I liked it (because, as you’ll learn, I’m a VERY slow reader).

I’m not sure if I like the fact that the story opened with a letter from Frankie to her headmaster that she actually writes at the end of the novel. In one hand, it got me interested and gave a little bit of info. to help me understand the plot better, but on the other, it kind of gave away what was going to happen and was hard to understand without having read the story. It’s one of those things you go back to at the end and it all makes sense.

Overall I really liked this book. It was a refreshing read with a few chapters that really made me think differently about the world. Frankie is quite the character and although I was slightly disappointed in the ending, I loved this novel.

Fun Excerpt Time!

This is one of my favorite parts of the novel (because the day I started this book we had a discussion with family friends this) so I’ll give you a small sneak peek:

“Now I’m gruntled.”
“What?”
“Gruntled. I was disgruntled before.”
“Why?”
“It’s drizzling, there’s nothing to do but study, the vending machine’s broken. You know, disgruntled..”
“And now, you’re…”
“Gruntled.”

Oh Frankie how I love you and your imaginary neglected positives :)

Rating: I’d give this book a solid 8 out of 10

Now that The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks has been read and thoroughly reviewed, it has been deemed suitable to be inducted into the Best of YA: For Fiction Fanatics

Coming Soon!

Books we plan on reading (and then reviewing)....eventually. If you have any suggestions please leave a comment :) An updated version of this list can always be found under coming soon.
*these are in no particular order*

a kiss in time
my blood approves
the disreputable history of frankie landau-banks
the boyfriend list
evermore
the healer's apprentice
possesion
hex hall
anna and the french kiss
soul screamers
iron fey series
divergent
hourglass
die for me
fallen
nightshade
unearthly
blue bloods
shade
enclave
rampant
the forest of hands and teeth
firelight
wither
abbandon
the goddess test
catalyst
checkers
the secret life of prince charming
the stolen one
the outsiders
wish
perfect chemistry
just one wish
agent zig zag
blood rites
leaving paradise
rules of attraction
right behind you
to catch a pirate
geektastic
down the rabbit hole

**EDITED TO ADD: I apologize that the coming soon tab is somewhat (okay completely) disabled. I'm working on fixing that but for now, obviously, you can just look on this post.**

An Introduction

Hello there.

This is RavenFeatheredQuill, the other contributor to the Best of YA. And, by the way, my summareviews are so much better than Chameleon (shh!).

Yes, so I write what I call summareviews- basically I give a sneak peak of the book, trying to not spoil as much as possible, while also giving my thoughts on characters, the plot, and other things. It's all good fun, really.

My first review, look for it soon!, will be either of The Lovely Bones or The Book Thief, both of which are excellent reads.

Until later; "Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak."

~RavenFeatheredQuill

PS- I'm so terribly sorry about Chameleon's cheesy introduction-summary of the site. You will learn to love it, though.

Starting Up!

Hello wonderful world of blogspot!
This is my first blog post to let anyone who bothers to look at this page know that we are just starting up. We hope to start posting reviews soon but everything has to be sorted out first. So check in every few days to see if we've updated. Until then, take a look at the different pages and read the description over there --------------------------------------------------------------------------> to see what this blog is all about.
~Chameleon333