Tonight the Streets Are Ours was such a fun read! I enjoyed it tremendously, even though the characters were far from perfect. They each had their flaws and made questionable decisions. I liked that because that’s precisely what made them so relatable. The realism in the book mirrored the craziness of real life and for that I adored it.
THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE by Heidi Heilig
Time travel in books is my weakness. I used to actively seek them out as a kid. Nowadays reading about such stories feels like visiting old friends. Sadly, The Girl from Everywhere didn’t quite have enough of it. The setting of The Girl from Everywhere was predominantly Honolulu 1884. There were glimpses of India, New York and China from various eras but not a lot happened in these places. Being stuck in Hawaii for so long gave rise to a slower moving plot than I had anticipated.
SEVEN WAYS WE LIE by Riley Redgate
Seven Ways We Lie was very ambitious. With seven main characters a lot could go wrong: unresolved plot lines, not enough depth, loss of focus and characters that might be too similar. I’m glad to say that Seven Ways We Lie didn’t suffer from any of these shortcomings. In fact, the choice to integrate so many characters’ perspectives worked!
BELZHAR by Meg Wolitzer
One of the books I most looked forward to in 2014 was Belzhar. When I first saw the US cover, I was taken in and when I read the short description, I was sold. I wanted to read the book. It didn’t matter to me that I had never read a word of Sylvia Plath because I had every intention to. (For the record, I read The Bell Jar before Belzhar to preempt spoilers. Hah.) The hook for me was the exploration of mental stability.
THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER by Leslye Walton
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender and I developed a love-hate relationship of sorts. The promises made in the prologue was wondrous and I was so excited to continue reading. By the time I reached the end I felt empty. I loved the style of writing adopted in the prologue. It captured my attention so vividly, I fully expected to fall in love with the rest of the story. Sadly, that didn’t happen.
