Amy and Roger's Epic Detour By Morgan Matson

The other day while I was paying a visit to chapters I came a across an interesting book. Originally, I had planned to pick up Sever by Lauren Destefano, but since I wanted to be able to afford a drink at Starbucks, I settled for another. This other book happened to be Amy And Roger's Epic Detour.

Morgan Matson's Amy And Roger's Epic Detour takes place in modern day California during Amelia's trip to her mother's new house located in another state. However, Amelia (referred to as “Amy”) hasn't driven since the death of her father, and therefore her mother enlists the help of an old family friend: Roger Sullivan. During the course of the trip Amy starts to let loose and break down the walls that she's built up since her father died.

I actually enjoyed this book quite a bit, the writing was well done, the characters three dimensional, and the overall plot line was riveting. I love it when characters are just a little imperfect, it gives them more dimension and resonance with the reader, and this book definitely didn't disappoint in that respect. Amy was awkward, broken, and a little depressed. Not all of her thoughts are super happy ones, but instead they were bittersweet and realistic. On the other hand, Roger was a bit like a lost puppy searching for his owner, and this same behaviour continues for most of the book. Roger's lost puppy attitude was one of the things that bothered me about the book. I of course realize that his demeanour was realistic to the situation, but the kind of person that he was became a bit of an annoyance at times. However, this never deterred me from reading the book, so I guess that's a thumbs up for Matson.

One of the things that I enjoyed the most about this book was it's use of musical references, you rarely see a book that actually uses this, and it was nice to see it utilized so well. If you look up the book's title on youtube you can actually find the playlists that were used in the book, which I thought was super cool. I would definitely recommend reading the book while listening to the playlists, because I know that's definitely what I'm going to do when I re-read it.

I'm giving Amy and Roger's Epic Detour a 3.5 out of 5. The writing style was fun, the plot line accurate, and I loved the use of the playlists, but it definitely isn't world class literature. Roger was rather bothersome, and the characters end up doing exactly what you expect of them (minus a couple of surprises that I hadn't seen coming). Overall though, it was a pleasant read, and I'll definitely re-visit it.

-Ally

The Fault In Our Stars By John Green

Fact: John Green is awesome.

Also a fact: This book is amazeballs.

May or may not be a fact: I totally cried my eyes out multiple times while reading this.

John Green has really done it this time. Honestly, it takes a lot to get me emotional, but this book was too much for my tear ducts. The intensely real emotion contained in The Fault In Our Stars definitely gets me every time I read it, and I certainly hope that Green keeps pooping out novels as good as this one. The Fault In Our Stars is about 16 year old Hazel Grace Lancaster, (the narrator) who is suffering from stage IV (insert type of cancer here)cancer. The story follows Hazel's experience with one Augustus Waters as he livens up her world over the course of a few months, and the constant battle that Hazel is fighting with her cancer.

I honestly have no idea how Green managed to make Hazel's thoughts and actions seem so authentic, but here's a big round of applause for that accomplishment. Seeing as I’m a huge fan of happy endings (aren't we all?) before I had actually read the book, I was rather hesitant to read something that I had already known would be a little depressing. At first glance, one might think that the whole book would be one massive pity-party with a little romance to liven it up, but that couldn't be further from the truth Green's latest work is humorous, and comedic; things that you wouldn't exactly expect out of a novel about stage IV cancer. As a whole, it wasn't even close to being as depressing as I had thought it would be, yet it still made me cry like a baby. The book was so great because it maintained an equal balance of humour and sadness, and was about as realistic as it gets as far as fiction is concerned.

There really isn't much else that I can say about this book that isn't extreme praise, so let's just get down to the point: The Fault In Our Stars gets a 5 out of 5 from me, because frankly, it doesn't get any better.

-Ally

So, Here We Are...

Let's take a crack at this, shall we? I've actually been meaning to start this for a while, but because I'm a huge procrastinator it never really happened. However, since it's a new year and all, I figured it's now or never, you know? I hope that you'll find my two cents useful, informative, or another adjective that I can't think of right now. Feel free to recommend books or fan-girl about them, because this right here is fan-girl central for book worms. On that note, why don't we start out with a book that I just finished reading that I absolutely loved:

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi is the sequel to Shatter Me which pictures a dystopic world where nature struggles to keep existing and animals have evolved to the point where birds don't fly anymore. The government has been overthrown by a group called "The Reestablishment" which causes havoc to those under it's rule (which is basically the whole planet) and exterminates those who speak out against the movement. The book is narrated by seventeen year old Juliette who has been locked away in an asylum for years owing to the fact that she holds the ability to kill people by simply touching them. However, when "The Reestablishment" takes her captive, Juliette must decide whether or not she wants to participate in the killing of people who rejected her years ago, while she was still free.

I found this book fantastic! The writing was well thought out, the plot twists were reasonable instead of random, and the whole story line was so enthralling that you couldn't put it down for a minute. Often times, sequels tend to be a bit of a let-down when compared to the original book, but Unravel Me didn't follow that rule at all. The characters kept evolving throughout the book, unlike a certain OTHER dystopian novel *cough* *cough* *The Hunger Games* Don't get me wrong, I love me some H-Games! But frankly, the Shatter Me series takes the cake in comparison. I was however, quite disappointed with the fact that she decided to throw in a love triangle, because just once I'd like to see a YA novel that DOESN'T have one. We're all tired of them and they've become way overused. Take some notes from J.K Rowling, who didn't need a love triangle to have a successful series.

But, I'm really quite impressed with Mafi's ability to set up for a sequel without throwing a huge revelation in the end for impact. Both books leave you hanging, but it's not a traditional "cliffhanger" situation, and surprisingly, that's pretty hard to find. For being relatively new on the scene, Mafi is making a pretty good name for herself and I look forward to reading more of her work.

I'm going to give this 4 out of 5 stars, because the writing was intelligently thought out, but I feel that the love triangle was a little unnecessary. This still doesn't change the fact that I'm going to be waiting shamelessly at the doors of chapters smiling like an idiot when the third comes out.

-Ally