The Never Ending Bookshelf

Chopsticks

By: Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral (Illustrator) 

Publication: February 2, 2012

Blurb:

After her mother died, Glory retreated into herself and her music. Her single father raised her as a piano prodigy, with a rigid schedule and the goal of playing sold-out shows across the globe. Now, as a teenager, Glory has disappeared. As we flash back to the events leading up to her disappearance, we see a girl on the precipice of disaster. Brilliant and lonely, Glory is drawn to an artistic new boy, Frank, who moves in next door. The farther she falls, the deeper she spirals into madness. Before long, Glory is unable to play anything but the song “Chopsticks.”

But nothing is what it seems, and Glory’s reality is not reality at all. In this stunningly moving novel told in photographs, pictures, and words, it’s up to the reader to decide what is real, what is imagined, and what has been madness all along…. From Goodreads.com

My Review (This is a long review):

Oh my goodness. This book is surprisingly excellent. My expectations for this book were pretty low in the beginning, but after reading it, I somehow still few like I need to look back at this book to understand more about it’s deeper meaning. 

To be honest, I read this book in a bookstore. It took me about thirty minutes to finish this book mainly because it is a picture book. Again, I will be honest, I sometimes do judge books by their cover and seeing this book for the first time, I was hesitant to read it. The cover reminds me of typical young adult contemporary book about teen love. 

Basically, by flipping through the pictures, it is about two different neighborhood teenagers who (a bit instantly) fall in love. Gloria being a piano prodigy and Frank being an Argentinian boy coming into America and showing his artistic abilities. Within these pictures, you understand both sides of their characters and their slight struggle being together as a couple with Gloria’s career as a piano prodigy. Seriously, something about these pictures (even if many of them did look a tad bit staged) was strange and mysterious. It was interesting seeing pictures that portrayed the point of view of the characters.

There are a few things that I didn’t quite like. One was Gloria’s dad Victor who didn’t really serve that much of a purpose except be a stereotypical mean parent of a prodigy who won’t let the child live life and makes them practice all the time. He’s (I believe) the antagonist of this story which I wish he did change within the story. Both Gloria and Frank started getting annoying during the middle of the book. They were both in love and they seem to have almost made their relationship worse. 

I don’t think there is a real message in this book. I just know this book makes you think. This is quite psychological. By the end, usually you might have to go back to certain parts of the book just to piece together everything that you just read. In my mind, that was the winner. I loved how there are some forms of symbolism and metaphors that cause readers to think twice about what happened earlier in the story. Usually I don’t give five stars to books, but I feel that this book is worth a 5 out of 5 stars just for it’s purpose of making the reader think. Sometimes I can’t help but think about if there were more things to understand about this book. I recommend this book to people who want to read something that will cause them to think later on after reading this book. If you go to a bookstore like I did and come across this book (and if you have time to burn), consider reading it. 

Spoilers! (major spoilers ahead! You’ve been warned!)

This is the first time I did spoilers. I mainly want to talk about the psychology and symbols that happened within the last part of this picture book. 

The plot twist was extremely unexpected. It was a subtle twist at the start, but it grew to a point where the reader can get confused. To be honest, I was confused at the part with the picture of the rest facility admission sign in paper. Looking at the dates, it lists dates about two years after Gloria’s mom died (I think I got that right). No where in the book before that part does it say she ever went to a rest facility for piano prodigies. Continuing onward, I noticed things such as her painting a familiar flower that was shown earlier that Frank painted. By this time, I was overly confused. The more and more I flipped through the more you see loads of similar things from earlier. There is another point where it shows a wall of drawings that are of Frank’s but look closely. Instead of his name signed at the bottom, it is Gloria’s. The rest facility’s stationary is exactly the same as the school Frank attended and was expelled from. It even had the same name. (Hmmm. Strange). I still was confused here. I didn’t understand the wine bottle, the map, or the boxing jacket till the end. 

Gloria seems to have formed a psychological disorder (possibly schizophrenia or multiple personality). I’m leaning more on schizophrenia. She most likely formed it from the death of her mother and her dad giving her practices schedules that made her less of a child. Here at the end, you realize that she completely made up Frank in her mind. She made a whole story of her chemistry with Frank. This is where the wine bottle and everything takes place. 

Gloria’s mother had plenty of wine bottles. There was one specifically with a face and a name. That’s how she formed his appearance and his name. She had the map of Argentina. That was where Frank was from. She somehow got the boxing jacket (it was plain) and she heard the name of a famous boxer and sewed the name on the back of it. Frank was a fan of boxing and of the boxer on the back of the jacket (which earlier he “owned”). She saw the stationary of the facility and made the facility the school Frank attended. Then there is the display of paintings and drawings with Gloria’s name instead of Frank’s. 

It’s questionable whether or not they are the same person (due to her artistic ability) or that she missed the love of her mom and created someone to be with her as she struggled being under the power of her dad. Everything here seriously made me flip back and forth to earlier pages just to make sure I was understanding things right. 

My Boyfriend Merlin

Author: Priya Ardis

Published: December 1, 2011

Blurb:

If you can’t trust your boyfriend, who can you trust?

In this modern Arthurian, 17-year-old nice girl Arriane, aka Ryan, DuLac just found out her badass biker boyfriend, Matt, is a little older than he was letting on. By a few eons.

In fact, he is really Merlin—the Merlin, King Arthur’s Merlin, the greatest wizard who ever lived. But Ryan’s not impressed. Tired of being a relationship loser, she’d rather kick his legendary behind.

Sure, the world has been crazy ever since the sword and the stone fell out of the sky like a meteor. But despite gruesome gargoyles, a new world of magic, and the guy driving her crazy, Ryan knows that family is everything. Will Merlin sacrifice hers to save the world? Will she be able to stop him? From Goodreads.com

My Review:

There is so much to say about this book. Originally, I was excited to read this book. The title did sound corny and usually I don’t read books like this, but I gave this a try. I love the idea of a modern day Arthurian legend story, and This book grabbed my attention because of my slight obsession with the BBC show Merlin. And I ended up being disappointed with this book. Honestly, I didn’t even finish the book. 

I can definitely start off with the plot. I might get this wrong considering I stopped reading at one point, but the plot was mostly concerning the sword in the stone appearing in (I think) somewhere in England and the main character is being attacked as she and her friends run away to England to get to the sword (such a long sentence). I’m still confused about the plot and probably made it more confusing just trying to explain it. Just four words: the plot was rushed. It felt like so much happened instantly in the first chapter. I really wanted to like this whole idea of the modern day sword and the stone story, but I wish it was better well written. For example, I wished that less happened in the first chapter. For me, I think first chapters are just the introduction of setting and characters. Here, it instantly felt extremely rushed and slightly confusing because of how much was going on. 

The characters were annoying to me. Most of them sounded very similar to each other and some sounded very cookie cutter. For example, the love interest of the main character Ryan was the typical mysterious bad boy stereotype with a British accent. Concerning the characters, I was not a fan of the love story because it also felt rushed as well. I think in the first chapter, when something happened to the main character, her love interest instantly shows up to protect her. I think that happened within the first few pages which also goes back to so much happening in the first chapter. 

I was glad that there was action in this book. Bad thing about it was it was not well written. It had very short and choppy sentences that described the scenes and the mood. When a character did a certain action, the sentence describing what the character did was bland and boring. Action was vague. It was kind of difficult to picture in my head what was going on. It was also difficult to understand what the first creature looked like (it could be that I read too fast). 

I do feel extremely bad that I didn’t read the whole book. I still love the idea of a modern day sword in the stone story. Because I wasn’t able to finish this book, I can’t write so much about this book except for certain points. I give this 1.5 (round to 2) out of five stars just for the fact that it was an attempt to make Arthurian legend more popular.

When Irish Guys are Smiling

Author: Suzanne Supplee

Published: January 10, 2008

Blurb:

For seventeen-year-old Delk Sinclair, studying abroad in Ireland means one thing: escape. Delk is tired of hearing about her friends? debutante parties, watching her pregnant stepmother redecorate her mother?s house, and having to smile sweetly even though she doesn’t think she?ll ever get over losing her mother. Ireland is Delk’s chance to be happy. With the stunning green landscape as backdrop, Delk revels in all things Irish, from living in a real Irish castle, to celebrating St. Paddy’s Day in Galway, to enjoying Irish music and dance, to studying Yeats and shearing a sheep! So when Delk begins to fall for a very handsome Irishman, she wonders if there’s more to the Emerald Isle than it first seemed. It is fun, to be sure, but will those smiling Irish eyes really be able to heal her broken heart? From Goodreads.com

My Review:

Starting with the title, I picked this book because it had the words Irish, guys, and smiles. I have a feeling that it intrigued me because of the recent One Direction outburst that has captured the world. Anyway…

This book is a contemporary young adult fiction. I will say ahead of time that I’m not quite the fan of contemporary young adult, however, this book was interesting. It’s mainly about a teenage girl (Delk Sinclair) in hopes of running away from her past by studying abroad to Ireland. Throughout this book, the reader follows Delk’s journey across the Irish countryside as she makes new friends, new experiences, and finds a bit of love. 

Overall, I would say that I enjoyed this book. It was very cute and entertaining. What I really liked about this book was the fact that, at some points, I actually learned some Irish slang and traditions. There’s not a lot mentioned, but I’m glad to say that I finally learned what “craic” meant (or at least I hoped I did). Character development was decent. Each character had different personalities that seemed noticeable. The setting was decent as well meaning that the author was descriptive of the areas the characters came across. I’m going to be completely honest. The setting and the Irish slang made me want to seriously go to Ireland. 

What I didn’t like about this book was how quickly the story progressed, some of the character development, conflict, and the dialogue. As I was reading, all I thought was how some of the main points felt a bit rushed such as the chemistry between the main character and her love interest. It’s almost like a “love at first sight” type that I’m not a big fan of. Delk’s character seemed a bit too perfect in my opinion. She did have flaws such as being ashamed of her life at home, but some of her actions kept making me think that she was more perfect than normal. I don’t know if this is weird, but I try to make sure that there is a form of conflict within the plot and if it’s follows well with the plot and the characters. Here, the main conflict was all the problems that Delk wanted to run away from (I do not want to spoil much). That conflict was decent, however, didn’t seem like a strong obstacle. Dialogue wise, I didn’t like how most phrases sounded unnatural. With connection with the Irish slang, the author included words to emphasize the Irish accent, but sounded slightly forced. 

Long story short, this is a decent book. Setting is pretty well descriptive. Writing is pretty well written. Adorable story. I would give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. I would recommend this book to those who want to read a cute love story, learn a bit of culture, and people who are fans of One Direction’s Niall Horan.