HarperTeen

Review: Paperweight by Meg Haston

Posted by

0

23361172

This is a book that has been on my TBR list for a very long while.  Not sure why it sat there, unread and neglected for so long.  As with so many of us readers, surely it was simply a case of “too many books, too little time.”  Still, it caught my eye recently when I was looking for a  possible five-star book to pull me in.  Mission accomplished.

Stevie just has too much going on in her life to be a mere seventeen years old.  Her family is fractured, with mom living abroad after abandoning the family.  Dad has good intentions but finds it hard to manage after the death of Stevie’s brother, Joshua, in a tragic accident.  And Stevie?  She copes by controlling the only thing she can:  what goes into her body.  In the full throes of an eating disorder, she finds herself at a treatment center as her dad struggles to save what’s left of his family.  Rescuing herself is no easy task.  First she has to admit she has a problem.  And at the root of that problem are memories from the past that she’d rather not face.

I loved this story from the beginning until the very end.  It’s a very realistic portrayal of what goes through the mind of someone with an eating disorder.  And the author does an excellent job of giving us a cast of characters who show that there’s no “one size fits all” diagnosis or cure.  An outstanding story about a very serious issue.

~Thalia

Buy It Now:  Paperweight

Review: Don’t You Forget About Me by Kate Karyus Quinn

Posted by

0

18599667So this is one of those books that I had to sit back and think about for a time after finishing it. It’s more along the lines of, “What in the world did I just read?” And I absolutely mean that in the best possible way.

It’s the story of young Skylar, and to a slightly lesser extent her sister, Piper. They live in Gardnerville, at first glance an idyllic little town nestled in the mountains. But Gardnerville holds secrets both good and bad. And the bad definitely outweighs the good!

Every fourth year, the town’s teenagers are overcome with a compulsion to do very bad things. And Piper was one of those teens four years ago. Now Skylar is trying to come to terms with what happened. That means finding out where Piper is. Is she locked up in the town’s mysterious reformatory? Or did she make her escape that night four years ago high up on the train trestle?

To say this is a weird book would be quite an understatement. It’s the kind of story that had me stopping along the way to ponder what was happening. And, I found myself going back quite a bit to reread. It’s a challenging book because the answers are not given to you easily. There’s a ton of imagery which I’m still trying to sort out. There’s drug use, violence, and death. Still, the words are so beautifully put together that it was a joy to read even as I was trying to put it all together in my head. In this case, definitely judge a book by its cover because the words inside this one are just as appealing and beautiful as the outside package!

~Thalia

Buy It Now: (Don’t You) Forget About Me