But still, I’m always hoping a book will sweep my imagination off its…uh, brain shelf?
And it’s disappointing when I go in expecting to be enthralled and something just falls flat.
Below are some books I’ve read recently that I just didn’t connect with for one reason or another, but were good enough that I’m hoping you might.
NONE OF THE ABOVE by I.W. Gregorio
None of the Above is about a girl with Androgyny Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS). In Krissy’s case that meant that she was born with the outward appearance of a girl, but along with a rather nice set of breasts, she has gonads and a recessed vagina as well. She is neither—genetically or hormonally—male or female. She’s both and neither.
There were so many things about the book that Gregorio nailed, like how difficult it is to be other when everyone else around you is normal. A surgeon herself, she explained all the medical jargon in ways that were easy for the reader to understand. She also captured how doctors put their feet in their mouths when they are faced with real people instead of textbooks or research labs.
The world—and especially teenagers—need books in which characters face these sort of real, private, and rarely talked about problems. I am so glad this book exists.
But (you knew it was coming, right?), for all the ways this book was fantastic, in the end it felt like cardboard cut-out character A is stuck into difficult situation B. And when situation B (her condition) got leaked by a friend to her school, I felt like I was reading and After School Special about bullying and depression. Which was so sad, because the book had such a great premise and beginning.
THE TAKEN TRILOGY by Erin Bowman
I read the first book of this trilogy, TAKEN, in one day. It started out so well: in the village of Claysoot, boys are Heisted (disappear) on their eighteenth birthdays. The only way for the community to survive is to make sure that the boys impregnate girls before their Heist. But Gray Weathersby is determined, after his older brother disappears (leaving behind Gray’s two-year-old niece), to figure out why these heists are happening—and why anyone who tries to escape over the wall comes back dead.
This was another fantastic premise, and Bowman handled it well. It was once Gray (and you as a reader) found out the secrets of Claysoot that I was frustrated by where the plot went. I don’t want to spoil anything, so let’s just say that the genre the books ended up falling into wasn’t what I was in the mood to read.
That said. I finished the rest of the trilogy, and although I would have preferred to be reading a different genre altogether, I liked where Bowman took her characters and the story.
And I am SO excited for her next book, VENGANCE ROAD, which comes out in September—because it’s historical fiction (a genre I love) and set in the Wild West and has a heroine disguising herself as a boy so she can avenge her father’s death.
ELEANOR AND PARK by Rainbow Rowell
I know, I know! Everyone loves Eleanor and Park. But between the 80’s music references (not my jam), the depressing home lives of the title characters, and all the cussing (I don’t mind strong languages where it seems appropriate to the characters, but it felt like it was Every. Other. Word.), I put the book in my DNF pile before I was even half way through.
But everyone loves Rainbow Rowell, so someone tell me—should I try anther of hers? Did anyone else dislike E&P and love another of her books?
And what books have you hoped you’d love, but they just didn’t thrill you like you hoped?
HarperTeen provided review copies of None of the Above and Forged for TN to review. All the others I checked out of my local library.
Read more Book Reviews on TN!
WRITTEN BY JENNY
Jenny’s Current Obsessions: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, pictures of baby animals, the word emulsify, finding the perfect dress that makes her look skinnier than she is, cake, Sauvignon Blanc, sun-dried tomato pesto, and making a dent in her TBR list.
