Breathe

Title: Breathe   

Author: Abbi Glines

Publisher: Wild Child Publishing, Simon Pulse

Publish Date:  16 May 2011 (Wild Child); 04 June 2013 (Simon Pulse)

Pages: 333

ISBN: 9781442488694

Source:  bought; received at BEA

Genre:  YA, romance, contemporary

Series:  Sea Breeze

Other books in series:  Because of Low, While it Lasts, Just for Now, Sometimes It Lasts, A Little Misbehavin'

Other books by author:  The Vincent Boys series, Existence Trilogy, Too Far series

Rating: really liked

In the shore town of Sea Breeze, Sadie discovers that fame is nothing in the face of passion. A steamy read from bestselling author Abbi Glines.

Sadie White’s summer job is at the beach, but she won’t be working as a lifeguard. Since her mom is pregnant and refuses to work, Sadie will be taking over as a domestic servant for a wealthy family on a nearby island.

When the family arrives at their summer getaway, Sadie is surprised to learn that the owner of the house is Jax Stone, one of the hottest teen rockers in the world. If Sadie were normal—if she hadn’t spent her life raising her mother and taking care of the house—maybe she’d be excited about working for a rock star. But she’s not.

Even though Sadie isn’t impressed by Jax’s fame, he is drawn to her. Everything about Sadie fascinates Jax, but he fights his attraction: Relationships never work in his world, and as badly as he wants Sadie, he believes she deserves more. Yet as the summer stretches on, Jax’s passion leaves him breathless—and Sadie feels like the only source of oxygen.

Can their love overcome the disparity in their lifestyles? One breath at a time, they’re going to find out…

Even though Sadie is supposed to be the child in the relationship with Jessica, she found herself acting like the parent more often than not.  That is what got her into the predicament at the Stone resident.  Jessica, her mother, is pregnant and couldn’t go to work, so she puts it on Sadie to go for her.  Sadie isn’t sure that they are going to let her work in her mother’s place.  When she arrives at the Stone residence, she has to prove to Ms. Mary that she is not going to be some crazy teenager when the owner and rock star heartthrob, Jax Stone, show up. 

While working at the Stone mansion, Sadie makes friends and catches the eye of Jax.  She and Jax start spending as much time together as they can given their schedules.  She knows as soon as she starts things with Jax that it is not going to have a happy ending.  He will go back to his world and she will only have memories of the time she spent with him.  What will happen between Sadie and Jax?  How will Jessica deal with their relationship? 

I have read a lot of books by Glines recently and really like her writing style.  Even though Sadie is “beautiful” and is told that multiple times throughout the book, she still doesn’t believe it.  Not that she necessarily has self-esteem issues, but I don’t think she has had a lot of time to think about it.  She just thinks that she is not as pretty as her mother and that is the ending of her thinking on the matter.  I liked that she is not stuck on her beauty like some of the girls her age that you read about. 

Sadie has some other qualities that are admirable.  She takes care of her pregnant mother.  This doesn’t end after her mom gives birth.  Why should it?  Sadie has been doing it for a long time.  She is a hard worker and doesn’t let her teenage curiosities get the better of her.  She needs this job to support her family – a thing she shouldn’t have to think about at her age.  I don’t need to reiterate that Sadie is responsible.

Jax is a rock star; a teenage rock star that has oodles of girls fawning over him.  That is the reason that he doesn’t want any teenage girls to work at his summer home, his one place where he can go and be “normal” for a while.  When he first sees Sadie, he thinks that she snuck into his house to get his autograph or just get close to him.  It baffles him that she doesn’t act all fangirl on him and actually is concerned about her job.  I like Jax in this story.  Even though he is this big star, you learn how grounded he is.  He doesn’t think that he is on a level up in the stratosphere while Sadie belongs in the dirt.

This book was a fun read.  Who doesn’t want the rock star to fall in love with you?  It seems like a fairy tale, like a modern-day The Prince and the Pauper.  I like the way Sadie learns to rely on other people.  If Jax had been in a “boy band,” I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the story as much.  Just saying… 

Since this is a re-release of the book, there is a new cover.  There have been two other covers that I found.  The next cover (#2) is the one that I got when I bought the book.  After reading, I found out that this is the e-book cover.

This next cover (#3) was on the paperbacks.  I admit that I liked that better than the e-book covers.

Cover #1 is the one used at the top of this post.  This is the most recent one that was used when Simon Pulse re-released the book.  This is also the one that I got when I received the hard copy at BEA.  I read somewhere that for the re-release, Glines had put some of Jax's POV, so that would make it better.  I know that would make me want to re-read the story.

As far as which cover I liked the best, I would have to say #3.  In #1, it's nice because it has a nice looking girl, guy and a guitar.  But these are supposed to be teenagers.  Granted, I guess teenagers COULD look like the cover, but I would say that they are a little older. The other thing is that Sadie is supposed to different than the millions of fangirls, which means she likes him for him and not just what he represents.  This cover just doesn't show that.

 #2 is just generic in my opinion.  It has a person playing the guitar.  You don't even know if it is a male or female.  You could PRESUME that it is a guy, but it doesn't have to be.  I don't really get a sense of the story from that cover.  I like covers that represent the story.  I chose #3 because I like the softness of it.  The models might very well be the same ones from cover #1, but you really cannot tell.  This cover, to me, represents that Sadie just likes being with Jax.  No pretense or special things needed.

Guest Post: Lois Metzger

Title: A Trick of the Light

Author: Lois Metzger

Publisher: Harper Collins

Publish Date:  18 June 2013

Pages: 208

ISBN:  9780062133083

Source:  from publisher

Genre:  YA, Contemporary, Psych

Series:  None

Other books by author:  Missing Girls; Ellen’s Case; Yours, Anne: The Life of Anne Frank; Can You Keep a Secret?  Ten Stories About Secrets; Bites and Bones Flip Book; Be Careful What You Wish For: Ten Stories about Wishes

Mike Welles had everything under control. But that was before. Now things are rough at home, and they’re getting confusing at school. He’s losing his sense of direction, and he feels like he’s a mess.

Then there’s a voice in his head. A friend, who’s trying to help him get control again. More than that—the voice can guide him to become faster and stronger than he was before, to rid his life of everything that’s holding him back. To figure out who he is again. If only Mike will listen.

Telling a story of a rarely recognized segment of eating disorder sufferers—young men—A Trick of the Light by Lois Metzger is a book for fans of the complex characters and emotional truths in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls and Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why.

A Trick of the Light is the latest release by Lois Metzger. To celebrate this release, YABR has handed over the reigns to Metzger and let her do a guest post.

It's a question writers often get asked. Some find it hard to answer, because ideas can float around in your head for a while, or several different entirely unrelated things may have to combine to create a story.

In the case of my new young-adult novel, A Trick of the Light (HarperCollins), I know exactly where I got the idea, and also when.

On Wednesday, August 4, 2004, I read an article in the New York Daily News called "Not For Girls Only."

The article began: "Sue Roberts couldn't stop fuming after watching a 'Dr. Phil' show on eating disorders. The two-part series features several girls with bulimia and anorexia. 'What about the boys?' she remembers asking herself, then furiously writing an e-mail to the talk-show host."

Sue Roberts' 16-year-old son, Justin, the article said, "almost starved himself to death after several doctor's visits missed important signs." Justin was "a straight-A student who wanted to be perfect in every way." At 13, a coach happened to tell Justin that he could "shave a few seconds off his mile time if he lost some weight." Then, around the same time, a tall thin boy, a classmate of Justin's, looked over at Justin, called him fat and laughed. "Maybe I am," Justin thought, and decided to stop eating, pretty much just like that.

At first, Justin's parents complimented him on how good he looked, how disciplined he was. Then they noticed he was dropping weight too rapidly, that his personality had changed. "We were all walking on eggshells because he would blow up about little things," his mother said.

Within four months, Justin, five feet tall and originally 130 pounds, went down to 82 pounds. The article explained: "His lips, fingertips and nails looked bluish. He wore baggy sweatshirts to hide his frail body, but he couldn't conceal the malnourishment evident in his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks."

Justin's mother couldn't prove to her insurance company that her son needed hospitalization, so finally she had him admitted on her own. "His condition was worse than she thought," the article went on. "His heart rate was 42 beats per minute. He had zero body fat. His body temperature was 92, and there were patches of hair growing on his stomach and neck. It was his body's way of trying to keep him warm. He was days away from death."

During his brief hospital stay, Justin "saw an emaciated girl walking in the hallway, talking to herself." He decided: "I really don't want to be like that." He began eating and he recovered fully. In less than a year, he grew four inches. Talking of his present state, he could say: "I'm more outgoing, more confident. I'm happy now."

I got a strange feeling while reading this article. Kind of an other-worldly, floating, almost surreal sensation. I've written only three previous novels, and the same thing happened before I began writing the other books, too. In each case I knew immediately that here was a story that wouldn't leave me alone.

So it's not really accurate to say this is where I got the idea for "A Trick of the Light." This is where the idea was getting me.

I got in touch with the writer of the excellent article I'd been reading, Julie Patel, then a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News (she now she writes for the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida). She put me in touch with Sue Roberts and Justin. They were extremely helpful in giving me more details about the journey of recovery, and referred me to a doctor at Stanford University, James Lock, author of two ground-breaking books on eating disorders. Dr. Lock gave me the names of some doctors and families in NYC so I could meet and interview them. I stayed in contact with Sue Roberts; I'm very glad to say she wrote me recently that Justin, now a young man, remains happy and healthy.

The 15-year-old boy in my book, Mike Welles, has much in common with Justin. He, too, develops an eating disorder rather quickly, and loses weight alarmingly fast. A doctor misleadingly tells Mike he is fine, insisting that anorexia only affects girls. As the disease progresses, Mike's vital signs are similar to Justin's. Mike, too, encounters a girl at a hospital, who freaks him out because she's talking to herself. Mike doesn't recover as fast as Justin did, but he does take significant steps toward recovery.

Julie Patel's article emphasizes that eating disorders among men and boys are on the rise (this was almost ten years ago, and the problem has only gotten worse). Ten percent of people with eating disorders are male, and currently there are ten million people in the U.S. with eating disorders, which means at least a million boys and men (and many people say the figure is much higher). Their disease still gets missed by doctors who think only women and girls can get eating disorders, and many hospitals and eating-disorders clinics still only admit girls and women. Then, as now, eating disorders have the highest death rate of any psychological disorder, estimated between five and 20 percent.

I didn't realize, when the idea got hold of me, where it would lead -- right to the heart of a struggle against a disease that too often ends in tragedy.

Lois Metzger, author of A Trick of the Light, was born in Queens and has always written for young adults. She is the author of three previous novels and two nonfiction books about the Holocaust, and she has edited five anthologies. Her short stories have appeared in collections all over the world. Her writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Harper's Bazaar. She lives in Greenwich Village with her husband and son.

After Math

Title: After Math

Author: Denise Grover Swank

Publisher: Createaspace

Publish Date:  12 March 2013

Pages: 250

ISBN:  9781482658644

Source:  AToMR tours

Genre:  New Adult, romance

Series:  Off the Subject

Other books in series:  Redesigned (10 June 2013), Business As Usual (late summer/early fall 2013)

Other books by author:  Rose Gardner Mysteries series, On the Otherside series, The Chosen series, Twin River Falls

Rating: really liked

Scarlett Goodwin’s world is divided into Before and After.

Before she agreed to tutor Tucker price, college junior Scarlett was introvert, struggling with her social anxiety and determined to not end up living in a trailer park like her mother and her younger sister. A mathematics major, she goes to her classes, to her job in the tutoring lab, and then hides in the apartment she shares with her friend, Caroline.

After junior Tucker Price, Southern University’s star soccer player enters the equation, her carefully plotted life is thrown off its axis. Tucker’s failing his required College Algebra class. With his eligibility is at risk, the university chancellor dangles an expensive piece of computer software for the math department if Scarlett agrees to privately tutor him.Tucker’s bad boy, womanizer reputation makes Scarlett wary of any contact, let alone spending several hours a week in close proximity.

But from her first encounter, she realizes Tucker isn’t the person everyone else sees. He carries a mountain of secrets which she suspects hold the reason to his self-destructive behavior. But the deeper she delves into the cause of his pain, the deeper she gets sucked into his chaos. Will Scarlett find the happiness she’s looking for, or will she be caught in Tucker’s aftermath?

What happens when you mix a socially introvert with the school’s most popular jock?  Scarlett never thought this would ever happen to her.  The only encounters she has had with Tucker, the college’s star soccer player, was running into him outside her class and occasionally seeing him on campus.  She was alright with that. 

Scarlett got anxious in social situations.  This happened when she was put in situations that were outside of the norm.  She was fine tutoring in the Math Lab.  Math equations calmed her.  Then one day, her world was turned upside down.  Tucker came into the lab needing to be tutored.  He had to do better in his Algebra class or he would risk losing his soccer scholarship. 

Scarlett didn’t want to help him as soon as he walked into the room.  She wasn’t that lucky, though.  He came to her station.  She helped him and thought that that was the end of it.  Then the director of the Math Lab informs her that the Chancellor of the college requested that she tutor Tucker on a regular basis.  Scarlett doesn’t want anything to do with this, but she is told that the math department is counting on this to get a program that they need.    Will Scarlett be able to get over her anxiety and tutor Tucker?  What will happen between Scarlett and Tucker?  Will Tucker be able to save his soccer scholarship?

When I heard that Swank had written this book, I was anxious to read it because I had participated in the blog tour of Here and it was well written.  I wasn’t disappointed in this book.  It seems that the New Adult category is just blossoming and there are a lot of books in this category.  The storyline starts out as the classic: the jock is being tutored by the “nerd” in order to stay on the [insert sport] team.  There are twists and turns in the book that make it worth the read.  Scarlett has some skeletons in her closet that have given her the anxiety disorder that she has.  She finds out that Tucker has some also.  I liked the way that Swank wrote in the discoveries of these skeletons.  As with a lot of books, I was disappointed that the book ended.  

There is an excerpt posted on Goodreads of After Math.  Here is the link:

Just One Day

Title: Just One Day

Author: Gayle Forman

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Publish Date:  8 January 2013

Pages: 368

ISBN:  9780525425915

Source:  bought

Genre:  ya, contemporary, romance

Series:  Just One Day

Other books in series:  Just One Year (Fall 2013)

Rating: LOVED

When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

How would you react if the events of one day change the person who you thought you were?  Allyson Healey had just graduated from high school and as a present, her parents sent her on a trip to Europe with the Teen Tours! group.  She gets to travel with her best friend, Melanie and she thinks that there is nothing better than that.  Her parents have planned this for her.  She has always been the kind of person who doesn’t take chances and is “averse to adventure.”  When they are in England lining up to watch Hamlet, they are surprised by a troupe of actors who give them a flyer about Shakespeare for free, and there they first meet Willem.

They go to the production of Twelfth Night and they are impressed by it.  Allyson wants to see more of Willem, but they lose track of him.  Disappointed, Allyson and Melanie go back to the hotel and get ready to visit their friend.  They get on a train to London to meet their friend and while Melanie goes to sleep, Allyson goes to the café car to get some breakfast.  Thinking that Melanie won’t be awake for a while, she sits and eats her breakfast.  A chance encounter has her running into Willem again.

They talk and it is there that Willem tells Allyson that she looks like Louise Brooks and nicknames her Lulu.  It is after the train ride that Willem convinces “Lulu” to go to Paris for a day since she wasn’t able to go on the tour.  This is unlike Allyson.  She jumps into it wholeheartedly.  That is where her adventure begins.  What will happen between Allyson and Willem?  How will Allyson’s Paris experience change her life?

I really liked this book. I originally started reading it because of a read-a-thon and thought that I wouldn’t like it.  I had never read anything by Forman (author of If I Stay), so I didn't know what I was in for.  I started with a sample and was hooked.   I had to know what happened between Willem and Allyson.  I admit that I cried more than once while reading this book.  (I’ve found that I’ve cried in a lot of contemporary books.  Maybe that is why I am starting to like them.)  I really like how you get to read Allyson’s thoughts.   The only thing missing would be to see what Willem was thinking during those experiences.  (I hear that Just One Year is going to be from his POV, so I’m excited for that.)  You get a little sense of the type of person that Willem is, but it is skewed by the emotions of an eighteen year old girl.   You see the many relationships that Allyson has and why she acts the way that she does.  It will be interesting to see how she finds out whom she really is and not what her parents have made her into.  I like the tagline for this series: “Just One Day and Just One Year show how in looking for someone else, you just might wind up finding yourself.”